Despite the lack of invariance problem (the many‐to‐many mapping between acoustics and percepts), human listeners experience phonetic constancy and typically perceive what a speaker intends. Most models of human speech recognition (HSR) have side‐stepped this problem, working with abstract, idealized inputs and deferring the challenge of working with real speech. In contrast, carefully engineered deep learning networks allow robust, real‐world automatic speech recognition (ASR). However, the complexities of deep learning architectures and training regimens make it difficult to use them to (...) provide direct insights into mechanisms that may support HSR. In this brief article, we report preliminary results from a two‐layer network that borrows one element from ASR, long short‐term memory nodes, which provide dynamic memory for a range of temporal spans. This allows the model to learn to map real speech from multiple talkers to semantic targets with high accuracy, with human‐like timecourse of lexical access and phonological competition. Internal representations emerge that resemble phonetically organized responses in human superior temporal gyrus, suggesting that the model develops a distributed phonological code despite no explicit training on phonetic or phonemic targets. The ability to work with real speech is a major advance for cognitive models of HSR. (shrink)

1 Evidence-based policy requires researchers to provide the answers to ecological questions that are of interest to policy makers. To find out what those questions are in the UK, representatives from 28 organizations involved in policy, together with scientists from 10 academic institutions, were asked to generate a list of questions from their organizations. 2 During a 2-day workshop the initial list of 1003 questions generated from consulting at least 654 policy makers and academics was used as a basis for (...) generating a short list of 100 questions of significant policy relevance. Short-listing was decided on the basis of the preferences of the representatives from the policy-led organizations. 3 The areas covered included most major issues of environmental concern in the UK, including agriculture, marine fisheries, climate change, ecosystem function and land management. 4 The most striking outcome was the preference for general questions rather than narrow ones. The reason is that policy is driven by broad issues rather than specific ones. In contrast, scientists are frequently best equipped to answer specific questions. This means that it may be necessary to extract the underpinning specific question before researchers can proceed. 5 Synthesis and applications. Greater communication between policy makers and scientists is required in order to ensure that applied ecologists are dealing with issues in a way that can feed into policy. It is particularly important that applied ecologists emphasize the generic value of their work wherever possible. (shrink)

This paper provides a model on repairing re-establishing stakeholder relationships after a firm engages in a moral indiscretion. Depending upon their nature, indiscretions can be classified as mistakes, misconduct, or improprieties. After committing an indiscretion, firms can attempt to reestablish positive stakeholder relationships by strengthening their technical competency (for mistakes), improving their reputation (for misconduct), and enhancing their goodwill with relevant stakeholders (for improprieties). However, a firm’s cultural orientation may result in the misapplication of the stakeholder repair mechanism (competency, reputation, (...) and goodwill) with the applicable indiscretion (mistakes, misconduct, and improprieties). (shrink)

Why do so many people remain so passive in the face of today’s massive, looming economic, political, and ecological crises, such as climate change? Despite some notable rhetorical and regulatory examples, attempts to stem climate change have, as a rule, not come to frame the activities of most citizens. The inability to confront the imperative of social transformation today is a complex, manifold problem. At root, it has to do with fundamental systemic features of a global social system that we (...) all contribute to reproducing in our everyday lives. While these features do not preclude political engagement, innovation, and action, they do undermine the bases of movements towards truly systemic transformation. This article focuses on one such feature, reification, as a social-structural foundation of passivity that impedes the social innovations required to tackle the climate crisis. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Re-establishing trust presents a complex challenge for a firm after it commits corporate misconduct. We introduce a new construct, moral salience, which we define as the extent to which the firm’s behavior is morally noticeable to the stakeholder. Moral salience is a function of both the moral intensity of the firm’s behavior and the relational intensity of the firm-stakeholder psychological contract. We apply this moral salience construct to firm misconduct to develop a model of trust repair that is based on (...) goodwill, and moderated by the firm’s stakeholder culture. (shrink)

First published in France in 1936 as a journal article, The Transcendence of the Egowas one of Jean-Paul Sartre's earliest philosophical publications. When it appeared, Sartre was still largely unknown, working as a school teacher in provincial France and struggling to find a publisher for his most famous fictional work, Nausea. The Transcendence of the Egois the outcome of Sartre's intense engagement with the philosophy of Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology. Here, as in many subsequent writings, Sartre embraces (...) Husserl's vision of phenomenology as the proper method for philosophy. But he argues that Husserl's conception of the self as an inner entity, 'behind' conscious experience is mistaken and phenomenologically unfounded. The Transcendence of the Egooffers a brilliant diagnosis of where Husserl went wrong, and a radical alternative account of the self as a product of consciousness, situated in the world. This essay introduces many of the themes central to Sartre's major work, Being and Nothingness: the nature of consciousness, the problem of self-knowledge, other minds, anguish. It demonstrates their presence and importance in Sartre's thinking from the very outset of his career. This fresh translation makes this classic work available again to students of Sartre, phenomenology, existentialism, and twentieth century philosophy. It includes a thorough and illuminating introduction by Sarah Richmond, placing Sartre's essay in its philosophical and historical context.t of consciousness, situated in the world. This essay introduces many of the themes central to Sartre's major work, Being and Nothingness: the nature of consciousness, the problem of self-knowledge, other minds, anguish. It demonstrates their presence and importance in Sartre's thinking from the very outset of his career. This fresh translation makes this classic work available again to students of Sartre, phenomenology, existentialism, and twentieth century philosophy. It includes a thorough and illuminating introduction by Sarah Richmond, placing Sartre's essay in its philosophical and historical context. (shrink)

Introduction and research setting -- Greco-Roman afterlife beliefs and Paul's resurrection convictions -- The deniers of the resurrection -- The bodily resurrection of Jesus (1 Cor 15:1-11) -- The veracity of the bodily resurrection and the resulting ethical imperatives (1 Cor 15:12-34) -- The nature of the bodily resurrection and its ethical implications (1 Cor 15:35-58) -- Summary and conclusion.

Abstract. For the past two decades, I have been developing an integrative Christian marriage theory, based in part on a grounding concept of natural law and an overarching theory of covenant. The natural law part of this theory starts with an account of the natural facts, conditions, interests, needs, and qualities of human life, interaction, and generation—what I call the “premoral” goods or realities of life. It then identifies the natural inclinations of humans to form enduring and exclusive monogamous marriages (...) and to preserve these units as the central site for intimacy, procreation, and nurture of children. In this paper, I first summarize this natural law theory of marriage and then compare it to the formulations of other modern Christian thinkers. I also defend this theory against various modern critics of natural law—in part by reinterpreting some traditional natural law teachings that in my view have been misunderstood, in part by looking at the interesting convergences between the insights into sex, marriage, and family life offered by contemporary Christian theological ethicists and by evolutionary biologists and biological anthropologists. (shrink)

Medical decision making when a patient cannot participate is complicated by the question of whose voice should be heard. The most common answer to this question is that “autonomy” is paramount, and therefore it is the voice of the unwell person that should be given priority. Advance care planning processes and practices seek to capture this sentiment and to allow treatment preferences to be documented and decision makers to be nominated. Despite good intentions, advance care planning is often deficient because (...) it is unable to facilitate a relational approach to decision making in cases when the patient’s competence is reduced. In this article we present findings from a study of the ways in which older people and their significant others understand decision making in such circumstances. Critical to the participants’ understanding was the emergent concept of “relational knowing,” a concept that is poorly articulated in the advance care planning literature. Our findings suggest that the dominant understanding of decision making in conditions of impaired competence is incomplete and obscures much of what matters to people. We conclude that, having recognized a broader set of ethical concerns, it is necessary to develop a relational and narrative based approach that applies in appropriate settings. (shrink)

In three studies, factors influencing the incidence of fraudulent financial reporting were assessed. We examined (1) the effects of personal values and (2) codes of corporate conduct, on whether managers misrepresented financial reports. In these studies, executives and controllers were asked to respond to hypothetical situations involving fraudulent financial reporting procedures. The occurrence of fraudulent reporting was found to be high; however, neither personal values, codes of conduct, nor the interaction of the two factors played a significant role in fraudulent (...) financial reporting. (shrink)

Abstract. A possible consequence of the dialogue between science and religion is a revived religious humanism—a firmer grasp of the historical and phenomenological meanings of the great world religions correlated with the more accurate explanations of the rhythms of nature that natural science can provide. The first great expressions of religious humanism in the West emerged when Jewish, Christian, and Islamic scholars sat in the same libraries in Spain and Sicily, studying and translating the lost manuscripts of Aristotle in the (...) ninth and tenth centuries to understand his ethics, epistemology, and psychobiology. In our day, the science-religion dialogue—exemplified by interaction among psychology, spirituality, and psychotherapy—will best support such a revival if guided by the philosophical resources of critical hermeneutics (sometimes called hermeneutical realism) supplemented by William James's brand of phenomenology and pragmatism. Here, I develop primarily the contributions of Paul Ricoeur to hermeneutic realism and his unique ability to find a place for the natural sciences within hermeneutic phenomenology in his formula of understanding-explanation-understanding. (shrink)

This paper examines the debate that has arisen in connection with J. L. Schellenberg's work on divine hiddenness. It singles out as especially deserving of attention Paul Moser's proposal that the debate distinguish more clearly between classical theism and Hebraic theisms. This worthwhile proposal, I argue, will be unlikely to exert its full potential influence upon the debate unless certain features of Christian incarnation belief are recognized and addressed in connection with it.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Platonic Ethics: Old and NewEve Browning ColeJulia Annas. Platonic Ethics: Old and New. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999. Pp. vii + 196. Cloth, $35.00Readers of Plato's dialogues in our time are almost unanimously affected by what Annas here calls "the developmental thesis." We bring to Plato's texts as a dogma the [End Page 114] view that his doctrines evolved over time, that later dialogues return to problems (...) unsuccessfully addressed in earlier dialogues, and in short that the Platonic corpus as a whole should be arranged as a kind of intellectual "Bildungsroman." The early and inconclusive explorations of Socrates give way to mature and expansive metaphysical doctrines, which in turn are tested and revised in subsequent works.This developmentalist dogma has dominated interpretations of Plato, with few exceptions (notably Paul Shorey), for a century and more. Yet this makes it a rather young dogma after all. Annas argues that it is a product of Victorian scholars, and especially targets the highly influential work of Benjamin Jowett (95 n.56). Jowett placed the Republic at the center of Plato's works and interpreted others backward and forward from it. The influence of this developmental thesis has been sweeping and, Annas argues, unfortunate. Armed with it, we are reluctant to consider the doctrines of the dialogues on their own terms; we make problems for one dialogue with concerns expressed in quite another; we tend to force our readings to fit the progressive picture and distort the works in the process.To achieve some distance from developmentalism and other modern preconceptions and dogma, Annas proposes listening with an open mind to ancient readings of Plato, especially those of the so-called Middle Platonists. Most modern students of ancient philosophy have been accustomed to discount these ancients as either too marginal to deserve a hearing or too biased to be fair readers. (In addition, access to their works in reliable texts and translations has been impossible until quite recently.)But such ancient readers as Albinus, Alcinous, Arius Didymus, Philo, and Numenius have (Annas argues) much to offer.First, they are active participants in an ongoing intellectual conversation about "eudaimonism," or the sufficiency of virtue for happiness. They comfortably engage Plato in this conversation as a proponent of eudaimonism. This is as true for the Plato of Republic and Laws as for the earlier dialogues. These older readers of Platonic ethics demonstrate that it is indeed possible to discern a unified view of the relation between goodness and happiness, without violence to the texts. While Plato may speak with "many voices," as Arius Didymus averred, this does not entail that he held "many doctrines" (9).Another modern shibboleth which the older readers can help us dislodge concerns the proper understanding of the Republic. We have tended to classify it as political theory (and in this are supported by the Library of Congress, as Annas points out). While recognizing the hefty core of more individual ethical thinking which goes into the definition of justice in the soul, we have insisted that the "Fairest City" is a serious utopian project description and should shape and contain the Republic's ethical teachings. Here too the ancients were much less inhibited than we; most of them cheerfully ignore the city-building and attend mainly to the implications for moral life. Annas finds this not only salubrious and unity-supporting but more faithful to the text, whose political content she finds "brief and underdeveloped" (82).Many readers will find the treatment of Republic's political significance (or lack thereof) objectionable. Many readers will also find the idea of relinquishing developmentalism to be unappealing or even frightening. But Annas makes a strong case for [End Page 115] seriously consulting the ancient readers if only for their medicinal value; they can "... wake us from our developmental slumbers" (165). Moreover, she provides a friendly and accessible entree to their world, one which will be of value to many modern readers who have been mystified by them heretofore.All texts quoted are in translation, and the occasional bits of original texts are transliterated. An extremely helpful "cast of characters" (which everyone will be tempted to xerox and... (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to provide an interpretation of Feyerabend's metaphysics of science as found in late works like Conquest of Abundance and Tyranny of Science. Feyerabend's late metaphysics consists of an attempt to criticize and provide a systematic alternative to traditional scientific realism, a package of views he sometimes referred to as “scientific materialism.” Scientific materialism is objectionable not only on metaphysical grounds, nor because it provides a poor ground for understanding science, but because it implies problematic (...) claims about the epistemic and cultural authority of science, claims incompatible with situating science properly in democratic societies. I show how Feyerabend's metaphysical view, which I call “the abundant world” or “abundant realism,” constitute a sophisticated and challenging form of ontological pluralism that makes interesting connections with contemporary philosophy of science and issues of the political and policy role of science in a democratic society. (shrink)

HOME . ABOUT US . CONTACT US HELP . PUBLISH WITH US . LIBRARIANS Search in or Explore Browse Publications A-Z Browse Subjects A-Z Advanced Search University of Cambridge SIGN IN Register | Why Register? | Sign Out | Got a Voucher? prev abstract next Two Approaches to Reading the Historical Descartes A Devout Catholic? Knowledge of The Mental Thought and Language Descartes as A Natural Philosopher Substance Dualism Notes Two Approaches to Reading the Historical Descartes Author: Desmond M. Clarke (...) DOI: 10.1080/09608780902986680 Publication Frequency: 5 issues per year Published in: British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Volume 17, Issue 3 June 2009 , pages 601 - 616 John Cottingham: Cartesian Reflections: Essays on Descartes's Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) 40.00 (hb.). ISBN 978-0-19-922697-9 John Cottingham, in a new collection of essays, asks the question: 'what exactly did Descartes himself chiefly take himself to be doing?' (254). 1 While the question is relatively clear, and while it acknowledges implicitly that Descartes was probably doing a range of different things, the answer that is apparently proposed here emerges only on reading the whole collection. Cottingham distinguishes in Chapter 1 - which is a new, synoptic overview of what is discussed in the other chapters, all of which were previously published - between two approaches to reading Descartes. One is to see him as 'a dummy on which to drape various suspect doctrines (such as “Cartesian dualism”)' (3), which contemporary analytic philosophers have shown to be radically mistaken. Another approach is adopted by historians of ideas 'who make it their life's work to pay meticulous scholarly attention to the philosophical works of past ages' (3). Cottingham does not explicitly criticize either of these approaches, but he hints at situating his own as some kind of Aristotelian middle course between the two. Since the two reference points are dangerously close to straw men or what Cottingham calls 'extreme positions', the proposed middle way may simply combine elements of two approaches, each of which is entirely legitimate. I return to this question at the conclusion. In fact, many of these essays were intended to show (rightly!) that Descartes never held the philosophical positions that are often attributed to him. The interpretation of Karol Wojtyla, later Pope John Paul II, provides a good example of how mistaken one can be: The Cogito ergo sum radically changed the way of doing philosophy … After Descartes, philosophy became a science of pure thought: all that is being- the created world, and even the Creator, is situated within the ambit of the Cogito, as contents of human consciousness. Philosophy is concerned with beings as contained in consciousness, and not as existing independently of it. (257) The only way to address such a caricature is to refer back to what Descartes actually wrote. Cottingham does precisely that, often quoting the original Latin or French texts. However, having shown successfully, by a close reading of the texts, that Descartes did not hold many of the views that are attributed to him, it still remains to say what Descartes did hold or teach about various philosophical problems that retain their perennial interest for us. This is how the question arises, intermittently, about what Descartes thought he was 'chiefly' doing, or what was his primary objective, in the course of an intellectual career that spanned three decades. However, the apparently legitimate desire to bring Descartes' intellectual endeavours into sharp focus may be frustrated by the evidence. His life and work manifestly lack the coherence or unity of purpose that one finds, for example, among many of his French or Dutch contemporaries. It is comparatively easy to 'read' the life of Gisbertus Voetius as that of an unwavering Calvinist theologian, to see Antoine Arnauld as a staunch and consistent theological defender of Port Royal, and even to interpret the obviously fragmentary contents of Pascal's unpublished notebooks (subsequently, the Penses) as an extended search for authentic religious faith, in opposition to what he perceived as the corruption of ecclesial structures. In contrast, Descartes' life reveals features that are difficult to integrate into a coherent pattern. He lived and published during a critical juncture in the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. Although baptized into the Catholic Church soon after his birth in the Loire district of France, he chose to live most of his life in the aggressively Calvinist United Provinces, in which other religious practices were officially (though often ineffectively) banned. Descartes may have adopted the motto from Ovid, at least early in his career: 'bene vixit qui bene latuit' (he lives well who conceals himself well), and he seems genuinely to have wished to avoid theological controversies. However, he engaged in very public controversies with so many of his contemporaries - including Hobbes, Gassendi, the French Jesuits (collectively) and Father Dinet (in particular), Voetius and the University of Utrecht, Regius, Fermat, Roberval, Revius and other theologians at Leiden - that one might conclude that his claimed preference for a quiet life was a disingenuous mask. 2 Descartes published four books during his lifetime, and wrote at least one other that he had intended to publish. The latter was his first major composition, Le Monde, which he suppressed when he heard about Galileo's condemnation by Rome in 1633. This was followed, in 1637, by Descartes' first book (also written in French), which he tried to publish anonymously by withholding his name from the title page: the Discours de la methode pour bien conduire sa raison, & chercher la verit dans les sciences. Plus la dioptrique, les meteors, et la geometrie, qui sont des essais de cete methode. Four years later Descartes published the first edition (in Latin) of Meditationes de prima philosophia, in quibus Dei existentia et animae immortalitas demonstrator, which also included six sets of objections and replies. The Principia philosophiae appeared (in Latin) in Amsterdam in 1644, and was followed five years later by Les Passions de l'Ame (in French). 3 In parallel with these publications, Descartes carried on a very extensive correspondence over a thirty-year period (in both Latin and French), and preserved copies or drafts of his letters with a view to future publication. Given the range and variety of his interests, and the sheer volume of writings, published or otherwise, that have survived from his pen, one may be tempted to engage in a comparative evaluation, as Cottingham does, by selecting one of Descartes' books as his primary contribution to philosophy. Cottingham claims that the Meditations was Descartes''masterpiece' (44), 'the definitive statement of Descartes's philosophy' (45) and the 'definitive statement of his metaphysics' (68). He also describes the Meditations more narrowly as 'his metaphysical masterpiece' (259, 303) and, more broadly, as 'his philosophical masterpiece' (289), and he lists it with the Discours as one of Descartes' two 'masterworks' (280). The Principia offers some competition in this comparative judgement when it is described as 'the canonical presentation of his metaphysical views' (114), while 'the construction of a moral system … was the crowning aim of his philosophy' (231). Having pitched repeatedly for the Meditations as Descartes' primary text, Cottingham claims that its author was 'a devout Catholic' (215), that he was 'a devoutly religious philosopher' (256), and that he could not free himself 'from the influence of the long years of theological study he had dutifully completed at La Flche' (62). Accordingly, the Meditations should be read as 'in essence a work of theodicy' (220); 'what has pride of place in the construction of his philosophical system is … an appeal to God … the nature and existence of the Deity is something that lies at the very heart of his entire philosophical system' (255). Without quite saying so, there are hints here that Descartes was a devout Christian whose primary intellectual contribution was to write a work of metaphysics, in which God is central and in the course of which the author alternates between proving God's existence and contemplating God - the latter a seventeenth-century version of Bonaventure's Journey of the Soul to God. 'Descartes's attraction to a contemplative mode of philosophizing' (305) is reflected, in the Meditations, in 'the language of the soul's coming to rest in adoring contemplation of the light' (306). Cottingham also accepts the overwhelming evidence from Descartes' correspondence that he 'devoted most of his career not to metaphysics but to science' (108), although he quibbles elsewhere with those who adopt the shorthand term 'science' to describe part of what was called 'natural philosophy' in the seventeenth century (282). He also refers to the '(notoriously lame) argument for the essential incorporeality of the thinking self' in one of Descartes' masterworks (60), and he describes the 'strange, seemingly isolated world of his metaphysical meditations' (139), with its 'creaking ontology' (147), when read in isolation from the rest of his work as a natural philosopher. How should we read him, then, in the twenty-first century? A Devout Catholic? That Descartes was a devout Catholic is possible, unlikely and undecidable. He seems not to have studied theology at all while at school at La Flche, although he completed the pre-theology college cycle in the company of Jesuit students who then continued their studies in theology. Descartes consistently attempted to avoid public entanglement with religious and theological controversies, and said so frequently. 4 Given the alignments that prevailed at the time, both in France. (shrink)

This volume is devoted to a reappraisal of the philosophy of Paul Feyerabend. It has four aims. The first is to reassess his already well-known work from the 1960s and 1970s in light of contemporary developments in the history and philosophy of science. The second is to explore themes in his neglected later work, including recently published and previously unavailable writings. The third is to assess the contributions that Feyerabend can make to contemporary debate, on topics such as perspectivism, (...) realism, and political philosophy of science. The fourth and final aim is to reconsider Feyerabend's place within the history of philosophy of science in the light of new scholarship. (shrink)

Contributors: -/- John Beatty (British Columbia); Kelly James Clark (Ibn Haldun, Istanbul); Angela Coventry (Portland State); Thomas Holden (UC Santa Barbara); Willem Lemmens (Antwerp); Robin Le Poidevin (Leeds); Jennifer Marusic (Edinburgh); Kevin Meeker (South Alabama); Amyas Merivale (Oxford); Peter Millican (Oxford); Dan O’Brien (Oxford Brookes); Graham Oppy (Monash); Paul Russell (Lund); Andre C. Willis (Brown).

Mr. Paul Mills suffered from cancer of the esophagus. Three major surgeries were unsuccessful in correcting the problem, and other treatment methods likewise failed. His condition deteriorated to the point where there was no longer any hope of recovery. Dr. Morrison, who was Mr. Mills's intensive care physician at the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre in Halifax, and Mr. Mills's family agreed that active life support should be discontinued. Dr. Morrison then removed Mr. Mills's ventilator. To everyone's surprise, (...) and dismay, Mr. Mills did not die. He continued to breathe spontaneously and started to show signs of distress. Dr. Morrison increased the dosage of morphine, to no effect. She increased it again to the point where death could reasonably be expected to occur; signs of distress continued. Dr. Morrison at this point administered a dose of potassium chloride and Mr. Mills died. (shrink)

The apparent contextual variability exhibited by ‘knows’ and its cognates—brought to attention in examples like Keith DeRose’s Bank Case—poses familiar problems for conservative forms of invariantism about ‘knows’. The paper examines and criticises a popular response to those problems, one that involves appeal to so-called ‘pragmatic’ features of language. It is first argued, contrary to what seems to have been generally assumed, that any pragmatic defence faces serious problems with regard to our judgments about retraction. Second, the familiar objection that (...) the pragmatic effects at issue do not seem to be cancellable is considered. Advocates of the pragmatic defence have suggested that cancellability concerns can be dealt with fairly readily. It is shown both that their recent attempts to respond to those concerns, and some other possible attempts, are unsuccessful. Finally, it is argued that the popular relevance-based accounts, found in the work of Jessica Brown, Alan Hazlett, and Patrick Rysiew, fail to provide a satisfactory explanation of our judgments. (shrink)

Ron Giere’s recent book Scientific perspectivism sets out an account of science that attempts to forge a via media between two popular extremes: absolutist, objectivist realism on the one hand, and social constructivism or skeptical anti-realism on the other. The key for Giere is to treat both scientific observation and scientific theories as perspectives, which are limited, partial, contingent, context-, agent- and purpose-dependent, and pluralism-friendly, while nonetheless world-oriented and modestly realist. Giere’s perspectivism bears significant similarity to earlier ideas of (...) class='Hi'>Paul Feyerabend and John Dewey. Comparing these to Giere’s work not only uncovers a consilience of ideas, but also can help to fill out Giere’s account in places where it is not fully developed, as well as helping us understand the work of these earlier authors and their continuing relevance to contemporary concerns in philosophy of science.Keywords: Ronald Giere; Paul Feyerabend; John Dewey; Perspectivism; Pragmatism; Pluralism. (shrink)

The thesis of my article, 'Wittgenstein and the Naming Relation' ( Inquiry, Vol. 7 [1964], No. 4), was that Wittgenstein solved some early problems with a picture theory of language. The solution assumed that the units of language are words which are names of simple objects. Its undesirable consequences are exposed in my 'Wittgenstein's Notebooks 1914-1916' ( Inquiry, Vol. 12 [1969], No. 3). Because of these consequences Wittgenstein was led to analyze the idea of a name. This analysis, together with (...) a new philosophic method, was developed in The Blue and Brown Books and the Investigations. The present article concerns this development and supports a theme of the first article that there was a central tendency in all Wittgenstein's work: radical empiricism. (shrink)

The thesis of my article, ?Wittgenstein and the Naming Relation? (Inquiry, Vol. 7 [1964], No. 4), was that Wittgenstein solved some early problems with a picture theory of language. The solution assumed that the units of language are words which are names of simple objects. Its undesirable consequences are exposed in my ?Wittgenstein's Notebooks 1914?1916? (Inquiry, Vol. 12 [1969], No. 3). Because of these consequences Wittgenstein was led to analyze the idea of a name. This analysis, together with a new (...) philosophic method, was developed in The Blue and Brown Books and the Investigations. The present article concerns this development and supports a theme of the first article that there was a central tendency in all Wittgenstein's work: radical empiricism. (shrink)

© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.We present new observations of the low-mass companion to HD 984 taken with the Gemini Planet Imager as a part of the GPI Exoplanet Survey campaign. Images of HD 984 B were obtained in the J and H bands. Combined with archival epochs from 2012 and 2014, we fit the first orbit to the companion to find an 18 au orbit with a 68% confidence interval between 14 and 28 au, an eccentricity (...) of 0.18 with a 68% confidence interval between 0.05 and 0.47, and an inclination of 119°with a 68% confidence interval between 114°and 125°. To address the considerable spectral covariance in both spectra, we present a method of splitting the spectra into low and high frequencies to analyze the spectral structure at different spatial frequencies with the proper spectral noise correlation. Using the split spectra, we compare them to known spectral types using field brown dwarf and low-mass star spectra and find a best-fit match of a field gravity M6.5 ±1.5 spectral type with a corresponding temperature of K. Photometry of the companion yields a luminosity of log=2.88 ± 0.07 dex with DUSTY models. Mass estimates, again from DUSTY models, find an age-dependent mass of 34 ±1 to 95 ±4 M Jup. These results are consistent with previous measurements of the object. (shrink)

We improve results of Marczewski, Frankiewicz, Brown, and others comparing the σ-ideals of measure zero, meager, Marczewski measure zero, and completely Ramsey null sets; in particular, we remove CH from the hypothesis of many of Brown's constructions of sets lying in some of these ideals but not in others. We improve upon work of Marczewski by constructing, without CH, a nonmeasurable Marczewski measure zero set lacking the property of Baire. We extend our analysis of σ-ideals to include the (...) completely Ramsey null sets relative to a Ramsey ultrafilter and obtain all 32 possible examples of sets in some ideals and not others, some under the assumption of MA, but most in ZFC alone. We also improve upon the known constructions of a Marczewski measure zero set which is not Ramsey by using a set theoretic hypothesis which is weaker than those used by other authors. We give several consistency proofs: one concerning the relative sizes of the covering numbers for the meager sets and the completely Ramsey null sets; another concerning the size of non(CRU 0); and a third concerning the size of add(CRU 0). We also study those classes of perfect sets which are bases for the class of always first category sets. (shrink)

Paul's reflections on the universal curse of death and its conquest by the resurrection of God's son who shared that curse in his own death on the cross help define the pastoral approach to those who suffer humanity's common anxiety in the face of death.

The things themselves, which only the limited brains of men and animals believe fixed and stationary, have no real existence at all. They are the flashing and sparks of drawn swords, the glow of victory in the conflict of opposing qualities. SummaryThe conflicts between the eristentialism of Jean‐Paul Sartre and the structuralism of Claude Lévi‐Strauss present a privileged site for illuminating larger conflicts in the human studies as a whole. The present paper argues that a method for addressing and (...) perhaps resolving thes conflicts can be drawn from the respective logics of existentialism and structuralism. The essay begins by discussing the dialectical social theory of lean‐Paul Sartre and then, after treating Lévi‐Strauss's theory of structure, goes on to argue that dialectical thought generates structures, and that structuralism invites a dialectical method of construction. While an integration of methods along these lines does not constitute an integrated social theory, it can remove an important obstacle to the development of such theory. (shrink)

The things themselves, which only the limited brains of men and animals believe fixed and stationary, have no real existence at all. They are the flashing and sparks of drawn swords, the glow of victory in the conflict of opposing qualities. SummaryThe conflicts between the eristentialism of Jean‐Paul Sartre and the structuralism of Claude Lévi‐Strauss present a privileged site for illuminating larger conflicts in the human studies as a whole. The present paper argues that a method for addressing and (...) perhaps resolving thes conflicts can be drawn from the respective logics of existentialism and structuralism. The essay begins by discussing the dialectical social theory of lean‐Paul Sartre and then, after treating Lévi‐Strauss's theory of structure, goes on to argue that dialectical thought generates structures, and that structuralism invites a dialectical method of construction. While an integration of methods along these lines does not constitute an integrated social theory, it can remove an important obstacle to the development of such theory. (shrink)

In this article I apply the insights of hermeneutic realism to a practical-theological ethics that addresses the international crisis of families and women’s rights. Hermeneutic realism affirms the hermeneutic philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer but enriches it with the dialectic of participation and distanciation developed by Paul Ricoeur. This approach finds a place for sciences such as evolutionary psychology within a hermeneutically informed ethic. It also points to a multidimensional model of practical reason that views it as implicitly or explicitly (...) involving five levels---background metaphysical visions, some principle of obligation, assumptions about pervasive human tendencies and needs, assumptions about constraining social and natural environments, and assumed acceptable rules of conduct. The fruitfulness of this multidimensional view of practical reason is then demonstrated by applying it to practical-theological ethics and the analysis of four theorists of women’s rights---Martha Nussbaum, Susan Moller Okin, Lisa Cahill, and Mary Ann Glendon. Finally, I illustrate the importance and limits of the visional dimension of practical reason by discussing the concept of “Africanity‘ in relation to the family and AIDS crisis of Eastern Africa. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Myth of Renaissance Atheism and the French Tradition of Free Thought PAUL OSKAR KRISTELLER WITHIN THE VAST AND COMPLEX area of Renaissance philosophy, the thought of Pietro Pomponazzi and of the entire Italian school of Aristotelianism of which he is the best known representative has not yet been studied in all its aspects? Apart from a number of recent studies, mostly Italian or American, there is an (...) important body of French studies on the subject that are distinguished by their ample documentation and by a general and consistent tendency of interpretation and that have exercised a predominant influence in this field of research. The fountainhead of this French scholarship on Renaissance Aristotelianism is E. Renan's book on Averroes and Averroism, a remarkable achievement for its time, and a classical study still worth reading after more than a hundred years have passed since it was first published. 2 It is generally recognized that Renan's conclusions about Averroes himself and about the Latin Averroism of the thirteenth century have been superseded by the later studies of P. Mandonnet and others? It is less well known that, for the This paper was read many years ago at the New England Conference on the Renaissance at Brown University, and at the Universit~ de Fribourg. It was published as "El Mito del Ateismo Renacentista y la Tradici6n Francesa del Librepensamiento" in Notas y Estudios de Filoso]la, ed. Prof. Juan Adolfo Vazquez, IV, 13 (Tucums Argentina, 1953), pp. 1-14. The present version has been only slightly revised, and I hope to return to the subject on a later occasion. Among recent studies, I should like to mention G. Spini, Ricerca dei l.,ibertini (Rome, 1950) and D. C. Allen Doubt's Boundless Sea (Baltimore, 1964), who follow on the whole the view criticized in this paper, and L. Febvre, Le problhme del lincroyance au XVI ~ si~cle (Paris, 1947) and R. H. Popkin, "Skepticism and the Counter-Reformation in France," Archiv ]iir Re]ormationsgeschichte LI (1960), 58-88, who seem to concur with my view. See also a paper by Popkin~"Skepticism, Theology and the Scientific Method in the 17th century," in Problem8 in the Phdosophy o] Science, ed. I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave (Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Co., 1968). 1See now B. Nardi, Saggi sull'Aristotelismo Padovano dal secolo XIV al XVI (Florence, 1958) and Studi su Pietro Pomponazzi (Florence, 1965); J. H. Randall, The School o] Padua and the Emergence o] Modern Science (Padua, 1961); P. Pomponazzi, De ]ato, de libero arbitrio et de praedestinatione, ed. R. Lemay (Lugano, 1957); Tractatus de immortalitate animae, ed. G. Morra (Bologna, 1954); Corsi inediLi dell'insegnamento padovano I, Super libello de substantia orbis et quaestiones quattuor, ed. A. Poppi (Padua, 1966); P. O. Kristeller, "A New Manuscript Source for Pomponazzi's Theory of the Soul from his Paduan Period," Revue Internationale de Philosophie, V: 2 (16, 1951), 144-157,and "Two Unpublished Questions on the Soul by Pietro Pomponazzi," Medievalia et Humanistica, IX (1955), 76-101,and X (1956), 151. See also: G. Di Napoli, L'immortalit~ dell'anima nel Rinascimento (Turin, 1963); E. GiN ~L,, 3 son, Autour de Pomponazzi, Archives d histoire doctrinale et litt~raire du Moyen Age, c,,,, LXIII (1961, pub. 1962), 163-279and Laffaire de limmortalit~ de ls ~ Venise au debut 9,, du XVI si~cle, in Umanesimo europeo e umanesimo veneziano, ed. V. Branca (Florence, 1963), 31-61. Relevant are also the unpublished Columbia dissertations by William F. Edwards (on Zabarella), Martin Pine (on Pomponazzi and his critics) and Edward Mahoney (on Agostino Nifo). Averro$s et l Averro~me (Paris, 1852). 8Siger de Brabant et l'averroisme latin au XIII ~ si$cle (2nd ed.; Paris, 1908-11); F. Van [233] 234 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY history of Italian Aristotelianism after the thirteenth century, this book by Renan has never been completely superseded, but still constitutes the general basis for a large part of the later literature on the subject. Recent studies have added numerous details, but have failed to correct numerous errors and misconceptions. The main thesis of Renan's book on which we shall focus our attention in this paper is the following: Paduan Averroism... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Overcoming Greed:Buddhists and Christians in Consumerist SocietyPaul F. KnitterAs I understand my assignment, I don't find it an easy one. I've been instructed to carry on a lopsided dialogue. Generally, what generates productive dialogue is a proper balance of learning and questioning. My assigned job in this exchange is to question more than learn—to offer some Christian queries about how Buddhists think we can overcome greed and find a (...) path out of the consumerist jungle that surrounds us. Actually, I'd prefer it the other way around, for I'm convinced that we Christians have some very important, if not absolutely vital, things to learn from Buddhists in our own efforts to deal with the jungle. And I will mention some of them. But, following instructions, my main focus in what follows will be on areas where I suspect that Buddhists can learn something, maybe something very helpful, in our shared efforts to deal with greed and the havoc it is working on people and planet.I need to specify my Christian voice in this conversation—or, as they say, where I'm coming from within the many and diverse neighborhoods that make up the Christian community. I'll be reflecting and speaking out of my knowledge of and experience with Christian liberation theology, especially as it has been born, developed, and taken new shapes among the poor and suffering of Latin America. The voices and concerns you will hear in my own remarks are originally those of Christian thinkers and activists such as Jon Sobrino, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Leonardo Boff.In order to bring some order into the swarm of insights and questions that these extremely rich presentations have stirred up in me, I'll gather my comments around two broad topics.The Inner and the Outer: Enlightenment and the Reign of GodMy first general area of conversation is a familiar one not just for the Buddhist-Christian conversation but also for all activists who call themselves religious: the need for, but the difficulty of, holding together the "inner and the outer"—action and [End Page 65] contemplation, personal and social transformation, or what I will term Buddha's enlightenment and Jesus' vision of the Reign of God.What Christian Liberation Theologians Need to Hear from BuddhistsFirst, let me simply list, and hold back from delving into, some crucial lessons that we Christians not only can but drastically need to learn.First, what Jesus and his followers call the Reign of God will be built on sand unless it is grounded in the personal, inner conversion of those who are trying to build it. The church will be only a empty building—or worse, a den of thieves—if its members, and that includes its leaders, are not transformed by the Spirit. Or, in Judith Simmer-Brown's words, "No fundamental transformation can take place anywhere without the joining of inner change and outer change" (emphasis mine). Or, in Ken Barnhill's words (quoted by Brown), "Social work entails inner work.... social change and inner change are inseparable." Or, in the powerful and widely quoted admonition of Thich Nhat Hanh: We have to be peace if we want to make peace. Christians know this, and they talk about it. But in my own life and in what I see in my church, how often we forget it in our efforts to get things done, in our concern for the institution, in our determination to bring about political change.Second, I both cringed and nodded approvingly when I read about Judith Simmer-Brown speaking about "idiot compassion." In opposing wealthy landowners in El Salvador, or in a business-controlled city council in Cincinnati, how often I have felt but perhaps not identified in myself and in my fellow Christian activists "...unskillful acts...the impulsive response based on insufficient knowledge [that] can quickly become ineffective, causing personal burnout." Such idiocy, grounded in goodwill, derives, again, from an insufficient balancing of the inner and the outer.Third, and more sharply focused on the suffering caused by greed, Judith offers a hope, or deep belief, that is often not clearly present among liberation theologians since... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Sixth International Buddhist-Christian Conference, August 5–12, 2000Paul IngramThe Sixth International Buddhist-Christian Conference, sponsored by the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, will take place at Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, Washington, from August 5 to 12, 2000. The Program Committee has approved the general conference theme as “Buddhism, Christianity, and Global Healing.” The conference will follow the structure, with some variations, of the last international conference that met at DePaul University (...) in 1996: morning working group sessions on several themes interrelated with the general conference theme; afternoon sessions devoted to individual papers; and evening plenary sessions.Evening plenary themes and speakers have been identified: Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne and Dr. Cecil Murray (senior pastor of the First AME Church in Los Angeles) will address the topic “The Non-Violent Struggle for Economic and Social Justice”; Sulak Sivaraksa and John B. Cobb Jr. will speak on “Consumerism and Ecology: Buddhist and Christian Perspectives”; Rita Gross and Daniel Maguire will speak on “Buddhism, Christianity, and Issues of Gender”; and Virginia Straus and a Christian speaker yet to be identified will address “The Earth Charter: A Buddhist and Christian Response.”Working Group cochairs and themes have also been identified: Buddhist-Christian Practice and Mind-Body Healing (Venerable Yifa and Mary Jo Meadow); Ecology, Consumerism, and Corporate Consciousness (David Chappell and Donald Mitchell); Gender: Issues of Oppression and Justice (Judith Simmer-Brown and Donald Luck); Buddhist-Christian Dialogue with the Natural Sciences (Ken Tanaka and Nancy Howell); Buddhist-Christian Dialogue on the Earth Charter (Virginia Straus and Jay McDaniel); The Interior Dialogue: Buddhist-Christian Meditative/ Contemplative Practice (Susan Postal and Ruben Habito); and The Role of Orthodoxy/Orthopraxis in Buddhist-Christian Dialogue (Rita Gross and John Keenan).For the first time in the twenty-year history of our international conferences, a special afternoon seminar will be cochaired by Sallie King and Paul Knitter that will focus on specific case studies on particular issues of peace and justice work that are [End Page 179] interrelated with the themes of the plenary sessions and working groups. These sessions will meet in the afternoon throughout the conference week and will involve a presentation in case-study format from a Buddhist and a Christian engaged in a practical way that illustrates the themes of the conference. They will be asked to describe their situation and what they are doing and, particularly, to speak about how Buddhism or Christianity guides them in their work, the problems and successes they have had, their hopes, and their struggles, after which there will be open conversation with those present. Finally, afternoon sessions will be devoted to individual papers and presentations organized around the conference’s themes and other themes that emerge as individual papers are submitted.A preliminary call for papers will be published in the spring 1999 edition of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies Newsletter. Individuals who are not members of the society but wish to have a copy of this call for papers may E-mail the editor of the newsletter, Harry Wells, at.The Department of Religion of Pacific Lutheran University, along with its administration, faculty, and staff, are currently working hard to make this conference enjoyable and memorable. Travel, room and board, and other information regarding Tacoma, Pacific Lutheran University, motels, and excursion arrangements will be made available in the fall 1999 edition of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies Newsletter. The final call for papers appears on pp. 242–243.Paul IngramPacific Lutheran UniversityCopyright © 1999 The University of Hawai’i Press... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 24.1 (2004) 135-157 [Access article in PDF] "That We May Know Each Other": The Pluralist Hypothesis as a Research Program Paul O. Ingram Pacific Lutheran University When an African American Muslim named Siraj Wahaj served as the first Muslim "Chaplain of the Day" in the Unites States House of Representatives on 25 June 1991 he offered the following prayer, the first Muslim prayer in the in (...) the history of the House of Representatives: In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most merciful. Praise belongs to thee alone; O God, Lord and Creator of all the worlds. Praise belongs to Thee Who shaped us as and colored us in the wombs of our mothers; colored us black and white, brown, red, and yellow. Praise belongs to Thee who created us from males and females and made us into nations and tribes that we may know each other.1Siraj Wahaj's prayer is a direct reference to one of the most cited verses of the Qur'an: "Do you not know, O people, that I have made you into tribes and nations that you may know each other." Of course, "knowing each other" is an important goal in the practice of interreligious dialogue, but Muslims often move on to cite further Qur'anic advice about religious pluralism: "If God had so willed, He would have made you a single people," the verse reads, "But His plan is to test you in what He hath given you; so strive as in a race in all virtues."2 According to Siraj Wahaj and many like-minded American Muslims, Islam and pluralism go hand in hand and respect for the dignity for each person, no matter what religious or secular label he or she wears, rests on Islamic foundations. Of course, this interpretation of the Qur'an is rejected by radical communities within the House of Islam as well as by fundamentalist communities within Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, and Jewish traditions. Nor are the foundations of pluralism only found in the Qur'an; Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu, Christian, and aboriginal traditions support religious pluralism as well.This essay's thesis, what John Hick first posited as the "pluralist hypothesis," offers us the most coherent theoretical framework—minus Hick's Kantian epistemology—from which to interpret contemporary postmodern experiences of religious [End Page 135] diversity. Furthermore, I shall argue that the pluralist hypothesis constitutes a coherent history-of-religions research program from which to investigate and interpret the facts of religious diversity.3 In order to demonstrate the adequacy of my thesis and argument, I shall appropriate the philosopher of science Imre Lakatos's account of the methodology and structure of scientific research programs, guided by Nancy Murphy's application of Lakatos's work in the construction of theological research programs. But first, some preliminary clarifications about what I mean by "religious pluralism" and "religious diversity."4 The Structure of the Experience of Religious Pluralism In a recent book on the lives of four Catholic writers—Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Flannery O'Connor, and Walker Percy—Paul Elie provides one of the most accurate descriptions of the structure of postmodern experience of religious diversity in English print: We are all skeptics now, believer and unbeliever alike. There is no one faith, evident at all times and places. Every religion is one among many. The clear lines of orthodoxy are made crooked by our experience, and are complicated by our lives. Believer and unbeliever are in the same predicament, thrown back onto ourselves in complex circumstances, looking for a sign. As ever, religious belief makes its claim somewhere between revelation and projection, between holiness and human frailty, but the problem of proof, indeed the burden of belief, for so long upheld by society, is now back on the believer, where it should be.5Assuming that Elie's description is an accurate one, certain implications follow that will serve as working assumptions of this essay."Pluralism" is not just another name for "diversity." Diversity names the fact of the existence of differing... (shrink)

This paper demonstrates the ontological status of virtue as an instance of love within the cosmology of St. Maximus the Confessor. It shows that we may posit the real existence of a “virtue” in so far as we understand it to have its basis in, and to be an instance of love. Since God is love and the virtues are logoi, it becomes possible and beneficial to parallel the relationship between love and the virtues with Maximus’ exposition of the Logos (...) and the logoi. In particular, Vladimir Cvetković’s interpretation of the circle and radii analogy will be utilized. It will be shown that when one practices a virtue, one is practicing and participating in love, and, by extension, partaking in God. Within the context of Maximus’ cosmology, this means that practicing virtue and love is the ultimate purpose of humanity in its journey to gather all creation to communion with God. This paper is primarily an exposition of primary sources from St. Maximus, but discussion of the ontology of virtue is made with a view to bringing it into dialogue with modern theories of virtue ethics. This paper arises in part as a response to the August 2013 papers by Andrew Louth and Paul M. Blowers on the need for increased scholarship on Maximus and virtue ethics. (shrink)