There is considerable debate at present, particularly in the Member States of the European Union, concerning the necessity and appropriateness of imposing custodial sentences upon individuals who have engaged in cartel activity. The vast majority of those contributing to this debate have focused on the punishment theory of (economic) deterrence. Little room is devoted to the punishment theory of retribution or to consideration of the ‘moral wrongfulness’ of cartel activity. This article posits that the issue of ‘moral wrongfulness’ is a (...) central issue in the debate on cartel criminalization, irrespective of whether it is deterrence theory or retribution theory that informs the debate. By employing a norms-based approach, this article then examines the extent to which cartel activity can indeed be interpreted as conduct that is ‘morally wrong’ due to its violation of the moral norms against stealing, deception and/or cheating. By doing so, this article not only challenges traditional views of the nature of cartel activity but also provides scholars, legislatures and policymakers with specific analyses which are crucial to a decision whether to justify (or indeed to oppose) the introduction and maintenance of criminal cartel sanctions. (shrink)

Despite what Peter Singer and Peter Unger believe, no one violates the ‘rescue principle’ when she makes a frivolous purchase instead of giving to a charity like UNICEF. Nor does any one violate a collective action version of the rescue principle when she makes a frivolous purchase instead of giving to a charity. Garrett Cullity is also mistaken in believing that ‘the transitivity of wrongness’ can be used to reach the conclusion that a failure to give to charity (...) is wrong because a failure to save is. This makes it likely that the requirement to give to charity is based not on the requirement to rescue but instead on the moral requirement to marginally improve the ability of charitable organisations to do their important work. (shrink)

"How do we go about weighing evidence, testing hypotheses and making inferences? According to the model of 'inference to the Best explanation', we work out what to inter from the evidence by thinking about what would actually explain that evidence, and we take the ability of a hypothesis to explain the evidence as a sign that the hypothesis is correct. In inference to the Best Explanation, Peter Lipton gives this important and influential idea the development and assessment it deserves." (...) "The second edition has been substantially enlarged and reworked, with a new chapter on the relationship between explanation and Bayesianism, and an extension and defence of the account of contractive explanation. It also includes an expanded defence of the claims that our inferences really are guided by diverse explanatory considerations, and that this pattern of inference can take us towards the truth. This edition of Inference to the Best Explanation has also been updated throughout and incudes a new bibliography."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

Political decisions have the potential to greatly impact our lives. Think of decisions in relation to abortion or climate change, for example. This makes political legitimacy an important normative concern. But what makes political decisions legitimate? Are they legitimate in virtue of having support from the citizens? Democratic conceptions of political legitimacy answer in the affirmative. Such conceptions righly highlight that legitimate political decision-making must be sensitive to disagreements among the citizens. But what if democratic decisions fail to track what (...) there is most reason to do? What if a democratically elected government fails to take measures necessary to protect its population from threats related to climate change? Peter argues that the legitimacy of political decisions doesn't just depend on respect for the citizens' will; and defends a novel hybrid conception of political legitimacy, called the Epistemic Accountability conception. According to this conception, political legitimacy also depends on how political decision-making responds to evidence for what there is most reason to do. Grounds for Political Legitmacy starts with an overview of the main ways in which philosophers have thought about political legitimacy, and identifies the epistemic accountability conception as an overlooked alternative. It then develops the epistemic accountability conception of political legitimacy and discusses its implications for legitimate political decision-making. Considering the norms that should govern political debate, it examines the role of experts in politics, and probes the responsibilities of democratically elected political leaders and as well as of citizens. (shrink)

In our everyday lives we struggle with the notions of why we do what we do and the need to assign values to our actions. Somehow, it seems possible through experience and life to gain knowledge and understanding of such matters. Yet once we start delving deeper into the concepts that underwrite these domains of thought and actions, we face a philosophical disappointment. In contrast to the world of facts, values and morality seem insecure, uncomfortably situated, easily influenced by illusion (...) or ideology. How can we apply this same objectivity and accuracy to the spheres of value and morality? In the essays included in this collection, Peter Railton shows how a fairly sober, naturalistically informed view of the world might nonetheless incorporate objective values and moral knowledge. This book will be of interest to professionals and students working in philosophy and ethics. (shrink)

This far-reaching study redraws the intellectual map of the Enlightenment and boldly reassesses the legacy of that highly influential period for us today. Peter Hanns Reill argues that in the middle of the eighteenth century, a major shift occurred in the way Enlightenment thinkers conceived of nature that caused many of them to reject the prevailing doctrine of mechanism and turn to a vitalistic model to account for phenomena in natural history, the life sciences, and chemistry. As he traces (...) the ramifications of this new way of thinking through time and across disciplines, Reill provocatively complicates our understanding of the way key Enlightenment thinkers viewed nature. His sophisticated analysis ultimately questions postmodern narratives that have assumed a monolithic Enlightenment—characterized by the dominance of instrumental reason—that has led to many of the disasters of modern life. (shrink)

This book offers a systematic treatment of the requirements of democratic legitimacy. It argues that democratic procedures are essential for political legitimacy because of the need to respect value pluralism and because of the learning process that democratic decision-making enables. It proposes a framework for distinguishing among the different ways in which the requirements of democratic legitimacy have been interpreted. Peter then uses this framework to identify and defend what appears as the most plausible conception of democratic legitimacy. According (...) to this conception, democratic legitimacy requires that the decision-making process satisfies certain conditions of political and epistemic fairness. (shrink)

From the beginning to the end of his career, the critical theorist and Frankfurt School philosopher Theodor W. Adorno sustained an uneasy but enduring bond with existentialism. His attitude overall was that of unsparing criticism, often verging on polemic. In Kierkegaard he saw an early paragon for the late flowering of bourgeois solipsism; in Heidegger an impresario for a "jargon of authenticity" that cloaked its idealism in an aura of pseudo-concreteness and neo-romantic kitsch; even in the more rationalist tradition of (...) Husserl's phenomenology he detected a vain attempt of the bourgeois spirit to break free from the prison-house of immanent consciousness. Yet his enduring fascination with the philosophical canons of existentialism and phenomenology suggests a connection far more complicated and productive than mere antipathy. From his first published book on Kierkegaard's aesthetic to the mature studies in negative dialectics, Adorno was forever returning to the philosophies of bourgeois interiority, seeking the paradoxical relation between their manifest failure and their hidden promise. Scholars of critical theory often regard these philosophical adventures as unfortunate lapses into reductive sociology or as marginal to Adorno's path of intellectual development. In Adorno and Existence, Peter E. Gordon challenges this assumption, showing how the confrontation with existentialism helps us toward a deeper understanding of Adorno's own intellectual commitments. In lucid prose and with a dialectical sensitivity for the links between philosophy and life, Adorno and Existence casts new and unfamiliar light on this neglected chapter in the history of Continental philosophy.--. (shrink)

This is a fascinating collection of Hume's texts and essays by experts on Hume. It introduces students and general readers to a panorama of his moral and political philosophy in a readable and informative way. The collection consists of the following sections: Introduction by Andrew Valls, Index of Names, "Texts," and "Essays." The texts include the entirety of An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, and selected essays from "Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary." This is followed by four "interpretive essays" (...) by Mark G. Spencer, Elizabeth S. Radcliffe, Frederick G. Whelan, and finally Peter Vanderschraaf and Andrew Valls. (shrink)

This far-reaching study redraws the intellectual map of the Enlightenment and boldly reassesses the legacy of that highly influential period for us today. Peter Hanns Reill argues that in the middle of the eighteenth century, a major shift occurred in the way Enlightenment thinkers conceived of nature that caused many of them to reject the prevailing doctrine of mechanism and turn to a vitalistic model to account for phenomena in natural history, the life sciences, and chemistry. As he traces (...) the ramifications of this new way of thinking through time and across disciplines, Reill provocatively complicates our understanding of the way key Enlightenment thinkers viewed nature. His sophisticated analysis ultimately questions postmodern narratives that have assumed a monolithic Enlightenment—characterized by the dominance of instrumental reason—that has led to many of the disasters of modern life. (shrink)

In this entertaining work, Peter Grdenfors embarks on an evolutionary detective story to try and solve one of the big mysteries surrounding human existence - how has the modern human being's way of thinking come into existence. Immensely readable and full of humorous insights, the book will be valuable for students in psychology and biology, and accessible to readers of popular science.

What is narrative? What is distinctive about the great literary narratives? In virtue of what is a narrative fictional or non-fictional? In this important new book Peter Lamarque, one of the leading philosophers of literature at work today, explores these and related questions to bring new clarity and insight to debates about narrative in philosophy, critical theory, and narratology.

Peter Pagin Is the principle of semantic compositionality compatible with the principle of semantic holism? The question is of interest, since both principles have a lot that speaks for them, and since they do seem to be in conflict. The view that natural languages have compositional structure is almost unavoidable, since linguistic communication by means of new combinations of words would be virtually incomprehensible otherwise. And holism too seems generally plausible, since the meaning of an expression is directly connected (...) with the way that expression interacts with other. (shrink)

Robert Boyd*†, Herbert Gintis‡, Samuel Bowles§, and Peter J. Richerson¶.

Peter Kivy is the author of many books on the history of art and, in particular, the aesthetics of music. This collection of essays spans a period of some thirty years and focuses on a richly diverse set of issues: the biological origins of music, the role of music in the liberal education, the nature of the musical work and its performance, the aesthetics of opera, the emotions of music, and the very nature of music itself. Some of these (...) subjects are viewed as part of the history of ideas, others as current problems in the philosophy of art. A particular feature of the volume is that Kivy avoids the use of musical notation so that no technical knowledge at all is required to appreciate his work. The essays will prove enjoyable and insightful not just to professionals in the philosophy of art and musicologists, or to musicians themselves, but also to any motivated general reader with a deep interest in music. (shrink)

In the Western world it is usually taken as given that we all want happiness, and our educational arrangements tacitly acknowledge this. Happiness, Hope, and Despair argues, however, that education has an important role to play in deepening our understanding of suffering and despair as well as happiness and joy. Education can be uncomfortable, unpredictable, and unsettling; it can lead to greater uncertainty and unhappiness. Drawing on the work of Søren Kierkegaard, Miguel de Unamuno, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Simone Weil, Paulo Freire, (...) and others, Peter Roberts shows why these features of educational life need not be feared; to the contrary, they can be seen as a source of hope and human fulfilment. After years of negotiating an education system dominated by the language of competition, performance, and economic advancement, students and teachers often long for something different; they seek not just measurable success but also opportunities to ask searching questions of themselves and the world they encounter. Happiness, Hope, and Despair makes an important contribution toward meeting this need. It fosters a rethinking of the nature, purpose, and value of education, and opens up possibilities for further scholarly and professional inquiry. (shrink)

Contemporary debates in epistemology devote much attention to the nature of knowledge, but neglect the question of its sources. This book focuses on the latter, especially on the question of innateness. Carruthers' aim is to transform and reinvigorate contemporary empiricism, while also providing an introduction to a range of issues in the theory of knowledge. He gives a lively presentation and assessment of the claims of classical empiricism, particularly its denial of substantive a priori knowledge and of innate knowledge. He (...) argues that we would be right to reject the substantive a priori but not innateness, and then presents a novel account of the main motivation behind empiricism, which leaves contemporary empiricists free to accept innate knowledge and concepts. Carruthers closes with a discussion of scepticism, arguing that acceptance of innate concepts may lead to a decisive resolution of the problem in favor of realism. (shrink)

In this article, Peter and Rowland explore the role of implicit statistical learning in syntactic development. It is often accepted that the processes observed in classic implicit learning or statistical learning experiments play an important role in the acquisition of natural language syntax. As Peter and Rowland point out, however, the results from neither research strand can be used to fully explain how children's syntax becomes adult‐like. They propose to address this shortcoming by using the structural priming paradigm.

Various aspects of poetic meaning are discussed, centred on the relation of form and content. A C Bradley's thesis of form-content identity, suitably reformulated, is defended against criticisms by Peter Kivy. It is argued that the unity of form-content is not discovered in poetry so much as demanded of it when poetry is read 'as poetry'. A shift of emphasis from talking about 'meaning' in poetry to talking about 'content' is promoted, as is a more prominent role for 'experience' (...) in characterising responses to poetry and its value. It is argued that the key to poetic meaning lies less in a theory of meaning, more in a theory of poetry, where what matters are modes of reading poetry. Content-identity in poetry is said to be 'interest-relative' such that no absolute answer, independent of the interests of the questioner, can determine when a poem and a paraphrase have the same content. Interpretation of poetry need not focus exclusively on meaning, but on ways in which the experience of a poem can be heightened. (shrink)

Stimulating introduction to the most central and interesting issues in the philosophy of mind. Topics covered include dualism versus the various forms of materialism, personal identity and survival, and the problem of other minds.

Everyone allows that human and animal minds are distinctively (indeed, massively) different in their manifest effects. Humans have been able to colonize nearly every corner of the planet, from the artic, to deserts, to rainforests (and they did so in the absence of modern technological aids); they live together in large cooperative groups of unrelated individuals; they communicate with one another using the open-ended expressive resources of natural language; they are capable of cultural learning that accumulates over generations to result (...) in science, art, and agriculture; and they are remarkably thoughtful and inventive. There is much less agreement about how these manifest differences should be explained, however. (shrink)

My topic is moderate modal skepticism in the spirit of Peter van Inwagen. Here understood, this is a conservative version of modal empiricism that severely limits the extent to which an ordinary agent can reasonably believe “exotic” possibility claims. I offer a novel argument in support of this brand of skepticism: modal skepticism grounds an attractive (and novel) reply to Humean skepticism. Thus, I propose that modal skepticism be accepted on the basis of its theoretical utility as a tool (...) for dissolving philosophical paradox. (shrink)

Peter Hylton: Quine's Naturalism Revisited: Naturalism is Quine's overarching view. In thinking about the world, we must begin where we are; for Quine, that means within a system of knowledge which, as developed and improved, becomes natural science. There is no distinctively philosophical standpoint outside this system. So the philosopher draws on the results of science, which show, for example, that our knowledge of the world comes from stimulation of our sensory nerves. But the philosopher's work is also subject (...) to scientific standards of clarity and rigor. Terms such as ‘meaning’, and even ‘experience’, do not meet these standards and cannot be taken for granted at the outset. Quinean epistemology attempts to account for our knowledge using only terms that Quine takes to be sufficiently clear. The Quinean analogue of metaphysics relies on an ideal of regimented theory: all of our scientific knowledge reformulated so as to make it as clear, simple, and systematic as possible. His claims about ontology, for example, are answerable to that theory. The epistemological project can then be understood as an attempt to show that human knowledge can be accounted for within the narrow confines of regimented theory – and thus treated as a purely natural phenomenon. (shrink)

This book develops in detail the simple idea that assertion is the expression of belief. In it the author puts forward a version of 'probabilistic semantics' which acknowledges that we are not perfectly rational, and which offers a significant advance in generality on theories of meaning couched in terms of truth conditions. It promises to challenge a number of entrenched and widespread views about the relations of language and mind. Part I presents a functionalist account of belief, worked through a (...) modified form of decision theory. In Part II the author generates a theory of meaning in terms of 'assertibility conditions', whereby to know the meaning of an assertion is to know the belief it expresses. (shrink)

Peter Kivy presents a selection of his new and recent writings on the philosophy of music--an area to which he has been one of the most eminent contributors. In his distinctively elegant and informal style, Kivy explores such topics as musicology and its history, the nature of musical works, and the role of emotion in music, and does so in a way that will attract the interest of philosophical and musical readers alike. Most works are published here for the (...) first time, each one unique and accessible, making this collection a delight both to followers of Kivy's work and to first-time readers. (shrink)

Seeing nature as ultimately separate from us rather than as apart of us is the source of a powerful environmental ethic. The work of Martin Buber, Rudolf Otto, and Peter Wessei Zapffe forms the conceptual framework for a view of nature as a Thou or a “Wholly Other,” a view which inspires awe for the nonhuman intrinsic value in nature. In contrast to the Self-realization approach of Naess and others, intrinsic value is here independent of the notion of a (...) self. This approach suggests an ethic of humility and respect for nonhuman nature-to the degree that the continued existence of humans should be considered an open question. (shrink)

Are there different constraints on theories of conscious experience as against theories of conscious propositional thought? Is what is problematic or puzzling about each of these phenomena of the same, or of different, types? And to what extent is it plausible to think that either or both conscious experience and conscious thought involve some sort of selfreference? In pursuing these questions I shall also explore the prospects for a defensible form of eliminativism concerning conscious thinking, one that would leave the (...) reality of conscious experience untouched. In the end, I shall argue that while there might be no such thing as conscious judging or conscious wanting, there is (or may well be) such a thing as conscious generic thinking. (shrink)

Peter Kivy presents a fascinating critical examination of the two rival ways of understanding instrumental music. He argues against 'literary' interpretation in terms of representational or narrative content, and defends musical formalism. Along the way he discusses interpretations of a range of works in the canon of absolute music.

Carruthers, P. . Natural theories of consciousness. European Journal of Philosophy.

"Wisdom in the Open Air" traces the Norwegian roots of the strain of thinking called "deep ecology" - the search for the solutions to environmental problems by examining the fundamental tenets of our culture. Although Arne Naess coined the term in the 1970s, the insights of deep ecology actually reflect a whole tradition of thought that can be seen in the history of Norwegian culture, from ancient mountain myths to the radical ecoactivism of today. Beginning with an introduction to Norway's (...) emphasis on nature and the wild, Reed and Rothenberg explore the birth of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s. What follows is a collection of writings by prominent Norwegian thinkers on humanity and nature, most never before published in English. From Peter Wessel Zapffe, a twentieth-century Kierkegaardian figure, the list goes on to include Arne Naess, activist/critic/artist Sigmund Kvaloy, wilderness educator Nils Faarlund, novelist Finn Alnaes, sociologist Johan Galtung, and social reformer Erik Dammann. Their points of view offer thoughts on the significance of modern life and what it means to be human in the face of deteriorating environmental global trends of the 20th century. "Wisdom in the Open Air" asks and answers a fundamental question concerning the ecomovement: what is the role of deep, often abstract, thinking in the attempt to avert a very real ecological crisis? (shrink)

The Mind Argument is an argument for the incompatibility of indeterminism and anyone's having a choice about anything that happens. Peter van Inwagen rejects the Mind Argument not because he is able to point out the flaw in it, but because he accepts both that determinism is incompatible with anyone's having a choice about anything that happens and that it is possible for someone to have a choice about something that happens. In this paper I first diagnose and clear (...) up a confusion in recent discussions of the Mind Argument and then go on to show why it is a bad argument. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.2 (2003) 161-167 [Access article in PDF] Social, Cognitive, and Neural Constraints on Subjectivity and Agency:Implications for Dissociative Identity Disorder Peter Q. Deeley In this commentary, I consider Matthew's argument after making some general observations about dissociative identity disorder (DID). In contrast to Matthew's statement that "cases of DID, although not science fiction, are extraordinary" (p. 148), I believe that there are natural analogs (...) of the disorder that, when considered, make it seem less puzzling and exotic. After discussing these examples, I examine the relations between social, cognitive, and neural processes supporting subjectivity and agency, to identify sources of personal identity in cases of DID that can be used as a basis for assessing Matthew's points against Behnke and Sinnott-Armstrong. I am not proposing a comprehensive theory, but rather identifying what I believe are components of such a theory. I then outline an approach to determining criminal responsibility in DID, drawing on analogies with other psychiatric disorders. Dissociative Identity Disorder DID is a disorder described in DSM-IV, which "is characterised by the presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states that recurrently take control of the individual's behaviour accompanied by an inability to recall important personal information that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness" (American Psychiatric Association, p. 519). Recognizing Personal Identity How is personal identity recognized in normal cognition? If we take personhood to involve recognition of continuity of social, psychological, and physical identity for a given individual, then such judgments are routinely made rapidly and automatically as an aspect of what has come to be termed social cognition (Adolphs 2003). There is likely to be considerable redundancy in [End Page 161] the types of information used to make judgments about whether a person is the same as one who was previously encountered, or perhaps heard about—for example, facial features, movement patterns, speech prosody, dress, speech content, gender, ethnicity, social role, among other features, all provide information about individual identity, and hence personhood. When uncertainty exists, it is likely to reflect a loss or alteration of cues that would ordinarily be used in a rapid, automatic, unexamined way (Adolphs 2003). In such extreme cases (for example, severe mental illness or disfigurement), the problem of identification becomes the subject of explicit reasoning (and hence of potential disagreement, because we then engage in post hoc rationalizations to establish criteria for determining personhood, whereas normally we rely on essentially automatic, implicit abilities that work in most circumstances, some of which make little use of linguistic representations and formal reasoning—for example, individual facial identity recognition, which may occur as quickly as 170 ms after stimulus onset [Adolphs 2003]). Nevertheless, examining our judgments and intuitions in cases that force us to explicitly consider whether personal identity is preserved may provide analogies and clues for how we should proceed with DID. Let us consider, then, some natural analogs of DID. Natural Analogs of DID Method Acting I suggest that method acting is an analog of DID (Manderino 1985). Method acting refers to an approach to acting training and performance in which emphasis is placed on intensely imagining and identifying with the mental life of the character being portrayed. Training courses and manuals list many techniques and practices that can be used to facilitate absorption in a role, drawing on different kinds of memory—for example, experiential memories, memories of others, general knowledge (semantic memory), and memories of sensations and feelings, to creative a vivid sense of the subjective experience and actions of the character. Manderino, a method acting teacher, comments: "it is important to investigate the way in which your own mental makeup can improperly influence a character. Insecurities, self-consciousness, shyness or self-doubts can maintain a strong hold, and permitting any of these feelings to enter a performance is to remain the actor and not enter into the mental life of the character. For some, acting allows personal problems to be left behind, and they are thankful for the complete escape that... (shrink)

Fabienne Peter on whether difficult political decisions should be made by experts.

Peter Scrimshaw; Educational Computing: what can philosophy of education contribute?, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 23, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages.

In the New Essays on Human Understanding, Leibniz argues chapter by chapter with John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, challenging his views about knowledge, personal identity, God, morality, mind and matter, nature versus nurture, logic and language, and a host of other topics. The work is a series of sharp, deep discussions by one great philosopher of the work of another. Leibniz's references to his contemporaries and his discussions of the ideas and institutions of the age make this a fascinating (...) and valuable document in the history of ideas. The work was originally written in French, and the version by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett, based on the only reliable French edition, first appeared in 1981 and has become the standard English translation. It has been thoroughly revised for this series and provided with a new and longer introduction, a chronology on Leibniz's life and career and a guide to further reading. (shrink)

The figure of the lost child has haunted the Australian imagination. Peter Pierce's sometimes shocking study The Country of Lost Children, traces this ambivalent and disturbing history. In the nineteenth century the idea of losing one's child to a strange country reflected white settlers' distrust of their new land and its Aboriginal inhabitants. The book offers insights into the passing of an opportunity for reconciliation between European and indigenous Australians. In the twentieth century the lost child continues to torment (...) the national consciousness, but no longer as the bewildered wanderer in the bush. Instead the emblematic lost child of modern Australia is a victim of abuse, abandonment or abduction. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from poetry, fiction and newspaper reports to paintings and films, this book analyses the cultural and moral implications of the lost child in our history. (shrink)

The theme of this paper can be introduced in this way: does a pluralist approach to religion entail a pluralist approach to religion? My theme is not that odd, because I have two notions of pluralism in mind. There is what I will call ‘tolerant pluralism’ and what I will call ‘religious pluralism’. And thus my question is ‘Does tolerant pluralism re religion entail religious pluralism?’.

This article examines Bentham's contribution to anti-colonial thought in the context of the development of the British radical movement that attacked colonialism on the grounds that it advantaged what Bentham called the at the expense of the . It shows that Bentham was influenced as much by Josiah Tucker and James Anderson as by Adam Smith. Bentham's early economic critique is examined, and the sharp changes in his arguments after 1800 assessed, in the context of the American and French Revolutions (...) and the effects of British industrialization. The article also highlights the importance of Bentham's writings inspired by the Spanish colonial crisis of the early 1820s. They show developments in his economic analysis and include some very acute discussions of the psychological satisfactions that elites could gain from colonialism. The article ends with a brief comparison between Bentham and later radical thinkers to put his ideas in context. (shrink)

Peter Ralston’s exceptionally lucid trilogy on the nature of human consciousness culminates here in The Genius of Being, a book of deep contemplations on the unseen elements that create our world. The first volume, The Book of Not Knowing, garnered much praise as a comprehensive exploration of the depths of self and consciousness. The second volume, Pursuing Consciousness, clarifies the difference between enlightenment and self-transformation, and then pairs these two goals in a strikingly effective way. This third book is (...) both shorter and more complex, taking us straight to the heart of the origins of our experience. In a progression of illuminating assertions, Ralston shows us how human consciousness carves out distinctions from whatever is absolutely true. This dynamic not only generates both self and reality from nothing, it imbues them with the quality of objective truth. From the time we first distinguish between self and not-self as infants, we begin making a sequence of existential assumptions that result in the illusion that a self is some ethereal “object” within. This universally accepted assumption persists despite the failure of exhaustive investigations to locate this inner self. This book is not for the faint of heart or the casual seeker, but contemplating the assertions here empowers you to personally and experientially grasp what is rarely even glimpsed: a profound consciousness of the genesis of human experience. (shrink)

Peter Kwasniewski shows that St. Thomas contemplates the nature of ecstasy at key stages in the development of his thought and that it plays a crucial role in his doctrine of love. St. Thomas recognized that all love involves ecstatic transcendence, whether it be the creature's self-oblation to the Creator, the reverence of an inferior for a superior, a superior's generosity toward an inferior, or the mutual affection and help of equals joined in friendship. Love of persons for their (...) own sake generates an ecstatic love in which the self is borne as a gift to another subject by sharing a common life aspiring to common goods. Kwasniewski also examines Aquinas on the question of whether or not God experiences ecstasy, and if so, in what ways. (shrink)

A response to Saul Fisher’s critical note on Peter Lamarque and Nigel Walter’s ‘The Application of Narrative to the Conservation of Historic Buildings’.

Why was there a meltdown at the Fukushima power plant? Why do some people get cancer and not others? Why is global warming happening? Why does one person get depressed in the face of life's vicissitudes while another finds resilience? Questions like these--questions of causality--form the basis of modern scientific inquiry, posing profound intellectual and methodological challenges for researchers in the physical, natural, biomedical, and social sciences. In this groundbreaking book, noted psychiatrist and author Peter Rabins offers a conceptual (...) framework for analyzing daunting questions of causality. Navigating a lively intellectual voyage between the shoals of strict reductionism and relativism, Rabins maps a three-facet model of causality and applies it to a variety of questions in science, medicine, economics, and more. Throughout this book, Rabins situates his argument within relevant scientific contexts, such as quantum mechanics, cybernetics, chaos theory, and epigenetics. A renowned communicator of complex concepts and scientific ideas, Rabins helps readers stretch their minds beyond the realm of popular literary tipping points, blinks, and freakonomic explanations of the world. (shrink)

Why was there a meltdown at the Fukushima power plant? Why do some people get cancer and not others? Why is global warming happening? Why does one person get depressed in the face of life's vicissitudes while another finds resilience? Questions like these--questions of causality--form the basis of modern scientific inquiry, posing profound intellectual and methodological challenges for researchers in the physical, natural, biomedical, and social sciences. In this groundbreaking book, noted psychiatrist and author Peter Rabins offers a conceptual (...) framework for analyzing daunting questions of causality. Navigating a lively intellectual voyage between the shoals of strict reductionism and relativism, Rabins maps a three-facet model of causality and applies it to a variety of questions in science, medicine, economics, and more. Throughout this book, Rabins situates his argument within relevant scientific contexts, such as quantum mechanics, cybernetics, chaos theory, and epigenetics. A renowned communicator of complex concepts and scientific ideas, Rabins helps readers stretch their minds beyond the realm of popular literary tipping points, blinks, and freakonomic explanations of the world. (shrink)