On 18 September 1697, Christainity not Mysterious was burned in Dublin by order of Parliament. This edition of the text is now available 300 years later and also includes John Toland's defences of the work and eight critical essays.

This paper is an examination of how research ethics committees have evolved from being advisory committees to more formal regulatory authorities. It is argued that the role of ethics committees should be broader than simple ethical review. Inconsistency in outcome should not be taken to signal failure. Procedural fairness is of the utmost importance. Nor should ethics committees be seen to diminish the ethical responsibilities of researchers themselves.

The official model of explanation proposed by the logical empiricists, the covering law model, is subject to familiar objections. The goal of the present paper is to explore an unofficial view of explanation which logical empiricists have sometimes suggested, the view of explanation as unification. I try to show that this view can be developed so as to provide insight into major episodes in the history of science, and that it can overcome some of the most serious difficulties besetting the (...) covering law model. (shrink)

In this work, the prominent political philosopher Philip Pettit embarks on a massive undertaking to offers major new accounts of the foundations of the state and the nature of justice. In doing so Pettit builds a new theory of what the state is and what it ought to be, addresses the normative question of how justice serves as a measure of the success of a state, and the way it should operate in relation to its citizens and other people.

"Golf day 2005 @ federal golf club, red hill." Ethos: Official Publication of the Law Society of the Australian Capital Territory, (196), pp. 7.

One of the most significant developments in the area of reproductive health in Ireland is theRoche v. Roche[2009] case. The case concerned a woman who wished to implant cryopreserved embryos made with a former partner, against the partner’s wishes. Of particular interest are questions about the status of the embryo: in Ireland the life of “the unborn” is constitutionally protected. Therefore the courts inRochehad to decide whether embryos were “unborn” within the meaning of the Irish Constitution.

A person presented with adequate but not conclusive evidence for a proposition is in a position voluntarily to acquire a belief in that proposition, or to suspend judgment about it. The availability of doxastic options in such cases grounds a moderate form of doxastic voluntarism not based on practical motives, and therefore distinct from pragmatism. In such cases, belief-acquisition or suspension of judgment meets standard conditions on willing: it can express stable character traits of the agent, it can be responsive (...) to reasons, and it is compatible with a subjective awareness of the available options. (shrink)

How Galileo created the problem of consciousness -- Is there a ghost in the machine? -- Can physical science explain consciousness? -- How to solve the problem of consciousness -- Consciousness and the meaning of life.

What's the Use of Philosophy? aims to answer the question posed in its title, whether the questioner intends to dismiss philosophy, or seeks a positive answer. The first three chapters explore the grounds for dismissal. Chapter 1 expresses skepticism about the value of much professional Anglophone philosophy, while recognizing virtues in work often viewed as peripheral. Chapter 2 studies a philosophical subfield, the philosophy of science, arguing that, while its condition may be better than the norm, it is far from (...) perfect. In Chapter 3, a more systematic critique is offered, in the form of a pathology report. Its diagnosis identifies six justifiable philosophical impulses that, when pursued obsessively, generate distortions and diseases: clarity becomes a fetish, formalism becomes obfuscation, "intuition" is given burdens it cannot bear, appeals to the a priori sprinkle fairy dust on controversial claims, ideas grabbed from other fields are used in cartoon forms, and questions no longer relevant are treated as if they were "timeless." Chapter 4 attempts to identify the legitimate goals of philosophy. It sees value in attempts to respond to questions arising from the difficulties of the age, in attempts to reform methods of inquiry, and, above all, in the construction of syntheses capable of helping people as they struggle to make sense of their lives. Philosophy is renewed when these traditional goals once again become central to its discussions. The final chapter responds to a frequently voiced worry in a letter to young philosophers who wonder how they can align their aspirations with the hyper-professionalism expected of them. (shrink)

Engineers are traditionally regarded as trustworthy professionals who meet exacting standards. In this chapter I begin by explicating our trust relationship towards engineers, arguing that it is a linear but indirect relationship in which engineers “stand behind” the artifacts and technological systems that we rely on directly. The chapter goes on to explain how this relationship has become more complex as engineers have taken on two additional aims: the aim of social engineering to create and steer trust between people, and (...) the aim of creating automated systems that take over human tasks and are meant to invite the trust of those who rely on and interact with them. (shrink)

An esteemed philosopher discusses his theory of universal freedom, describing how even those who are members of free societies may find their liberties curtailed and includes tests of freedom including the eyeball test and the tough-luck test.

This paper argues for a Husserlian account of phenomenal intentionality. Experience is intentional insofar as it presents a mind-independent, objective world. Its doing so is a matter of the way it hangs together, its having a certain structure. But in order for the intentionality in question to be properly understood as phenomenal intentionality, this structure must inhere in experience as a phenomenal feature. Husserl’s concept of horizon designates this intentionality-bestowing experiential structure, while his concept of motivation designates the unique phenomenal (...) character of this structure as it is experientially lived through. The way experience hangs together is itself a phenomenal feature of experience. (shrink)

Good reasoning can lead to success; bad reasoning can lead to catastrophe. Yet, it's not obvious how we reason, and why we make mistakes. This new book by one of the pioneers of the field, Philip Johnson-Laird, looks at the mental processes that underlie our reasoning. It provides the most accessible account yet of the science of reasoning.

This paper has two goals: (1) to defend a particular response to the problem of resultant moral luck and (2) to defend the claim that we are only responsible for what we could have avoided. Cases of overdetermination threaten to undermine the claim that we are only responsible for what we could have avoided. To deal with this issue, I will motivate a particular way of responding to the problem of resultant moral luck. I defend the view that one's degree (...) of responsibility is immune to moral luck but the scope of events for which one is responsible is subject to moral luck. I will then argue that this view allows us to explain away certain intuitions about responsibility and overdetermination (as well as similar intuitions regarding Frankfurt Cases). As a result, the claim that we are only responsible for what we could have avoided becomes significantly more plausible. (shrink)

Cognitive neuropsychiatry (CN) is the explanation of psychiatric disorder by the methods of cognitive neuropsychology. Within CN there are, broadly speaking, two approaches to delusion. The first uses a one-stage model, in which delusions are explained as rationalizations of anomalous experiences via reasoning strategies that are not, in themselves, abnormal. Two-stage models invoke additional hypotheses about abnormalities of reasoning. In this paper, I examine what appears to be a very strong argument, developed within CN, in favor of a twostage explanation (...) of the difference in content between the Capgras and Cotard delusions. That explanation treats them as alternative rationalizations of essentially the same phenomenology. I show, however, that once we distinguish the phenomenology (and the neuroetiology), a one-stage model is adequate. In the final section I make some more general remarks on the oneand two-stage models. (shrink)

Wisdom is peculiarly abstract, ineffable, and yet perennial. It is also temporal, stretching forwards as well is backwards in time. Wisdom is often treated as the outcome of life experience, reflection, discipline, and equanimity. Capturing the Ineffable aims to establish wisdom as an area if inquiry within anthropology and an analytic account of wisdom and its role and focus in anthropology. In addition to developing theories for an anthropology (and excavation) of wisdom, this volume argues collectively that anthropology is especially (...) well suited to engage in questioning what it is that is called wisdom, and how wisdom, as a concept, and an enacted activity, functions in metaphysical and interpersonal experiences, values, and judgements. The contributors include many key US and UK thinkers. (shrink)

This is the first complete English translation of Gottlob Frege's Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, with introduction and annotation. The importance of Frege's ideas within contemporary philosophy would be hard to exaggerate. He was, to all intents and purposes, the inventor of mathematical logic, and the influence exerted on modern philosophy of language and logic, and indeed on general epistemology, by the philosophical framework.

The early nineteenth century saw the demise of the Italian-Atlantic tradition of republicanism and the rise of classical liberalism. A distinct Franco-German tradition of republicanism emerged from the time of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant, which differs from the older way of thinking associated with neo-republicanism. This chapter examines the key differences between the Italian-Atlantic and Franco-German traditions of republicanism and places them in a historical context. It first considers classical republicanism and how the ideological ideal of equal freedom as (...) nondomination differs from the twin institutional ideals of a mixed constitution and a contestatory citizenry. It then looks at the classical liberal opposition that arose in response to Italian-Atlantic republicanism. It also discusses the views of Kant and Rousseau about freedom and the role of the citizenry, as well as their theory of the constitution. The absolutist opposition in Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes to the institutional ideals of republicanism is also explored. (shrink)

Trusting someone in an intuitive, rich sense of the term involves not just relying on that person, but manifesting reliance on them in the expectation that this manifestation of reliance will increase their reason and motive to prove reliable. Can trust between people be formed on the basis of Internet contact alone? Forming the required expectation in regard to another person, and so trusting them on some matter, may be due to believing that they are trustworthy; to believing that they (...) seek es teem and will be rationally responsive to the good opinion communicated or promised by an act of trust; or to both factors at once. Neither mechanism can rationally command confidence, however, in the case where people are related only via the Internet. On the Internet everyone wears the ring of Gyges; everyone is invisible, in their personal identity, to others. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Rawls's Anti‐Cosmopolitanism Rawls's Ontology of Peoples Reconstructing Rawls's Rejection of Cosmopolitanism Acknowledgments Notes.

Abstractionism, which is a development of Frege's original Logicism, is a recent and much debated position in the philosophy of mathematics. This volume contains 16 original papers by leading scholars on the philosophical and mathematical aspects of Abstractionism. After an extensive editors' introduction to the topic of abstractionism, the volume is split into 4 sections. The contributions within these sections explore the semantics and meta-ontology of Abstractionism, abstractionist epistemology, the mathematics of Abstractionis, and finally, Frege's application constraint within an abstractionist (...) setting. (shrink)

It is intuitive that free action depends on consciousness in some way, since behavior that is unconsciously generated is widely regarded as un-free. But there is no clear consensus as to what such dependence comes to, in part because there is no clear consensus about either the cognitive role of consciousness or about the essential components of free action. I divide the space of possible views into four: the Constitution View (on which free actions metaphysically consist, at least in part, (...) in phenomenally conscious episodes of a special sort), the Causal-Dependence View (on which free actions are necessarily caused by conscious episodes), the Counterfactaul-Dependence View (on which free actions necessarily counterfactually dependent on conscious episodes of certain types), and the Independence View (on which there are no necessary dependence-relations that hold between free action and conscious episodes). After surveying recent empirical literature that purports to show that consciousness plays a smaller role in generating action than is usually supposed, I conclude that it is plausible that free action depends on consciousness in two ways. First, free action causally depends on consciousness control. Second, free action counterfactually depends on the agent's being responsive to certain reasons. (shrink)

This article describes a method of scoping for potential ethical contentions within a resource constrained research environment where actor participation and bottom–up analysis is precluded. Instead of reverting to a top–down analytical structure, a data-led process is devised. This imitates a bottom–up analytic structure in the absence of the direct participation of actors, culminating in the construction of a map of the ethical landscape; a high-resolution ethical matrix of coded interpretations of various actors’ ethical framings of the technology. Despite its (...) limitations, which are discussed, the map can subsequently support the identification of areas where ethical contentions may be raised. Here, the method is described with reference to the construction and analysis of a map of the ethical landscape of carbon capture and storage technology. Taken as a preliminary stage of a larger study, it can support the design and initiation of more sophisticated analyses which may integrate stronger bottom–up participation and facilitate a reflective, deliberative process amongst actors. (shrink)

The discovery, in various quarters, of hitherto unknown letters exchanged between Wittgenstein and the chief of his Cambridge friends provides the basis for this new and profoundly revealing collection. Wittgenstein appears in turn shy and affectionate, fierce and censorious, happy to collaborate and sure of his own judgement. Four quarrels and four reconciliations are documented. Wittgenstein's struggles to publish his Tractatus may be followed, as well as his retreat from the world, his being wooed back to philosophy by Keynes and (...) Ramsey, and his plans to leave philosophy. The accompanying editorial notes are based on archival material not previously explored. Taken together, the correspondence provides an intriguing insight into Wittgenstein's life and thought, and will be essential reading for students and scholars. (shrink)

This essay explores some of the similarities and differences between the views of several Western and Chinese thinkers on the metaphysical status of moral qualities and how we come to perceive and appreciate them. It then uses this comparative analysis to identify and address some remaining problems in regard to these two issues. The essay offers a brief sketch of and introduction to the history of the study of moral qualities and moral perception in modern Western philosophy and takes the (...) views of John McDowell, W ang Yangming, and Mencius as the primary focus of its comparative component. It seeks to understand the views of these thinkers by a careful examination of the metaphors as well as the arguments they employ. (shrink)

The Music Instinct Philip Ball provides the first comprehensive, accessible survey of what is known--and what is still unknown--about how music works its magic, and why, as much as eating and sleeping, it seems indispensable to humanity. --from publisher description.

Mountaineering is a dangerous activity. For many mountaineers, part of its very attraction is the risk, the thrill of danger. Yet mountaineers are often regarded as reckless or even irresponsible for risking their lives. In this paper, we offer a defence of risk-taking in mountaineering. Our discussion is organised around the fact that mountaineers and non-mountaineers often disagree about how risky mountaineering really is. We hope to cast some light on the nature of this disagreement – and to argue that (...) mountaineering may actually be worthwhile because of the risks it involves. Section 1 introduces the disagreement and, in doing so, separates out several different notions of risk. Sections 2–4 then consider some explanations of the disagreement, showing how a variety of phenomena can skew people's risk judgements. Section 5 then surveys some recent statistics, to see whether these illuminate how risky mountaineering is. In light of these considerations, however, we suggest that the disagreement is best framed not simply in terms of how risky mountaineering is but whether the risks it does involve are justified. The remainder of the paper, sections 6–9, argues that risk-taking in mountaineering often is justified – and, moreover, that mountaineering can itself be justified (in part) by and because of the risks it involves. (shrink)

There is broad agreement that child labor is wrong and should be eliminated. This chapter examines the three main moral objections to child labor and considers their limitations: harm-based objections, objections from failing to benefit children, and objections from exploitation. Harm-based objections struggle with baselines for comparison and difficulties with Non-Identity problems. Even if child labor is not harmful, it may be wrong because it prevents children from enjoying other benefits, such as schooling. However, is schooling necessarily more beneficial for (...) children than work? Some kinds of child labor may not be harmful, and may benefit children, but they may still be wrong because they are exploitative. I consider some ways to address exploitative child labor, inspired by campaigns led by child workers. The chapter ends with a surprising conclusion that challenges the broad consensus with which we began: we may have duties to promote child labor. (shrink)

The renowned cognitive scientist Philip Lieberman demonstrates that there is no better guide to the world's living--and still evolving--things than Darwin and that the phenomena he observed are still being explored at the frontiers of science. Lieberman relates the insights that led to groundbreaking discoveries in both Darwin's time and our own.