In this unique volume, some of today's most eminent political philosophers examine the thought of John Rawls, focusing in particular on his most recent work. These original essays explore diverse issues, including the problem of pluralism, the relationship between constitutive commitment and liberal institutions, just treatment of dissident minorities, the constitutional implications of liberalism, international relations, and the structure of international law. The first comprehensive study of Rawls's recent work, The Idea of Political Liberalism will be indispensable for political philosophers (...) and theorists interested in contemporary political thought. (shrink)

Aesthetic debates within contemporary art have been tangential to the debates in environmental aesthetics since the 1960s. I argue that these disciplines, having evolved separately in response to the limitations of traditional aesthetics, may now usefully inform each other. Firstly, the dematerialisation of art as the focus of aesthetic experience may have environmentally useful consequences. Secondly, Gablik's 'connective aesthetics ', like Berleant's ' aesthetics of engagement', folds aesthetic experience into the social as a kind of environmental aesthetics. Thirdly, contemporary art's (...) flexible readings of ' framing ' can respond to 'frameless' natural environments, and finally, Kester's 'dialogical aesthetics ' may be enriched by Berleant's systematic account of ' contextual aesthetics '. (shrink)

This volume features a careful selection of major works in political and social philosophy from ancient times through to the present. Every reading has been painstakingly annotated, and each figure is given a substantial introduction highlighting his or her major contribution to the tradition. The anthology offers both depth and breadth in its selection of material by central figures, while also representing other currents of political thought. Thirty-two authors are represented, including fourteen from the 20th century. The editors have made (...) every effort to include translations that are both readable and reliable. In order to ensure the highest standards of accuracy and accessibility, the editors have consulted dozens of leading academics during the course of the volume’s development . The result is an anthology with unparalleled pedagogical benefits; The Broadview Anthology of Social and Political Thought sets the new standard for social and political philosophy instruction. (shrink)

The second volume of this comprehensive anthology covers the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The anthology is broad ranging both in its selection of material by figures traditionally acknowledged as being of central importance, and in the material it presents by a range of other figures. The material in this volume is presented in three sections. The first, “Power and the State,” includes selections by such figures as Goldman, Lenin, Weber, Schmitt, and Hayek. Among those included in the “Race, Gender, (...) and Colonialism” section are de Beauvoir, Gandhi, Fanon, and Young. The third and by far the longest section, “Rights-Based Liberalism and its Critics,” focuses on the many interrelated directions that social and political philosophy has taken since the publication of John Rawls’s ground-breaking _A Theory of Justice_ in 1971. In order to better meet the needs of today’s students, the editors have made every effort to include accurate and accessible translations of the readings. Additionally, every selection has been painstakingly annotated, and each figure is given a substantial introduction highlighting her or his major contributions within the tradition. For figures of central importance, the editors have included extended introductions that place the figure in the context of intellectual history as well as of political thought. In order to ensure the highest standards of accuracy and accessibility, the editors have consulted dozens of leading academics during the course of the volume’s development (many of whom have contributed introductory material as well as advice). The result is an anthology with unparalleled pedagogical benefits; _The Broadview Anthology of Social and Political Thought_ sets the new standard for social and political philosophy instruction. (shrink)

The second volume of this comprehensive anthology covers the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The anthology is broad ranging both in its selection of material by figures traditionally acknowledged as being of central importance, and in the material it presents by a range of other figures. The material in this volume is presented in three sections. The first, “Power and the State,” includes selections by such figures as Goldman, Lenin, Weber, Schmitt, and Hayek. Among those included in the “Race, Gender, (...) and Colonialism” section are de Beauvoir, Gandhi, Fanon, and Young. The third and by far the longest section, “Rights-Based Liberalism and its Critics,” focuses on the many interrelated directions that social and political philosophy has taken since the publication of John Rawls’s ground-breaking _A Theory of Justice_ in 1971. In order to better meet the needs of today’s students, the editors have made every effort to include accurate and accessible translations of the readings. Additionally, every selection has been painstakingly annotated, and each figure is given a substantial introduction highlighting her or his major contributions within the tradition. For figures of central importance, the editors have included extended introductions that place the figure in the context of intellectual history as well as of political thought. In order to ensure the highest standards of accuracy and accessibility, the editors have consulted dozens of leading academics during the course of the volume’s development. The result is an anthology with unparalleled pedagogical benefits; _The Broadview Anthology of Social and Political Thought_ sets the new standard for social and political philosophy instruction. (shrink)

Arguments set out by Timothy Morton, Ted Toadvine, and J. Baird Callicott et al. suggest that the remedy to the dualistic account that places “human” in binary opposition to “nature” is not to deny difference, but to understand the process of differentiation in a way that recognizes our interdependence, and yet still leaves space for the unknowable “Otherness” of nature. Callicott et al. argue that Aldo Leopold’s land ethic authentically recognizes the difference and freedom of wild animal Others, arguing that (...) Levinas’ ethics of the Other is really a “same-based” ethics in disguise. Morton and Toadvine have considered ways in which another aspect of Levinas’ thought, the “il y a” (the “there is”), could be a means by which we might understand “wild” nature. A more metaphysical understanding of Levinas’ “face” recognizes the Other’s unknowability, but frames the ethical relation as external. Jean-Paul Sartre’s account of negation and human reality as “lack” frames this relation as one that arises internally, and thus can usefully inform the strand of environmental thought that is concerned with acknowledging the irreducible Otherness of nature. (shrink)

The present study investigated the respective roles of withdrawal, language, and context-inappropriate anger in the development of emotion knowledge among a subsample of 4 and 5 year-old preschoolers. Measures included parent-reported withdrawn behavior, externalizing behavior, and CI anger, as well as child assessments of receptive language and EK. Ultimately, findings demonstrated that receptive language mediated the relationship between withdrawn behavior and situational EK. However, CI anger significantly interacted with receptive language, and, when incorporated into a second-stage moderated mediation analysis, moderate (...) levels of CI anger rendered the indirect effect of withdrawn behavior on situational EK via receptive language insignificant. Cumulatively, these findings demonstrate a mechanism by which withdrawal may impact EK. They also indicate that such an effect may be attenuated in children with moderate levels of CI anger. Implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

This volume contains many of the most important texts in western political and social thought from the sixteenth to the end of the nineteenth century. A number of key works, including Machiavelli’s _The Prince_, Locke’s _Second Treatise_, and Rousseau’s _The Social Contract_, are included in their entirety. Alongside these central readings are a diverse range of texts from authors such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Sojourner Truth, and Henry David Thoreau. The editors have made every effort to include translations that are both (...) readable and reliable. Each selection has been painstakingly annotated, and each figure is given a substantial introduction highlighting his or her major contributions within the tradition. The result is a ground-breaking anthology with unparalleled pedagogical benefits. (shrink)

This comprehensive volume contains much of the important work in political and social philosophy from ancient times until the end of the nineteenth century. The anthology offers both depth and breadth in its selection of material by central figures, while also representing other currents of political thought. Thucydides, Seneca, and Cicero are included along with Plato and Aristotle; Al-Farabi, Marsilius of Padua, and de Pizan take their place alongside Augustine and Aquinas; Astell and Constant are presented in the company of (...) Locke, Rousseau, and Wollstonecraft. -/- The editors have made every effort to include translations that are both readable and reliable. Every selection has been painstakingly annotated, and each figure is given a substantial introduction highlighting his or her major contribution within the tradition. In order to ensure the highest standards of accuracy and accessibility, the editors have consulted dozens of leading academics during the course of the anthology's development (a number of whom have contributed introductory material as well as advice). The result is an anthology with unparalleled pedagogical benefits, and one that truly breaks new ground. -/- . (shrink)

This comprehensive volume contains much of the important work in political and social philosophy from ancient times until the end of the nineteenth century. The anthology offers both depth and breadth in its selection of material by central figures, while also representing other currents of political thought. Thucydides, Seneca, and Cicero are included along with Plato and Aristotle; Al-Farabi, Marsilius of Padua, and de Pizan take their place alongside Augustine and Aquinas; Astell and Constant are presented in the company of (...) Locke, Rousseau, and Wollstonecraft. The editors have made every effort to include translations that are both readable and reliable. Every selection has been painstakingly annotated, and each figure is given a substantial introduction highlighting his or her major contribution within the tradition. In order to ensure the highest standards of accuracy and accessibility, the editors have consulted dozens of leading academics during the course of the anthology’s development (a number of whom have contributed introductory material as well as advice). The result is an anthology with unparalleled pedagogical benefits, and one that truly breaks new ground. (shrink)

Samantha Matherne has written an excellent, timely introduction to the thought of Ernst Cassirer, the brilliant polymath who was the last representative of the “Marburg school” of neo-Kantianism, and who is well-known for wrangling a wide range of cultural phenomena into a system of “symbolic forms.” Despite Cassirer’s recent rise in prominence in the English-speaking philosophical world, there is only one other single-volume survey of his thought in English, Edward Skidelsky’s Ernst Cassirer. Matherne’s book has the merit of helping (...) to shore up this scholarly gap, and of providing a clear and succinct presentation of the philosophical system that... (shrink)

First Statement of what would become Human Rights Ethics, Purdue University Press, 2008.

Connectionism and classicism, it appears, have at least this much in common: both place some notion of internal representation at the heart of a scientific study of mind. In recent years, however, a much more radical view has gained increasing popularily. This view calls into question the commitment to internal representation itself. more strikingly still, this new wave of anti-representationalism is rooted not in 'armchair' theorizing but in practical attempts to model and understand intelligent, adaptive behaviour. In this paper we (...) first present, and then critically assess, a variety of recent anti-representationalist treatments. We suggest that so far, at least, the sceptical rhetoric outpaces both evidence and argument. Some probable causes of this premature scepticism are isolated. nonetheless, the anti-representationalist challenge is shown to be both important and progressive insofar as it forces us to see beyond the bare representational/ non-represenational dichotomy and to recognize instead a rich continuum of degrees and types of represenatationality. (shrink)

Advanced biological brains are by nature open-ended opportunistic controllers. Such controllers compute, pretty much on a moment-to-moment basis, what problem-solving resources are readily available and recruit them into temporary problem-solving wholes. Neural plasticity, exaggerated in our own species, makes it possible for such resources to become factored deep into both our cognitive and physical problem-solving routines. One way to think about this is to depict the biological brain as a master of what I shall dub ‘ecological control’. Ecological control is (...) the kind of top-level control that does not micro-manage every detail, but rather encourages substantial devolvement of power and responsibility. This kind of control allows much of our skill at walking to reside in the linkages and elastic properties of muscles and tendons. And it allows much of our prowess at thought and reason to depend upon the robust and reliable operation, often in dense brain-involving loops, of a variety of non-biological problem-solving resources spread throughout our social and technological surround. Are the complex distributed systems that result in some sense ‘out of control’, beyond the reach of useful governance? I shall argue that they are not, although understanding them requires us to re-think some key ideas about control and the nature of the self. To make this case, I shall first examine some strategies for efficient, external opportunity exploiting control in simple systems. I shall then argue that many of the same lessons apply to the case of higher-level human problem-solving. (shrink)

Many of our obligations to future generations can be understood in terms of the intergenerational benefits and debts we pass on. This article proposes that we can think of environmental debts in the same way as financial debts, and that this will help us to understand our most important obligations of intergenerational justice.

Argues i) that part of what it is to understand what is being asked, when we ask whether something is good, is being able to distinguish stopping points in a series of "Why?" questions, and ii) that this ability explains how we can reason from observable facts to conclusions about value.

Charles Clark; Why Teachers Need Philosophy, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 23, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 241–252, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-.

Biotechnology is the art of manipulating living forms as though they were machines. We have been manipulating, and transforming, living forms since we adopted pastoralist ways-by breeding, domestication, training-but it is only recently that anyone has supposed that we could alter outward forms or behaviour by interfering with the inner mechanisms, the mechanical, biochemical and genetic processes that sustain outward shapes and motions. In the past we could do little more than select parents with desirable characteristics in the hope that (...) they would engender what we wanted, and-once the offspring were there-punish or cajole them to do what we wanted. Biotechnology offers the hope that we could achieve a more secure result by altering the biochemical base on which the characters we desire are founded. It is not clear whether, once the possibility is realized, we could retain our present conceptions of human life. If we could engineer saints, heroes, savants, slaves or psychopaths to order, would any of us be human any more?2. (shrink)

Fodor’s theory makes thinking prior to doing. It allows for an inactive agent or pure reflector, and for agents whose actions in various ways seem to float free of their own conceptual repertoires. We show that naturally evolved creatures are not like that. In the real world, thinking is always and everywhere about doing. The point of having a brain is to guide the actions of embodied beings in a complex material world. Some of those actions are, to be sure, (...) more recondite than others. But in every case the contents of thoughts still look to depend, in some non-unique but vitally important way, on the kinds of doings they support. (shrink)

Clark reports on a variationist analysis of intervocalic word‐medial /t/ from recorded spontaneous speech monologues. The results provide evidence that tokens are more likely to be realized as voiced if the preceding token was voiced, an effect which is weaker with increased temporal distance between the prime and target.

The essays in this anthology deal with the growing interconnections developmental psychology and evolutionary biology. This cross-disciplinary interchange coincides, not accidentally, with the renewed interest in ethical naturalism.

[Andy Clark] What is the relation between perceptual experience and the suite of sensorimotor skills that enable us to act in the very world we perceive? The relation, according to 'sensorimotor models' (O'Regan and Noë 2001, Noë 2004) is tight indeed. Perceptual experience, on these accounts, is enacted via skilled sensorimotor activity, and gains its content and character courtesy of our knowledge of the relations between (typically) movement and sensory stimulation. I shall argue that this formulation is too extreme, (...) and that it fails to accommodate the substantial firewalls, dis-integrations, and special-purpose streamings that form the massed strata of human cognition. In particular, such strong sensorimotor models threaten to obscure the computationally potent insensitivity of key information-processing events to the full subtleties of embodied cycles of sensing and moving. /// [Naomi Eilan] The strong sensorimotor account of perception gives self-induced movements two constitutive roles in explaining visual consciousness. The first says that self-induced movements are vehicles of visual awareness, and for this reason consciousness 'does not happen in the brain only'. The second says that the phenomenal nature of visual experiences is consists in the action-directing content of vision. In response I suggest, first, that the sense in which visual awareness is active should be explained by appeal to the role of attention in visual consciousness, rather than self-induced movements; and second, that the sense in which perceptual consciousness does not happen in the brain only should be explained by appeal to the relational nature of perceptual consciousness, appeal to which also shows why links with action cannot exhaust phenomenal content. (shrink)

This second volume in the Limits and Renewals trilogy is an attempt to restate a traditional philosophy of mind, drawing on philosophical and poetical resources that are often neglected in modern and postmodern thought, and emphasizing the moral and political implications of differing philosophies of mind and value. Clark argues that without the traditional concept of the soul, we have little reason to believe that rational thought and individual autonomy are either possible or desirable. The particular topics covered include (...) the political context of identity claims, the possibility of knowledge and the dangers of curiosity, the fear of death, the philoprogenitive gene, and the mind-body problem. (shrink)

Frege famously claimed that logic is the science of truth: “To discover truths is the task of all science; it falls to logic to discern the laws of truth” (Frege, 1956, p. 289). But just like the other foundational concept of set, truth at that time was intimately associated with paradox; in the case of truth, the Liar paradox. The set-theoretical paradoxes had their teeth drawn by being recognised as reductio proofs of assumptions that had seemed too obvious to warrant (...) stating explicitly, but were now seen to be substantive, and more importantly inconsistent. Tarski includes the Liar paradox in his classic discussion of the concept of truth (Tarski, 1956), and developed it, in the form of his famous theorem on the undefinability of truth, as a reductio of the assumption that a language could be semantically closed, in the sense of being able to contain its own truth-predicate.Frege famously claimed that logic is the science of truth: “To discover truths is the task of all science; it falls to logic to discern the laws of truth” (Frege, 1956, p. 289). But just like the other foundational concept of set, truth at that time was intimately associated with paradox; in the case of truth, the Liar paradox. The set-theoretical paradoxes had their teeth drawn by being recognised as reductio proofs of assumptions that had seemed too obvious to warrant stating explicitly, but were now seen to be substantive, and more importantly inconsistent. Tarski includes the Liar paradox in his classic discussion of the concept of truth (Tarski, 1956), and developed it, in the form of his famous theorem on the undefinability of truth, as a reductio of the assumption that a language could be semantically closed, in the sense of being able to contain its own truth-predicate. (shrink)

Imagine, if you will, that the entire community of investigators interested in the problems of perception all lived together in the same town. Some continual shuffling of neighbors would be inevitable, and there might be occasional episodes of mass relocation and energetic bulldozing, but after a while the residents would probably settle down and find themselves living in districts defined roughly by disciplinary boundaries. The experimental psychologists would occupy the newer part of town, laced with superhighways, workshops and factories, machines (...) and measuring instruments, computers and overhead display units. But the town also has an Old City, marked by the complete absence of highways and factories, where the streets are lined with ancient hovels. There are, to be sure, some colossal palaces and museums in this part of town, breathtaking monuments to the grandeur of past centuries, but the current residents lack the inclination to construct such buildings, and many of the old palaces have been boarded up and condemned as unfit for human habitation. The somewhat scraggly and irascible inhabitants of this district have few viable economic enterprises, and no free markets, but rather organize themselves in units resembling nothing so much as medieval guilds. Congratulations. You have stumbled into the neighborhood where the philosophers live. (shrink)