Many philosophers believe that there is a fundamental distinction between knowing that something is the case and knowing how to do something. According to Gilbert Ryle, to whom the insight is credited, knowledge-how is an ability, which is in turn a complex of dispositions. Knowledge-that, on the other hand, is not an ability, or anything similar. Rather, knowledge-that is a relation between a thinker and a true proposition.

In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of the space of possible analyses of the phenomenon of quantifier domain restriction, together with a set of considerations which militate against all but our own proposal. Among the many accounts we consider and reject are the ‘explicit’ approach to quantifier domain restric‐tion discussed, for example, by Stephen Neale, and the pragmatic approach to quantifier domain restriction proposed by Kent Bach. Our hope is that the exhaustive discussion of this special case of (...) context‐dependence will provide guidelines for how to decide, for an arbitrary case of context‐dependent discourse, whether it should be treated syntactically, semantically, or pragmatically. (shrink)

Chapter 1: Ryle on Knowing How Chapter 2: Knowledge-wh Chapter 3: PRO and the Representation of First-Person Thought Chapter 4: Ways of Thinking Chapter 5: Knowledge How Chapter 6: Ascribing Knowledge How Chapter 7: The Cognitive Science of Practical Knowledge Chapter 8: Knowledge Justified Preface A fact, as I shall use the term, is a true proposition. A proposition is the sort of thing that is capable of being believed or asserted. A proposition is also something that is characteristically the (...) kind of thing that is true or false; that snow is white is a true proposition, that Barack Obama is President of the United States as I am writing these words is another. Facts in this sense are not only among the things we believe and assert; they are also the kinds of things we know. The thesis of this book is that knowing how to do something is the same as knowing a fact. It follows that learning how to do something is learning a fact. For example, when you learned how to swim, what happened is that you learned some facts about swimming. Knowledge of these facts is what gave you knowledge of how to swim. Something similar occurred with every other activity that you now know how to do, such as riding a bicycle or cooking a meal. You know how to perform activities solely in virtue of your knowledge of facts about those activities. (shrink)

My purposes in this paper are to explain the constitutive-regulative distinction as set out by Kant in the Dialectic and Methodology, and to note its reappearance in contemporary philosophy.

I argue in favor of the view that all the constituents of the propositions hearers would intuitively believe to be expressed by utterances are the result of assigning values to the elements of the sentence uttered, and combining them in accord with its structure. The way I accomplish this is by questioning the existence of some of the processes that theorists have claimed underlie the provision of constituents to the propositions recovered by hearers in linguistic interpretation, processes that apparently bypass (...) assigning these constituents to elements of the logical form of the expression uttered. (shrink)

Complex demonstrative phrases, in English, are phrases such as ‘that woman in the department’ and ‘that car on the corner’. They are of particular interest to philosophers for two related reasons. The first involves the problem of intentionality. If there are phrases that are candidates for “latching directly onto the world,” they are such phrases, and their “simple” counterparts, as in the occurrences of ‘that’ in ‘that is nice’. As a result, philosophers interested in intentionality, from the sense-data theorists to (...) contemporary philosophers of mind, have devoted considerable attention to the question of how a demonstrative thought links to its object. The second reason involves issues in semantics and the philosophy of language. In the course of investigations into the model theory for modal logic in the 1950s and 1960s, philosophers recognized that the simplest way to treat terms was as modally rigid, namely as designating their actual designations relative to any possible world in which they existed, and nothing else in other worlds. It was soon recognized that this semantic property could be elegantly explained by the assumption that the semantics of singular terms reflects the role of singular terms in linking representations directly to the world. If the semantic contribution of a singular term to a thought is simply the object it denotes, and the thought is the object of modal evaluation, then the modal rigidity of the class of terms falls out as a consequence. Demonstrative phrases, both simple and complex, have always been taken to be among the paradigms for this picture of reference, which has come to be known as “the direct reference” model. (shrink)

According to what I will call a contextualist solution to the sorites paradox, vague terms are context-sensitive, and one can give a convincing dissolution of the sorites paradox in terms of this context-dependency. The reason, according to the contextualist, that precise boundaries for expressions like “heap” or “tall for a basketball player” are so difficult to detect is that when two entities are sufficiently similar (or saliently similar), we tend to shift the interpretation of the vague expression so that if (...) one counts as falling in the extension of the property expressed by that expression, so does the other. As a consequence, when we look for the boundary of the extension of a vague expression in its penumbra, our very looking has the effect of changing the interpretation of the vague expression so that the boundary is not where we are looking. This accounts for the persuasive force of sorites arguments. (shrink)

People maintain a positive identity in at least two ways: They evaluate themselves more favorably than other people, and they judge themselves to be better now than they were in the past. Both strategies rely on autobiographical memories. The authors investigate the role of autobiographical memories of lying and emotional harm in maintaining a positive identity. For memories of lying to or emotionally harming others, participants judge their own actions as less morally wrong and less negative than those in which (...) other people lied to or emotionally harmed them. Furthermore, people judge those actions that happened further in the past to be more morally wrong than those that happened more recently. Finally, for periods of the past when they believed that they were very different people than they are now, participants judge their actions to be more morally wrong and more negative than those actions from periods of their pasts when they believed that they were very similar to who they are now. The authors discuss these findings in relation to theories about the function of autobiographical memory and moral cognition in constructing and perceiving the self over time. (shrink)

In Truthfulness and Tragedy Stanley Hauerwas provides an account of moral existence and ethical rationality that shows how Christian convictions operate, or should operate, to form and direct lives. In attempting to conceptualize the basis of Christian ethics in a manner that will render Christian convictions morally intelligible, the author casts fresh light on traditional theoretical issues and articulates the distinctive Christian response to contemporary concerns such as suicide, medical ethics, and child care. The first section of the book (...) deals with methodological issues: the meaning and nature of practical reason, obligation claims, natural law, and self deception, and the affinity of story and ethics. It focuses on the relation of truthfulness and tragedy and the need for a story--a set of religious convictions or "grammar of theology"--that does justice to the tragic character of human existence. The second section addresses substantive issues: suicide, euthanasia, and the value of survival; the moral limits of population growth; the definition of "person" for medical reasons; and social involvement and Christian ethics. The overall theme is the need for a community in which truthfulness is a way of life. In the final section, devoted to the problem of how to care for retarded children, the implications of the author's ethical position are given concrete expression. He discusses the assumptions underlying the willingness to have children, criteria for humanness, medical ethics, and how truthful communities deal with suffering. In Truthfulness and Tragedy Stanley Hauerwas extends and clarifies the ethical position set forth in his earlier books Character and the Christian Life and Vision and Virtue. He is associate professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame. He was a senior fellow in Christian medical ethics at the Joseph and Rose Kennedy Institute for the Study of Reproduction and Bioethics, and taught medical ethics at the University of Texas medical branch in Galveston. (shrink)

If, relative to a context, what a sentence says is necessarily true, then what it says must be so. If, relative to a context, what a sentence says is possible, then what it says could be true. Following natural philosophical usage, it would thus seem clear that in assessing an occurrence of a sentence for possibility or necessity, one is assessing what is said by that occurrence. In this paper, I argue that natural philosophical usage misleads here. In assessing an (...) occurrence of a sentence for possibility or necessity, one is not assessing the modal status of the proposition expressed by that occurrence of the sentence. (shrink)

In this book an eminent scholar presents a rich and penetrating analysis of the _Statesman_, perhaps Plato's most challenging work. Stanley Rosen contends that the main theme of this dialogue is a definition of the art of politics and the degree to which political experience is subject either to the rule of sound judgment or to technical construction. The _Statesman_, like Plato's earlier _Sophist_, features a Stranger who tries to refute Socrates. Much of his conversation is devoted to a (...) minute analysis of the art of weaving, selected by the Stranger as a paradigm of the royal art of politics, for he conceives of the city as an artifact. But the Stranger's successive efforts to find a method for defining the art of politics are failures, because there is no fitting model or technique of measurement by which to grasp politics that includes within its scope the totality of human existence—there is, suggests Plato, no technical construction of politics. Rosen reflects on the relevance of Plato to contemporary debates about political reconstruction on the one hand and about the deeper issue of the supposed end of modernity on the other. He argues that, far from being the father of essentialism and the reification of human nature, as others have suggested, Plato elaborates a rhetoric of politics as self-defense against nature. Just as weaving produces clothing to protect the body against the elements, so the statesman must produce myths or local models to protect the soul against the body. (shrink)

Let DDQ be the thesis that definite descriptions are quantifiers. Philosophers often deny DDQ because they believe that quantifiers do not depend on context in certain ways, ways in which definite descriptions do depend on context. In this paper, we examine one such argument, which, if sound, would entail the negation of DDQ.We show that this argument fails, and draw some consequences from its failure.

Confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States increased exponentially, quickly leading to a pandemic in 2020, which created a serious public-health emergency. During the period in which the COVID-1...

In this book a distinguished philosopher offers a comprehensive interpretation of Plato’s most controversial dialogue. Treating the _Republic _as a unity and focusing on the dramatic form as the presentation of the argument, Stanley Rosen challenges earlier analyses of the _Republic _ and argues that the key to understanding the dialogue is to grasp the author’s intention in composing it, in particular whether Plato believed that the city constructed in the _Republic _is possible and desirable. Rosen demonstrates that the (...) fundamental principles underlying the just city are theoretically attractive but that the attempt to enact them in practice leads to conceptual incoherence and political disaster. The _Republic, _says Rosen, is a vivid illustration of the irreconcilability of philosophy and political practice. (shrink)

"In describing Hauerwas' work as Christian ethics, one can allow that phrase its full scope of meaning. It is the work of an ethician who is thoroughly conversant with that branch of philosophy and comes to grips with its major issues. He is also firmly committed to the view that, in modifying the substantive 'ethics' with the adjective 'Christian, ' one is designating a distinct reality. . . . Hauerwas invites us to share an understanding of ethics in general and (...) of Christian ethics in particular that is a great deal subtler and more complicated than most currently popular versions of those subjects. For contemporary Christian ethics to accept his invitation will mean letting itself in for some very rigorous and versatile thinking." --America. (shrink)

Counterfactual thinking involves imagining hypothetical alternatives to reality. Philosopher David Lewis argued that people estimate the subjective plausibility that a counterfactual event might have occurred by comparing an imagined possible world in which the counterfactual statement is true against the current, actual world in which the counterfactual statement is false. Accordingly, counterfactuals considered to be true in possible worlds comparatively more similar to ours are judged as more plausible than counterfactuals deemed true in possible worlds comparatively less similar. Although Lewis (...) did not originally develop his notion of comparative similarity to be investigated as a psychological construct, this study builds upon his idea to empirically investigate comparative similarity as a possible psychological strategy for evaluating the perceived plausibility of counterfactual events. More specifically, we evaluate judgments of comparative similarity between episodic memories and episodic counterfactual events as a factor influencing people's judgments of plausibility in counterfactual simulations, and we also compare it against other factors thought to influence judgments of counterfactual plausibility, such as ease of simulation and prior simulation. Our results suggest that the greater the perceived similarity between the original memory and the episodic counterfactual event, the greater the perceived plausibility that the counterfactual event might have occurred. While similarity between actual and counterfactual events, ease of imagining, and prior simulation of the counterfactual event were all significantly related to counterfactual plausibility, comparative similarity best captured the variance in ratings of counterfactual plausibility. Implications for existing theories on the determinants of counterfactual plausibility are discussed. (shrink)

Proceeding on the assumption that confusion in Renaissance criticism arises from the way we talk and the vocabularies we use, Stewart investigates typical assertions in recent criticism of Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, and Herbert, using a Wittgensteinian method of investigation. This involves taking a thing, usually a statement, apart. If a statement, under such scrutiny, seems to make no sense, or to lead critics into blind alleys, then we must try to clarify the expression. As Stewart asserts, if we are to (...) go on together in critical conversation, then we must find a way to sort out the confusion that arises from our language. While Wittgenstein's thought has long been utilized by literary critics, this study represents the first sustained application of ordinary language philosophy to the vocabulary and assumptions of current criticism. This study is an original and important book⎯one likely to be of great interest to philosophers as well as literary theorists. While Renaissance Talk is primarily concerned with Renaissance and early modern studies, its patient but relentless exposure of what sometimes passes for scholarly criticism, along with its exemplary corrective explication of misinterpreted passages from the writings of major authors, makes it useful reading for a wide range of Literary Studies students and scholars. (shrink)

According to Pierre Bourdieu, practices and habits are out the realm of rationality; this claim about their nature explains their peculiar resistance to rational revision. I argue that one can explain the fact that practices and habits are difficult to revise, without abandoning the view that they are within the space of reasons.

Combining exemplary scholarship and analytic precision, Stanley Rosen illuminates the underpinnings of post-modernist thought, providing valuable insight as he pursues two arguments: first, that post-modernism, which regards itself as an attack upon the Enlightenment, is in fact the penultimate stage of the Enlightenment itself; and second, that the extraordinary contemporary emphasis upon hermeneutics is the latest consequence of the triumph of history over mathematics within the unstable essence of the Enlightenment. Hermeneutics is consequently at bottom a political phenomenon. In (...) developing these arguments, Rosen demonstrates the paradigmatic status of Kant for a proper understanding of post-modernism, analyzes Derrida's influential critique of Platonism as well as his defense of writing, explains the political dimension of the quarrel between the ancients and moderns by studying the hermeneutics of Leo Strauss and Alexander Kojhve, and shows how the modern notion of "theory" is intrinsically relativized by the triumph of history over mathematics into the notion of interpretation. A wide-ranging exploration into current critical thinking, Hermeneutics as Politics will generate considerable debate among scholars interested in post-modernism, the Enlightenment, hermeneutics, the relation of philosophy and politics, deconstruction, and the history of philosophy. (shrink)

People seem more divided than ever before over social and political issues, entrenched in their existing beliefs and unwilling to change them. Empirical research on mechanisms driving this resistance to belief change has focused on a limited set of well-known, charged, contentious issues and has not accounted for deliberation over reasons and arguments in belief formation prior to experimental sessions. With a large, heterogeneous sample (N = 3,001), we attempt to overcome these existing problems, and we investigate the causes and (...) consequences of resistance to belief change for five diverse and less contentious socio-political issues. After participants chose initially to support or oppose a given socio-political position, they were provided with reasons favoring their chosen position (affirming reasons), reasons favoring the other, unchosen position (conflicting reasons), or all reasons for both positions (reasons for both sides). Our results indicate that participants are more likely to stick with their initial decisions than to change them no matter which reasons are considered, and that this resistance to belief change is likely due to a motivated, biased evaluation of the reasons to support their initial beliefs (prior-belief bias). More specifically, they rated affirming reasons more favorably than conflicting reasons—even after accounting for reported prior knowledge about the issue, the novelty of the reasons presented, and the reported strategy used to make the initial decision. In many cases, participants who did not change their positions tended to become more confident in the superiority of their positions after considering many reasons for both sides. (shrink)

The neural reuse framework developed primarily by Michael Anderson proposes that brain regions are involved in multiple and diverse cognitive tasks and that brain regions flexibly and dynamically interact in different combinations to carry out cognitive functioning. We argue that the evidence cited by Anderson and others falls short of supporting the fundamental principles of neural reuse. We map out this problem and provide solutions by drawing on recent advances in network neuroscience, and we argue that methods employed in network (...) neuroscience provide the means to fully engage in a research program operating under the principles of neural reuse. (shrink)

We distinguish three aspects of medical diagnosis: generating new diagnostic hypotheses, selecting hypotheses for further pursuit, and evaluating their probability in light of the available evidence. Drawing on Peirce’s account of abduction, we argue that hypothesis generation is amenable to normative analysis: physicians need to make good decisions about when and how to generate new diagnostic hypothesis as well as when to stop. The intertwining relationship between the generation and selection of diagnostic hypotheses is illustrated through the analysis of a (...) detailed clinical case study. This interaction is not adequately captured by the existing probabilistic, decision-theoretic models of the threshold approach to clinical decision-making. Instead, we propose to conceptualize medical diagnosis in terms of strategic reasoning. (shrink)

S. P. Thompson developed a detailed theory of history in order to understand and explain changes in both science and religion over the centuries. This theory tried to take science and religion seriously as categories based on genuine aspects of human experience, and to understand trends that both brought them together and separated them. For him, the most important element of the practice of history was not “truth,” but rather “sincerity.” This required active reflection on the historian's own outlook and (...) own place in history as a conscious actor. (shrink)

This chapter discusses a version of the descriptive account of content which is compatible with rigidity thesis (RT) and critiques of RT. The rigidity of proper names demonstrates that utterances of sentences containing proper names, and utterances of sentences differing from those sentences only in containing non‐rigid descriptions in place of the proper names, differ in content. The fact that natural‐language proper names are rigid designators is an empirical discovery about natural language. The chapter intends to be a survey of (...) both the background and contemporary discussion of this discovery. However, the survey takes place in the context of an evaluation of the extent to which the discovery that English proper names are rigid itself threatens the descriptive picture of the content of names. The goal is to show that the exact philosophical significance of the discovery that natural‐language proper names are rigid designators is still, and should still be, a matter of controversy. (shrink)

This work investigates the distinctiveness of virtues as illuminated by Christian practise using a discussion of Aristotle's ethics with contemporary scholars. It contrasts non-Christian accounts of virtue with Christian accounts of key virtues, including obedience, hope, courage, and patience.

“In describing Hauerwas’ work as Christian ethics, one can allow that phrase its full scope of meaning. It is the work of an ethician who is thoroughly conversant with that branch of philosophy and comes to grips with its major issues. He is also firmly committed to the view that, in modifying the substantive ‘ethics’ with the adjective ‘Christian,’ one is designating a distinct reality.... Hauerwas invites us to share an understanding of ethics in general and of Christian ethics in (...) particular that is a great deal subtler and more complicated than most currently popular versions of those subjects. For contemporary Christian ethics to accept his invitation will mean letting itself in for some very rigorous and versatile thinking.” —_America_. (shrink)

Thirty-three physicians, bioethicists, and medical economists from ten different countries met at Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin, to create The Appleton Consensus: International Guidelines for Decisions to Forego Medical Treatment. The guidelines deal with four specific decision-making circumstances: 1. Five guidelines were created for decisions involving competent patients or patients who have executed an advance directive before becoming incompetent, and those guidelines fell into three categories. 2. Thirteen guidelines were created for decisions involving patients who were once competent, but are not (...) now competent, who have not executed an advance directive. 3. Seven guidelines were created for decisions involving patients who are not now and never have been competent, for whom 'no substituted judgement' can be rendered. 4. Eleven guidelines were created for decisions involving the scarcity of medical resources, which exists in all communities. Five concepts were identified as being critical in the establishment of priorities, given the reality of scarce health resources (1). The term 'physician' is used in the American sense, synonymous with 'medical practitioner'. (shrink)

The first part of my hypothesis, then, is simple enough, and would be accepted in principle by most students of Plato: the dramatic structure of the dialogues is an essential part of their philosophical meaning. With respect to the poetic and mathematical aspects of philosophy, we may distinguish three general kinds of dialogue. For example, consider the Sophist and Statesman, where Socrates is virtually silent: the principal interlocutors are mathematicians and an Eleatic Stranger, a student of Parmenides, although one who (...) is not always loyal to his master's teaching of what might be called monadic homogeneity. In these dialogues, the mathematical character of philosophy is not merely emphasized but exaggerated, and any attempt to interpret them must take this fact into account. Otherwise, we shall not be able to understand why the Stranger seems to classify the general's art in the same species of the genus hunting as the louse catcher. The significance of this step, which does not stem from humanitarian considerations, but rather illustrates how the human becomes invisible from the mathematical viewpoint, contributes its share to the obscurity of these two dialogues. Second, there are dialogues like the Phaedrus and Symposium, in which the style, the interlocutors, and even the subject-matter seem to be largely poetic and rhetorical. Here, the overwhelming impression is of enthusiasm, divine madness, and intoxication in speech and deed. Finally, there are dialogues like the Philebus and Republic, in which it is not so easy to say whether poetry or mathematics predominates, if indeed either may be said to do so. (shrink)

Although Hegel considered _Science of Logic_ essential to his philosophy, it has received scant commentary compared with the other three books he published in his lifetime. Here philosopher Stanley Rosen rescues the _Science of Logic_ from obscurity, arguing that its neglect is responsible for contemporary philosophy’s fracture into many different and opposed schools of thought. Through deep and careful analysis, Rosen sheds new light on the precise problems that animate Hegel’s overlooked book and their tremendous significance to philosophical conceptions (...) of logic and reason. Rosen’s overarching question is how, if at all, rationalism can overcome the split between monism and dualism. Monism—which claims a singular essence for all things—ultimately leads to nihilism, while dualism, which claims multiple, irreducible essences, leads to what Rosen calls “the endless chatter of the history of philosophy.” The _Science of Logic_, he argues, is the fundamental text to offer a new conception of rationalism that might overcome this philosophical split. Leading readers through Hegel’s book from beginning to end, Rosen’s argument culminates in a masterful chapter on the Idea in Hegel. By fully appreciating the_Science of Logic_ and situating it properly within Hegel’s oeuvre, Rosen in turn provides new tools for wrangling with the conceptual puzzles that have brought so many other philosophers to disaster. (shrink)

Liberal/conservative and modern/postmodern concepts define contemporary theological debate. Yet what if these categories are grounded in a set of assumptions about what it means to be the church in the world, presuming we must live as though God's existence does not matter? What if our theological discussion distracts us from the fact that the church is no longer able to shape the desires and habits of Christians? Hauerwas wrestles with these and similar questions constructing a theological politics necessary for the (...) church to be the church in the world. In so doing, he challenges liberal notions of justice and freedom. (shrink)

In this insightful and controversial book, the eminent philosopher Stanley Rosen takes a new look at the famous 'quarrel' that the moderns have with the ancients, analyzing and comparing ancient philosophers and modern Continental and analytical thinkers from Plato, Descartes, and Kant to Fichte, Nietzsche, and Rorty. He urges that we do not dismiss the classical heritage but appropriate it, for this appropriation is an indispensable step in the process of legitimizing our historical experience.

In this book, controversial and world-renowned theologian, Stanley Hauerwas, tackles the issue of theology being sidelined as a necessary discipline in the modern university. It is an attempt to reclaim the knowledge of God as just that – knowledge. Questions why theology is no longer considered a necessary subject in the modern university, and explores the role it should play in the development of our “knowledge” Considers how theology is often excluded from the knowledges of the modern university because (...) these are constituted by an understanding of time necessary to make economic and state realities seem inevitable Argues that it is precisely this difference that makes Christian theology an essential resource for the university to achieve its task - that is, to form people who are able to imagine a different world through critical and disciplined reflection Challenges the domesticated character of much recent theology by suggesting how prayer and the love of the poor are essential practices that should shape the theological task Converses with figures as diverse as Luigi Giussani, David Burrell, Stanley Fish, Wendell Berry, Jeff Stout, Rowan Williams and Sheldon Wolin Published in the new and prestigious Illuminations series. (shrink)

The Mask of Enlightenment is the most detailed textual and thematic study of Nietzsche's most important but least understood works: Thus Spake Zarathustra. In this book Nietzsche was laying the groundwork for a fundamental philosophical and political revolution on a global scale. One of the difficulties that the text poses is Nietzsche's prophetic style; Stanley Rosen unweaves the complex threads that form the rhetorical voices of the work, and so explains the style in an accessible manner. He rejects recent (...) sceptical, deconstructionist interpretations of Nietzsche, and reveals a coherence underlying the multiple and apparently incompatible intentions embedded in the text. Nietzsche is a figure whose influence on contemporary thought in the humanities and social sciences continues to be enormous. This book is sure to become the definitive study of Zarathustra, and will have a broad appeal to philosophers and students of modern philosophy, intellectual historians, political scientists, and literary theorists. (shrink)

Clinical diagnostic medicine is an experimental science based on observation, hypothesis making, and testing. It is an use dynamic process that involves observation and summary, diagnostic conjectures, testing, review, observation and summary, new or revised conjectures, i.e. it is an iterative process. It can then be said that diagnostic hypotheses are also ‘observation-laden’. My aim is to enlarge on the strategies of medical diagnosis as these are meshed in training and clinical experience—that is, to describe the patterns of reasoning used (...) by experienced clinicians under different diagnostic circumstances and how these patterns of inquiry allow further insight into the evaluation and treatment of patients. I do not aim to present a theory and illustrate it with examples; I wish rather am to let a realistic example, similar to actual clinical scenarios, direct the exposition. To this end, I introduce an account of medical diagnosis—briefly comparing and contrasting it to other accounts—in order to focus on discussing the process of diagnosis through a detailed clinical case. (shrink)

I begin with the definition of power, and find that it is finalistic inasmuch as work directs energy dissipation in the interests of some system. The maximum power principle of Lotka and Odum implies an optimal energy efficiency for any work; optima are also finalities. I advance a statement of the maximum entropy production principle, suggesting that most work of dissipative structures is carried out at rates entailing energy flows faster than those that would associate with maximum power. This is (...) finalistic in the sense that the out-of-equilibrium universe, taken as an isolated system, entrains work in the interest of global thermodynamic equilibration. I posit an evolutionary scenario, with a development on Earth from abiotic times, when promoting convective energy flows could be viewed as the important function of dissipative structures, to biotic times when the preservation of living dissipative structures was added to the teleology. Dissipative structures are required by the equilibrating universe to enhance local energy gradient dissipation. (shrink)

Epistemic relativism comes in many forms, which have been much discussed in the last decade or so in analytic epistemology. My goal is to defend a version of epistemic relativism that sources the relativity in the metaphysics of epistemic properties and relations, most saliently knowledge. I contrast it with other relativist theses. I argue that the sort of metaphysical relativism about knowledge I favor does not threaten the objectivity of the epistemological domain.