This paper takes an ontological approach to the subject of promising. Setting aside the typical concern over promissory obligations, I draw on recent work from the field of social ontology and develop a promissory schema that characterizes the functional role the practice of promising plays in our lives. This schema, put in terms of one agent’s voluntary and intentional attempts to provide another agent with a specific kind of assurance, helps explain what we are doing when we make a promise, (...) and what we desire when we ask that a promise be made. The promissory schema is explanatorily beneficial as it can help us understand why certain actions may be interpreted as promises, thereby reminding us that we need to be sensitive to the ways our actions can give rise to expectations in others. (shrink)

But play, you must,A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,A tune upon the blue guitarOf things exactly as they are.—Wallace Stevens.

But play, you must,A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,A tune upon the blue guitarOf things exactly as they are.—Wallace Stevens.

Taking his cue from Wallace Steven's claim that poetry now replaces religion as “life's redemption” and Heidegger's insistence that “the distinction between ‘theoretical’ and ‘poetical’ cannot be applied to philosophical texts”, Richard Rorty celebrated the poetic potential of philosophy. In this prologue, Christopher Norris pays Rorty the compliment of taking his views on the nature and importance of poetry seriously enough to offer an engaging commentary on Rorty's work in poetic form.

In _Without Criteria_, Steven Shaviro proposes and explores a philosophical fantasy: imagine a world in which Alfred North Whitehead takes the place of Martin Heidegger. What if Whitehead, instead of Heidegger, had set the agenda for postmodern thought? Heidegger asks, "Why is there something, rather than nothing?" Whitehead asks, "How is it that there is always something new?" In a world where everything from popular music to DNA is being sampled and recombined, argues Shaviro, Whitehead's question is the truly (...) urgent one. _Without Criteria_ is Shaviro's experiment in rethinking postmodern theory, especially the theory of aesthetics, from a point of view that hearkens back to Whitehead rather than Heidegger. In working through the ideas of Whitehead and Deleuze, Shaviro also appeals to Kant, arguing that certain aspects of Kant's thought pave the way for the philosophical "constructivism" embraced by both Whitehead and Deleuze. Kant, Whitehead, and Deleuze are not commonly grouped together, but the juxtaposition of them in _Without Criteria_ helps to shed light on a variety of issues that are of concern to contemporary art and media practices. (shrink)

Many important explanations in physics are based on ideas and assumptions about symmetries, but little has been said about the nature of such explanations. This chapter aims to fill this lacuna, arguing that various symmetry explanations can be naturally captured in the spirit of the counterfactual-dependence account of Woodward, liberalized from its causal trappings. From the perspective of this account symmetries explain by providing modal information about an explanatory dependence, by showing how the explanandum would have been different, had the (...) facts about an explanatory symmetry been different. Furthermore, the authors argue that such explanatory dependencies need not be causal. (shrink)

When do descriptive regularities become prescriptive norms? We examined children's and adults' use of group regularities to make prescriptive judgments, employing novel groups that engaged in morally neutral behaviors. Participants were introduced to conforming or non-conforming individuals. Children negatively evaluated non-conformity, with negative evaluations declining with age. These effects were replicable across competitive and cooperative intergroup contexts and stemmed from reasoning about group regularities rather than reasoning about individual regularities. These data provide new insights into children's group concepts and have (...) important implications for understanding the development of stereotyping and norm enforcement. (shrink)

This paper takes as its point of departure recent research into the possibility that human beings can perceive single photons. In order to appreciate what quantum perception may entail, we first explore several of the leading interpretations of quantum mechanics, then consider an alternative view based on the ontological phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Martin Heidegger. Next, the philosophical analysis is brought into sharper focus by employing a perceptual model, the Necker cube, augmented by the topology of the Klein bottle. (...) This paves the way for addressing in greater depth the paper’s central question: Just what would it take to observe the quantum reality of the photon? In formulating an answer, we examine the nature of scientific objectivity itself, along with the paradoxical properties of light. The conclusion reached is that quantum perception requires a new kind of observation, one in which the observer of the photon adopts a concretely self-reflexive observational posture that brings her into close ontological relationship with the observed. (shrink)

Does perceptual consciousness require cognitive access? Ned Block argues that it does not. Central to his case are visual memory experiments that employ post-stimulus cueing—in particular, Sperling's classic partial report studies, change-detection work by Lamme and colleagues, and a recent paper by Bronfman and colleagues that exploits our perception of ‘gist’ properties. We argue contra Block that these experiments do not support his claim. Our reinterpretations differ from previous critics' in challenging as well a longstanding and common view of visual (...) memory as involving declining capacity across a series of stores. We conclude by discussing the relation of probabilistic perceptual representations and phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

The leading models of disability struggle to fully encompass all aspects of “disability.” This difficulty arises, the author argues, because the models fundamentally misunderstand the nature of disability. Current theoretical approaches to disability can be understood as “nounal,” in that they understand disability as a thing that is caused or embodied. In contrast, this paper presents an adverbial perspective on disability, which shows that disability is experienced as a personally irremediable impediment to daily-living tasks or goals-like-ours. The picture theory of (...) disability technically constitutes a species of relational approach because its analysis references the interplay between an individual and their environment; it differs from other relational accounts, however, by interpreting disability as a certain kind of negative experience—rather than a function of that relationship. This purely descriptive theory makes no normative claims about disability and operates as both a mechanism for the evaluation of the experience of disability and a heuristic device for the proper interpretation of disability. When disability is reframed in this way, the theory offers a particularist perspective which shows if, when, where, and how disability is experienced. (shrink)

This paper seeks to extend my recent work on quantum perception (Rosen, 2021) to the phenomenon of quantum entanglement. In the first section, I summarize the earlier work, noting how the conventional approach to observing photons is rooted in an objectivist philosophy that serves as an obstacle to probing the underlying quantum reality. In the summary provided, I bring out the intimate relationship between observer and observed in the quantum world, and the need for a new, proprioceptive mode of observation (...) linked to phenomenological philosophy. The second part of the paper builds on the earlier effort by applying the proprioceptive observation of photons to the phenomenon of entanglement. The basic proposition is that proprioceptive observers of entangled photons may become entangled with each other. I propose an experiment that tests this hypothesis. In concluding, I explore the possibility that a quantum internet of proprioceptively engaged participants could create an ontologically entangled society. (shrink)

Through an exploration of theoretical physics, this paper suggests the need for regrounding natural science in phenomenological philosophy. To begin, the philosophical roots of the prevailing scientific paradigm are traced to the thinking of Plato, Descartes, and Newton. The crisis in modern science is then investigated, tracking developments in physics, science's premier discipline. Einsteinian special relativity is interpreted as a response to the threat of discontinuity implied by the Michelson-Morley experiment, a challenge to classical objectivism that Einstein sought to counteract. (...) We see that Einstein's efforts to banish discontinuity ultimately fall into the “black hole” predicted in his general theory of relativity. The unavoidable discontinuity that haunts Einstein's theory is also central to quantum mechanics. Here too the attempt has been made to manage discontinuity, only to have this strategy thwarted in the end by the intractable problem of quantum gravity. The irrepressible discontinuity manifested in the phenomena of modern physics proves to be linked to a merging of subject and object that flies in the face of Cartesian philosophy. To accommodate these radically non-classical phenomena, a new philosophical foundation is called for: phenomenology. Phenomenological philosophy is elaborated through Merleau-Ponty's concept of depth and is then brought into focus for use in theoretical physics via qualitative work with topology and hypercomplex numbers. In the final part of this paper, a detailed summary is offered of the specific application of topological phenomenology to quantum gravity that was systematically articulated in The Self-Evolving Cosmos (Rosen 2008a). (shrink)

Humanity has thrown everything we have at implacable luck—novel theologies, entire philosophical movements, fresh branches of mathematics—and yet we seem to have gained only the smallest edge on the power of fortune. The Myth of Luck tells us why we have been fighting an unconquerable foe. Taking us on a guided tour of one of our oldest concepts, we begin in ancient Greece and Rome, considering how Plato, Plutarch, and the Stoics understood luck, before entering the theoretical world of probability (...) and exploring how luck relates to theology, sports, ethics, gambling, knowledge, and present-day psychology. As we travel across traditions, times and cultures, we come to realize that it’s not that as soon as we solve one philosophical problem with luck that two more appear, like heads on a hydra, but rather that the monster is altogether mythological. We cannot master luck because there is nothing to defeat: luck is no more than a persistent and troubling illusion. By introducing us to compelling arguments and convincing reasons that explain why there is no such thing as luck, we finally see why in a very real sense we make our own luck, that luck is our own doing. The Myth of Luck helps us to regain our own agency in the world - telling the entertaining story of the philosophy and history of luck along the way. (shrink)

The present paper poses a new problem for moral luck. Defenders of moral luck uncritically rely on a broader theory of luck known as the control theory or the lack of control theory. However, there are are two other analyses of luck in the literature that dominate discussion in epistemology, namely the probability and modal theories. However, moral luck is nonexistent under the probability and modal accounts, but the control theory cannot explain epistemic luck. While some have posited that “luck” (...) is ambiguous, so that one theory of luck is operative with epistemic luck and a different theory works for moral luck, there are both semantic and philosophical reasons to reject luck ambiguity. Defenders of moral luck must engage with the broader literature on luck and either provide a comprehensive defense of the control theory or concede that moral luck is not a genuine thing in its own right. (shrink)

Stoicism is now widely recognised as one of the most important philosophical schools of ancient Greece and Rome. But how did it influence Western thought after Greek and Roman antiquity? The question is a difficult one to answer because the most important Stoic texts have been lost since the end of the classical period, though not before early Christian thinkers had borrowed their ideas and applied them to discussions ranging from dialectic to moral theology. Later philosophers became familiar with Stoic (...) teachings only indirectly, often without knowing that an idea came from the Stoics. The contributors recruited for this volume, first published in 2004, include some of the leading international scholars of Stoicism as well as experts in later periods of philosophy. They trace the impact of Stoicism and Stoic ideas from late antiquity through the medieval and modern periods. (shrink)

This book explores the word meaning as it is used in such expressions as "the meaning of life," "the search for meaning," "ultimate meaning." In many of the "metaphysical" contexts where we find the word meaning, it appears to mean "purpose," "value," "goal," "direction," and even "God." The book answers the following questions: How did the English word meaning come to carry these various sub-senses, given that its original sense has to do with signifying? When did the notion of a (...) "meaning of life" arise in English and other languages? How does the English word meaning, which is a verbal noun, differ in these usages from the roughly equivalent words in other European languages? How did the word evolve in usage over time? How has it been used in recent decades? The book's chapters show that the usage is relatively recent, arising in the late eighteenth century in German romanticism and passing into English in the early nineteenth century; that the English word functions differently from the way its European near-equivalents do, thanks to its ability to suggest signifying and hence interpretation; that it is seldom defined and hence ambiguous and polyvalent; that it functions today in a wide variety of contexts, including psychotherapy and the continuing conversation between secularism and religion; and that ambiguity and polyvalence are actually the source of its power, since those qualities allow for flexibility in the way the word is understood. (shrink)

Can one combine Davidsonian semantics with a deflationary conception of truth? Williams argues, contra a common worry, that Davidsonian semantics does not require truth-talk to play an explanatory role. Horisk replies that, in any event, the expressive role of truth-talk that Williams emphasizes disqualifies deflationary accounts—at least extant varieties—from combination with Davidsonian semantics. She argues, in particular, that this is so for Quine's disquotationalism, Horwich's minimalism, and Brandom's prosententialism. I argue that Horisk fails to establish her claim in all three (...) cases. This involves clarifying Quine’s understanding of a purely referential occurrence; explaining how Davidsonians can avail themselves of a syntactic treatment of lexical ambiguity; and correcting a common misreading of Brandom (answering along the way an objection offered by Künne as well). (shrink)

_A Companion to Relativism_ presents original contributions from leading scholars that address the latest thinking on the role of relativism in the philosophy of language, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of science, logic, and metaphysics. Features original contributions from many of the leading figures working on various aspects of relativism Presents a substantial, broad range of current thinking about relativism Addresses relativism from many of the major subfields of philosophy, including philosophy of language, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of science, logic, and metaphysics.

New essays from an all-star cast of thinkers address ethical issues in higher education today. Topics include free speech, tenure, adjunct faculty, historical injustices, admission policies, faculty and admin responsibilities, student life, privacy, course technology, curricula, unions, philanthropy, sports, and the aims of liberal education.

The Human Condition is neither a well-defined nor well-described concept—nevertheless, it is generally agreed that human sexuality is a fundamental and constituent part of it. For most able-bodied persons, accessing and expressing one's sexuality is a (relatively) trouble-free process. However, many disabled persons experience difficulty in accessing their sexuality, while others experience such significant barriers that they are often precluded from sexual citizenship altogether. Recognising the barriers to the sexual citizenship of disabled persons, the concept of a Welfare-Funded Sex Doula (...) Program has been advanced — a program specifically aimed at meeting the various (and often complex) sexual needs of disabled people. Below we show how that program can be justified within at least two different moral frameworks, the capabilities approach and liberal utilitarianism, and consider and repudiate arguments against it. (shrink)

In this essay I shall focus on the adoption of the Semantic Approach by structural realists, including myself, who have done so on the grounds that it wears its structuralist sympathies on its sleeve. Despite this, the SA has been identified as standing in tension with the ontological commitments of the so-called ’ontic’ form of this view and so I shall explore that tension before discussing the usefulness of the SA in framing scientific representation and concluding with a discussion of (...) the implications of the ontological status of theories and models themselves. (shrink)

The idea that there is some fundamental “level” or “ground” where our description of the world bottoms out has acquired the status of ‘the received view’ in metaphysics ; for a more recent critical defense, see Cameron, 2008). Typically this view is cashed out in terms of some set of ‘basic building blocks’ populating this level, which sits at the bottom of a hierarchy ordered according to some set of compositional principles. These fundamental building blocks are thus taken to have (...) some form of “ultimate” ontological priority with regard to everything else in the hierarchy. In this chapter I shall consider two kinds of threats to this view: the first comes from arguments against the idea of such a level in general, whereas the second concerns the nature of these occupants. As we’ll see, both these threats become entwined in the context of modern physics but I’ll conclude with a suggestion as to how this “received view” may be maintained in this context. (shrink)

A country report describing the teaching of philosophy in Singapore's primary and secondary schools.

Originally published in 1970. Two major changes have characterised science in the twentieth century. Firstly, there has been its rapid growth. Secondly, and central to the theme his book – science is no longer mainly an academic activity carried on in universities. Industry will soon be the largest employer of scientists. This book deals with issues of bureaucracy in science threatening its creativity and the failure of industry to recruit the best graduates, as well as what attracts people to study (...) science. (shrink)

This paper argues the case for ontological realism as against various present‐day forms of conventionalist, instrumentalist, cultural‐relativist, or anti‐realist doctrine. In particular it takes issue with Richard Rorty’s writings on philosophy of science – where these ideas receive their most extreme and provocative statement – and with Bas van Fraassen’s more moderate ‘constructive empiricist’ approach. This latter entails ontological commitment to whatever shows up through trained observation or empirical research. However, it refuses to countenance realist claims concerning the existence of (...) (as yet) unobserved entities and their role in explanatory theories premised on putative laws of nature. I maintain that van Fraassen’s position is: (1) inadequate to account for our knowledge of the growth of scientific knowledge; (2) self‐refuting since often undermined by examples which he himself supplies; and (3) incapable of mounting resistance to other, more wholesale (e.g., Rortian) varieties of anti‐realist argument. Only by combining causal realism with a principle of inference to the best explanation can philosophy of science avoid these kinds of hyperinduced sceptical doubt. (shrink)

John McDowell’s Mind and World is a notable attempt to redirect the interest of analytic philosophers toward certain themes in Kantian and more recent continental thought. Only thus, he believes, can we move beyond the various failed attempts – by Quine, Davidson, Rorty, and others – to achieve a naturalised epistemology that casts off the various residual “dogmas” of old-style logical empiricism. In particular, McDowell suggests that we return to Kant's ideas of “spontaneity” and “receptivity” as the two jointly operative (...) powers of mind which enable thought to transcend the otherwise unbridgeable gulf between sensuous intuitions and concepts of understanding. However, this project miscarries for several reasons. Chief among them is the highly problematical nature of Kant's claims, taken over by McDowell without reference to their later treatment at the hands of subjective and objective idealists. Hence he tends to fall back into different versions of the same mind/world dualism. I then question McDowell's idea that Kant can be “naturalised” by reinterpreting those claims from a more hermeneutic or communitarian standpoint with its sources in Hegel, Wittgenstein, and Gadamer. For the result is to deprive Kant’s philosophy of its distinctively critical dimension not only with regard to epistemological issues but also in relation to matters of ethical and sociopolitical judgement. (shrink)

Where can I find a man who has forgotten words, so I can have a word with him?Why another article on logos and dao 道? Is it not the case that enough scholars have looked into the similarities between the term logos and the notion of dao? Although it may seem so, I will argue that when another perspective is employed, logos and dao might fruitfully be compared on a different level from the one used by most of these comparisons. (...) In this essay I will argue first that in many instances the approach of some of the scholars who have compared logos and dao has been one-sided and has mostly consisted in a comparison of these two key notions that has sought to portray both notions as denoting some kind of metaphysical... (shrink)

This is Volume 9 of Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy. It contains papers on democracy, the law, political liberalism, voting, social experimentation, state neutrality, equality and incentives, self-ownership, drugs and prostitution, and Lincoln. Chapters include: “Challenging Democratic Commitments: On Liberal Arguments for Instrumentalism About Democracy” (Daniel Viehoff); “Emotional Abuse and the Law” (Elizabeth Brake); “Practical Political Liberalism” (Caleb Perl); “Beyond the Voting Debate” (Brookes Brown); “Social Experimentation in an Unjust World” (Jacob Barrett and Allen Buchanan); “State Neutrality and the Dismantling (...) of the Gendered Division of Labour” (Anca Gheaus); “If It’s Not Your Talent, How Come You’re Getting an Incentive?” (Peter Dietsch); “(Owning) our Bodies, (Owning) our Selves?” (Sean Aas); “Self-Sovereignty, Drugs, and Prostitution” (Peter de Marneffe); “Lincoln as Political Philosopher” (William A. Edmundson). (shrink)

Demonstrating value is an ongoing process and requirement for institutional survival for ethics programs. Although our ethics program has significantly increased our ethics consultation volume and maintains a robust database that tracks ethics consultation data, these data regarding ethics consultations alone do not accurately represent the program’s overall activities and value to the institution. The roles and responsibilities of clinical ethicists extend beyond clinical ethics consultation, and there are many other ways that clinical ethicists contribute and add value to their (...) institutions. This article describes our ethics program’s early efforts to systematically track ethics program activities outside of ethics consultations as a way to demonstrate additional value to the institution that goes beyond ethics consultation. By systematically tracking activities such as internal ethics education sessions, conference presentations, publications, grants, committee/policy work, and other activities, our ethics program has been able to gather substantial quantitative data that highlight our program’s numerous activities and outreach, both within and outside the institution, that provide additional value to the institution beyond our ethical consultation activities. (shrink)

Intimate behaviour is today a principal cause of social conflict in the USA. Drawing on a range of evidence, this study charts the change from a Victorian spiritual ideal of love to efforts by modern reformers to sexualize love.

Complete collection of Schwarzschild’s essays on the neo-Kantian Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen. Steven S. Schwarzschild (1924–1989) was arguably the leading expositor of German-Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen (1842–1918), undertaking a lifelong effort to reintroduce Cohen’s thought into contemporary philosophical discourse. In The Tragedy of Optimism, George Y. Kohler brings together all of Schwarzschild’s work on Cohen for the first time. Schwarzschild’s readings of Cohen are unique and profound; he was conversant with both worlds that shaped Cohen’s thought, neo-Kantian German idealism (...) and Jewish theology. The collection covers a wide range of subjects, from ethics, socialism, the concept of human selfhood, and the mathematics of the infinite to more explicitly Jewish themes. This volume includes two of Schwarzschild’s previously unpublished manuscripts and a scholarly introduction by Kohler. Schwarzschild shows that despite its seeming defeat by events of the twentieth century, Cohen’s optimism about human progress is a rational, indeed necessary, path to peace. George Y. Kohler is Director of the Joseph Carlebach Institute and Senior Lecturer of Jewish Philosophy at Bar Ilan University, Israel. He is the author of Reading Maimonides’ Philosophy in 19th Century Germany: The Guide to Religious Reform. (shrink)

In the author’s previous contribution to this journal (Rosen 2015), a phenomenological string theory was proposed based on qualitative topology and hypercomplex numbers. The current paper takes this further by delving into the ancient Chinese origin of phenomenological string theory. First, we discover a connection between the Klein bottle, which is crucial to the theory, and the Ho-t’u, a Chinese number archetype central to Taoist cosmology. The two structures are seen to mirror each other in expressing the psychophysical (phenomenological) action (...) pattern at the heart of microphysics. But tackling the question of quantum gravity requires that a whole family of topological dimensions be brought into play. What we find in engaging with these structures is a closely related family of Taoist forebears that, in concert with their successors, provide a blueprint for cosmic evolution. Whereas conventional string theory accounts for the generation of nature’s fundamental forces via a notion of symmetry breaking that is essentially static and thus unable to explain cosmogony successfully, phenomenological/Taoist string theory entails the dialectical interplay of symmetry and asymmetry inherent in the principle of synsymmetry. This dynamic concept of cosmic change is elaborated on in the three concluding sections of the paper. Here, a detailed analysis of cosmogony is offered, first in terms of the theory of dimensional development and its Taoist (yin-yang) counterpart, then in terms of the evolution of the elemental force particles through cycles of expansion and contraction in a spiraling universe. The paper closes by considering the role of the analyst per se in the further evolution of the cosmos. (shrink)

This book offers an original theory of adjudication focused on the ethics of judging in courts of law, and proposes two main theses. One is the good faith thesis, which defends the possibility of lawful judicial decisions even when judges exercise discretion. The other is the permissible discretion thesis, which defends the compatibility of judicial discretion and legal indeterminacy with the legitimacy of adjudication in a constitutional democracy. Together these two theses oppose both conservative theories that would restrict the scope (...) of adjudication unduly, and leftist critical theories that would liberate judges from the rule of law. (shrink)

There is no such thing as moral luck or everyone is profoundly mistaken about its nature and a radical rethinking of moral luck is needed. The argument to be developed is not complicated, and relies almost entirely on premises that should seem obviously correct to anyone who follows the moral luck literature. The conclusion, however, is surprising and disturbing. The classic cases of moral luck always involve an agent who lacks control over an event whose occurrence affects her praiseworthiness or (...) blameworthiness. Close examination of what it is to have control or to lack it reveals the logical space for counterexamples that do not fit the pattern constitutive of moral luck, and so unravel the whole. (shrink)

Charles S. Peirce’s second trichotomy, which introduces the concepts of iconicity, indexicality, and symbolicity, is probably the only piece of his semiotic that is familiar to visual artists and designers. Although the concepts have found their way into the academy, their utility in the field has been reduced for a couple of reasons. First, as with all of Peirce’s philosophy, his second trichotomy is a concept that is subtle, fluid, and difficult to fully grasp in a sound bite. Second, there (...) has simply been no bridge concept that would form a working connection between that philosophy in its logical guise and the studio practice in the visual arts. The purpose of this article is to remedy that situation by investigating the subtle ways the second trichotomy functions within the visual sphere, and to then suggest a model that can serve to bridge the divide between pure theory and practice. The article makes four main points: first, using examples from visual identity and the graphic arts, it demonstrates how the modes of icon, index, and symbol tend to be blended; second, examples from fine art are used to illustrate how the concept of abstraction, as used in the art world, can only be partially accounted for within the second trichotomy, but can be modeled by supplying a syntactical supplement; third, it expands on and elaborates a previously sketched model, the visual gamut, which makes it possible to classify visual entities according to their position within a map of semantic and syntactic space; finally, it concludes by suggesting ways this enhanced version of the visual gamut model might be used in the analysis of, or creation of, art and design, presenting suggestions for further study. (shrink)

Zen master Dōgen 道元, the founder of the Sōtō sect in medieval Japan, is often referred to as the leading classical philosopher in Japanese history and one of the foremost exponents of Mahayana Buddhist thought. His essays, sermons and poems on numerous Buddhist topics included in his main text, the Shōbōgenzō 正法眼蔵, reflect an approach to religious experience based on a more philosophical analysis of topics such as time and temporality, impermanence and momentariness, the universality of Buddha-nature and naturalism, and (...) the role of language and emotions in the experience of enlightenment, as well as practical matters such as ethics and the precepts or meditation and daily activity, than is generally found in the writings of most thinkers in the Japanese Zen school. The single main element in Dōgen’s unique approach to Buddhist theory and practice is his emphasis on the multiple meanings of “impermanence” in personal experience and as the basis for Buddhist metaphysics. In particular, he emphasizes the radical impermanence of each and every phenomenon and the need to attain spiritual realization by acknowledging and identifying, rather than resisting or denying, the ephemeral nature of reality. The notion of impermanence or the transiency of all aspects of human and natural existence has always been a fundamental feature of the Buddhist teaching since the sermons of the Buddha dealing with the doctrines of anātman and anitya regarding the insubstantial, selfless nature of things. However, Dōgen repeatedly cautions against any subtle tendency to view ultimate reality––nirvāṇa or the universal “Buddha-nature” ––as an eternal realm separable from, or independent of, impermanence. Instead, he stresses that a full, unimpeded, and perpetually renewed experience of impermanence and of the unity of “being-time” is the touchstone and framework of every aspect of Buddhist meditative training and spiritual realization. Other key doctrines related to this are the “spontaneous here-and-now manifestation of Zen enlightenment”, the “eternal moment of meditation”, the “immediacy of awakening”, and “impermanence-Buddha-nature”. In addition to looking at Dōgen’s poetic writings on aesthetic experience, later writings on karma and supernaturalism will be briefly examined for their contributions to his philosophical discussions of mystical awareness and the issues of commitment and responsibility involved in authentic religious practice. (shrink)

This book explains and evaluates the main arguments and themes in Bentham's an introduction (IPML). It's designed for upper level undergraduate students of philosophy; it would also be useful for grad students and scholars in philosophy and other disciplines. Each chapter of the book is discussed in sequence. Emphasis is placed on Bentham's original goal of introducing a utilitarian penal code. His causal theory of action, and account of motives and motivation, are analysed carefully, so as to lay the groundwork (...) for his treatment of the deterrence of potential offenders, and the punishment of convicted offenders. Bentham's approach to making acts into legal offenses, or 'criminalization', is also treated. His understanding of the principle of utility, theory of intrinsic value, and claims about the measurement of pleasure and pain, and intrinsic value, are fully discussed. Some attention is given to the features of English criminal law in Bentham's time, and to its practice in contemporary societies. (shrink)

Philosophy and Occupational Therapy: Informing Education, Research, and Practice provides an overview of the most influential philosophical movements from past to present and shows how these philosophies are a foundational, yet underutilized, element of occupational therapy education, research, and practice. Each chapter offers a basic description of a philosophy, outlines major thinkers and concepts, and ultimately summarizes the implications for occupational therapy education, research, and practice.