Conceptual engineering and conceptual ethics are branches of philosophy concerned with questions about how to assess and ameliorate our representational devices (such as concepts and words). It's a part of philosophy concerned with questions about which concepts we should use (and why), how concepts can be improved, when concepts should be abandoned, and how proposals for amelioration can be implemented. Central parts of the history of philosophy have engaged with these issues, but the focus of this volume is on applications (...) to work in contemporary philosophy of language and mind, epistemology, gender and race theory, ethics, philosophy of science, and philosophical logic. This is the first volume devoted entirely to conceptual engineering and conceptual ethics. The volume explores the possibilities, benefits, problems, and applications of conceptual engineering and conceptual ethics. It consists of twenty chapters written by leading philosophers. (shrink)

Which concepts should we use to think and talk about the world and to do all of the other things that mental and linguistic representation facilitates? This is the guiding question of the field that we call ‘conceptual ethics’. Conceptual ethics is not often discussed as its own systematic branch of normative theory. A case can nevertheless be made that the field is already quite active, with contributions coming in from areas as diverse as fundamental metaphysics and social/political philosophy. In (...) this pair of papers, we try to unify the field, reflecting on its basic nature, structure, and methodology. (shrink)

Mimesis, conflict, and crisis -- Plato's victimary culture -- Aristophanic Socrates: ready victim -- Foundation murder.

Saul Kripke has been a major influence on analytic philosophy and allied fields for a half-century and more. His early masterpiece, Naming and Necessity, reversed the pattern of two centuries of philosophizing about the necessary and the contingent. Although much of his work remains unpublished, several major essays have now appeared in print, most recently in his long-awaited collection Philosophical Troubles. In this book Kripke’s long-time colleague, the logician and philosopher John P. Burgess, offers a thorough and self-contained guide (...) to all of Kripke’s published books and his most important philosophical papers, old and new. It also provides an authoritative but non-technical account of Kripke’s influential contributions to the study of modal logic and logical paradoxes. Although Kripke has been anything but a system-builder, Burgess expertly uncovers the connections between different parts of his oeuvre. Kripke is shown grappling, often in opposition to existing traditions, with mysteries surrounding the nature of necessity, rule-following, and the conscious mind, as well as with intricate and intriguing puzzles about identity, belief and self-reference. Clearly contextualizing the full range of Kripke’s work, Burgess outlines, summarizes and surveys the issues raised by each of the philosopher’s major publications. Kripke will be essential reading for anyone interested in the work of one of analytic philosophy’s greatest living thinkers. (shrink)

Which concepts should we use to think and talk about the world, and to do all of the other things that mental and linguistic representation facilitates? This is the guiding question of the field that we call ‘conceptual ethics’. Conceptual ethics is not often discussed as its own systematic branch of normative theory. A case can nevertheless be made that the field is already quite active, with contributions coming in from areas as diverse as fundamental metaphysics and social/political philosophy. In (...) this pair of papers, we try to unify the field, reflecting on its basic nature, structure, and methodology. (shrink)

Botswana’s history is one of an unwavering exercise of self-determination and quest for self-rule. Post-independence, self-government prioritized an overarching philosophy of Kagisano or social harmony within which the aims of education were framed, in conjunction with a political commitment to Botho through democracy. For economic and social reasons the current educational policy of Botswana is based on outcomes based education (OBE), with its metrics of quantifiable outcomes. The article argues that Olúfemi Táíwò’s analysis of decolonization provides a philosophical lens through (...) which to interpret Botswana’s current educational pathway within the prevailing decolonization discourse. OBE clearly exhibits features of neo-colonialism, as it pertains to the national value principles. We draw on Ndlovu-Gatsheni decolonial epistemic perspective to frame the discussion that were possible to integrate OBE with Botswana’s ethnically inclusive, community-based view of democracy and associated virtues, this would be a worthwhile goal for education and could lead to a particular form of indigenised democracy. Substantive distinctions among the concepts of decolonization, neo-colonialism, and decoloniality, underwrite this thesis. We see the project of envisaging a future of education in Botswana as having to do with disentangling colonialist-imperialist cultural reproduction from indigenous aspirations. (shrink)

Gaia, the grand idea -- Good citizens or selfish genes? -- Life at the edge : lessons from extremophiles -- Temperature paces life -- Icehouse earth -- Given enough time -- Evolutionary innovations and environmental change -- A stable or an unstable world? -- The puzzle of life's long persistence -- Conclusions.

This Handbook provides an interdisciplinary discussion on the role and complexity of ethics in education. Its central aim is to democratise scholarship by highlighting diverse voices, ideas, and places. It is organised into three sections, each examining ethics from a different perspective: ethics and education historically; ethics within institutional practice, and emerging ethical frameworks in education. Important questions are raised and discussed, such as the role of past ethical traditions in contemporary education, how educators should confront ethical dilemma, how schools (...) should be organised to serve all children, and how pluralism, democracy, and technology impact ethics in education. It offers new insights and opportunities for renewal in the complex and often contentious task of ethics and education. (shrink)

Thomas Kelly, “Quine and Epistemology”: For Quine, as for many canonical philosophers since Descartes, epistemology stands at the very center of philosophy. In this chapter, I discuss some central themes in Quine's epistemology. I attempt to provide some historical context for Quine's views, in order to make clear why they were seen as such radical challenges to then prevailing orthodoxies within analytic philosophy. I also highlight aspects of his views that I take to be particularly relevant to contemporary epistemology.

If there is one question which stands forth pre-eminently from among the many problems with which physical science bristles, it is that of the ontological status of the world which physics is exploring. What is reality in the eyes of science, and what are we to understand the physicist to mean when he refers to the “real world”? Can we agree with him when he assures us that physical science represents a progress towards pure truth? There seems to be a (...) certain reluctance on the part of twentieth-century physicists to face the ontological question which I think their colleagues of the nineteenth century did not share to the same extent. (shrink)

In placing education at the centre, as The Main Enterprise of the World, Philip Kitcher has undertaken a monumental task. He has come to the field of philosophy of education captivated by the importance of its substantive preoccupations for the advancement of democratic aims. Accordingly, his book argues that the most salient obstruction to preparing citizens who will contribute to society is the seeming irreconcilability of the demands of industry, on the one hand, and of students’ personal growth, on the (...) other. In spite of his desire to accommodate diverse accounts of the human good, and his recognition of the formative role of culture, broadly conceived, there are strains in his account of human fulfilment deriving from the disjunction of the self and others. It is not evident, on his Deweyan onto-epistemology, that there is adequate attention to the imprint on an individual, and on the beliefs they come to form, of proximal social groups. The nature of the balance between ‘in-group’ and ‘out-group’ influences, between those that are near and those that are far, can profoundly affect the plausibility of Kitcher's account of a socially based sense of fulfilment. (shrink)

This paper considers the implications of precautionary restrictions against technologies, in the context of the potential for creating and sustaining rumours. It focuses on the restriction against mobile phone use at petrol stations, based on the rumour that a spark might cause an explosion. Rumours have been substantiated by precautionary usage warnings from mobile phone manufacturers, petrol station usage restrictions, and a general lack of technical understanding. Petrol station employees have themselves spread the rumour about alleged incidents, filling the information (...) gap about the basis for the restriction. (shrink)

Religion, spirituality, and contemporary shamanic practice in Scotland : exploring the relationships -- The impacts of transformational cultural change on religion and spirituality -- Seeking a new definition of religion -- What is shamanism? -- A case study of three shamanic practice groups in Scotland -- Exploring connections between cross-cultural shamanic elements and neo-shamanic expressions in Scotland : interviews, participant observation, and analysis -- Applying Hervieu-Lger's analytical model of religion to reveal a lineage of spirituality, not belief, in the shamanic (...) chain of memory -- Patterns, conclusions, and resulting issues -- Seeing differently : a new paradigm of spirituality and religion. (shrink)

The question, "Which modal logic is the right one for logical necessity?," divides into two questions, one about model-theoretic validity, the other about proof-theoretic demonstrability. The arguments of Halldén and others that the right validity argument is S5, and the right demonstrability logic includes S4, are reviewed, and certain common objections are argued to be fallacious. A new argument, based on work of Supecki and Bryll, is presented for the claim that the right demonstrability logic must be contained in S5, (...) and a more speculative argument for the claim that it does not include S4.2 is also presented. (shrink)

Charles Mills posits an epistemology of ignorance that underwrites the complicity of Whites, or people of Western European descent, as signatories of the racial contract. There is prevailing discourse about the complicity of White persons in perpetuating racism and whether they can experience epistemic injustice. In this paper, the claim to hermeneutical injustice, in particular, makes a further assertion that moral blameworthiness is mitigated for a subcategory of White Americans because of being socialized into a White-dominant culture of caste-based Afroscepticism. (...) I argue, based on Peirce's conceptualization of doubt, as against Descartes, that Afroscepticism is a totalizing belief system predicated on a racial group-based social epistemology and maintains a settled stance of questioning the commensurate citizenship of Blacks or American descendants of slaves. These perceived social costs warrant educational interventions that can dismantle its reasoning architecture. White Afroscepticism poses a barrier to the teacher’s efforts to cultivate the democratic habitus in students; however, educator preparation that takes its existence into account can build on the standard classroom practices of critical social justice that promote equity, critical multicultural education, and critical thinking. (shrink)

In Michael Stingl argues that the legalization of euthanasia can be made reasonable social policy only in the context of healthcare reform to deliver primary- and community-based care. Stingl accepts that euthanasia and that includes not only pain, but He is not worried The failure of the healthcare system to adequately respond to the needs of people who are suffering with chronic or terminal conditions may lead competent people to elect euthanasia. Stingl argues that it is the institutionalization of care (...) for dying people that reduces their ability to find meaning in prolonged life, and thereby makes it more attractive to consider ending one's life sooner. Options such as palliative care at home that significantly improve quality of life and make euthanasia less attractive are currently only available to those who can privately subsidize healthcare services. If an emphasis is placed on community-based initiatives and well-supported self-help, then there would be less inequality of healthcare and the voluntariness of choices, including euthanasia, would be more equal for all people under the healthcare system. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:For More than One Voice: Toward a Philosophy of Vocal ExpressionSarah K. Burgess and Stuart J. MurrayFor More than One Voice: Toward a Philosophy of Vocal Expression. Adriana Cavarero. Trans. Paul A. Kottman. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005. Pp. 262. $65.00, hardcover; $24.95, paperback.Adriana Cavarero's most recent book, For More than One Voice, offers the reader a critique of Western metaphysics that challenges the hegemony of speech's (...) relation to thought within politics. Revisiting Aristotle's Politics, Cavarero examines the famous definition of man as "zoon logon echon"—usually translated as "rational animal." She is critical of the tradition that renders logos here as "reason" or "rationality," modeled on the abstract and disembodied Platonic idea. Reading the Politics alongside the Poetics, she brings politics into a distinctly rhetorical sphere, and therefore figures logos as "phone semantike." In this light, man is a "speaking animal," an animal who speaks with a voice (phone) that is meaningful (semantike—an adjectival form that qualifies the voice itself). Cavarero's argument is that voice and meaning—phonic and semantic—must be sharply distinguished. The history of Western philosophy, she contends, has effaced this vital difference and focused instead on speech as a unitary phenomenon in which the vocalic and the semantic are always already joined as meaningful signification. In this way, the singularity of the vocalic itself has been elided in favor of speech that strongly privileges meaning. She therefore wishes to deliver us from language, as it were, through a recuperation of the force of the vocalic, the acoustic, the resonant and sonorous auditory quality of phone.Absent in the history of Western philosophy, this sonorous aspect of the vocalic stands as a corrective to our logocentric metaphysical tradition that singularly values the visual over the acoustic, semantic content over vocal utterances, and an abstract, anonymous "what" over a particular, embodied "who." Cavarero claims that the vocalic is an "anti-metaphysical" force that exceeds and challenges signification. In other words, the vocalic immediately communicates the uniqueness of the speaker without recourse to the signifying content of his or her speech. The voice is essentially relational—a relation that is described as "the condition of every communication.... the communicability of the communicable, or the significance of signification" (29). Indeed, for Cavarero the voice is that which "precedes, generates, and exceeds verbal communication" [End Page 166] (29–30). In this way, remarkably, Cavarero refigures the voice as a presymbolic origin that is both temporally and ontologically prior to signification, as that which is a condition of possibility for signification, and as that which is never exhausted by any signifying speech act as such.The voice is the expression of one unique, embodied individual to another. This expression, a "reciprocal invocation" founded in the sonorous, rhythmic, and resonant materiality of the voice, constitutes a "duet," a musical exchange of voices in and through which individuals mutually invoke one another. Cavarero resists inscribing such a relation within the symbolic realm; yet for her this relation is a "wordless language" that takes place in the paradigmatic scene between mother and infant. Here, in this originary scene, there is not yet the movement of language or speech as such, but the rhythm and cadence of demand and response—the voices of mother and infant that invoke one another. Drawing on Hélène Cixous's and Julia Kristeva's well-known work on the maternal chora, Cavarero demonstrates that the cadence of the "la-la melody" exchanged between mother and infant "configure[s] a reciprocal dependence" (170) that takes a structural form in the movement between demand and response.For Cavarero, the "scene of infancy" enjoys a primacy: it is both ontologically and chronologically prior to the institution of language and law. The maternal chora is figured as that which invisibly underwrites what will be understood as the law of the father—a law that is said to mark the inauguration of language. But if the law of the father is rational and semantic, the maternal should not be conceived as simply irrational and pure sound. For Cavarero, the maternal vocalic demonstrates its own reason through its rhythmic and musical resonance... (shrink)

The ethical theories employed in health care today assume, in the main, a modern Western philosophical framework. Yet the diversity of cultural and religious assumptions regarding human nature, health and illness, life and death, and the status of the individual suggest that a cross-cultural study of health care ethics is needed. A Cross-Cultural Dialogue on Health Care Ethics provides this study. It shows that ethical questions can be resolved by examining the ethical principles present in each culture, critically assessing each (...) value, and identifying common values found within all traditions, It encourages the development of global awareness and sensitivity to and respect for the diversity of peoples and their values and will advance understanding as well as help to foster a greater balance and a fuller truth in consideration of the human condition and what makes for health and wholeness. (shrink)