This collection of thirteen essays, when viewed together, offers a unique perspective on the history of American philosophy. It illuminates for the first time in book form, how thirteen major American philosophical thinkers viewed a problem of special interest in the American philosophical tradition: the relationship between experience and reflection. Written by well-known authorities on the figure about which he or she writes, the essays are arranged chronologically to highlight the changes and developments in thought from Puritanism to Pragmatism to (...) Process Philosophy. While Doctrine and Experience will be of particular interest to specialists in American Philosophy, there is also much to offer anyone interested in the intellectual and cultural history of the United States. In order of appearance, the essays are: "Jonathan Edwards and the Great Awakening" by John E. Smith "Heart and Head: The Mind of Thomas Jefferson" by Andrew J. Reck"Emerson and the American Future" by Robert C. Pollock"Chauncey Wright and the Pragmatists" by Edward Madden"Charles S. Peirce: Action Through Thought – The Ethics of Experience" by Vincent G. Potter"Life Is in the Transitions’: Radical Empiricism and Contemporary Concerns" by John J. McDermott"John Dewey and the Metaphysics of American Democracy" by Ralph W. Sleeper"Individualization and Unification in Sartre and Dewey" by Thelma Z. Levine"Josiah Royce: Anticipator of European Existentialism and Phenomenology" by Jacqueline Ann K. Kegley"The Transcendence of Materialism and Idealism in American Thought" by John Lachs"C. I. Lewis and the Pragmatic Tradition in American Philosophy" by Sandra Rosenthal"The Social Philosophy of George Herbert Mead" by David Miller"Existence as Transaction: A Whiteheadian Study of Causality" by Elizabeth Kraus. (shrink)

One criticism of pragmatism, forcefully articulated by Stanley Cavell, is that pragmatism fails to deal with mourning, understood in the psychoanalytic sense as grief-work (Trauerarbeit). Such work would seemingly be as pertinent to philosophical investigations (especially ones conducted by pragmatists) as to psychoanalytic explorations. Finding such themes as mourning and loss in R. W. Emerson's writings, Cavell warns against assimilating Emerson's voice to that of American pragmatism, especially Dewey's instrumentalism, for such assimilation risks the loss or repression of Emerson's voice (...) in not only professional philosophy but also American culture. While granting Emerson's distinctive voice, this essay argues that the way Cavell insists on differences problematically represses recognition of the Emersonian strains in Dewey's own philosophical voice. In doing so, Cavell falsely flattens the resounding depth of Dewey's philosophical voice and narrows the expansive range of pragmatic intelligence. But Dewey all too often lends himself to such a misreading, for his writings at once repress and embody the strains of a distinctively Emersonian voice. (shrink)

Reading Certainty offers incisive historical analysis of the foundational questions of the Christian tradition: how are we to read scripture, and how can we know we are saved? This collection of essays honors the work and thought Susan E. Schreiner by exploring the import of these questions across a wide range of time periods. With contributions from renowned scholars and from Schreiner's students from her more than three decades of teaching, each of the contributions highlights the nexus of certainty, perception, (...) authority, and exegesis that has defined her scholarly work. Intellectual historians, early modernists, and scholars of Christianity will all appreciate this testament to Schreiner's influence. Contributors include: Vincent Evener, Bruce Gordon, Ralph Keen, Mark Lambert, Kevin J. Madigan, Richard A. Muller, Willemien Otten, Daniel Owings, Elizabeth Palmer, Karen Park, Barbara Pitkin, Ronald K. Rittgers, William Schweiker, Jonathan Strom, and Matthew Vanderpoel. (shrink)

The theories of complexity comprise a system of great breadth. But what is included under this umbrella? Here we attempt a portrait of complexity theory, seen through the lens of complexity theory itself. That is, we portray the subject as an evolving complex dynamical system, or social network, with bifurcations, emergent properties, and so on. This is a capsule history covering the twentieth century. Extensive background data may be seen at www.visual-chaos.org/complexity.

Li Zhen priest has repeatedly tried to clarify there are two basic problems of philosophy, there is one problem with the nothingness, there is one root of the problem. For the first problem, he believes there is the meaning of life is based on earnings instead of the full emptiness. For the second question, he thinks there is a God of the root. Li Zhen priest in one deeply experienced man's limited nature, on the other hand they found that the (...) driving force towards infinity. Although the constitution were limited, however, its intention to infinity. The meaning of human life are the cornerstone upon which to build, is built up from within, however, can not be limited to their own self-sealing inner nature, on the contrary, the primordial human tendency is inherent and can go beyond that, that is limited and can be infinite . Li Zhen is that there exists a final basis the full surplus. This will be for the Christian religion in the "no" to explore the concept of active surface, as well as Buddhist talks about "empty" comparisons, as Li Zhen of the basic study with and without supplement. "Beyond" and "there" are supported by ethics, the ethics of generosity and love. Go beyond him in person, he is certainly not only those, but also those who are not asking for anything good for his efforts. Li Zhen advocate and practice is an ethics of love and generosity. (shrink)

An important task in mathematical sciences is to make quantitative predictions, which is often done via the solution of differential equations. In this paper, we investigate why, to perform this task, scientists sometimes choose to use numerical methods instead of analytical solutions. Via several examples, we argue that the choice for numerical methods can be explained by the fact that, while making quantitative predictions seems at first glance to be facilitated by analytical solutions, this is actually often much easier with (...) numerical methods. Thus we challenge the widely presumed superiority of analytical solutions over numerical methods. (shrink)

How do people make sense of their experiences? How do they understand possibility? How do they limit possibility? These questions are central to all the human sciences. Here, Vincent Crapanzano offers a powerfully creative new way to think about human experience: the notion of imaginative horizons. For Crapanzano, imaginative horizons are the blurry boundaries that separate the here and now from what lies beyond, in time and space. These horizons, he argues, deeply influence both how we experience our lives (...) and how we interpret those experiences, and here sets himself the task of exploring the roles that creativity and imagination play in our experience of the world. (shrink)

Athenians of the fifth and fourth centuries claimed with pride that their ancestors had always lived in Attica, a claim which they expressed by describing themselves as Related to this Athenian belief that they had always lived in Attica was a second, that, as a people, they were literally ‘sprung from the earth’. It is generally assumed that both beliefs developed at a very early date, but this is merely an assumption, and in the course of this paper we will (...) see evidence suggesting, to the contrary, that both ideas were relatively late developments. This paper focuses on the development of the concept of autochthony, as far as our sources allow, in an effort to understand better what autochthony meant to the Athenians. In particular it considers how the Athenians came to think of themselves as ‘born from the earth’. It then suggests how, through the medium of the word the idea of being ‘born from the earth’ came to symbolize ‘living in a place from time immemorial’. Finally it examines how the concept of autochthony was used in contexts which relate it to the ideology of Athenian democracy. (shrink)

Background -- Continental drift : a threat to the establishment -- Evolution and creationism : science vs religion -- Dietary fat : nutritional politics -- Climate change : environmental politics -- Vaccination : exploitation of fear -- Gmo foods : fear of a frankenstein -- Science under attack.

Uffink and Valente claim that there is no time-asymmetric ingredient that, added to the Hamiltonian equations of motion, allows to obtain the Boltzmann equation within the Lanford’s derivation. This paper is a discussion and a reply to that analysis. More specifically, I focus on two mathematical tools used in this derivation, viz. the Boltzmann–Grad limit and the incoming configurations. Although none of them are time-asymmetric ingredients, by themselves, I claim that the use of incoming configurations, as taken within the B–G (...) limit, is such a time-asymmetric ingredient. Accordingly, this leads to reconsider a kind of Stoßzahlansatz within Lanford’s derivation. (shrink)

What is normativity? It is argued here that normativity is best understood as a property of certain concepts: normative thoughts are those involving these normative concepts; normative statements are statements that express normative thoughts; and normative facts are the facts (if such there be) that make such normative thoughts true. Many philosophers propose that there is a single basic normative concept—perhaps the concept of a reason for an action or attitude—in terms of which all other normative concepts can be defined. (...) It is argued here that this proposal faces grave difficulties. According to a better proposal, what these normative concepts have in common is that they have a distinctive sort of conceptual role—a reasoning-guiding conceptual role. This proposal is illustrated by a number of examples: different normative concepts differ from each other in virtue of their having different conceptual roles of this reasoning-guiding kind. (shrink)

Wenn Präsident Kennedy nicht erschossen worden wäre, hätte er dann Nordvietnam bombardiert? Das weiß Gott allein. Oder doch nicht? Weiß wenigstens Er, was Kennedy getan hätte? ... Die Jesuiten behaupteten unter anderem, daß viele menschliche Handlungen in dem Sinne frei seien, daß die Ausführenden nicht logisch oder kausal gezwungen seien, sie auszuführen. („Frei“ wird im vorliegenden Aufsatz stets in diesem Sinne verwendet werden.) Wie behält Gott dann die Kontrolle über die menschliche Geschichte? Nicht dadurch, daß Er menschliche Handlungen kausal determiniert, (...) wie die Dominikaner geglaubt zu haben scheinen , sondern indem Er Umstände herbeiführt, von denen Er weiß, daß wir in ihnen freiwillig Seinen Plänen entsprechend handeln werden. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a discrete solution for the paradox of Achilles and the tortoise. I argue that Achilles overtakes the tortoise after a finite number of steps of Zeno’s argument if time is represented as discrete. I then answer two objections that could be made against this solution. First, I argue that the discrete solution is not an ad hoc solution. It is embedded in a discrete formulation of classical mechanics. Second, I show that the discrete solution cannot (...) be falsified experimentally. (shrink)

(2000). Cyberspace and the Ecotopian dream. World Futures: Vol. 55, Challenges of Evolution at the Turn of the Millennium: Part III: The Chllenges of Globalization and Sustainability, pp. 153-158.

Semi-urban ecotones exist on the periphery and in the midst of many human population centers. This article addresses the need for and nature of an ethos appropriate to inter-species contact in such zones. It first examines the historical and contemporary intellectual resources available for developing this kind of ethic, then surveys the range of possible relationships between humans and other animals, and finally investigates the morality of multi-species neighborhoods as a promising model. Discussion of these themes has the effect, in (...) conclusion, of dismantling notorious dualisms traditionally associated with the geographic imagination (city/wild, human/animal, nature/culture). (shrink)

Despite its attraction for journalists and others, communitarianism corrupts a liberal democracy and denies a community the ability to make reason-based decisions by becoming highly rule oriented and static with self-protection as the driving motive. Civic or public journalism that retains its pluralistic characteristics may still encourage moral development of individuals, particularly journalists, to assure a dynamic society. Communitarian journalism, however, devalues truth in favor of community loyalty and conformity at the expense of individual moral development.

This paper studies some model-theoretic properties of special groups of finite type. Special groups are a first-order axiomatization of the algebraic theory of quadratic forms, introduced by Dickmann and Miraglia, which is essentially equivalent to abstract Witt rings. More precisely, we consider elementary equivalence, saturation, elementary embeddings, quantifier elimination, stability and Morley rank.

What reasons for action do we have? What explains why we have these reasons? In this paper, I shall articulate some of the basic structural features of a theory that would provide answers to these questions. So my primary focus here is on the nature of reasons for action themselves, not on the meaning of the terms that can be used to talk about such reasons. However, it seems plausible that the term "reason for action" is in fact used in (...) many different ways, and can express many different concepts in different contexts. Hence, some prefatory remarks about the term "reason for action" are in order, to make it clear which of the many senses of the term I have in mind. (shrink)

Non-reductive moral realism is the view that there are moral properties which cannot be reduced to natural properties. If moral properties exist, it is plausible that they strongly supervene on non-moral properties- more specifically, on mental, social, and biological properties. There may also be good reasons for thinking that moral properties are irreducible. However, strong supervenience and irreducibility seem incompatible. Strong supervenience entails that there is an enormous number of modal truths (specifically, truths about exactly which non-moral properties necessitate which (...) moral properties); and all these modal truths must be explained. If these modal truths can all be explained, then it must be a fundamental truth about the essence of each moral property that the moral property is necessarily equivalent to some property that can be specified purely in mental, social and biological terms; and this fundamental truth appears to be a reduction of the moral property in question. The best way to resist this argument is by resorting to the claim that mental and social properties are not, strictly speaking, natural properties, but are instead properties that can only be analysed in partly normative terms. Acceptance of that claim is the price of non-reductive moral realism. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that our “evidence” is at least one source of the “justification” that we have for believing things—where this notion of “justification” seems to be a normative notion. More precisely, it seems to be an agential normative notion, evaluating the different possible attitudes that are available to an agent at a time, on the basis of facts that are just “given”—that is, facts that it is not available to the agent to change through the way in which (...) she exercises her reasoning capacities at that time. However, given the meaning that the term “evidence” has in everyday English, what is in this sense “given” to you cannot be identified with your current “evidence”. First, some propositions count as part of the “evidence” that you now have precisely in virtue of the fact that you now believe those propositions; but these beliefs are not part of what is now “given” to you—they are themselves among the attitudes whose justification is in question. Secondly, what is now “given” to you arguably includes facts about what you believed in the past—but such facts cannot naturally be called part of your current “evidence” unless you now know or believe these facts. In fact, it seems, the concept “evidence” does not really belong to individualistic epistemology, but to social epistemology: the function of “evidence” is that it is what we can use to show that something is true to the contextually relevant audience. (shrink)

A series of short papers assigned to help some students begin a nonthreatening dialogue with their ethics instructor is used as an option to the traditional research term paper.