This essay is concerned with six linguistic moves that we commonly make, each of which is considered in turn. These are: stating rules of representation; representing things categorically; mentioning expressions; saying truly or falsely how things are; saying vaguely how things are; and stating rules of rules of representation. A common-sense view is defended of what is involved in our doing each of these six things against a much more sceptical view emanating from the idea that linguistic behavior is fundamentally (...) messy. Both the fifth move and the sixth move involve vague concepts, and much of the essay is concerned with developing an approach to various problems and puzzles that attach to such concepts, most notably the sorites paradoxes. (shrink)

In this paper, we outline a theory of the nature of self-directed agents. What is distinctive about self-directed agents is their ability to anticipate interaction processes and to evaluate their performance, and thus their sensitivity to context. They can improve performance relative to goals, and can, in certain instances, construct new goals. We contrast self-directedness with reactive action processes that are not modifiable by the agent, though they may be modified by supra-agent processes such as populational adaptation or external design.Self-directedness (...) lies at the nexus of issues concerning the evolution and nature of intentionality, intelligence, and agency. It provides some insight into the evolution of intelligence because it helps explain how organisms are able to manage variable interaction processes, e.g., a hunting strategy that varies with prey type, ground condition, and hunger level. Simple self-directed organisms like bumblebees manage variability in one or a few dimensions. (shrink)

A prominent view of psychopathic moral reasoning suggests that psychopathic individuals cannot properly distinguish between moral wrongs and other types of wrongs. The present study evaluated this view by examining the extent to which 109 incarcerated offenders with varying degrees of psychopathy could distinguish between moral and conventional transgressions relative to each other and to nonincarcerated healthy controls. Using a modified version of the classic Moral/Conventional Transgressions task that uses a forced-choice format to minimize strategic responding, the present study found (...) that total psychopathy score did not predict performance on the task. Task performance was explained by some individual subfacets of psychopathy and by other variables unrelated to psychopathy, such as IQ. The authors conclude that, contrary to earlier claims, insufficient data exist to infer that psychopathic individuals cannot know what is morally wrong. (shrink)

Rudolf Carnap is widely regarded as one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century. Born in Germany and later a US citizen, he was a founder of the philosophical movement known as Logical Empiricism. He was strongly influenced by a number of different philosophical traditions, and also by the German Youth Movement, the First World War, and radical socialism. This book places his central ideas in a broad cultural, political and intellectual context, showing how he synthesised many different (...) currents of thought to achieve a philosophical perspective that remains strikingly relevant in the twenty-first century. Its rich account of a philosopher's response to his times will appeal to all who are interested in the development of philosophy in the twentieth century. (shrink)

This article falls into two parts: the first is an analysis, in the light of my earlier discussions of and of the Homeric usage of and the second, an attempt to show that, as in the case of the effects of Homeric usage persist to a considerable degree in the moral philosophy of Aristotle. In the earlier discussions I have argued that the higher value placed upon the competitive in Greek entails that co-operative relationships, even when valued and necessary, take (...) the form dictated by the more valued qualities, the The most general words to denote co-operative relationships in Greek are and its derivatives: my purpose here is to show how the Homeric usage of these words is related to the Homeric standard and to Homeric society, and to sketch in the outline of a wider discussion, which I hope to be able to fill in later. (shrink)

Positive changes or transformations have been the subject of study within spiritual traditions as well as humanistic and transpersonal psychology. The aim of the current study is to understand the process of transformation among Moslems in Indonesia, who follow spiritual practices, to achieve the nafs al-muṭma ínnah [tranquil self]. Ten participants in Yogyakarta province were involved in this study. They were recruited using nafs al-muṭmaʾinnah scale developed by the authors. In-depth interviews of both the participants and their significant others were (...) conducted. To analyse the data, an interpretative phenomenological analysis was employed. Five themes emerged from the data, including deviation from the basis of religious environment, spiritual discipline, transformative experiences, new characters and a continuous process. We conclude that participants experience spiritual-religious transformation and achieve the state of nafs al-muṭma ínnah [tranquil self]. The process of transformation occurs gradually after a sudden experience, and it continuously happens throughout the course of life. Three factors contribute to the transformation, including the role of predisposition, the role of a spiritual guide and the role of spiritual experiences.Contribution: As the study of spiritual-religious transformation is mainly conducted within a Judea-Christian tradition, this study significantly contributes to the literature by providing spiritual-religious transformation from an Islamic-Sufi perspective. (shrink)

'superb' -Tom Stoneham, Oxford MagazineA. W. Moore argues in this bold and unusual book that it is possible to think about the world from no point of view. His argument involves discussion of a very wide range of fundamental philosophical issues, including the nature of persons, the subject-matter of mathematics, realism and anti-realism, value, the inexpressible, and God. The result is a powerful critique of our own finitude. 'imaginative, original, and ambitious' Robert Brandom, Times Literary Supplement.

Since other readers of Mr. Creed's recent interesting article may find themselves in a similar puzzlement to my own over certain statements there made, I offer this reply in the hope of providing elucidation. It is clear that someone named Adkins has perpetrated something heinous; but that ‘someone’ manifestly holds views which differ in a number of important respects from my own. The most convenient method of demonstrating this fact would be to juxtapose passages of Creed with passages of my (...) Merit and Responsibility; but since space does not permit the juxtaposition of whole passages, I confine myself in the first part of this article to juxtaposing the references. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction1 Was the Early Wittgenstein a Transcendental Idealist? Was the Later Wittgenstein a Transcendental Idealist?

This third edition of The Infinite includes a new part 'Infinity Superseded' which contains two new chapters refining Moore's ideas through a re-examination of the ideas of Spinoza, Hegel, and Nietzsche. Much of this is heavily influenced by the work of Deleuze. There is also a new technical appendix on still unresolved issues about different infinite sizes.

Excerpt from Science and Ethics: Being a Series of Six Lectures Delivered Under the Auspices of the Natural Law Research League And abroad (germany, France, America, but although within the circumscribed limits of these lectures I have not. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst (...) repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

It is argued that the use/mention distinction, if it is to be a clear-cut one, cannot have the significance that it is usually thought to have. For that significance attaches to the distinction between employing an expression in order to draw attention to, or to talk about, some aspect of the world, as determined by the expression’s meaning, and employing it in order to draw attention to, or to talk about, the expression itself—and this distinction is not a clear-cut one. (...) In the final section of the essay this argument is extended to cast doubt on a rather glib appeal to the use/mention distinction that is frequently made in the philosophy of language. (shrink)

This essay is concerned with Bernard Williams’ contention in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy that, in ethics, reflection can destroy knowledge. I attempt to defend this contention from the charge of incoherence. I do this by taking seriously the idea that ethical knowledge is knowledge from an ethical point of view. There nevertheless remains an issue about whether the contention is consistent with ideas elsewhere in Williams’ own work, in particular with what he says about knowledge in Descartes. In (...) an earlier essay I argued that it is not. In a subsequent essay I indicated that I had changed my mind and gave a more sympathetic account of Williams’ contention. In this essay I set out the issues and say some more about my change of mind. (shrink)

A lot of the talk about education nowadays invokes the notion of ‘quality’ and it has been suggested that education in schools and universities would benefit from exposure to the kind of quality assurance procedures originally developed by industry to monitor and raise performance. The paper is critical of this suggestion, arguing that the notion of quality which has emerged from industry is a very limited one and that importing the latter into education would change our educational thinking and practice (...) in significant ways for the worse. What we need, instead, is a fuller appreciation of the kind of quality and standards which are proper to education and which depend upon the exercise of personal judgement. (shrink)

Given that most of the adults’ life is spent in the workplace, and because the quality of working life has a significant effect on family life and community health, it is crucial to study the components involved in the improvement of the workplace and people’s health in the work environment. Therefore, by examining the common literature of Islamic values, spirituality and spiritual health, an attempt has been made in this research to explain organisational values and spiritual health in the management (...) of organisations and to analyse the relationship of these variables with each other in Iraq using an Islamic approach. Similar to any other community, an Islamic community requires management proportional to its specific circumstances. In fact, an Islamic community needs a type of management that intertwines with divine and Islamic values and ethical principles and prioritises Islamic ideals. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the role of organisational values in the improvement of Islamic values of Iraqi Muslims. To this end, 2800 employees selected from 30 oil and chemical compound manufacturing organisations are examined. According to the results, the Islamic values governing the Iraqi organisations play an effective role in the improvement of employees’ spiritual health.Contribution: Divine and religious values and Islamic ethics have always been considered in Islamic communities, where formal and informal procedures are taken into consideration. An Islamic approach to management is combined with Islamic values, behaviours and ethics, and these values affect Islamic administration. Therefore, a proper understanding of Islamic values will help develop the right plan for human resource management, as well as the maintenance of organisational and community health. (shrink)

The philosophy of mathematics was of colossal importance to Wittgenstein. Its problems had a peculiarly strong hold on him; and he seems to have thought that it was in addressing these problems that he produced his greatest work. However robust the distinction between the calculus and the surrounding prose, the prose may infect the calculus; or the prose may infect how we couch the calculus. Yet Wittgenstein's writings in the philosophy of mathematics stand in a curious relation to this self‐assessment. (...) By 1938, he had written an early version of his master‐work Philosophical Investigations, the second half of which was on the philosophy of mathematics. This material did not survive into the version of Philosophical Investigations that was eventually published after his death. Instead it appeared, modified in various ways, along with notes that he wrote during World War II, as Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, another posthumous publication, assembled by his literary executors. (shrink)

The project of studying children in order to understand them, which lies at the heart of contemporary thinking about children and their education, is misconceived. It rests, jrst of all, upon a false belief that we can only come to know something properly by deliberately and systematically pursuing knowledge of it. Secondly, it offers a paradigm of knowing children which justifies parents and teachers in not giving themselves to children. By re-interpreting the problems that adults experience with children as technical, (...) as arising from lack of information about them, it ignores the personal and moral dimension of adults’ relations with children and thus further alienates them from one another. (shrink)

Several decades of behavioral research have established that variations in socioeconomic status are related to differences in cognitive performance. Neuroimaging and psychophysiological techniques have recently emerged as a method of choice to better understand the neurobiological processes underlying this phenomenon. Here we present a systematic review of a particular sub-domain of this field. Specifically, we used the PICOS approach to review studies investigating potential relationships between SES and scalp event-related brain potentials. This review found evidence that SES is related to (...) amplitude variations in a diverse range of ERPs: P1, N1, N2, Error-Related Negativities, N400, auditory evoked potentials, negative difference waves, P3 and slow waves. These ERPs include early, mid-latency and late potentials that reflect a broad range of cognitive processes. In this review, all SES effects on ERPs appeared to reflect an impairment or a less efficient form of task-related neural activity for low-SES compared to high-SES individuals. Overall, these results confirm that a wide variety of distinct neural processes with different functional meanings are sensitive to SES differences. The findings of this review also suggest that the relationship between SES and some ERP components may depend on the developmental stage of study participants. Results are further discussed in terms of the current limitations of this field and future avenues of research. (shrink)

This chapter describes the potential far‐reaching consequences of contemplative higher education for the fields of science and medicine.