Although'Otherness' is an extremely common phenomenon in every society, related research is still at its beginnings.'Otherness' in the Middle Ages is a versatile and complex theme that covers a great number of different aspects, facets, and approaches: from non-human monsters and cultural strangers from remote places up to foreigners from another country or another town; it can refer to ethnic, cultural, political, social, sexual, or religious'Otherness', inside or outside one's own community. In any case, however,'Otherness' is a subjective phenomenon depending (...) on personal views and ascriptions, an issue of'imagination' and experience rather than'reality'. There is neither one single model of alterity nor is'Otherness' a stable phenomenon, but it changes over time and according to the cultural context. All this calls for methodological reflection and needs thorough investigation.00The methodological introduction and the 18 contributions of this volume demonstrate the great diversity of the theme and its different manifestations and perspectives. They tackle the problem from distinct angles and disciplines (history, art history, archaeology, literary history, and philology) in a wide chronological and thematic frame, using different methodological approaches, dealing with different areas (from Northern and Southern Europe to Byzantium and India), perspectives (including law, social order, the past, a sea), and diverse kinds of sources. They examine all kinds of'Otherness' mentioned above, highlight demarcation and rejection, aversion or acceptance, assimilation and integration, thus relativizing a strict dichotomy between'the Self' and'the Other' or between inside and outside. This volume is so far the most comprehensive attempt to tackle the huge problem of'Otherness' in the Middle Ages. (shrink)

In the early years of the twentieth century, Professor Karl Lamprecht was a powerful and controversial figure in German academia, offering a universal interpretation of history that drew on an eclectic mix of politics, economics, anthropology and psychology. This article explores Mark Hovell’s experiences of working with Lamprecht at the Institut für Kultur- und Universalgeschichte [Institute for Cultural and Universal History] in Leipzig between 1912 and 1913, while also situating Hovell’s criticisms of the Lamprechtian method within wider contemporary assessments of (...) Lamprecht’s scholarship. (shrink)

By comparison with the Irish mission to Northumbria, the mission of Augustine to Kent can seem unexciting. One modern historian has even had occasion to ask “whether Augustine was quite the unimpressive figure which is usually depicted.” This impression is created even though, or perhaps because, the mission of Augustine is among the best-evidenced acts of evangelization in the early Middle Ages. Given the involvement of Gregory the Great and the direct interest of Bede, as well as the more tangential (...) interest of the anonymous author of the Life of Gregory the Great, written at Streoneshealh in Northumbria, it is not surprising that the story of Augustine's mission should be among the best known in Anglo-Saxon history. Nevertheless, there are difficulties in the traditional narrative, as has long been recognized. Despite the vindication of certain aspects of Bede's account, his overall interpretation of the mission still gives cause for concern. At the same time the letters of Gregory the Great continue to provide the opportunity to reassess the context in which the mission must be understood. Further, certain aspects of Gregory's theology allow an insight into Augustine's approach to mission, and may ultimately explain why he can appear so much less interesting than his Irish counterparts. It is, therefore, worth considering these issues yet again. (shrink)

Political representation lies at the core of modern politics. Democracies, with their vast numbers of citizens, could not operate without representative institutions. Yet relations between the democratic ideal and the everyday practice of political representation have never been well defined and remain the subject of vigorous debate among historians, political theorists, lawyers, and citizens. In this volume, an eminent group of scholars move forward the debates about political representation on a number of fronts. Drawing on insights from political science, history, (...) political theory, economics, and anthropology, the authors provide much-needed clarity to some of the most vexing questions about political representation. They also reveal new and enlightening perspectives on this fundamental political practice. Topics discussed include representation before democracy, political parties, minorities, electoral competition, and ideology. This volume is essential reading for anyone interested in the ideal and the reality of political representation. (shrink)

Over two decades ago, Davids et al. (1994) and Handford et al. (1997) raised theoretical concerns associated with traditional, reductionist, mechanistic perspectives of movement coordination and skill acquisition for sport scientists interested in practical applications for training designs. These seminal papers advocated an emerging consciousness grounded in an ecological approach, signalling the need for sports practitioners to appreciate the constraints-led, deeply entangled and non-linear reciprocity between the organism (performer), task and environment subsystems. Over two decades later, the areas of skill (...) acquisition, practice and training design, performance analysis and preparation, and talent development in sport science have never been so vibrant in terms of theoretical modelling, knowledge generation and innovation, and technological deployment. Viewed at an ecological level of analysis, the work of sports practitioners has progressively transitioned toward the facilitation of an evolving relationship between an organism (athlete, team) and its environment (sports competition). This commentary sets out to explore how these original ideas from Davids et al. (1994) and Handford et al. (1997) have been advanced through the theoretical lens of Ecological Dynamics. Concurrently, we provide case study exemplars, from applied practice in high-performance sports organisations, to illustrate how these contemporary perspectives are shaping the work of sports practitioners (sport ecology designers) in practice and performance preparation. (shrink)

. Sponsorship, Academic Independence and Critical Engagement: a Forum on Shell, the Ogoni Dispute and the Royal Geographical Society Ethics, Place & Environment: Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 219-257.

Kant’s position on the problem of free will can be perplexing and frustrating: all the real questions about human agential capacities or even about issues of moral imputability are empirical questions, which have empirical answers. But there remains a metaphysical or transcendental problem about the possibility of freedom, which is forever insoluble. Ian Proops’ discussion in The Fiery Test of Critique is to be commended for displaying the rare virtue of appreciating this last point and presenting Kant’s position about it (...) accurately. The only questionable part has to do with the standard terminology – ‘determinism’, ‘libertarianism’, ‘compatibilism’, and ‘incompatibilism’. I argue that it would be better to say, as Kant does, and Proops also does most of the time, that practical freedom, hence transcendental freedom, must be presupposed whenever we act or even judge, but how freedom is possible is both unknowable and even incomprehensible to us. (shrink)

A set of replies to critics of my 2021 book 'The Fiery Test of Critique: A Reading of Kant's Dialectic' (OUP). -/- The criticisms are based on talks given at an Author-meets-critics symposium at Princeton University on April 22nd, 2023. The critics are: Beatrice Longuenesse, Patricia Kitcher, Allen Wood, Des Hogan, and Anja Jauernig.

From whence spring the sparks of creativity? It is to this very question that the field of depth psychology--especially that of C.G. Jung and his intellectual descendants--has much to contribute. Just as the Muses were the offspring of Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, our memories are the ancestors of our creativity that finds its multifaceted expression in the written word, image, theater, dance, and music. The Unconscious Roots of Creativity seeks to push the investigation into that domain of memory that (...) is beyond our conscious reach. With articles from 16 contributors, the "red thread" running through each of the offerings in this volume is that, whatever its ultimate expression, the creative impulse has its roots deep in the psyche. Edited By Kathryn Madden, Leonard Cruz and Steven Buser with articles by Linda Carter, Anna Maria Costantino, Carol Thayer Cox, Leonard Cruz, Lisa Raye Garlock, James Hollis, Naomi Ruth Lowinsky, Ian Livingston, Kathryn Madden, Jordan S. Potash, Susan Rowland, Murray Stein, Ann Ulanov, Tjeu van den Berk, Robin van Loben Sels, and Heidi S. Volf. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"The Fittest Man in the Kingdom":Thomas Reid and the Glasgow Chair of Moral PhilosophyPaul Wood (bio)Paul Wood Paul Wood is at the Department of History, University of Victoria, PO Box 3045, MS 7381, Victoria BC V8W 3P4 Canada. email: [email protected] August 1996Revised January 1997Notes. An earlier version of this paper was delivered at a plenary session of the 23rd International Hume Conference held at the University (...) of Nottingham. For comments and/or references, the author wishes to thank Roger Emerson, Carol Gibson-Wood, Knud Haakonssen, Ian Simpson Ross, Stephen Snobelen, M. A. Stewart, and the anonymous Hume Studies referees. For permission to cite and quote from manuscripts, he is grateful to the Keeper of the Manuscripts of Scotland as well as to the Librarians of Aberdeen University Library, Edinburgh University Library, Glasgow University Archives and Business Records Centre, Glasgow University Library (Department of Special Collections), the Mitchell Library Glasgow, and Dr. Williams' Library.1. Although little information survives regarding Law's teaching, we do know that he discussed Pufendorf in his classes; see Christine Mary King [Shepherd], "Philosophy and Science in the Arts Curriculum of the Scottish Universities in the Seventeenth Century," (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 1974), 177. Carmichael's edition of Pufendorf first appeared in Glasgow in 1718, and a second edition was published in Edinburgh in 1724 while Hume was still a student there.2. The surviving correspondence between the two men from this period is to be found in The Letters of David Hume, ed. J.Y.T. Greig, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), I 32-35; 36-40; 45-48 (hereafter abbreviated as HL).3. The first detailed discussion of the 1745 election appeared in the introduction to David Hume, A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh, edited by Ernest C. Mossner and John V. Price (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1967). This account has recently been challenged in Roger L. Emerson, "The 'Affair' at Edinburgh and the 'Project' at Glasgow: The Politics of Hume's Attempts to become a Professor," in Hume and Hume's Connexions, edited by M. A. Stewart and John P. Wright (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994), 1-22; and M. A. Stewart, The Kirk and the Infidel (Lancaster: Lancaster University Publications Office, 1995). For historically sensitive contextual analysis of Hume's philosophical relations with Hutcheson, see inter alia James Moore, "Hume and Hutcheson," in Stewart and Wright, 23-57, and M. A. Stewart, Warmth in the Cause of Virtue (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming).4. In January 1752, "Mr. Smith read an Account of some of Mr. David Hume's Essays on Commerce" to the Society, and Hume was elected a member in 1753; see Notices and Documents Illustrative of the Literary History of Glasgow, During the Greater Part of Last Century, edited by W. J. Duncan (Glasgow: T. D. Morison, 1886), 132-133. Hume's failed candidacy is discussed in Emerson, "The 'Affair' at Edinburgh," 14-16, and Ian Simpson Ross, The Life of Adam Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 112-113. Smith's Glasgow colleague from 1751 to 1755, William Cullen, was also sympathetic to Hume's philosophy, as was John Millar, who was elected Professor of Law in 1761. On Cullen and Hume see J.R.R. Christie, "Ether and the Science of Chemistry: 1740-1790," in Conceptions of Ether: Studies in the History of Ether Theories 1740-1900, edited by G. N. Cantor and M.J.S. Hodge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 90-96.5. David Hume to William Strahan, 26 October 1775, HL II 301.6. See, for example, The Works of Thomas Reid, D.D., edited by Sir William Hamilton, 4th ed. (Edinburgh: Maclachlan and Stewart, 1854), 30n; James McCosh, The Scottish Philosophy, Biographical, Expository, Critical, from Hutcheson to Hamilton (London: Macmillan, 1875), 36; James Veitch, "Philosophy in the Scottish Universities," Mind 2 (1877): 207-234 (209).7. John Rae, Life of Adam Smith (London and New York: Macmillan, 1895); William Robert Scott, Francis Hutcheson: His Life, Teaching and Position in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1900); idem., Adam Smith as Student and Professor (Glasgow: Jackson... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"The Fittest Man in the Kingdom":Thomas Reid and the Glasgow Chair of Moral PhilosophyPaul Wood (bio)Paul Wood Paul Wood is at the Department of History, University of Victoria, PO Box 3045, MS 7381, Victoria BC V8W 3P4 Canada. email: [email protected] August 1996Revised January 1997Notes. An earlier version of this paper was delivered at a plenary session of the 23rd International Hume Conference held at the University (...) of Nottingham. For comments and/or references, the author wishes to thank Roger Emerson, Carol Gibson-Wood, Knud Haakonssen, Ian Simpson Ross, Stephen Snobelen, M. A. Stewart, and the anonymous Hume Studies referees. For permission to cite and quote from manuscripts, he is grateful to the Keeper of the Manuscripts of Scotland as well as to the Librarians of Aberdeen University Library, Edinburgh University Library, Glasgow University Archives and Business Records Centre, Glasgow University Library (Department of Special Collections), the Mitchell Library Glasgow, and Dr. Williams' Library.1. Although little information survives regarding Law's teaching, we do know that he discussed Pufendorf in his classes; see Christine Mary King [Shepherd], "Philosophy and Science in the Arts Curriculum of the Scottish Universities in the Seventeenth Century," (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 1974), 177. Carmichael's edition of Pufendorf first appeared in Glasgow in 1718, and a second edition was published in Edinburgh in 1724 while Hume was still a student there.2. The surviving correspondence between the two men from this period is to be found in The Letters of David Hume, ed. J.Y.T. Greig, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), I 32-35; 36-40; 45-48 (hereafter abbreviated as HL).3. The first detailed discussion of the 1745 election appeared in the introduction to David Hume, A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh, edited by Ernest C. Mossner and John V. Price (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1967). This account has recently been challenged in Roger L. Emerson, "The 'Affair' at Edinburgh and the 'Project' at Glasgow: The Politics of Hume's Attempts to become a Professor," in Hume and Hume's Connexions, edited by M. A. Stewart and John P. Wright (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994), 1-22; and M. A. Stewart, The Kirk and the Infidel (Lancaster: Lancaster University Publications Office, 1995). For historically sensitive contextual analysis of Hume's philosophical relations with Hutcheson, see inter alia James Moore, "Hume and Hutcheson," in Stewart and Wright, 23-57, and M. A. Stewart, Warmth in the Cause of Virtue (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming).4. In January 1752, "Mr. Smith read an Account of some of Mr. David Hume's Essays on Commerce" to the Society, and Hume was elected a member in 1753; see Notices and Documents Illustrative of the Literary History of Glasgow, During the Greater Part of Last Century, edited by W. J. Duncan (Glasgow: T. D. Morison, 1886), 132-133. Hume's failed candidacy is discussed in Emerson, "The 'Affair' at Edinburgh," 14-16, and Ian Simpson Ross, The Life of Adam Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 112-113. Smith's Glasgow colleague from 1751 to 1755, William Cullen, was also sympathetic to Hume's philosophy, as was John Millar, who was elected Professor of Law in 1761. On Cullen and Hume see J.R.R. Christie, "Ether and the Science of Chemistry: 1740-1790," in Conceptions of Ether: Studies in the History of Ether Theories 1740-1900, edited by G. N. Cantor and M.J.S. Hodge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 90-96.5. David Hume to William Strahan, 26 October 1775, HL II 301.6. See, for example, The Works of Thomas Reid, D.D., edited by Sir William Hamilton, 4th ed. (Edinburgh: Maclachlan and Stewart, 1854), 30n; James McCosh, The Scottish Philosophy, Biographical, Expository, Critical, from Hutcheson to Hamilton (London: Macmillan, 1875), 36; James Veitch, "Philosophy in the Scottish Universities," Mind 2 (1877): 207-234 (209).7. John Rae, Life of Adam Smith (London and New York: Macmillan, 1895); William Robert Scott, Francis Hutcheson: His Life, Teaching and Position in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1900); idem., Adam Smith as Student and Professor (Glasgow: Jackson... (shrink)

From the ferment of recent debates about the intellectual virtues, Roberts and Wood develop an approach they call 'regulative epistemology', exploring the connection between knowledge and intellectual virtue. In the course of their argument they analyse particular virtues of intellectual life - such as courage, generosity, and humility - in detail.

Classical logic has been attacked by adherents of rival, anti-realist logical systems: Ian Rumfitt comes to its defence. He considers the nature of logic, and how to arbitrate between different logics. He argues that classical logic may dispense with the principle of bivalence, and may thus be liberated from the dead hand of classical semantics.

Plato of Athens, who laid the foundations of the Western philosophical tradition and in range and depth ranks among its greatest practitioners, was born to a prosperous and politically active family circa 427 BC. In early life an admirer of Socrates, Plato later founded the first institution of higher learning in the West, the Academy, among whose many notable alumni was Aristotle. Traditionally ascribed to Plato are thirty-five dialogues developing Socrates' dialectic method and composed with great stylistic virtuosity, together with (...) the Apology and thirteen letters. The four works in this volume recount the circumstances of Socrates' trial and execution in 399 BC. In Euthyphro, set in the weeks before the trial, Socrates and Euthyphro attempt to define holiness. In Apology, Socrates answers his accusers at trial and unapologetically defends his philosophical career. In Crito, a discussion of justice and injustice explains Socrates' refusal of Crito's offer to finance his escape from prison. And in Phaedo, Socrates discusses the concept of an afterlife and offers arguments for the immortality of the soul. This edition, which replaces the original Loeb edition by Harold North Fowler, offers text, translation, and annotation that are fully current with modern scholarship." -- Publisher's description. (shrink)

Block () highlights two experimental studies of neglect patients which, he contends, provide ‘dramatic evidence’ for unconscious seeing. In Block's hands this is the highly non-trivial thesis that seeing of the same fundamental kind as ordinary conscious seeing can occur outside of phenomenal consciousness. Block's case for it provides an excellent opportunity to consider a large body of research on clinical syndromes widely held to evidence unconscious perception. I begin by considering in detail the two studies of neglect to which (...) Block appeals. I show why their interpretation as evidence of unconscious seeing faces a series of local difficulties. I then explain how, even bracketing these issues, a long-standing but overlooked problem concerning our criterion for consciousness problematizes the appeal to both studies. I explain why this problem is especially pressing for Block given his view that phenomenal consciousness overflows access consciousness. I further show that it is epidemic—not only affecting all report-based studies of unconscious seeing in neglect, but also analogous studies of the condition most often alleged to show unconscious seeing, namely blindsight. (shrink)

In this paper, I address the question of whether it is ever permissible to grant a request for physician-aid-in-dying (PAD) from an individual suffering from treatment-resistant depression. I assume for the sake of argument that PAD is sometimes permissible. There are three requirements for PAD: suffering, prognosis, and competence. First, an individual must be suffering from an illness or injury which is sufficient to cause serious, ongoing hardship. Second, one must have exhausted effective treatment options, and one’s prospects for recovery (...) must be poor. Third, the individual must be judged competent to request PAD. I argue that many cases of treatment-resistant depression meet the first two requirements. Thus, the key question concerns the third. I consider four features of depression that might compromise a person’s decision-making capacity. Ultimately, I conclude that PAD requests from depressed patients can be permissibly granted in some circumstances. (shrink)

It is commonly thought that exploitation is unjust; some think it is part of the very meaning of the word ‘exploitation’ that it is unjust. Those who think this will suppose that the just society has to be one in which people do not exploit one another, at least on a large scale. I will argue that exploitation is not unjust by definition, and that a society might be fundamentally just while nevertheless being pervasively exploitative. I do think that exploitation (...) is nearly always a bad thing, and wul try to identify the moral belief which makes most of us think it is. But I will argue that its badness does not always consist in its being unjust. (shrink)

Out of the ferment of recent debates about the intellectual virtues, Roberts and Wood have developed an approach they call 'regulative epistemology'. This is partly a return to classical and medieval traditions, partly in the spirit of Locke's and Descartes's concern for intellectual formation, partly an exploration of connections between epistemology and ethics, and partly an approach that has never been tried before. Standing on the shoulders of recent epistemologists - including William Alston, Alvin Plantinga, Ernest Sosa, and Linda (...) Zagzebski - Roberts and Wood pursue epistemological questions by looking closely and deeply at particular traits of intellectual character such as love of knowledge, intellectual autonomy, intellectual generosity, and intellectual humility. Central to their vision is an account of intellectual goods that includes not just knowledge as properly grounded belief, but understanding and personal acquaintance, acquired and shared through the many social practices of actual intellectual life. This approach to intellectual virtue infuses the discipline of epistemology with new life, and makes it interesting to people outside the circle of professional epistemologists. It is epistemology for the whole intellectual community, as Roberts and Wood carefully sketch the ways in which virtues that would have been categorized earlier as moral make for agents who can better acquire, refine, and communicate important kinds of knowledge. (shrink)

Pentecostalism is a subject of increasing importance in the study of world Christianity. Pentecostal churches are growing and the movement is complex and vibrant. African Initiated Churches and Charismatic movements in mainline churches have both been defined as Pentecostal. It is the charismatic groups within historic mission churches and their relation to the broader Pentecostal movement which is the subject of this paper. Studying the influence of Pentecostalism in microcosm allows one to analyse the interpersonal dynamics at play and to (...) examine the complexities of a local movement. (shrink)

This discussion paper continues the debate over risk‐related standards of mental competence which appears in Bioethics 5. Dan Brock there defends an approach to mental competence in patients which defines it as being relative to differing standards, more or less rigorous depending on the degree of risk involved in proposed treatments. But Mark Wicclair raises a problem for this approach: if significantly different levels of risk attach, respectively, to accepting and refusing the same treatment, then it is possible, on this (...) account, for a patient to be considered competent to accept, but not refuse, the treatment, or vice versa. I argue that this puzzle does not constitute a genuine problem for a risk‐related standard. To this end I focus on the situation where, of two mutually exclusive options, one is riskier, but offering more pronounced benefit, while the other is safer, but offering less benefit. I argue for this proposition: it can take far less insight to know that the safe option is good than to know that the risky option is better. Now say one is actually informed enough to know that the safe option is good, but not enough to know whether the risky option is better; in such a case one is competent to say yes to that first option (the safe one), but not to say yes to the other. (I argue in passing that Pascal's Wager can be interpreted as having precisely this deliberative structure.) I thus conclude that cases do indeed exist where one can be competent to say yes but not no, or vice versa; and that it is thus not an anomaly in the risk‐related standard that it entails the existence of such cases. (shrink)

Arguments strong enough to justify skeptical theism will be strong enough to justify the position that every claim about God is empirically unfalsifiable. This fact is problematic because that position licenses further arguments which are clearly unreasonable, but which the skeptical theist cannot consistently accept as such. Avoiding this result while still achieving the theoretical objectives looked for in skeptical theism appears to demand an impossibly nuanced position.

Experimental philosophy of religion is the project of taking the tools and resources of the human sciences—especially psychology and cognitive science—and bringing them to bear on issues within philosophy of religion toward explicit philosophical ends. This paper introduces readers to experimental philosophy of religion. §1 explores the contours of experimental philosophy of religion by contrasting it with a few related fields: the psychology of religion and cognitive science of religion, on the one hand, and natural theology, on the other. §2 (...) offers a brief history of experimental philosophy of religion. The goal in this section is to highlight the ancient pedigree of this emerging area of research; as the contemporary experimental philosophy of religion literature expands and proliferates, it’s important to remember that this field has deep historical roots. Then, §3 focuses on the following questions: Why should we care about experimental philosophy of religion? And why is it needed? (shrink)

How to draw the line between depression-as-disorder and non-pathological depressive symptoms continues to be a contested issue in psychiatry. Relatively few philosophers have waded into this debate, but the tools of philosophical analysis are quite relevant to it. In this paper, I defend a particular answer to this question, the Contextual approach.On this view, depression is a disorder if and only if it is a disproportionate response to a justifying cause or else is unconnected to any justifying cause. I present (...) four objections to this approach and then defend it from them. Along the way, I explain why it matters whether we get this question right. (shrink)

This paper argues for the combination of political and socio-economic analysis in the study of early medieval gift-giving, specifically in the context of the late Merovingian Church. Gift-giving in this period is often viewed through a historiographical tradition strongly influenced by anthropological scholarship, which rarely considers any socio-economic reasoning behind the act – particularly in the case of ecclesiastical institutions and actors. This paper associates itself with the recent and growing answer to this position, and particularly to Ian Wood’s (...) re-working of Appadurai and Appadurai Breckenridge’s “Temple Societies” theory. It studies the political, social, and economic context and repercussions of gift-giving in the Life of Saint Eligius, a seventh-century craftsman, member of the Merovingian court, and subsequently bishop of the see of Noyon, in North-Eastern Francia. The paper analyses the vita in a threefold way: Firstly, it looks at the connection between political patronage and gift-giving through the saint’s relationship to the Merovingian court. Secondly, it considers the potential socio-economic effects of gift-giving on the ecclesiastical institutions described throughout the text, and on the societies around them. Thirdly, it interprets these aspects in the light of the political expansion of the Merovingian Church, and of its institutions, in eastern Gaul. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

This is a work of normative political philosophy that seeks to identify the legitimate goals of public education policy in liberal democratic states and the implications of those goals for arguments about public funding and regulation of religious schools. ;The thesis of the first section is that the inferiority of certain types of religious school as instruments of civic education in a pluralist state would not suffice to justify liberal states in a general refusal to fund such schools. States with (...) no position on the value of autonomy for the good life would have to balance civic concerns against the preferences of religious parents who want to send their children to narrowly religious schools to shield them from exposure to ethical diversity. But, I argue, the principles of liberal democracy actually presuppose the value of autonomy. ;In the second section, I develop a conception of ethical autonomy and argue for its adoption as a public value. Autonomy, understood to entail distinctively rational reflection that must nonetheless inevitably be situated within an unchosen cultural context, can be publicly justified as having instrumental value to all persons in their quest to live a good life. And I defend the legitimacy of adopting autonomy as a goal of public education policy against a series of objections, most notably those grounded in claims about parental rights and fairness to traditional cultures. ;In the third section, I explore the implications of the autonomy goal for religious schools. After defending secular public schools from several prominent criticisms, I consider the argument that religious secondary schools are unsuitable to deliver education for autonomy because they provide children with inadequate exposure to and rational engagement with ethical diversity: I conclude that states cannot justify prohibiting or even presumptively denying public funding to all religious secondary schools, but that there is need for extensive public regulation. Finally, I argue that religious primary schools should be treated differently because of the particular developmental needs and capacities of pre-adolescents. Religious primary schools whose pedagogy is non-authoritarian are specially suitable to lay the foundations for autonomy in young children from religious families. (shrink)

Recently, philosophers and social scientists have turned their attention to the epistemological shifts provoked in established sciences by their incorporation of big data techniques. There has been less focus on the forms of epistemology proper to the investigation of algorithms themselves, understood as scientific objects in their own right. This article, based upon 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork with Russian data scientists, addresses this lack through an investigation of the specific forms of epistemic attention paid to algorithms by data scientists. (...) On the one hand, algorithms are unlike other mathematical objects in that they are not subject to disputation through deductive proof. On the other hand, unlike concrete things in the world such as particles or organisms, algorithms cannot be installed as the objects of experimental systems directly. They can only be evaluated in their functioning as components of extended computational assemblages; on their own, they are inert. As a consequence, the epistemological coding proper to this evaluation does not turn on truth and falsehood but rather on the efficiency of a given algorithmic assemblage. This article suggests that understanding the forms of algorithmic rationality employed in such inquiry is crucial for charting the place of data science within the contemporary academy and knowledge economy more generally. (shrink)

Overview * Part I: Introduction * Philip Appleman, Darwin: On Changing the Mind * Part II: Darwin’s Life * Ernst Mayr, Who Is Darwin? * Part III: Scientific Thought: Just before Darwin * Sir Gavin de Beer, Biology before the Beagle * Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population * William Paley, Natural Theology * Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet Lamarck, Zoological Philisophy * Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology * John Herschell, The Study of Natural Philosophy (...) * William Whewell, Astronomy and General Physics Considered with Reference to Natural Theology * Alfred Russel Wallace, On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type * Part IV: Selections from Darwin’s Work * The Voyage of the Beagle * o Chapter I. St. Jago-Cape de Verd Island o Chapter XVII. Galapagos Archipelago * On the Tendency of Species to Form Varieties; and On the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection * o I. Extract from an unpublished Work on Species, by C. Darwin, Esq.... o II.of Letter from C. Darwin, Esq., to Prof. Asa Gray, Boston, U.S., dated Down, September 5th, 1857 * An Historical Sketch of the Progress of Opinion on the Origin of Species, previously to the : Publication of This Work The Origin of Species * o Introduction o Chapter I. Variation under Domestication o Chapter II. Variation under Nature o Chapter III. Struggle for Existence o Chapter IV. Natural Selection o Chapter VI. Difficulties on Theory o Chapter IX. On the Imperfections of the Geological Record o Chapter XIII. Mutual Affinities of Organic Beings: Morphology: Embryology: Rudimentary Organs o Chapter XIV. Recapitulation and Conclusion * The Descent of Man * o Introduction o Chapter I. The Evidence of the Descent of Man from Some Lower Form o Chapter II. On the Manner of Development of Man from Some Lower Form o Chapter III. Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals o Chapter VI. On the Affinities and Genealogy of Man o Chapter VIII. Principles of Sexual Selection o Chapter XIX. Secondary Sexual Characters of Man o Chapter XX. Secondary Sexual Characters of Man-continued o Chapter XXI. General Summary and Conclusion * Part V: Darwin’s Influence on Science * THE VICTORIAN OPPOSITION TO DARWIN * o David L. Hull, Darwin and His Critics o Adam Sedgwick, Objections to Mr. Darwin’s Theory of the Origin of Species o Sir Richard Owen, Darwin on the Origin of Species o Fleeming Jenkin, Review of the Origin of Species * VICTORIAN SUPPORTERS OF DARWIN * o Joseph Dalton Hooker, Flora Tasmaniae o Thomas Henry Huxley, On the Relations of Man to the Lowe Animals o Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology o Alfred Russel Wallace, The Debt of Science to Darwin * DARWIN AND THE SHAPING OF MODERN SCIENCE * o Scientific Method in Evolution o National Academy of Sciences, Evolution and the Nature of Science o Richard Dawkins, Explaining the Very Improbable o Lewis Thomas, On the Uncertainty of Science o Noretta Koetge, Postmodernisms and the Problem of Scientific Literary o Richard Dawkins, Science and Sensibility o The Neo-Darwinian Synthesis o Peter Bowler, The Evolutionary Synthesis o The Human Genealogy o Adam Kuper, The Chosen Primate o Ian Tattersall, Out of Africa Again... and Again? o Stephen Jay Gould, The Human Difference o Punctuated Equilibrium o Stephen Jay Gould, [On Punctuated Equilibrium] o Niles Eldredge, The Great Stasis Debate o Rethinking Taxonomy o Kevin Padian, Darwin’s Views of Classification o David L. Hull, Cladistic Analysis o Kevin Padian and Luis M. Chiappe, Cladistics in Action: The Origin of Birds and Their Flight o Evolution as Observable Fact o James L. Gould and William T. Keeton with Carol Grant Gould, How Natural Selection Operates o Peter r. Grant, Natural Selection and Darwin’s Finches o John A. Endler, Natural Selection in the Wild * Part VI: Darwinian Patterns in Social Thought * COMPETITION AND COOPERATION * o Richard Hofstadter, The Vogue of Spencer o Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth o Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid o Martin A. Nowak, Robert M. May, and Karl Sigmund, The Arithmetics of Mutual Help * NATURE AND NURTURE * o Edward O. Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis o Stephen Jay Gould, Biological Potentiality vs. Biological Determination o Barbara Ehrenreich and Janet McIntosh, The New Creationism: Biology under Attack * EVOLUTION AND GENDER * o Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Woman’s Bible o Nancy Makepeace Tanner, On Becoming Human o Evelleen Richards, Darwin and the Descent of Woman o James Eli Adams, Woman Red in Tooth and Claw * EVOLUTION AND OTHER DISCIPLINES * o Edward O. Wilson, [On Consilience] o Randolph H. Nesse and George C. Williams, Evolution and the Origin of Disease o Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works o Steve Jones, The Set within the Skull * Part VII: Darwinian Influences in Philosophy and Ethics * John Dewey, The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy * Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Natural Selection as an Algorithmic Process * Michael Ruse Darwinian Epistemology * Thomas Henry Huxley, Evolution and Ethics * Julian Huxley, Evolutionary Ethics * Michael Ruse and Edward O. Wilson, The Evolution of Ethics * Frans de Waal, Good Natured: The Origin of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals * Matt Ridley, The Origins of Virtue * Part VIII: Evolutionary Theory and Religious Theory * MAINSTREAM RELIGIOUS SUPPORT FOR EVOLUTION * o Pope John Paul II, Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences o Central Conference of American Rabbis, On Creationism in School Textbooks o United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., Evolution and Creationsim o The Lutheran World Federation, [Statement on Evolution] o The General Convention of the Episcopal Church, Resolution on Evolutionism and Creationism o Unitariuan Universalist Association, Resolution Opposing "Scientific Creationism" * FUNDAMENTALIST CREATIONISM * o Eugene C. Scott, Antievolution and Creationism in the United States o The Scopes Trial o Thomas McIver, Orthodox Jewish Creationists o Harun Yahya, [Islamic Creationism] o Seami Srila Prabhupada, [A Hare Krishna on Darwinian Evolution] o Institute for Creation Research, Tenets of Creationism o Henry M. Morris, Scientific Creationism o Thomas J. Wheeler, Review of Morris o Richard D. Sjolund and Betty McCollister, Evolution at the Grass Roots o Richard D. Sjolund, [Creationism versus Biotechnology] o Betty McCollister, [The Politics of Creationism] o Molleen Matsumara, What Do Christians Really Believe about Evolution? o National Center for Science Education, Seven Significant Court Decisions Regarding Evolution/Creation Issues * PERSONAL INCREDULITY AND ANTIEVOLUTIONISM * o Richard Dawkins, [The Argument from Personal Incredulity] o Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial o Eugenie C. Scott, Review of Johnson o Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box o Robert Dorit, Review of Behe o Michael Ruse, Darwin’s New Critics on Trial * SCIENTISTS’ OPPOSITION TO CREATIONISM * o American Association for the Advancement of Science, Forced Teaching of Creationist Beliefs in Public School Science Education o American Institute of Biological Sciences, Resolution Oposing Creationism in Science Courses o National Association of Biology Teachers, Statement on Teaching Evolution o National Academy of Sciences, Frequently Asked Questions about Evolution and the Nature of Science * FUNDAMENTALIST CREATIONISM AND THE VALUE OF SATIRE * o Michael Shermer, Genesis Revisted: A Scientific Creation Story o Philip Appleman, Darwin’s Ark * Part IX: Darwin and the Literary Mind * DARWIN’S LITERARY SENSIBILITY * o Charles Darwin, Autobiography o L. Robert Stevens, Darwin’s Humane Reading o George Levine, Darwin and Pain: Why Science Made Shakespeare Nauseating o Gillian Beer, Darwin’s Plots * DARWIN’S INFLUENCE ON LITERATURE * o Lionel Stevenson, Darwin among the Poets o George Levine, Darwin among the Novelists o Joseph Wood Krutch, The Tragic Fallacy o Herbert J. Muller, Modern Tragedy o Philip Appleman, Darwin-Sightings in Recent Literature. (shrink)

We show that the loosely guarded and packed fragments of first-order logic have the finite model property. We use a construction of Herwig and Hrushovski. We point out some consequences in temporal predicate logic and algebraic logic.

In recent years, there has been renewed interest in the development of formal languages for describing mereological (part-whole) and topological relationships between objects in space. Typically, the non-logical primitives of these languages are properties and relations such as `x is connected' or `x is a part of y', and the entities over which their variables range are, accordingly, not points, but regions: spatial entities other than regions are admitted, if at all, only as logical constructs of regions. This paper considers (...) two first-order mereotopological languages, and investigates their expressive power. It turns out that these languages, notwithstanding the simplicity of their primitives, are surprisingly expressive. In particular, it is shown that infinitary versions of these languages are adequate to express (in a sense made precise below) all topological relations over the domain of polygons in the closed plane. (shrink)

Whether to do business with rights violating regimes is one of many dilemmas faced by socially responsible corporations. In this article the difficult case of Myanmar is considered. Ruled for decades by a closed and sometimes brutal military elite, the country has long been subject to informal and formal sanctions. However, as sanctions have failed to trigger political reform, it is necessary to review the policy options. The focus here is on the contribution socially responsible corporations might make to change. (...) The article sketches contextual features of the case, examines the recent history and present pattern of business links with Myanmar, and assesses whether current approaches can stimulate reform. Concluding that they cannot, it considers fresh possibilities for corporate engagement. The argument is that socially responsible corporations, committed to improving individual life chances through engagement with developing societies, should undertake collaborative and principled direct investment in Myanmar. The underlying strategy and problems of codification and implementation are all analyzed. To close, the article contends that, by doing business with Myanmar’s rights violating regime, multinational corporations can extend the frontiers of global corporate social responsibility. (shrink)