This report highlights and explores five questions which arose from The Unity of Consciousness and Sensory Integration conference at Brown University in November of 2011: 1. What is the relationship between the unity of consciousness and sensory integration? 2. Are some of the basic units of consciousness multimodal? 3. How should we model the unity of consciousness? 4. Is the mechanism of sensory integration spatio-temporal? 5. How Should We Study Experience, Given Unity Relations?

This is an excerpt of a report that highlights and explores five questions which arose from The Unity of Consciousness and Sensory Integration conference at Brown University in November of 2011. This portion of the report explores the question: Is the mechanism of sensory integration spatio-temporal?

This is an excerpt of a report that highlights and explores five questions which arose from The Unity of Consciousness and Sensory Integration conference at Brown University in November of 2011. This portion of the report explores the question: Are some of the basic units of consciousness multimodal?

This is an excerpt of a report that highlights and explores five questions which arose from The Unity of Consciousness and Sensory Integration conference at Brown University in November of 2011. This portion of the report explores the question: How should we model the unity of consciousness?

This is an excerpt of a report that highlights and explores five questions which arose from The Unity of Consciousness and Sensory Integration conference at Brown University in November of 2011. This portion of the report explores the question: How should we study experience, given unity relations?

This is an excerpt from a report that highlights and explores five questions which arose from the workshop on perceptual learning and perceptual recognition at the University of Toronto, Mississauga on May 10th and 11th, 2012. This excerpt explores the question: How do we recognize distinct types of emotion in music?

This is an excerpt from a report that highlights and explores five questions which arose from the workshop on perceptual learning and perceptual recognition at the University of Toronto, Mississauga on May 10th and 11th, 2012. This excerpt explores the question: What counts as cognitive penetration?

This report highlights and explores five questions which arose from the workshop on perceptual learning and perceptual recognition at the University of Toronto, Mississauga on May 10th and 11th, 2012: 1. How should we demarcate perceptual learning from perceptual development? 2. What are the origins of multimodal associations? 3. Does our representation of time provide an amodal framework for multi-sensory integration? 4. What counts as cognitive penetration? 5. How can philosophers and psychologists most fruitfully collaborate?

This is an excerpt from a report that highlights and explores five questions which arose from the workshop on perceptual learning and perceptual recognition at the University of Toronto, Mississauga on May 10th and 11th, 2012. This excerpt explores the question: How should we demarcate perceptual learning from perceptual development?

This is an excerpt from a report that highlights and explores five questions which arose from the workshop on perceptual learning and perceptual recognition at the University of Toronto, Mississauga on May 10th and 11th, 2012. This excerpt explores the question: How can philosophers and psychologists most fruitfully collaborate?

This is an excerpt from a report that highlights and explores five questions which arose from the workshop on perceptual learning and perceptual recognition at the University of Toronto, Mississauga on May 10th and 11th, 2012. This excerpt explores the question: Does our representation of time provide and amodal framework for multi-sensory integration?

This is an excerpt from a report that highlights and explores five questions which arose from the workshop on perceptual learning and perceptual recognition at the University of Toronto, Mississauga on May 10th and 11th, 2012. This excerpt explores the question: What are the origins of multimodal associations?

BackgroundThe ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) guidelines are widely endorsed but compliance is limited. We sought to determine whether journal-requested completion of an ARRIVE checklist improves full compliance with the guidelines.MethodsIn a randomised controlled trial, manuscripts reporting in vivo animal research submitted to PLOS ONE (March–June 2015) were randomly allocated to either requested completion of an ARRIVE checklist or current standard practice. Authors, academic editors, and peer reviewers were blinded to group allocation. Trained reviewers performed outcome adjudication (...) in duplicate by assessing manuscripts against an operationalised version of the ARRIVE guidelines that consists 108 items. Our primary outcome was the between-group differences in the proportion of manuscripts meeting all ARRIVE guideline checklist subitems.ResultsWe randomised 1689 manuscripts (control: n = 844, intervention: n = 845), of which 1269 were sent for peer review and 762 (control: n = 340; intervention: n = 332) accepted for publication. No manuscript in either group achieved full compliance with the ARRIVE checklist. Details of animal husbandry (ARRIVE subitem 9b) was the only subitem to show improvements in reporting, with the proportion of compliant manuscripts rising from 52.1 to 74.1% (X2 = 34.0, df = 1, p = 2.1 × 10−7) in the control and intervention groups, respectively.ConclusionsThese results suggest that altering the editorial process to include requests for a completed ARRIVE checklist is not enough to improve compliance with the ARRIVE guidelines. Other approaches, such as more stringent editorial policies or a targeted approach on key quality items, may promote improvements in reporting. (shrink)

David Cheetham's text, 'John Hick: A Critical Introduction and Reflection' is an extensive introduction to the equally extensive work of philosopher of religion, John Hick. Cheetham traces the development of Hick's thinking from Hick's early adoption of phenomenological approaches to his articulation of a religious pluralism that attempts to read together the world's major religious traditions. Cheetham engages with Hick's defenders and critics, painstakingly analysing the themes which have occupied the minds of philosophers of religion during the twentieth century. (...) Hence we are introduced to the work of Augustine, Irenaeus, Anthony Flew, Terence Penelhum, Richard Swinburne, amongst others.The themes around which these philosophers have focused their work,many of which are 'mainstream' philosophical issues, and which Hick highlights in his own work: realism and anti-realism, metaphysical dualism, belief and knowledge, soul-making and life after death, are some of the most difficult questions on the philosophical agenda. (shrink)

Consciousness and Mind presents David Rosenthal's influential work on the nature of consciousness. Central to that work is Rosenthal's higher-order-thought theory of consciousness, according to which a sensation, thought, or other mental state is conscious if one has a higher-order thought that one is in that state. The first four essays develop various aspects of that theory. The next three essays present Rosenthal's homomorphism theory of mental qualities and qualitative consciousness, and show how that theory fits with and helps (...) sustain the HOT theory. A crucial feature of homomorphism theory is that it individuates and taxonomizes mental qualities independently of the way we're conscious of them, and indeed independently of our being conscious of them at all. So the theory accommodates the qualitative character not only of conscious sensations and perceptions, but also of those which fall outside our stream of consciousness. Rosenthal argues that, because this account of mental qualities makes no appeal to consciousness, it enables us to dispel such traditional quandaries as the alleged conceivability of undetectable quality inversion, and to disarm various apparent obstacles to explaining qualitative consciousness and understanding its nature. Six further essays build on the HOT theory to explain various important features of consciousness, among them the complex connections that hold in humans between consciousness and speech, the self-interpretative aspect of consciousness, and the compelling sense we have that consciousness is unified. Two of the essays, one an extended treatment of homomorphism theory, appear here for the first time. There is also a substantive introduction, which draws out the connections between the essays and highlights their implications. (shrink)

The Virginia School's economics of natural equals makes consent critical for policy. Democracy is understood as government by discussion, not majority rule. The claim of efficiency unsupported by consent, as common in orthodox economics, appeals to social hierarchy. Politics becomes an act of exchange among equals where the economist is only entitled to offer advice to citizens, not to dictators. The foundation of natural equality and consent explains the common themes of James Buchanan and John Rawls as well as Ronald (...) Coase and the Fabian socialists. What orthodox economics treats as efficient racial discrimination violates the fair chance entitlement to which people consent in a market economy. The importance of replication stressed by Gordon Tullock, developing themes from Karl Popper, is another expression of natural equality since the foresight of replication induces care into research. The publication of previously unpublished correspondence and documentation allows the reader to judge recent controversy. (shrink)

A great deal of interest and excitement surround the interface between the philosophy of biology and the philosophy of psychology, yet the area is neither well defined nor well represented in mainstream philosophical publications. This book is perhaps the first to open a dialogue between the two disciplines. Its aim is to broaden the traditional subject matter of the philosophy of biology while informing the philosophy of psychology of relevant biological constraints and insights.The book is organized around six themes: functions (...) and teleology, evolutionary psychology, innateness, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and parallels between philosophy of biology and philosophy of mind. Throughout, one finds overlapping areas of study, larger philosophical implications, and even larger conceptual ties. Woven through these connections are shared concerns about the status of semantics, scientific law, evolution and adaptation, and cognition in general. Contributors André Ariew, Mark A. Bedau, David J. Buller, Paul Sheldon Davies, Stephen M. Downes, Charbel Niño El-Hani, Owen Flanagan, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Todd Grantham, Valerie Gray Hardcastle, Gary Hatfield, Daniel W. McShea, Karen Neander, Shaun Nichols, Antonio Marcos Pereira, Tom Polger, Lawrence A. Shapiro, Kim Sterelny, Robert A. Wilson, William C. Wimsatt. (shrink)

This chapter examines the role of narratives in our understanding of the relationship between food, agriculture, and the environment. Narratives are the most comprehensive way of representing things that have a historical dimension. They are crucial for putting events into context, portraying characters, and depicting scenarios. The chapter argues that environmental ethics needs to embrace the “narrative turn” in order to account for the diversity of ethical issues surrounding food, agriculture, and the environment, as well as to connect overarching stories (...) about food systems to our everyday lives. It identities several narratives commonly seen in the United States that frame the way we understand food and environmental issues. A narrative approach provides an alternative to theory-driven environmental ethics toward practical, non-academic focus on actual problems and solutions. (shrink)

The paper argues that Paul Ricoeur's The Philosophy of the Will retained a certain fidelity to phenomenology's early emphasis on subjectivity. When Ricoeur turned to the philosophy of language, he found a way to retain a certain emphasis on subjectivity and individuality that would make his work distinctive among other approaches to the philosophy of language. Hence, the title, Preserving the Eidetic Moment, intends to characterize Ricoeur's distinctive contribution to philosophy. The paper goes on to show how Ricoeur's approach can (...) contribute to Critical Theory, particularly in relationship to its theory of interlocution. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: CHAPTER 1 HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS AND HIV: The Duty To WarnI -- CHAPTER 2 EMERGENCY CARE AND HIV: Treatment Policy and -- Pracice17 -- CHAPTER 3 A REVOLUTIONARY POLICY? Mandatory Disclosure of HIV -- Serostaus29 -- CHAPTER 4 MINORS AND HEALTH CARE: The Limits of Consent and -- Confidentiality39 -- CHAPTER 5 THE RIGHTS TO REFUSE AND DEMAND MEDICAL -- TREATMENT: The Bounds ofAutonomy andFutli{y47 -- CHAPTER 6 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND THE RIGHT TO REFUSE CARE: -- (...) What Are The Limits?65 -- CHAPTER 7 ASSISTED REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY: The Business of -- Making Babies 89 -- CHAPTER 8 TWINS AND TRANSPLANTS: Choosing Who Lives 113 -- CHAPTER 9 FREE ABORTION SERVICES AND FETAL TISSUE RESEARCH: -- Freedom of Choice and Coercion123 -- CHAPTER 10 PROPERTY RIGHTS, BODY PARTS, AND REPRODUCTION: -- Who Owns the Human Body? - 139 -- CHAPTER 11 OUTBREAK IN AMERICA: The Policy of Public Verses Private -- Interests 153 -- APPENDIX A CONFIDENTIALITY OF HIV TEST RESULTS: California Health -- and Safety Code Sections 120975 Through 121020169 -- APPENDIX B HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS AND HIV: Texas Health and -- Safety Code Section 58.204 175 -- APPENDIX C TARASOFF v, THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF -- CALIFORNIA: Supreme Court of California177 -- APPENDIX D THE RIGHTS OF MINORS TO CONSENT TO HEALTH CARE: -- California Family Code Sections 6903 Through 6929183 -- APPENDIX E FEDERAL DRUG AND ALCOHOL ABUSE CONFIDENTIALITY -- REGULATIONS: Title 42 Code of Federal Regulations Part 2 187 -- APPENDIX F CHILD ABUSE REPORTING LAWS: Caitfornia Penal Code -- Sections 11164 Through 11166 193. (shrink)

As business and society is an inherently multi-disciplinary scholarly area, the book will draw from work in areas outside of business and management, such as psychology, sociology, philosophy, religious studies, economics and other related fields, as well as the natural sciences, education, and other professional areas of study.

In this chapter I consider the narrow and wider benefits of permitting assisted dying in the specific context of organ donation and transplantation. In addition to the commonly used arguments, there are two other neglected reasons for permitting assisted suicide and/or euthanasia: assisted dying enables those who do not wish to remain alive to prolong the lives of those who do, and also allows many more people to fulfill their wish to donate organs after death. In the first part of (...) this chapter I explore the possibility of allowing those who die with assistance to donate their organs and the potential benefits of doing so in countries where some form of assisted dying is legal; in the second part I consider the added force that organ donation considerations bring to the argument in favour of legalizing assisted dying in countries where such practices remain forbidden. (shrink)

In the past two to three decades health behavior scientists have increasingly emphasized affect-related concepts in their attempts to understand and facilitate change in important health behaviors, such as smoking, eating, physical activity, substance abuse, and sex. This article provides a narrative review of this burgeoning literature, including relevant theory and research on affective response, incidental affect, affect processing, and affectively charged motivation. An integrative dual-processing framework is presented that suggests pathways through which affect-related concepts may interrelate to influence health (...) behavior. (shrink)

The field of cognitive modeling has progressed beyond modeling cognition in the context of simple laboratory tasks and begun to attack the problem of modeling it in more complex, realistic environments, such as those studied by researchers in the field of human factors. The problems that the cognitive modeling community is tackling focus on modeling certain problems of communication and control that arise when integrating with the external environment factors such as implicit and explicit knowledge, emotion, cognition, and the cognitive (...) system. These problems must be solved in order to produce integrated cognitive models of moderately complex tasks. Architectures of cognition in these tasks focus on the control of a central system, which includes control of the central processor itself, initiation of functional processes, such as visual search and memory retrieval, and harvesting the results of these functional processes. Because the control of the central system is conceptually different from the internal control required by individual functional processes, a complete architecture of cognition must incorporate two types of theories of control: Type 1 theories of the structure, functionality, and operation of the controller, and type 2 theories of the internal control of functional processes, including how and what they communicate to the controller. This book presents the current state of the art for both types of theories, as well as contrasts among current approaches to human-performance models. It will be an important resource for professional and student researchers in cognitive science, cognitive-engineering, and human-factors.Contributors: Kevin A. Gluck, Jerry T. Ball, Michael A. Krusmark, Richard W. Pew, Chris R. Sims, Vladislav D. Veksler, John R. Anderson, Ron Sun, Nicholas L. Cassimatis, Randy J. Brou, Andrew D. Egerton, Stephanie M. Doane, Christopher W. Myers, Hansjorg Neth, Jeremy M Wolfe, Marc Pomplun, Ronald A. Rensink, Hansjorg Neth, Chris R. Sims, Peter M. Todd, Lael J. Schooler, Wai-Tat Fu, Michael C. Mozer, Sachiko Kinoshita, Michael Shettel, Alex Kirlik, Vladislav D. Veksler, Michael J. Schoelles, Jerome R. Busemeyer, Eric Dimperio, Ryan K. Jessup, Jonathan Gratch, Stacy Marsella, Glenn Gunzelmann, Kevin A. Gluck, Scott Price, Hans P. A. Van Dongen, David F. Dinges, Frank E. Ritter, Andrew L. Reifers, Laura Cousino Klein, Michael J. Schoelles, Eva Hudlicka, Hansjorg Neth, Christopher W. Myers, Dana Ballard, Nathan Sprague, Laurence T. Maloney, Julia Trommershauser, Michael S. Landy, A. Hornof, Michael J. Schoelles, David Kieras, Dario D. Salvucci, Niels Taatgen, Erik M. Altmann, Richard A. Carlson, Andrew Howes, Richard L. Lewis, Alonso Vera, Richard P. Cooper, and Michael D. Byrne. (shrink)

Dualism is the view that mental phenomena are, in some respect, nonphysical. The best-known version is due to Descartes, and holds that the mind is a nonphysical substance. Descartes argued that, because minds have no spatial properties and physical reality is essentially extended in space, minds are wholly nonphysical. Every human being is accordingly a composite of two objects: a physical body, and a nonphysical object that is that human being's mind. On a weaker version of dualism, which contemporary thinkers (...) find more acceptable, human beings are physical substances but have mental properties, and those properties aren't physical. This view is known as property dualism, or the dual-aspect theory. (shrink)

Universalism vs. Communitarianism focuses on the question, raised by recent work in normative philosophy, of whether ethical norms are best derived and justified on the basis of universal or communitarian standards. It is unique in representing both Continental and American points of view and both the older and a younger generation of scholars. The essays introduce the key issues involved in universalism vs. communitarianism and take up ethics in historical perspective, practical reason and ethical responsibility, justification, application and history, and (...) communitarian alternatives. Based on a special issue of the Journal Philosophy and Social Criticism, the book includes two additional essays by Chantal Mouffe and by Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus. David Rasmussen is Professor of Philosophy at Boston College and editor of Philosophy and Social Criticism. Contents: introduction, David, Rasmussen. Universalisms: Procedural, Contextualist, and Prudential, Alessandro Ferrara. Beyond Liberalism and Communitarianism: Toward a Critical Theory of Social Justice, Gerald Doppelt. The Liberal/Communitarian Controversy and Communicative Ethics, Kenneth Baynes. Discourse Ethics and Civil Society, Jean Cohen. Equality, Political Order and Ethics: Hobbes and the Systematics of Democratic Rationality, Rolf Zimmermann. Atomism and Ethical Life: On Hegel's Critique of the French Revolution, Axel Honneth. The Gadamer-Habermas Debate Revisited: The Question of Ethics, Michael Kelly. What Is and What Is Not Practical Reason? Agnes Heller. Adorno, Heidegger, and Postmodernity, Hauke Brunkhorst. Impartial Application of Moral and Legal Norms: A Contribution to Discourse Ethics, Klaus Günther. An Ethics, Politics, and History, Jürgen Habermas in an interview conducted by Jean-Marc Ferry. Rawls: Political Philosophy without Politics, Chantal Mouffe. What Is Morality: A Phenomenological Account of the Development of Ethical Expertise, Hubert L Dreyfus, Stuart E. Dreyfus. Universalism and Communitarianism: A Bibliography, Michael Zilles. (shrink)

_The Handbook of Critical Theory_ brings together for the first time a detailed examination of the state of critical theory today. The fifteen essays provide analyses of the various orientations which critical theory has taken both historically and systematically in recent years, expositions of the new perspectives which have begun to shape the field, and reflections upon the direction of critical theory.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bishop Berkeley Exorcises the Infinite: Fuzzy Consequences of Strict Finitism1 David M. Levy Introduction It all began simply enough when Molyneux asked the wonderful question whether a person born blind, now able to see, would recognize by sight what he knew by touch (Davis 1960). After George Berkeley elaborated an answer, that we learn to perceive by heuristics, the foundations ofcontemporarymathematics wereinruin. Contemporary mathematicians waved their hands and (...) changed the subject.2 Berkeley's answer received a much more positive response from economists. Adam Smith,in particular, seizedupon Berkeley's doctrine that welearn to perceive distance tobuild anelaborate system in which one learns to perceive one's self-interest.3 Perhaps because older histories of mathematics are a positive hindrance in helping us understand the importance of Berkeley's argument against infinitesimals,4 its consequences for economics have passed unnoticed. If infinitesimal numbers are ruled out, and we wish to maintain an algebra, then we rule out infinite numbers. This implication of Berkeley's argumenthas a dramatic implication for our understanding ofthe history ofideas about rule-directed action. Let me motivate this claim with a well-known historical problem. The social doctrine set forth by John Locke outside the Two Treatises depends critically upon individual belief about possible states of infinite pain or pleasure. The critical issue for the intolerance of atheism in Locke's system is his claim that without beUefin the infinite bliss of heaven forgone by a criminal, there is no reason to think a calculating individual will avoid crime.5 Locke's discussion is so different from the discussion of religion by David Hume and Smith. Here, questions of the substance of belief—the infinite worth of Heaven—have largely vanished.6 What happened between Locke and Hume-Smith? One answer is Pierre Bayle and Bernard Mandeville. Berkeley's doctrine that only the finite is perceived is, I think, a better answer. Out of sight, out ofmind. In this paper I propose to give a close look at the content and consequences ofBishop Berkeley's once famous Towards a New Theory ofVision. While there are other aspects ofBerkeley's work that attract Volume XVIII Number 2 511 DAVID M. LEVY attention from historians ofeconomics,7 1 shall claim that Berkeley's insight into human perception in the Theory of Vision is central to Adam Smith's attempt to found economic behaviour on the self-awareness of systematic illusion. There is no doubt that Smith finds that much ofhuman behaviour is characterized by illusion.8 The difficulty arises, or so it seems to me, from modern unwilUngness to beheve that illusion can be systematic. There are four pieces to my argument. First, we consider Berkeley's statementofwhat we shall call his doctrine ofstrict finitism in perception.9 Berkeley puts forward two postulates: 1) there exists some minimum perceptible quantity, and 2) distance is not perceived directly but by experience. Second, we define strict finitism and demonstrate that it translates into the claim that perception is fuzzy in a technical sense. If Berkeleian perception is fuzzy, then some modern criticism of Berkeley's strict finitism is based upon a simple misunderstandingofthe propertiesoffuzzyrelations. Thisis quite easy to set right. (Getting right the doctrine of those who implicitly take perception to be fuzzy—Adam Smith is my prime candidate—will be muchharder.)Third, wereconsiderBerkeley's dispute withMandeville on the role ofinfinite gain in choice. Here, we find Mandeville putting forward the Berkeleian position that if infinite amounts mattered, people would not behave as they do. Berkeley's position against Mandeville, however, seems to depend upon the supposition that infinite distance is sensible.10 Earlier, however, the position that Mandeville argued for was defended by Berkeley. Fourth, we ask why all this isn't well known. The debate between Berkeley and Mandeville has been well studied, as has been the link between Berkeley and the Scots. In fact, our work focuses on one aspect of Berkeley's work that led to his challenge of the contemporary foundations of the calculus. If sense is a matter of perception, and infinitesimals cannot be perceived, then they are quite literally nonsense. Armed with this insight, Berkeley refuted contemporary mathematics. Nevertheless, the calculus was too... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bishop Berkeley Exorcises the Infinite: Fuzzy Consequences of Strict Finitism1 David M. Levy Introduction It all began simply enough when Molyneux asked the wonderful question whether a person born blind, now able to see, would recognize by sight what he knew by touch (Davis 1960). After George Berkeley elaborated an answer, that we learn to perceive by heuristics, the foundations ofcontemporarymathematics wereinruin. Contemporary mathematicians waved their hands and (...) changed the subject.2 Berkeley's answer received a much more positive response from economists. Adam Smith,in particular, seizedupon Berkeley's doctrine that welearn to perceive distance tobuild anelaborate system in which one learns to perceive one's self-interest.3 Perhaps because older histories of mathematics are a positive hindrance in helping us understand the importance of Berkeley's argument against infinitesimals,4 its consequences for economics have passed unnoticed. If infinitesimal numbers are ruled out, and we wish to maintain an algebra, then we rule out infinite numbers. This implication of Berkeley's argumenthas a dramatic implication for our understanding ofthe history ofideas about rule-directed action. Let me motivate this claim with a well-known historical problem. The social doctrine set forth by John Locke outside the Two Treatises depends critically upon individual belief about possible states of infinite pain or pleasure. The critical issue for the intolerance of atheism in Locke's system is his claim that without beUefin the infinite bliss of heaven forgone by a criminal, there is no reason to think a calculating individual will avoid crime.5 Locke's discussion is so different from the discussion of religion by David Hume and Smith. Here, questions of the substance of belief—the infinite worth of Heaven—have largely vanished.6 What happened between Locke and Hume-Smith? One answer is Pierre Bayle and Bernard Mandeville. Berkeley's doctrine that only the finite is perceived is, I think, a better answer. Out of sight, out ofmind. In this paper I propose to give a close look at the content and consequences ofBishop Berkeley's once famous Towards a New Theory ofVision. While there are other aspects ofBerkeley's work that attract Volume XVIII Number 2 511 DAVID M. LEVY attention from historians ofeconomics,7 1 shall claim that Berkeley's insight into human perception in the Theory of Vision is central to Adam Smith's attempt to found economic behaviour on the self-awareness of systematic illusion. There is no doubt that Smith finds that much ofhuman behaviour is characterized by illusion.8 The difficulty arises, or so it seems to me, from modern unwilUngness to beheve that illusion can be systematic. There are four pieces to my argument. First, we consider Berkeley's statementofwhat we shall call his doctrine ofstrict finitism in perception.9 Berkeley puts forward two postulates: 1) there exists some minimum perceptible quantity, and 2) distance is not perceived directly but by experience. Second, we define strict finitism and demonstrate that it translates into the claim that perception is fuzzy in a technical sense. If Berkeleian perception is fuzzy, then some modern criticism of Berkeley's strict finitism is based upon a simple misunderstandingofthe propertiesoffuzzyrelations. Thisis quite easy to set right. (Getting right the doctrine of those who implicitly take perception to be fuzzy—Adam Smith is my prime candidate—will be muchharder.)Third, wereconsiderBerkeley's dispute withMandeville on the role ofinfinite gain in choice. Here, we find Mandeville putting forward the Berkeleian position that if infinite amounts mattered, people would not behave as they do. Berkeley's position against Mandeville, however, seems to depend upon the supposition that infinite distance is sensible.10 Earlier, however, the position that Mandeville argued for was defended by Berkeley. Fourth, we ask why all this isn't well known. The debate between Berkeley and Mandeville has been well studied, as has been the link between Berkeley and the Scots. In fact, our work focuses on one aspect of Berkeley's work that led to his challenge of the contemporary foundations of the calculus. If sense is a matter of perception, and infinitesimals cannot be perceived, then they are quite literally nonsense. Armed with this insight, Berkeley refuted contemporary mathematics. Nevertheless, the calculus was too... (shrink)

This long-awaited book sets out the implications of Habermas's theory of communicative action for moral theory. "Discourse ethics" attempts to reconstruct a moral point of view from which normative claims can be impartially judged. The theory of justice it develops replaces Kant's categorical imperative with a procedure of justification based on reasoned agreement among participants in practical discourse.Habermas connects communicative ethics to the theory of social action via an examination of research in the social psychology of moral and interpersonal development. (...) He aims to show that our basic moral intuitions spring from something deeper and more universal than contingent features of our tradition, namely from normative presuppositions of social interaction that belong to the repertoire of competent agents in any society. Jürgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. (shrink)

The return of STS to its historical roots / Baird Callicott -- Phil-tech meets eco-phil / Don Idhe -- Is technology use insidious? / Kyle Whyte, Ryan Gunderson, Brett Clark -- Resistance to risky technologies / Paul Thompson -- Remediation technologies and respect for others / Ben Hale -- Early geoengineering governance / Clare Heyward -- Design for sustainability / Ibo van de Poel -- Industrial ecology and environmental design / Braden Allenby -- Ecodesign in the era of symbolic consumption (...) / Zhang Wei -- Do we consume too much? / Mark Sagoff -- Sustainable technologies for sustainable lifestyles / Philip Brey -- Sustainable animal agriculture and environmental virtue ethics / Raymond Anthony -- Technology, responsibility, and meat / Wyatt Galusky. (shrink)

Two hundred and sixty-three subjects each gave examples for one of five geographic categories: geographic features, geographic objects, geographic concepts, something geographic, and something that could be portrayed on a map. The frequencies of various responses were significantly different, indicating that the basic ontological terms feature, object, etc., are not interchangeable but carry different meanings when combined with adjectives indicating geographic or mappable. For all of the test phrases involving geographic, responses were predominantly natural features such as mountain, river, lake, (...) ocean, hill. Artificial geographic features such as town and city were listed hardly at all for geographic categories, an outcome that contrasts sharply with the disciplinary self-understanding of academic geography. However, geographic artifacts and fiat objects, such as roads, cities, boundaries, countries, and states, were frequently listed by the subjects responding to the phrase something that could be portrayed on a map. In this paper, we present the results of these experiments in visual form, and provide interpretations and implications for further research. (shrink)

Democracy is not naturally plausible. Why turn such important matters over to masses of people who have no expertise? Many theories of democracy answer by appealing to the intrinsic value of democratic procedure, leaving aside whether it makes good decisions. In Democratic Authority, David Estlund offers a groundbreaking alternative based on the idea that democratic authority and legitimacy must depend partly on democracy's tendency to make good decisions.Just as with verdicts in jury trials, Estlund argues, the authority and legitimacy (...) of a political decision does not depend on the particular decision being good or correct. But the "epistemic value" of the procedure--the degree to which it can generally be accepted as tending toward a good decision--is nevertheless crucial. Yet if good decisions were all that mattered, one might wonder why those who know best shouldn't simply rule.Estlund's theory--which he calls "epistemic proceduralism"--avoids epistocracy, or the rule of those who know. He argues that while some few people probably do know best, this can be used in political justification only if their expertise is acceptable from all reasonable points of view. If we seek the best epistemic arrangement in this respect, it will be recognizably democratic--with laws and policies actually authorized by the people subject to them. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Mental Toolkits God as Personal Agent Anthropomorphism Perfect Being Theology Do Words Apply? Alternatives to God as Agent God as Object and Subject Notes.

This chapter contains sections titled: Examining Presuppositions? Forced Choices Burden of Proof and Default Positions A Misleading Picture Thinking About A Way of Life: A Case Study Notes.

This chapter contains sections titled: Conflicting Truth Claims Hick's Pluralism Responses to Religious Diversity Openness to Other Traditions Attitudes Toward Those Who Disagree Certainty and Doubt Is God a Hypothesis? The Practice of Belief Notes.

This chapter contains sections titled: Religious Questions and Metaphysical Questions God of the Philosophers The Kind of Belief that Matters Philosophical Foundations What Metaphysical Reasoning Can Do Belief and Experience Notes.

This chapter contains sections titled: Life‐Orienting Beliefs Belief in God Religious Belief and Its Counterfeits Alternative Stories Orienting Stories and Truth Fallibilism Notes.

This chapter contains sections titled: Complaining About God God as Micro‐Manager Philosophical Questions and Religious Questions Finding Meaning in Life Is God Needed for Meaning? Notes.