Mitchell, Patricia Review of: Meaning, Self and the human potential: An appeal for humanism, by Kristine Millar, Janus Publishing Company Led London 2013.

This text provides a unique collection of case studies across a wide range of organizations (higher education, K-12 education, military, state and local government administration, non-profit institutions, and agency management, etc.). These cases examine ethical decision-making and organizational and leadership behavioral concepts that are practiced in these organizations. The cases cover topics facing our workforce today and ask the reader to solve the dilemma. Through a discussion of these cases, students apply decision making and organizational and leadership strategies to analyze (...) each case and therefore gain a better understanding of how to effectively lead and manage within their organizations. This text challenges students to think critically and analytically. Students are encouraged to reflect on options a practitioner could use to solve the problem. All of the cases end with an open scenario and a set of questions, allowing students to offer a wide range of opinions and participate in reflective and robust discussions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Legacy of Parmenides, Eleatic Monism and Later Presocratic Thought by Patricia CurdMitchell MillerPatricia Curd. The Legacy of Parmenides, Eleatic Monism and Later Presocratic Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. Pp. xv + 280. Cloth, $45.00.Curd confronts a puzzle in early Greek philosophy. Parmenides’ teaching is traditionally understood as “numerical monism”: “there is only one thing or item in the universe” (66). But his successors, though accepting (...) his key claims that “what-is-not” is not to be thought and becoming must therefore be denied, begin straightaway, without argument, from a plurality of ultimate entities—Anaxagoras from the chremata, Empedocles from his four roots and Love and Strife, Leucippus and Democritus from atoms and the void. Did they peremptorily reject Parmenides’ monism? Did they simply fail to understand it? Curd proposes, instead, that Parmenides was not a “numerical monist” in the first place. Recasting Mourelatos’ notion of speculative predication, she offers accounts of the Aletheia- and the Doxa-sections of the poem in which Parmenides emerges as a “predicational monist.” In the Aletheia, Curd’s Parmenides subjects to critique the predications by which inquiry arrives at the “nature” of something; the “signs” of B8 are the criteria that, in accord with his rejection of negative predications as uninformative, each “nature” must meet. It is not the “universe” but rather each “nature” by itself that must be “a whole of a single kind” (B8.3), “all together one, cohesive” (B8.5–6), and “not divisible” (B8.22)—how many such “natures” a theory may posit is simply not at issue. In the Doxa, Curd’s Parmenides has a twofold purpose: by the “deceptive order of [the goddess’] words” Parmenides poses a test, challenging his hearers to recognize that since “Light” and “Night” are “enantiomorphic opposites” with each in its very “nature” not the other, they fail to meet the criteria of B8; at the same time, he provides a model that we can use to assess or construct cosmological theories. By this interpretation of Parmenides Curd clears the ground for her account of his “legacy.” In her final chapters she offers pointed readings of Anaxagoras, Empedocles, the Atomists, Philolaus, Diogenes of Apollonia, and early Plato, arguing that each adopts Parmenides’ “predicational monism,” affirming the indivisibly one and unchanging character of each of the “natures” fundamental to the sensible world.This major new proposal will be of compelling interest to all scholars of the presocratics. Some possible limitations and basic questions to consider:1. There are significant regions of the proem, of presocratic thought, and of modern commentary yet to be examined. B9, crucial to interpreting the error of mortals at B8.53–54, and the orienting symbolism in the proem are only cursorily treated. Hesiod gets barely a mention in Curd’s otherwise valuable survey of the appeals to opposites in pre-Parmenidean thought. In taking the early Owen’s existential reading of Parmenides’ [End Page 157] esti and her own notion of the “is” of “informative identity” as the two fundamental alternatives, she leaves undiscussed the so-called “fused” predicative-existential reading.2. How narrowly focused does Curd’s reading require us to keep Parmenides’ esti? When she discusses B8, she speaks of “what-is” and “what-is-not.” But if we approach B8 in light of her reading of B2 and read to eon in the context of a speculative predication of the form “x is F,” shouldn’t we speak of it as “what x is”—and of the corresponding negation as “what x is not”? Does Curd seek to preserve the veridical-existential implication of “x is F,” namely, that as the nature that defines x, it is F that truly or most fully exists? Clarification of this issue need not require an either/or choice between senses of “is.” It may well be that to appreciate fully Parmenides’ krisis, “is or is not,” and his paradoxical notion of “nothing,” we need to recover an interplay between speculative-predicative, existential, and veridical nuances—especially if, with Curd, we open ourselves to an unfolding history of perspectives extending all the way to Plato.3. To construe Parmenides as only a “predicational monist” requires... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Truth Will Set You Free, or How a Troubled Philosophical Theory May Help to Understand How People Talk About Their AddictionPatricia A. Ross (bio)Keywordsveridicality of narrative, contingency of theories, belief-behavior, causal connectionConsider the following proposition: If one were to recognize the unsatisfactory implications of maintaining a certain theoretical position, one would thereby be motivated to accept a more adequate theory, which would alter one's beliefs and, in turn, (...) alter the behaviors that are based upon those beliefs. Faith in this proposition is what motivates many of us to teach. But, alas...Allison Mitchell's argument for rethinking addiction intervention—in particular, rethinking twelve-step programs—is premised on this proposition. According to her argument, addicts function with an impoverished sense of self that is reflective of a grossly simplified form of philosophical materialism. By recognizing the limitations of this philosophically unconvincing view, and by, in effect, accepting a better, more complete materialism, addicts can come to modify their self-conception. This modification is instrumental to recovery.A careful consideration of the chain of events being proposed, and the problems with it, is helpful for understanding the limitations of her argument. There are four points that I consider in turn: (1) considering narratives can tell us something about the self-conception of addicts, (2) philosophical materialism can help us to understand and explain something about an addict's self-conception and how it is inadequate, (3) this sense of self is distinct from nonusers and the way in which it is distinct helps to understand the problem of addiction, and (4) a change in self-conception with respect to materialism helps recovery and, thus, our best intervention is one based on having addicts accept a full materialist theory of the self and not a pretheoretic one. [End Page 227]With respect to the first point, it should be noted that Mitchell's overall argument does not depend on whether or not it is true that narratives of addiction tell us something veridical about the self-conception of addicts. Such narratives may simply provide us with a potential theory—a possible worlds scenario—of how addicts conceive of themselves. Mitchell points this out herself. The narratives and the interpretation that she provides of these narrative, "are meant only to highlight a certain pattern of self-expression and conception that may in fact be common in persons who use mind-altering substances; the readings do not establish any empirical matters of fact or philosophical truths, nor do they prove any conclusions about how such persons (must) express themselves or conceive their nature" (Mitchell 2006, 214).Thus, what the argument is actually concerned with are the theoretical claims about the self-conception of addicts that are garnered from these narratives. Nevertheless, because the narratives provide the starting point for Mitchell's argument, it is worth thinking carefully about the epistemic status of this body of literature. In particular, could a consideration of such literature lead us astray in our endeavors to understand how addicts might misconceive of themselves and, if so, in what way? What sort of epistemic status does this information hold?Mitchell is motivated by Wittgensteinian analyses of the relationship between thought and language. The particular idea that she employs from Wittgenstein is that every act of self-expression, whether it is verbal or written narrative, reveals something about the conceptual framework with which the author is working. Thus, one can learn about the author of a narrative—one can acquire a sense of how that individual conceives of him- or herself—by looking at the language that is employed to talk about and describe him- or herself.Mitchell enumerates some problems with this approach. She mentions that the author may fail to make his or her intended sense clear to readers; that the reader's narrative expectations determine the interpretation given to the narrative; that literary narrative may be less direct, less ordinary than everyday uses of language; and that interpreting such narrative via philosophical framework may ascribe to people positions that are more precise and sophisticated than they actually intend (p. 213).Aside from these quite serious problems, it is necessary to recognize... (shrink)

We are big fans of propositions. But we are not big fans of the proposed by Mitchell et al. The authors ignore the critical role played by implicit, non-inferential processes in biological cognition, overestimate the work that propositions alone can do, and gloss over substantial differences in how different kinds of animals and different kinds of cognitive processes approximate propositional representations.

A review of Patricia Curd's Legacy of Parmenides, with a stress on her seminal recognition of the implications of his immediate successors' apparent acceptance of plurality within the unity of being.

The Tobacco Control Legal Consortium is a national “network” designed to tap expertise about tobacco control legislation and to leverage existing resources. Based at the William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, the Consortium supports local counsel with research, strategic advice, sample materials and pleadings, and amicus briefs. The Consortium’s priorities are to support capacity nationally, to offer education, and to perform outreach activities to a variety of audiences.The Consortium seeks to advance policy change by making legal (...) expertise more readily available to the tobacco control community. Legal issues are inevitably involved in policy change. The Consortium does not provide legal representation, but conducts analysis and research. They publish on important and emerging legal issues as well as on specific cases, assist in the development of legislation, and train public health practitioners and policy makers on recurring legal issues. (shrink)

The Tobacco Control Legal Consortium is a national “network” designed to tap expertise about tobacco control legislation and to leverage existing resources. Based at the William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, the Consortium supports local counsel with research, strategic advice, sample materials and pleadings, and amicus briefs. The Consortium’s priorities are to support capacity nationally, to offer education, and to perform outreach activities to a variety of audiences.The Consortium seeks to advance policy change by making legal (...) expertise more readily available to the tobacco control community. Legal issues are inevitably involved in policy change. The Consortium does not provide legal representation, but conducts analysis and research. They publish on important and emerging legal issues as well as on specific cases, assist in the development of legislation, and train public health practitioners and policy makers on recurring legal issues. (shrink)

Commentary on Andrew Mitchell and Patricia Glazebrook on plants and agriculture in the context of Heidegger's own reflections on botany and technology in which I discuss, bees, cell phone radiation, the relatively complex but fairly obvious sociological dynamics of science and powerful commercial interests (capital), and mantid copulation.

Introduction to the Institutional Logics Perspective -- Precursors to the Institutional Logics Perspective -- Defining the Inter-institutional System -- The Emergence, Stability and Change of the Inter-institutional System -- Micro-Foundations of Institutional Logics -- The Dynamics of Organizational Practices and Identities -- The Emergence and Evolution of Field-Level Logics -- Implications for Future Research.

ABSTRACT:The notion of stakeholder salience based on attributes (e.g., power, legitimacy, urgency) is applied in the family business setting. We argue that where principal institutions intersect (i.e., family and business); managerial perceptions of stakeholder salience will be different and more complex than where institutions are based on a single dominant logic. We propose that (1) whereas utilitarian power is more likely in the general business case, normative power is more typical in family business stakeholder salience; (2) whereas in a general (...) business context legitimacy is socially constructed; for family stakeholders, legitimacy is based on heredity; and (3) whereas temporality and criticality are somewhat independent in general-business urgency, they are linked in the family business case because of family ties and family-centered non-economic goals. We apply this theoretical framework to position and integrate the contributions to this special section ofBusiness Ethics Quarterlyon “Stakeholder Theory, Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Family Enterprise.”. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The notion of stakeholder salience based on attributes (e.g., power, legitimacy, urgency) is applied in the family business setting. We argue that where principal institutions intersect (i.e., family and business); managerial perceptions of stakeholder salience will be different and more complex than where institutions are based on a single dominant logic. We propose that (1) whereas utilitarian power is more likely in the general business case, normative power is more typical in family business stakeholder salience; (2) whereas in a general (...) business context legitimacy is socially constructed; for family stakeholders, legitimacy is based on heredity; and (3) whereas temporality and criticality are somewhat independent in general-business urgency, they are linked in the family business case because of family ties and family-centered non-economic goals. We apply this theoretical framework to position and integrate the contributions to this special section ofBusiness Ethics Quarterlyon “Stakeholder Theory, Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Family Enterprise.”. (shrink)

Banded geckos (Coleonyx variegatus) were trained, at the rate of five daily trials, on eight intradimensional spatial shifts to a criterion of 80% correct per reversal. In contrast to several previously reported failures to obtain reversal learning, Coleonyx demonstrated significant improvement on both errors and trials to criterion. Their reversal performance compares favorably with that of birds and mammals and a common index of reversal ability, the mean total error, did not differentiate between taxa.

The two-dimensional framework in semantics has the most power and plausibility when combined with a kind of global semantic neo-descriptivism. If neo-descriptivism can be defended on the toughest terrain - the semantics of ordinary proper names - then the other skirmishes should be easier. This paper defends neo-descriptivism against two important objections: that the descriptions may be inaccessibly locked up in sub-personal modules, and thus not accessible a priori, and that in any case all such modules bottom out in purely (...) causal mechanisms, and that thus an externalist causal metasemantic theory will best account for them. I agree both that many descriptions are in some sense modularized, and that they bottom out in causal mechanisms. But I argue that these are not the relevant descriptions that two-dimensionalism trades in, and which make us, in an important sense, masters of our meanings. (shrink)

Overview -- Locke's internal sense and Kant's changing views -- Personal identity amd its problems -- Rationalist metaphysics of mind -- Consciousness, self-consciousness, and cognition -- Strands of Argument in the Duisburg Nachlass -- A transcendental deduction for a priori concepts -- Synthesis : why and how? -- Arguing for apperception -- The power of apperception -- "I-think" as the destroyer of rational psychology -- Is Kant's theory consistent? -- The normativity objection -- Is Kant's thinker (as such) a free (...) and responsible agent? -- Kant our contemporary. (shrink)

Future-bias is the preference, all else being equal, for negatively valenced events be located in the past rather than the future, and positively valenced ones to be located in the future rather than the past. Strong risk aversion is the preference to pay some cost to mitigate the badness of the worst outcome. People who are both strongly risk averse and future-biased can face a series of choices that will guarantee them more pain, for no compensating benefit: they will be (...) pain pumped. Thus, combining these preferences is rationally impermissible. Dougherty (2011) argues that this gives us reason to think that future-bias is rationally impermissible. This argument, and a similar one presented by Greene and Sullivan (2015), relies on the idea that if several preferences are not rationally combinable, then in the absence of some explanation of why they are not combinable, we should conclude that (at least) one of them is rationally impermissible. We take up this question by, inter alia, reflecting on the empirical results of a study we ran that probes people’s risk averse and future-biased preferences. We argue that the data, in conjunction with other considerations, suggests that we should not infer from the irrationality of the combination of these preferences to the irrationality of one of the preferences singly. We also argue that given the descriptive data about these preferences, there is no reason to think that, if one of them is rationally impermissible, then it is future-bias. (shrink)

A close reading of the poem of Parmenides, with focal attention to the way the proem situates Parmenides' insight in relation to Hesiod and Anaximander and provides the context for the thought of "... is". I identify three pointed ambiguities, in the direction of the journey to the gates of the ways of Night and Day, in the way the gates swing open before the waiting traveler, and in the character of the "chasm" that their opening makes, and I suggest (...) ways in which these ambiguities at once complicate and determine the significance of the thought of "... is" and its implications for the status of the opinions of mortals. (shrink)

In articles such as “Speech Acts without Propositions?” (2006), Marina Sbisà advocates a “strong” conception of speech acts as means by which speakers modify their own and others’ deontic statuses, including their rights, obligations, and commitments. On this basis Sbisà challenges an influential approach to speech acts as typically if not universally possessing propositional contents. Sbisà argues that such an approach leads to viewing speech acts as primarily aimed at communicating propositional attitudes rather than carrying out socially and normatively significant (...) action. For this reason she advocates eschewing propositions from speech act theory’s conceptual toolkit; she also proposes a liberalization of the distinction between illocutionary force and semantic content, which are widely thought to be mutually exclusive. In this chapter we examine Sbisà’s reasoning and argue that while it does justify denying propositional attitudes a central role in communication, it does not justify dispensing with propositions or other contents in our theorizing about speech acts. In addition, we endorse Sbisà’s proposal for liberalizing the force/content distinction, and show a variety of ways in which force indicators may also possess semantic content. (shrink)

This paper provides an assessment of the bodily-attitudinal theory of emotions, according to which emotions are felt bodily attitudes of action readiness. After providing a reconstruction of the view and clarifying its central commitments two objections are considered. An alternative object side interpretation of felt action readiness is then provided, which undermines the motivation for the bodily-attitudinal theory and creates problems for its claims concerning the content of emotional experience. The conclusion is that while the bodily-attitudinal theory marks out a (...) distinctive proposal concerning the question of what emotions are, there remain significant issues which need addressing if it is to be a plausible competitor to existing theories of emotion. (shrink)

The ways in which knowledge relates to power have been much discussed in radical education theory. New emphasis on the role of gender and the growing debate about subjectivity have deepened the discussion, while making it more complex. In Getting Smart , Patti Lather makes use of her unique integration of feminism and postmodernism into critical education theory to address some of the most vital questions facing education researchers and teachers.

According to some philosophers, the mind enjoys a form of presence to itself. That is to say, in addition to being aware of whatever objects it is aware of, it is also (co-presently) aware of itself. This paper explores the proposal that we should think about this kind of experiential-presence in terms of a form of non-intentional awareness. Various candidates for the relevant form of awareness, as constituting supposed non-intentional experiential-presence, are considered and are shown to encounter significant problems. The (...) fact that a plausible account of the non-intentional awareness which experience putatively has of itself cannot be framed with reference to such forms of awareness is grounds for scepticism concerning the cogency of non-intentional experiential presence. (shrink)

This book analyzes the moral confusion of contemporary society, relating rival conceptions of morality with a wide variety of views about the nature and predicament of man. Mitchell argues that many secular thinkers possess a traditional "Christian" conscience which they find hard to defend in terms of an entirely secular world-view, but which is more in line with a Christian understanding of man.

The philosophy of mind and cognition has been transformed by recent advances in what is loosely called cognitive science. This book is a thoroughly up-to-date introduction to and account of that transformation, in which the many strands in contemporary cognitive science are brought together into a coherent philosophical picture of the mind. The book begins with discussions of the pre-history of contemporary philosophy of mind - dualism, behaviourism, and early versions of the identity theory of mind - and moves through (...) discussions of functionalism in autonomy of psychology, to topics such as eliminative materialism, individualism and the problems of content and representation. The synoptic nature of the discussion makes it ideal as the foundation of an undergraduate course in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

It is a commonly expressed sentiment that the science and philosophy of well-being would do well to learn from each other. Typically such calls identify mistakes and bad practices on both sides that would be remedied if scientists picked the right bit of philosophy and philosophers picked the right bit of science. We argue that the differences between philosophers and scientists thinking about well-being are more difficult to reconcile than such calls suggest, and that pluralism is central to this task. (...) Pluralism is a stance that explicitly drives towards accommodating and nurturing the richness and diversity of well-being, both as a concept and as an object of inquiry. We show that well-being science manifests a contingent pluralism at the level of methodology, whereas philosophy of well-being has largely rejected pluralism at the conceptual level. Recently, things have begun to change. Within philosophy, conceptual monism is under attack. But so is methodological pluralism within science. We welcome the first development, and bemoan the second. We argue that a joined-up philosophy and science of well-being should recognise the virtues of both conceptual and methodological pluralism. Philosophers should embrace the methodological justification of pluralism that can be found in the well-being sciences, and scientists should embrace the conceptual reasons to be pluralist that can be found in philosophical debate. (shrink)

This important book proposes a new account of the nature of language, founded upon an original interpretation of Wittgenstein. The authors deny the existence of a direct referential relationship between words and things. Rather, the link between language and world is a two-stage one, in which meaning is used and in which a natural language should be understood as fundamentally a collection of socially devised and maintained practices. Arguing against the philosophical mainstream descending from Frege and Russell to Quine, Davidson, (...) Dummett, McDowell, Evans, Putnam, Kripke and others, the authors demonstrate that discarding the notion of reference does not entail relativism or semantic nihilism. A provocative re-examination of the interrelations of language and social practice, this book will interest not only philosophers of language but also linguists, psycholinguists, students of communication and all those concerned with the nature and acquisition of human linguistic capacities. (shrink)

David Braddon-Mitchell and Frank Jackson’s popular introduction to philosophy of mind and cognition is now available in a fully revised and updated edition. Ensures that the most recent developments in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science are brought together into a coherent, accessible whole. Revisions respond to feedback from students and teachers and make the volume even more useful for courses. New material includes: a section on Descartes’ famous objection to materialism; extended treatment of connectionism; coverage of the (...) view that psychology is autonomous; fuller discussion of recent debates over phenomenal experience; and much more. (shrink)

Abstract:During recent years, the principle and practice of employment-at-will have been under attack. While progress has been made in eroding the practice, the principle still governs the philosophical assumptions underlying employment practices in the United States, and, indeed, EAW has been promulgated as one of the ways to address economic ills in other countries. This paper will briefly review the major critiques of EAW. Given the failure of these arguments to erode the underpinnings of EAW, we shall suggest new avenues (...) for approaching employment issues to achieve the desirable goal of employee dignity and respect. (shrink)

In Frege's Conception of Logic Patricia A. Blanchette explores the relationship between Gottlob Frege's understanding of conceptual analysis and his understanding of logic.

This book encourages today's students to engage in Plato's thought, grapple with Plato's arguments, and explore the relevance of his arguments in contemporary terms. A text only comes alive if we make it our own; Plato's great work The Republic, often reads as though it were addressing the problems of the day rather than those of ancient Athens. Treating The Republic as a whole and offering a comprehensive introduction to Plato's arguments, Mitchell and Lucas draw students into an exploration (...) of the relevance of Plato's thought to our present ideas about politics, society and education, as well as the philosophy of mathematics, science and religion.The authors bring The Republic to life. The first chapters help the reader to make sense of the text, either in translation or the original Greek. Later chapters deal with the themes that Plato raises, treating Plato as a contemporary. Plato is inexhaustible: he speaks to many different people of different generations and from different backgrounds. The Republic is not just an ancient text: it never ceases to be relevant to contemporary concerns, and it demands fresh discussion in every age. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Regulatory focus theory is proposed as offering an explanation for the influence of ethical leadership on organizational citizenship behaviors and employee commitments. The prevention focus mindset of an employee is argued to be the mechanism by which an ethical leader influences extra-role compliance behavior as well as normative commitment, whereas the promotion focus mindset of an employee is argued to be the mechanism by which an ethical leader influences extra-role voice behavior as well as affective commitment. Moreover, leader-member exchange is (...) proposed as a moderator of the relationship of ethical leadership to regulatory focus mindsets and employee behavior and commitments. Using the data collected in two waves from 250 working adults, we tested the proposed relationships with moderated mediation bootstrap procedures. The findings generally support the hypothesized relationships and point toward important implications for ethical leadership in work settings. (shrink)

This study examines a moderated/mediated model of ethical leadership on follower job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment. We proposed that managers have the potential to be agents of virtue or vice within organizations. Specifically, through ethical leadership behavior we argued that managers can virtuously influence perceptions of ethical climate, which in turn will positively impact organizational members’ flourishing as measured by job satisfaction and affective commitment to the organization. We also hypothesized that perceptions of interactional justice would moderate the ethical (...) leadership-to-climate relationship. Our results indicate that ethical leadership has both a direct and indirect influence on follower job satisfaction and affective commitment. The indirect effect of ethical leadership involves shaping perceptions of ethical climate, which in turn, engender greater job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment. Furthermore, when interactional justice is perceived to be high, this strengthens the ethical leadership-to-climate relationship. (shrink)

Many philosophical naturalists eschew analysis in favor of discovering metaphysical truths from the a posteriori, contending that analysis does not lead to philosophical insight. A countercurrent to this approach seeks to reconcile a certain account of conceptual analysis with philosophical naturalism; prominent and influential proponents of this methodology include the late David Lewis, Frank Jackson, Michael Smith, Philip Pettit, and David Armstrong. Naturalistic analysis is a tool for locating in the scientifically given world objects and properties we quantify over in (...) everyday discourse. This collection gathers work from a range of prominent philosophers who are working within this tradition, offering important new work as well as critical evaluations of the methodology. Its centerpiece is an important posthumous paper by David Lewis, "Ramseyan Humility," published here for the first time. The contributors first address issues of philosophy of mind, semantics, and the new methodology's a priori character, then turn to matters of metaphysics, and finally consider problems regarding normativity. Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism is one of the first efforts to apply this approach to such a wide range of philosophical issues. _Contributors: _David Braddon-Mitchell, Mark Colyvan, Frank Jackson, Justine Kingsbury, Fred Kroon, David Lewis, Dustin Locke, Kelby Mason, Jonathan McKeown-Green, Peter Menzies, Robert Nola, Daniel Nolan, Philip Pettit, Huw Price, Denis Robinson, Steve Stich, Daniel Stoljar The hardcover edition does not include a dust jacket. (shrink)

At Sophist 253d-e the Eleatic Visitor offers a notoriously obscure description of the fields of one-and-many that the dialectician “adequately discerns.” Against the readings of Stenzel, Cornford, Sayre, and Gomez-Lobo, I propose an interpretation of that passage that takes into account the trilogy of Theaetetus-Sophist-Statesman as its context. The key steps are to respond to the irony of Socrates’ refutations at the end of the Theaetetus by reinterpreting the last two senses of logos as directed to forms and to recognize (...) their correlation with the two different modes of diairesis practiced by the Eleatic Visitor. These steps position us to recognize in the Visitor’s remarks at Sophist 253d-e a schematic description of the two kinds of eidetic field that the two modes of diairesis trace. (shrink)

This paper argues that the threat Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, pose to writing instruction is both not entirely new and a welcome disruption to the way writing instruction is typically delivered. This new technology seems to be prompting many instructors to question whether essay responses to paper prompts reflect students’ own thinking and learning. This uneasiness is long overdue, and the hope is it leads instructors to explore evidence-based best practices familiar from the scholarship of teaching and (...) learning. We’ve known for some time how to better teach our students to think and write. Perhaps the arrival of LLMs will get us to put these lessons into widespread practice. (shrink)

The idea that there could be spatially extended mereological simples has recently been defended by a number of metaphysicians (Markosian 1998, 2004; Simons 2004; Parsons (2000) also takes the idea seriously). Peter Simons (2004) goes further, arguing not only that spatially extended mereological simples (henceforth just extended simples) are possible, but that it is more plausible that our world is composed of such simples, than that it is composed of either point-sized simples, or of atomless gunk. The difficulty for these (...) views lies in explaining why it is that the various sub-volumes of space occupied by such simples, are not occupied by proper parts of those simples. Intuitively at least, many of us find compelling the idea that spatially extended objects have proper parts at every sub-volume of the region they occupy. It seems that the defender of extended simples must reject a seemingly plausible claim, what Simons calls the geometric correspondence principle (GCP): that any (spatially) extended object has parts that correspond to the parts of the region that it occupies (Simons 2004: 371). We disagree. We think that GCP is a plausible principle. We also think it is plausible that our world is composed of extended simples. We reconcile these two notions by two means. On the one hand we pay closer attention to the physics of our world. On the other hand, we consider what happens when our concept of something—in this case space—contains elements not all of which are realized in anything, but instead key components are realized in different features of the world. (shrink)

A number of recent theories of quantum gravity lack a one-dimensional structure of ordered temporal instants. Instead, according to many of these views, our world is either best represented as a single three-dimensional object, or as a configuration space composed of such three-dimensional objects, none of which bear temporal relations to one another. Such theories will be empirically self-refuting unless they can accommodate the existence of conscious beings capable of representation. For if representation itself is impossible in a timeless world, (...) then no being in such a world could entertain the thought that a timeless theory is true, let alone believe such a theory or rationally believe it. This paper investigates the options for understanding representation in a three-dimensional, timeless, world. Ultimately it concludes that the only viable option is one according to which representation is taken to be deeply non-naturalistic. Ironically then we are left with two seemingly very unattractive options. Either a very naturalistic motivation—taking seriously a live view in fundamental physics—leads us to a very non-naturalistic view of the mental, or else views in the philosophy of mind partly dictate what is an acceptable theory in physics. (shrink)

David Braddon-Mitchell and Frank Jackson’s popular introduction to philosophy of mind and cognition is now available in a fully revised and updated edition. Ensures that the most recent developments in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science are brought together into a coherent, accessible whole. Revisions respond to feedback from students and teachers and make the volume even more useful for courses. New material includes: a section on Descartes’ famous objection to materialism; extended treatment of connectionism; coverage of the (...) view that psychology is autonomous; fuller discussion of recent debates over phenomenal experience; and much more. (shrink)

Patricia Crone's _God's Rule_ is a fundamental reconstruction and analysis of Islamic political thought focusing on its intellectual development during the six centuries from the rise of Islam to the Mongol invasions. Based on a wide variety of primary sources--including some not previously considered from the point of view of political thought--this is the first book to examine the medieval Muslim answers to questions crucial to any Western understanding of Middle Eastern politics today, such as why states are necessary, (...) what functions they are meant to fulfill, and whether or why they must be based on religious law. The character of Muslim political thought differs fundamentally from its counterpart in the West. The Christian West started with the conviction that truth (both cognitive and moral) and political power belonged to separate spheres. Ultimately, both power and truth originated with God, but they had distinct historical trajectories and regulated different aspects of life. The Muslims started with the opposite conviction: truth and power appeared at the same time in history and regulated the same aspects of life. In medieval Europe, the disagreement over the relationship between religious authority and political power took the form of a protracted controversy regarding the roles of church and state. In the medieval Middle East, religious authority and political power were embedded in a single, divinely sanctioned Islamic community--a congregation and state made one. The disagreement, therefore, took the form of a protracted controversy over the nature and function of the leadership of Islam itself. Crone makes Islamic political thought accessible by relating it to the contexts in which it was formulated, analyzing it in terms familiar to today's reader, and, where possible, comparing it with medieval European and modern political thought. By examining the ideological point of departure for medieval Islamic political thought, Crone provides an invaluable foundation for a better understanding of contemporary Middle Eastern politics and current world events. (shrink)