Molinism attempts to resolve the incompatibility of divine foreknowledge and human libertarian freedom by the inclusion of the divine will into the solution. Moreover, middle knowledge is providentially useful under the Molinist model because of the way God uses it. This speaks of an integral link between the divine will and intellect that works in such a way as to provide a foreknowledge solution and, allegedly, the best view of providence. Nevertheless, there have been several anti-Molinist arguments by analogy which (...) suggest that the God presented in the Molinist model is a manipulator, and therefore something is lost or undermined in the libertarian freedom that Molinism purports to uphold through its model of foreknowledge and providence. This thesis examines the anti-Molinist charge of manipulation primarily by analysing how God uses information known through middle knowledge. The findings of the anti-Molinist arguments from analogy are reconstructed to form deductive arguments. These are evaluated against standard definitions of objectionable manipulation. It is concluded through analysis of these stronger, deductive arguments that divine providence under the Molinist model is a case of objectionable manipulation, one which many theists, classical or progressive, should find abhorrent. The effects of manipulation on ostensible libertarian freedom are then analysed, leading to the conclusion that Molinist-style manipulation results in a form of free-will compatibilism, ergo, the divine foreknowledge problem is not answered, nor is the result compatible with libertarian freedom. Given that it is close to a form of divine determinism, Molinism is then compared with Calvinism along several lines of criticism, namely whether such a God is good, loving and personal. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s perspectivism has received restricted and unrestricted interpretations. The latter take the cognitive effects of ‘perspectives’ to be pervasive and general; the former argue they are restricted to special subject matters, have limited effects, or are not essentially cognitive at all. I argue on textual grounds that Nietzsche was committed to the unrestricted view. Comparison to A.W. Moore’s treatment of perspectival representation in Points of View illuminates both the nature of perspectivism and key arguments needed to defend it. Nietzschean perspectivism (...) must deny the very possibility of absolute representations (sensu Moore), and to do so, it must block a form of argument that promises to integrate perspectival representations into progressively less restricted, and ultimately absolute, representations of the world. Such arguments depend on a strong assumption about the unity of the independent world, which Moore accepts and Nietzsche denies. Nietzsche’s pluralism about perspectives thereby turns out to rely on pluralism about the world, which shapes his understanding of us as essentially bounded cognitive agents. Nietzsche holds that the longing for absolute representation manifest in Moore, Leibniz, and many other philosophers, which aspires to overcome the limitations of perspective, amounts to ascetic self-denial about our cognitive condition. (shrink)

Nucleation and motion of kink pairs on partial dislocations are examined by elasticity theory for materials with a high Peierls stress. Two approaches are used: one considers the change in average stacking-fault energy due to alloying elements and the other considers the change in local SFE due to a nearby solute atom. Both approaches highlight the role of SFE on kink nucleation, propagation and annihilation and both furnish strain rate as a function of stress, temperature and SFE. Model predictions are (...) compared with yield stress data for two systems: firstly, an intermetallic, MoSi 2 , which softens for alloying elements that decrease the SFE and hardens for Re additions that increase the SFE; secondly, a ceramic oxide, MgO-Al 2 O 3 spinel, which softens with increasing addition of excess alumina and at the same time exhibits a decrease in SFE. The average SFE approach agrees qualitatively with the data while quantitative agreement is obtained with the local SFE approach. The possibility is considered that the model applies to other materials, such as TiAl, HfV 2 and Fe 3 Al, which show softening with certain alloying additions. One requirement is that the dislocations are dissociated more than a few atomic distances; otherwise kink nucleation occurs on the perfect dislocation . Hence the model does not apply to materials such as bcc metals which only have a core dissociation. Normal hardening effects of solutes from size and modulus misfits are additive with any softening effects from a decrease in SFE and so may mask the latter, as occurs for W additions to MoSi 2. (shrink)

I defend Kant’s definition of analyticity in terms of concept “containment”, which has engendered widespread scepticism. Kant deployed a clear, technical notion of containment based on ideas standard within traditional logic, notably genus/species hierarchies formed via logical division. Kant’s analytic/synthetic distinction thereby undermines the logico-metaphysical system of Christian Wolff, showing that the Wolffian paradigm lacks the expressive power even to represent essential knowledge, including elementary mathematics, and so cannot provide an adequate system of philosophy. The results clarify the extent to (...) which analyticity sensu Kant can illuminate the problem of a priori knowledge generally. (shrink)

I investigate the consequences of Nietzsche's perspectivism for notions of truth and objectivity, and show how the metaphor of visual perspective motivates an epistemology that avoids self-referential difficulties. Perspectivism's claim that every view is only one view, applied to itself, is often supposed to preclude the perspectivist's ability to offer reasons for her epistemology. Nietzsche's arguments for perspectivism depend on “internal reasons”, which have force not only in their own perspective, but also within the standards of alternative perspectives. Internal reasons (...) allow a perspectivist argument against dogmatism without presupposing aperspectival criteria for theory choice. Nietzsche also offers “internal” conceptions of truth and objectivity which reduce them to a matter of meeting our epistemic standards. This view has pluralistic implications, which conflict with common sense, but it is nevertheless consistent and plausible. Nietzsche's position is similar to Putnam's recent internalism, and this is due to their common Kantian heritage. (shrink)

Officially, for Kant, judgments are analytic iff the predicate is "contained in" the subject. I defend the containment definition against the common charge of obscurity, and argue that arithmetic cannot be analytic, in the resulting sense. My account deploys two traditional logical notions: logical division and concept hierarchies. Division separates a genus concept into exclusive, exhaustive species. Repeated divisions generate a hierarchy, in which lower species are derived from their genus, by adding differentia(e). Hierarchies afford a straightforward sense of containment: (...) genera are contained in the species formed from them. Kant's thesis then amounts to the claim that no concept hierarchy conforming to division rules can express truths like '7+5=12.' Kant is correct. Operation concepts ( ) bear two relations to number concepts: and are inputs, is output. To capture both relations, hierarchies must posit overlaps between concepts that violate the exclusion rule. Thus, such truths are synthetic. (shrink)

Lucy Allais’s Manifest Reality offers an attractive new interpretation of Kant’s transcendental idealism. Kantian appearances are known through essentially manifest properties, but those properties are construed as belonging ultimately to things in themselves with intrinsic natures. This position can offer a nice account of the sense in which appearances and things in themselves are identical and a metaphysically plausible way to construe appearances as strictly partially mind-dependent. The position is less convincing when it comes to explaining the sense in which (...) appearances and things in themselves remain non-identical. I argue that such a non-identity thesis was in fact crucial to Kant’s use of idealism to explain the possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge, to his account of the apriority of the representation of space, and to his anti-Leibnizian point that our mathematical and scientific cognition provides not confused representation of underlying things in themselves, but perfectly exact and strictly true cognition of something else. In closing, I suggest that the hylomorphic nature of Kant’s idealism points toward an alternative conception of the partial mind-dependence of appearances. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Pippin treats Nietzsche's moral psychology as the key to his philosophy. Three aspects of the psychology are meant to bear this weight: a critical and deflationary, but irreducibly hermeneutic, conception of the nature of moral psychology itself; a thesis that eros is central to Nietzsche's theory of valuing; and an expressivist theory of action, which replaces the causal role of intention with an interpretive notion of expression in explaining action. Pippin's handling of all three, but especially the third, places (...) Nietzsche's philosophy in a Hegelian light, as does his view that genuine action arises from a deep-going self-dissatisfaction. I raise doubts about whether the expressivist theory of action can be adequate to all actions and suggest that the centrality of self-dissatisfaction for Pippin stands in tension with Nietzsche's own construal of the demand for affirmation of life. (shrink)

In 1905 William James wrote an essay in McClure's Magazine recalling the importance to his own work of the Scottish-born philosopher Thomas Davidson. In the essay, James states that Davidson was "essentially a teacher." What is interesting when one looks at Davidson's life and work is that, for Davidson, teaching does seem to be an essential feature of what it means to be a philosopher. Here, I develop how Davidson construes this linking of philosophy and teaching with a concluding emphasis (...) on the two schools he established: Glenmore, a summer philosophy program in the Adirondacks and the "Breadwinners' College," an open school he began for working persons in New York City. I offer this as a discussion paper so that James's recollection of Davidson's importance to his own work may provoke us to consider how we presently understand the linking of teaching and philosophy. This seems especially appropriate for an academic culture such as ours in which much of our time is spent teaching and in which we are often primarily evaluated by a separate category of professional "research." The American tradition has "lost" any number of its important.. (shrink)

This article borrows from the american tradition of emerson, james, and peirce to argue that religious belief may properly originate in feeling, willing, or reasoning. i also maintain that such belief is not consummated until all three aspects of one's being--feeling, willing, and thinking--have been addressed. this approach both democratizes the possibility of religious belief and requires of full belief that it be applicable to all aspects of one's life.

Pancreatitis is a complex, progressively destructive inflammatory disorder. Alcohol was long thought to be the primary causative agent, but genetic contributions have been of interest since the discovery that rare PRSS1, CFTR and SPINK1 variants were associated with pancreatitis risk. We now report two associations at genome-wide significance identified and replicated at PRSS1-PRSS2 and X-linked CLDN2 through a two-stage genome-wide study. The PRSS1 variant likely affects disease susceptibility by altering expression of the primary trypsinogen gene. The CLDN2 risk allele is (...) associated with atypical localization of claudin-2 in pancreatic acinar cells. The homozygous CLDN2 genotype confers the greatest risk, and its alleles interact with alcohol consumption to amplify risk. These results could partially explain the high frequency of alcohol-related pancreatitis in men. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Possibility of the Aesthetic Experience, edited by Michael H. Mitias, is an interesting and diverse collection of essays. It is difficult to know where to begin to evaluate such a collection; the styles move from the quasi-phenomenological of Arnold Berleant’s “Experience and Theory in Aesthetics,” to the historical and technical analyses of Carla Cordua’s “A Critique of Aesthetics” and Bohdan Dziemidok’s “Controversy About Aesthetic Attitude.” In this brief review, therefore, I shall address the book in a way that I would (...) use it—as a supporting text in an advanced undergraduate aesthetics course. (shrink)

Martin offers an intriguing account of nineteenth century challenges to the traditional theory of judgment as a synthesis of subject and predicate (the synthesis theory)--criticisms motivated largely by the problem posed by existential judgments, which need not have two terms at all. Such judgments led to a theory of "thetic" judgments, whose essential feature is to "posit" something, rather than to combine terms (as in synthetic judgment). I argue, however, that Kant's official definition of judgment already implicitly recognizes the importance (...) of positing, and that its (otherwise confusing) abstract generality actually affords Kant's own logic an adequate way to accommodate existential judgments within the traditional synthesis theory. Preservation of a synthetic account of judgment is also found to be independently important for Kant's larger aims in the theory of cognition. (shrink)

This collection opens a dialogue between process philosophy and contemporary consciousness studies. Approaching consciousness from diverse disciplinary perspectives—philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, neuropathology, psychotherapy, biology, animal ethology, and physics—the contributors offer empirical and philosophical support for a model of consciousness inspired by the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947). Whitehead’s model is developed in ways he could not have anticipated to show how it can advance current debates beyond well-known sticking points. This has trenchant consequences for epistemology and suggests fresh and (...) promising new perspectives on such topics as the mind-body problem, the neurobiology of consciousness, animal consciousness, the evolution of consciousness, panpsychism, the unity of consciousness, epiphenomenalism, free will, and causation. Contents: Introduction, Michel Weber & Anderson Weekes I. Setting the Stage 1. Process Thought as a Heuristic for Investigating Consciousness, Michel Weber & Anderson Weekes 2. Whitehead as a Neglected Figure of 20th Century Philosophy, Michel Weber & Anderson Weekes 3. Consciousness as a Topic of Investigation in Western Thought, Anderson Weekes 4. Whitehead’s Unique Approach to the Topic of Consciousness, Anderson Weekes II. Psychology and Philosophy of Mind 5. Consciousness as a Subjective Form, David Ray Griffin 6. The Interpretation and Integration of the Literature on Consciousness from a Process Perspective, Michael W. Katzko 7. Windows on Nonhuman Minds, Donald R. Griffin III. From Metaphysics to (Neuro)Science and Back Again 8. Panexperientialism, Quantum Theory, and Neuroplasticity, George W. Shields 9. The Evolution of Consciousness, Max Velmans 10. The Carrier Theory Of Causation, Gregg H. Rosenberg IV. Clinical Applications: Consciousness as Process 11. The Microgenetic Revolution in Contemporary Neuropsychology and Neurolinguistics, Maria Pachalska and Bruce Duncan MacQueen 12. From Coma to Consciousness, Avraham Schweiger, Michael Frost, Ofer Keren 13. Consciousness and Rationality from a Process Perspective, Michel Weber V. History (and Future?) of Philosophy 14. Consciousness, Memory, and Recollection according to Whitehead, Xavier Verley 15. Consciousness and Causation in Light of Whitehead’s Phenomenology of Becoming, Anderson Weekes. (shrink)

R.I.G Hughes offers the first detailed and accessible analysis of the Hilbert-space models used in quantum theory and explains why they are so successful.

The phenomenon of multiple personality--Like the "split-Brain" phenomenon--Involves a disintegration of the normally unified self to the point where one must question whether there is one, Or more than one, Person associated with the body even at a single moment in time. Besides the traditional problem of determining identity over time, There is now a new problem of personal identity--Determining identity at a single moment in time. We need the conceptual apparatus to talk about this new problem and a test, (...) Like the one I propose, For determining the number of persons associated with a body at a single moment in time. (shrink)

Locke is the first English philosopher to be considered in this series, and that fact of itself is worthy of attention. Philosophy, of course, like science, knows no frontiers and no national boundaries. Yet it is true to say that Locke’s contribution to philosophy is typically and peculiarly English. His moderation, his emphasis upon experience, his tolerant spirit of compromise, his dislike of mystical extravagance and of metaphysical speculation, even that elusive quality of his which people call his “common sense”, (...) are English traits. His very defects, illogicality leading to inconsistency and an awkward disorderliness of thought so abhorrent to the. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Constructivist Model Building: Empirical Examples From Mathematics Education” by Catherine Ulrich, Erik S. Tillema, Amy J. Hackenberg & Anderson Norton. Upshot: I address the value of Ulrich et al.’s distinction between three types of second-order models. I conclude that their work contributes to the theorizing of adaptive teaching on the basis of a constructivist stance on knowing and learning.

Gödel's ontological argument is a formal argument for a being defined in terms of the concept of a positive property. I shall defend several versions of Gödel's argument, using weaker premises than Anderson's (1990) version, and avoiding Oppy's (1996 and 2000) parody refutations.