One influential interpretation of Newton's formulation of his calculus has regarded his work as an organized, cohesive presentation, shaped primarily by technical issues and implicitly motivated by a knowledge of the form which a "finished" calculus should take. Offered as an alternative to this view is a less systematic and more realistic picture, in which both philosophical and technical considerations played a part in influencing the structure and interpretation of the calculus throughout Newton's mathematical career. This analysis sees the development (...) of Newton's calculus not principally as a calculated movement toward "rigorous" justification (in the sense of Cauchy, Weierstrass, and their 19th century contemporaries) and refinement of techniques, but as an evolution in the light of his involvement in debates over philosophical and scientific issues central to the rise of modern philosophy and science in the 17th and early 18th centuries. (shrink)

Robert Dunn and Richard Moran have emphasized the importance of deliberation to account for the privileged authority of self-ascriptions. They oppose a theoretical attitude toward oneself to a deliberative attitude that they regard as more intimate, as purely first-personal. In this paper, I intend to challenge Dunn’s and Moran’s understanding of how the deliberative attitude is to be conceived of and, in particular, I will call into question their claim that this attitude is wholly non-observational. More positively, I will (...) elaborate on the sort of self-observation that must play a central role in an agent’s deliberation if she is to recognize a certain belief, decision, or intention as genuinely her own and, therefore, as expressing a purely first-person point of view. In the elaboration of my argument, I will rely on a number of situations as they are described in Peter Carey’s novel Oscar and Lucinda. (shrink)

In Values and the Reflective Point of View (2006), Robert Dunn defends a certain expressivist view about evaluative beliefs from which some implications about self-knowledge are explicitly derived. He thus distinguishes between an observational and a deliberative attitude towards oneself, so that the latter involves a purely first-person point of view that gives rise to an especially authoritative, but wholly non-observational, kind of self-knowledge. Even though I sympathize with many aspects of Dunn's approach to evaluative beliefs and also with (...) his stress on the practical significance of self-knowledge, I argue that his proposal seriously misinterprets the role of observation and evidence within the first-person point of view and, derivatively, in the formation of evaluative beliefs. (shrink)

Robert Dunn, David Finkelstein and Richard Moran have recently contributed to broadening the debate on self-knowledge within the analytic tradition. They raise questions concerning the sort of awareness that may have a healing effect in psychoanalytic therapy, and enhance the relevance to self-knowledge of a deliberative, and practically committed, attitude toward oneself. They reject, however, that self-observation could play a significant role in a strictly first-person attitude toward oneself, since they conceive of it as essentially detached and, in this (...) respect, similar to the kind of attitude that a third party might adopt. I will appeal to Simone Weil's distinction between two sorts obedience and to the contrast between two characters in *The Karamazov Brothers* to elucidate a kind of self-awareness that involves a kind of observation that is constitutively committed. This line of reasoning will also serve to elucidate a fundamental sort of self-knowledge that derives from the subject's capacity to acknowledge her own position within the ethical world and is closely associated to the goal of psychoanalytic therapy. (shrink)

Nozick analyzes fundamental issues, such as the identity of the self, knowledge and skepticism, free will, the foundations of ethics, and the meaning of life.

Robert Misrahi élabore une philosophie exigeante qui s'est toujours tenue à distance des modes traversant le champ intellectuel. Son propos est de définir les conditions d'accès de chacun et de tous à une existence heureuse. Mais le bonheur n'y est pas envisagé comme le résultat de simples techniques de développement personnel. Il est l'acte d'un sujet pleinement responsable de son existence, la prenant en charge, lui conférant du sens et se donnant les moyens de tracer son propre itinéraire. Connaître, (...) fonder, aimer, agir, créer sont les principales étapes qui jalonnent cet itinéraire. Ce livre s'ouvre par une série d'entretiens réalisés de janvier à juin 2011 : l'éthique, la liberté, le judaïsme, la jouissance d'être y sont, tour à tour, discutés. Il se poursuit par une présentation de concepts essentiels : la crise, le désir, l'existence, la réflexion. Ces concepts redéfinis par l'auteur constituent les pivots d'une philosophie originale et créatrice apte à relever les défis posés par notre modernité. (shrink)

Are mystical experiences primarily formed by the mystic's cultural background and concepts, as modern day "constructivists" maintain, or do mystics in some way transcend language, belief, and culturally conditioned expectations? Do mystical experiences differ in the different religious traditions, as "pluralists" contend, or are they identical across cultures? Twelve contributors here attempt to answer these questions through close examination of a particular form of mystical experience, "Pure Consciousness"--the experience of being awake but devoid of intentional content for consciousness. The contributors (...) analyze pure consciousness and other mystical experiences from historical Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, and Jewish sources, as well as from modern mystics. They demonstrate that pure consciousness poses serious conceptual problems for a contructivist understanding of mysticism. Revealing the inconsistencies and inadequacies of current models, they make significant strides towards developing new models for the phenomenon of mysticism, breaking new ground for our understanding of mysticism and of human experience in general. (shrink)

I1. Anil Gupta distinguishes between thin and thick experiences. There are thick experiences like, say, the American Experience of a European traveller. And thin experiences like looking at a yello...

This important book charts the development of philosophical thinking about history over the past 250 years, combining extracts from key texts with new explanatory and critical discussion. The book is designed to make the work of thinkers such as Hume, Herder, Hegel, Dilthey, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Foucault accessible to students with no prior knowledge of Western philosophy. An introductory section is followed by nine further chapters exploring contrasting schools of thought. The volume reveals the origins of contemporary trends in the (...) discipline and relates wider philosophical reflections to the study of history itself. It also points to connections between philosophy of history and literary and cultural theory which have developed in recent decades. (shrink)

Winner of the 1975 National Book Award, this brilliant and widely acclaimed book is a powerful philosophical challenge to the most widely held political and social positions of our age--liberal, socialist, and conservative.

In this book, Dr. Robert J. Levine reviews federal regulations, ethical analysis, and case studies in an attempt to answer these questions.

A revised edition of an undergraduate text for students in history of psychology courses. Designed for one semester, covers: the history of psychology in ancient philosophy, structuralism, neurophysiology, functionalism, behaviorism, psychoanalysis, and gestalt theories. The new edition has expanded.

The current issue of Approaching Religion is based on a summer school and conference arranged in Åbo/Turku, Finland, in June 2023, on the theme of “Religion: Memory and Innovation”. The event was organized jointly by the Polin Institute for Theological Research (Åbo Akademi University), the Centre for the Study of Christian Cultures (University of Turku) and the Donner Institute for Research in Religion and Culture. The aim was to bring together doctoral candidates and researchers from various academic fields that engage (...) with the study of religion, such as theology, religious studies, history, philosophy, the arts, social and political sciences, and so forth. At this seminar, papers were presented that engaged with the theme of religion, memory and innovation from both historical and contemporary perspectives, looking also to the future where possible. In the current issue, therefore, we understand memory and innovation both as dramatic breaking points in history and as slowly evolving transformations, and we address past, present and emerging trends and trajectories within culture, society and the scholarly community. The societal relevance and impact of research in this field have also arisen as central themes in the presentations. (shrink)

A sourcebook for developing and facilitating collaborative groups capable of continuously adapting to anticipate the evolving learning needs of students. Based on a theoretical foundation of schools as complex systems in which linear management models are no longer sufficient.

Robert Stern investigates how scepticism can be countered by using transcendental arguments concerning the necessary conditions for the possibility of experience, language, or thought. He shows that the most damaging sceptical questions concern neither the certainty of our beliefs nor the reliability of our belief-forming methods, but rather how we can justify our beliefs.

This paper develops a view of the content of perceptual states that reflects the cognitive significance those states have for the subject. Perhaps the most important datum for such a theory is the intuition that experiences are ‘transparent’, an intuition promoted by philosophers as diverse as Sartre and Dretske. This paper distinguishes several different transparency theses, and considers which ones are truly supported by the phenomenological data. It is argued that the only thesis supported by the data is much weaker (...) than those typically considered in the literature, and has no obvious implications for the existence of sensory intermediaries. It does, however, have implications for the content of perceptual experience. It is argued that combining the first personal project with the transparency intuition yields an error theory of perception. The counterintuitive implications of this error theory are mitigated, however, by an account of perceptual beliefs which allows for them to be true even if the perceptual states are non-veridical. (shrink)

Many theorists claim that if an agent benefits from an action that harms others, that agent has a moral duty to compensate those who are harmed, even if the agent did not cause the harm herself. In the debate on climate justice, this idea is commonly referred to as the beneficiary-pays principle . This paper argues that the BPP is implausible, both in the context of climate change and as a normative principle more generally. It should therefore be rejected.

Many theorists claim that if an agent benefits from an action that harms others, that agent has a moral duty to compensate those who are harmed, even if the agent did not cause the harm herself. In the debate on climate justice, this idea is commonly referred to as the beneficiary-pays principle. This paper argues that the BPP is implausible, both in the context of climate change and as a normative principle more generally. It should therefore be rejected.

Develops a theory of culture based on a metaphysics that elaborates on the Platonic and Confucian traditions. In Metaphysics of Goodness, Robert Cummings Neville extends Alfred North Whitehead’s project of cultural studies, which was based on a new metaphysics that Whitehead developed in Adventures of Ideas. Neville’s focus is value or goodness in many modes. The metaphysics treated in this book derive from the Platonic and Confucian traditions, with significant modifications of Whitehead, Peirce, Dewey, Confucius, Xunzi, and Zhou Dunyi. (...) Part one develops a theory of form based on a metaphysics of harmony. Part two elaborates a theory of art based on a metaphysics of beauty. Part three sketches a theory of personhood based on a metaphysics of obligation. Part four discusses civilization in a systematic way based on a metaphysics of flourishing. Throughout the book, Neville elaborates a theory of interpretation that is inspired by Peirce, Dewey, and Xunzi but is not limited to their ideas. While the reasoning of the book is concise, it employs methodologies from many kinds of philosophy, art criticism, ethics, and cultural studies, and sees philosophy as needing to learn from all these disciplines. “Neville’s work is informed by a lifelong engagement with the most important philosophers in history, including Plato, Aristotle, Whitehead, and Dewey. Here, he offers an important argument that there is beauty not only in how people see the world, but also in the world itself.” — Kevin Schilbrack, Appalachian State University. (shrink)

Permissivism says that for some propositions and bodies of evidence, there is more than one rationally permissible doxastic attitude that can be taken towards that proposition given the evidence. Some critics of this view argue that it condones, as rationally acceptable, sets of attitudes that manifest an untenable kind of arbitrariness. I begin by providing a new and more detailed explication of what this alleged arbitrariness consists in. I then explain why Miriam Schoenfield’s prima facie promising attempt to answer the (...) Arbitrariness Objection, by appealing to the role of epistemic standards in rational belief formation, fails to resolve the problem. Schoenfield’s strategy is, however, a useful one, and I go on to explain how an alternative form of the standards-based approach to Permissivism – one that emphasizes the significance of the relationship between people’s cognitive abilities and the epistemic standards that they employ – can respond to the arbitrariness objection. (shrink)

This is a paradigmatic work of contemporary philosophy.

Why does performing certain tasks cause the aversive experience of mental effort and concomitant deterioration in task performance? One explanation posits a physical resource that is depleted over time. We propose an alternative explanation that centers on mental representations of the costs and benefits associated with task performance. Specifically, certain computational mechanisms, especially those associated with executive function, can be deployed for only a limited number of simultaneous tasks at any given moment. Consequently, the deployment of these computational mechanisms carries (...) an opportunity cost – that is, the next-best use to which these systems might be put. We argue that the phenomenology of effort can be understood as the felt output of these cost/benefit computations. In turn, the subjective experience of effort motivates reduced deployment of these computational mechanisms in the service of the present task. These opportunity cost representations, then, together with other cost/benefit calculations, determine effort expended and, everything else equal, result in performance reductions. In making our case for this position, we review alternative explanations for both the phenomenology of effort associated with these tasks and for performance reductions over time. Likewise, we review the broad range of relevant empirical results from across sub-disciplines, especially psychology and neuroscience. We hope that our proposal will help to build links among the diverse fields that have been addressing similar questions from different perspectives, and we emphasize ways in which alternative models might be empirically distinguished. (shrink)

This is the most important book on Hegel to have appeared in the past ten years. Robert Pippin offers a completely new interpretation of Hegel's idealism, which focuses on Hegel's appropriation and development of kant's theoretical project. Hegel is presented neither as a precritical metaphysician nor as a social theorist, but as a critical philosopher whose disagreements with Kant, especially on the issue of intuitions, enrich the idealist arguments against empiricism, realism and naturalism. In the face of the dismissal (...) of absolute idealism as either unintelligible or implausible, Pippin explains and defends an original account of the philosophical basis for Hegel's claims about the historical and social nature of selfconsciousness, and so of knowledge itself. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that moral projectivism cannot be coherently fix the content of our moral responses. To this purpose, I develop a number of arguments against moral dispositionalism and, in this context, I challenge both David Lewis' dispositionalist account of colour and Chistine Korsgaard's procedural realism.

Robert Hanna presents a fresh view of the Kantian and analytic traditions that have dominated continental European and Anglo-American philosophy over the last two centuries, and of the connections between them. But this is not just a study in the history of philosophy, for out of this emerges Hanna's original approach to two much-contested theories that remain at the heart of contemporary philosophy. Hanna puts forward a new 'cognitive-semantic' interpretation of transcendental idealism, and a vigorous defense of Kant's theory (...) of analytic and synthetic necessary truth, making this compelling reading for all who are interested in these fundamental philosophical issues. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the versatile LEGO minifigure to introduce some major themes, questions, and problems tackled in the "philosophy of the human person". It begins with the question of just what parts are involved in making a human person. After that, the chapter considers the problems surrounding any individual's continued existence over time, and also discusses the philosophical view according to which the acts of decision‐making and imaginative creation are the very things. The cheerful yellow LEGO minifig presents a wonderful (...) tool for exploring the human person, who similarly appears unique within the complicated systems of reality. The issue of personal identity is as problematic as it is important for understanding our nature as human individuals in an ever‐changing world. The chapter further provides examples that focus on the problem of personal identity, particularly identity over time. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that moral projectivism cannot be coherently fix the content of our moral responses. To this purpose, I develop a number of arguments against moral dispositionalism and, in this context, I challenge both David Lewis' dispositionalist account of colour and Chistine Korsgaard's procedural realism.

This is the first book-length study in any language to examine in detail and critically assess the second part of Kant's ethics- -an empirical, impure part, which determines how best to apply pure principles to the human situation. Drawing attention to Kant's under-explored impure ethics, this revealing investigation refutes the common and long-standing misperception that Kants ethics advocates empty formalism. Making detailed use of a variety of Kantian texts never before translated into English, author Robert B. Louden reassesses the (...) strengths and weaknesses of Kantian ethics as a whole, once the second part is re-admitted to its rightful place within Kant's practical philosophy. (shrink)

Classical American pragmatism: the pragmatist -- Enlightenment-and its problematic semantics -- Analyzing pragmatism: pragmatics and pragmatisms -- A Kantian rationalist pragmatism: pragmatism -- Inferentialism, and modality in Sellars's arguments against -- Empiricism -- Linguistic pragmatism and pragmatism about norms: an arc of -- Thought from Rorty's eliminative materialism to his pragmatism -- Vocabularies of pragmatism: synthesizing naturalism and -- Historicism -- Towards an analytic pragmatism: meaning-use analysis -- Pragmatism, expressivism, and anti-representationalism: -- Local and global possibilities.