Recently, some Newton scholars have argued that Newton is an empiricist about metaphysics—that ideally, he wants to let advances in physical theory resolve either some or all metaphysical issues. But while proponents of this interpretation are using ‘metaphysics’ in a very broad sense, to include the ‘principles that enable our knowledge of natural phenomena’, attention has thus far been focused on Newton’s approach to ontological, not epistemological or methodological, issues. In this essay, I therefore consider whether Newton wants to let (...) physical theory bear on the very ‘principles that enable our knowledge’. By examining two kinds of argument in the Principia, I contend that Newton can be considered a methodological empiricist in a substantial respect. I also argue, however, that he cannot be a ‘radical empiricist’—that he does not and cannot convert all methodological issues into empirical issues.Keywords: Newton; Scientific method; Regulæ Philosophandi; Induction; Empiricism. (shrink)

Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology is widely regarded as one of the great works of 19th century science, and one of the most influential works in the entire history of the earth sciences. Yet the standard critical interpretation of the Principles makes such high regard and influence look puzzling at best. We are told, for instance, that Lyell’s argument rests on a contentious a priori methodological distinction between scientific and non-scientific explanations, the former featuring observed causes at their present intensities, (...) the latter featuring anything else. 2 We are also told that Lyell simply assumes a priori that. (shrink)

In this work, originally published in 1986, Victor Seidler explores the different notions of respect, equality and dependency in Kant’s moral writings. He illuminates central tensions and contradictions not only within Kant’s moral philosophy, but within the thinking and feeling about human dignity and social inequality which we take very much for granted within a liberal moral culture. In challenging our assumption of the autonomy of morality, Seidler also questions our understanding of what it means for someone to live (...) as a person in his or her own right. The autonomy of individuals cannot be assumed but has to be reasserted against relationships of subordination. This involves a break with a rationalist morality, so that respect for others involves respect for emotions, feelings, desires and needs, and establishes a fuller autonomy as a basis for freedom and justice. (shrink)

I INTRODUCTION: RESPECT, EQUALITY AND THE AUTONOMY OF MORALITY We often invoke a notion of respect to express our sense of human equality. ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedAndrianou, Dimitra. The Furniture and Furnishings of Ancient Greek Houses and Tombs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xvi + 213 pp. 24 black-and-white figs. Cloth, $80.Andrisano, Angela Maria, and Paolo Fabbri, eds. La favola di Orfeo: Letteratura, immagine, performance. Ferrara: UnifePress, 2009. 255 pp. 41 black-and-white figs. Paper, €15.Bartsch, Shadi, and David Wray, eds. Seneca and the Self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. ix + 304 pp. 1 (...) black-and-white ill. Cloth, $99.Bers, Victor. Genos Dikanikon: Amateur and Professional Speech in the Courtrooms of Classical Athens. Hellenic Studies 33. Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2009. Dist. by Harvard University Press. ix + 159 pp. Paper, $15.95.Bowie, Ewen, and Jaś Elsner, eds. Philostratus. Greek Culture in the Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xii + 401 pp. 14 black-and-white ills. Cloth, $135.Bowlby, Rachel. Freudian Mythologies: Greek Tragedy and Modern Identities. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. viii + 251 pp. Paper, $49.95.Calame, Claude. Poetic and Performative Memory in Ancient Greece: Heroic Reference and Ritual Gestures in Time and Space. Hellenic Studies 18. Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2009. Dist. by Harvard University Press. xii + 267 pp. 9 black-and-white figs. Paper, $19.95Collins, Paul. Assyrian Palace Sculptures. With photographs by Lisa Baylis and Sandra Marshall. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009. 144 pp. Numerous color ills. Cloth, $45.Coltman, Viccy. Classical Sculpture and the Culture of Collecting in Britain Since 1870. Classical Presences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. xiv + 315 pp. 85 black-and-white figs., 32 color plates. Cloth, $99.Comoth, Katharina. Gott selbst und die Idee. Beiträge zur Philosophie. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2009. 86 pp. 2 black-and-white ills. Paper, €10.Connelly, Joan Breton. Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007. xv + 421 pp. Numerous black-and-white figs., 27 color plates, 3 maps. Paper, $35. [End Page 345]Eezzuduemhoi, James. I. A. A Fundamental Greek Course. Ed. Glenn Storey. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2009. xxxv + 547 pp. Paper, $65.Erskine, Andrew, ed. A Companion to Ancient History. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. xxxvii + 693 pp. 27 black-and-white figs., 5 maps. Cloth, $199.95.Flower, Harriet I. Roman Republics. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010. xv + 204 pp. Cloth, $29.95.Föllinger, Sabine. Aischylos: Meister der griechischen Tragödie. Munich: C. H. Beck, 2009. 224 pp. 5 black-and-white ills. Cloth, €24.90.Goldhill, Simon, and Edith Hall, eds. Sophocles and the Greek Tragic Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xvi + 336 pp. Cloth, $99.Grethlein, Jonas, and Antonios Rengakos, eds. Narratology and Interpretation. Trends in Classics 4. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009. vii + 630 pp. Cloth, €93.41.Haziza, Typhaine. Le Kaléidoscope hérodotéen: Images, imaginaire et représentations de l'Égypte à travers le livre II d'Hérodote. Études anciennes 142. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2009. 393 pp. 7 black-and-white figs. Paper, €45.Jouanna, Jacques, and Franco Montanari, eds. Eschyle: À l'aube du théâtre occidental. Entretiens Hardt 55. Geneva: Fondation Hardt, 2009. Dist. by Vandoeuvres. xi + 510 pp. Cloth: SFr 85.Johnson, Mark J. The Roman Imperial Mausoleum in Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xviii + 296 pp. Numerous black-and-white figs., 16 color plates. Cloth, $95.Kronenberg, Leah. Allegories of Farming from Greece and Rome: Philosophical Satire in Xenophon, Varro, and Virgil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xi + 223 pp. Cloth, $99.Loukopoulou, Louisa D., and Selene Psoma, eds. Thrakika Zetemata. Vol. 1. In collaboration with Athéna Iakovidou. Meletemata 58. Athens: Research Centre for Greek and Roman Antiquity of the National Hellenic Research Foundation, 2008. Dist. by Boccard. 175 pp. Numerous black-and-white figs. Paper, price not stated.Lowrie, Michèle, ed. Horace: Odes and Epodes. Oxford Readings in Classical Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. viii + 472 pp. Cloth, $199; paper, $75.Martin, Gunther. Divine Talk: Religious Argumentation in Demosthenes. Oxford Classical Mongraphs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. ix + 345 pp. Cloth, $125. [End Page 346]Mendoni, Lina G., and Sophia B... (shrink)

Presents a comprehensive history of multiverse theory, reviewing the discoveries that shaped astrophysicists' current consensus view while showing that the multiverse is able to be explained entirely in naturalistic terms.

part self-help guide, part college lecture, part confessional, part time travel adventure, On Purpose" uses a beautiful fantasy-filled graphic novel format to tell a story of self- discovery and personal growth that you'll never forget.

This paper provides a philosophical analysis of the Price equation and its role in evolutionary theory. Traditional models in population genetics postulate simplifying assumptions in order to make the models mathematically tractable. On the contrary, the Price equation implies a very specific way of theorizing, starting with assumptions that we think are true and then deriving from them the mathematical rules of the system. I argue that the Price equation is a generalization-sketch, whose main purpose is to provide a unifying (...) framework for researchers, helping them to develop specific models. The Price equation plays this role because, like other scientific principles, shows features as abstractness, unification and invariance. By underwriting this special role for the Price equation some recent disputes about it could be diverted. (shrink)

Feminist scholars have been remaking the landscape in political theory, and in this important book some of the most important feminist political theorists provide reconstructions of those concepts most central to the tradition of political philosophy. The goal is nothing less than the construction of a blueprint for a positive feminist theory.Many of these papers are completely new; others are extensions of important earlier work; two are reprints of classic papers. The result is a progress report on the continuing feminist (...) project to re-envision traditional political theory. As such, it constitutes essential reading not only for feminist thinkers but also for traditional philosophers and political theorists, who will need to come to terms with these contemporary critiques and re-readings. (shrink)

Argues that many claims by theists are based on their misunderstanding of science. He looks at the specific parameters and shows that plausible reasons can be found for the values they have within the existing standard models of physics and cosmology.

Two hundred and twenty-six state employees completed a structured questionnaire that investigated their ethical values and training needs. Top management were more likely to have attitudes against cronyism and giving advantage to others. Individuals higher in the organizational hierarchy, and female employees were more likely to believe that discriminatory practices were an ethical concern. In addition, employees with a larger number of clients outside of the organization were more supportive of the need to maintain strict confidentiality in business dealings. Employees'' (...) awareness and use of the organization''s code of conduct generally proved to be poor predictors of ethical values. Other analyses revealed that a variety of sociodemographic factors, job characteristics and ethical values predicted specific areas of training needs in ethics. (shrink)

In this fascinating and accessible book, physicist Victor J. Stenger guides the lay reader through the key developments of quantum mechanics and the debate over its apparent paradoxes. In the process, he critically appraises recent metaphysical fads. Dr. Stenger's knack for elucidating scientific ideas and controversies in language that the nonspecialist can comprehend opens up to the widest possible audience a wealth of information on the most important findings of contemporary physics.

This article analyzes the view of evolutionary theory as a theory of forces. The analogy with Newtonian mechanics has been challenged due to the alleged mismatch between drift and the other evolutionary forces. Since genetic drift has no direction several authors tried to protect its status as a force: denying its lack of directionality, extending the notion of force and looking for a force in physics which also lacks of direction. I analyse these approaches, and although this strategy finally succeeds, (...) this discussion overlooks the crucial point on the debate between causalists and statisticalists: the causal status of evolutionary theory. (shrink)

Many theists regard the claim that certain fundamental constants of nature are fine-tuned for life as the best scientific argument for the existence of God since Paley’s watch. Even atheist physicists find these so-called “anthropic coincidences” difficult to explain naturally and many think they need to invoke multiple universes and the so-called “anthropic principle” to do so. Certainly if there are many universes, fine-tuning is simple. Our universe is not fine-tuned for life. Life is fine-tuned to our universe. While multiple (...) universes are expected from modern cosmological theories, theists and some scientists object that invoking the unobservable is not science. Of course, God is unobservable too, so the best theists can claim is a standoff. (shrink)

This paper analyses the structure of evolutionary theory as a quasi-Newtonian theory and the need to establish a Zero-Cause Law. Several authors have postulated that the special character of drift is because it is the default behaviour or Zero-Cause Law of evolutionary systems, where change and not stasis is the normal state of them. For these authors, drift would be a Zero-Cause Law, the default behaviour and therefore a constituent assumption impossible to change without changing the system. I defend that (...) drift's causal and explanatory power prevents it from being considered as a Zero-Cause Law. Instead, I propose that the default behaviour of evolutionary systems is what I call the Principle of Stasis, which posits that an evolutionary system where there is no selection, drift, mutation, migration, etc., and therefore no difference-maker, will not undergo any change (it will remain in stasis). (shrink)

Due to its high degree of complexity and its historical nature, evolutionary biology has been traditionally portrayed as a messy science. According to the supporters of such a view, evolutionary biology would be unable to formulate laws and robust theories, instead just delivering coherent narratives and local models. In this article, our aim is to challenge this view by showing how the Price equation can work as the core of a general theoretical framework for evolutionary phenomena. To support this claim, (...) we outline some unnoticed structural similarities between physical theories and evolutionary biology. More specifically, we shall argue that the Price equation, in the same way as fundamental formalisms in physics, can serve as a heuristic principle to formulate and systematise different theories and models in evolutionary biology. (shrink)

What are the laws of physics? -- The stuff that kicks back -- Point-of-view invariance -- Gauging the laws of physics -- Forces and broken symmetries -- Playing dice -- After the bang -- Out of the void -- The comprehensible cosmos -- Models of reality.

The anthropic coincidences are widely claimed to provide evidence for intelligent creation in the universe. However, neither data northeory support this conclusion. No basis exists for assuming that a random universe would not have some kind of life. Calculations of the properties of universes having different physical constants than ours indicate that long-lived stars are not unusual, and thus most universes should have time for complex systems of some type to evolve. A multi-universe scenario is not ruled out, since no (...) known principle requires that only one universe exist. (shrink)

This thought-provoking book, first published in 1991, examines sexual politics in a world which is being radically changed by the challenges of feminism. Seidler explores how men have responded to feminism, and the contradictory feelings men have towards dominant forms of masculinity. Seidler’s stimulating and original analysis of social and political theory connects personally to everyday issues in people’s lives. It reflects the growing importance of sexual and personal politics within contemporary politics and culture, and demonstrates clearly the challenge that (...) feminism brings to our inherited forms of morality, politics and sexuality. (shrink)

“¿Principio de caridad o hybris?” La intuición de Wittgenstein, de que el significado lingüístico se constituye dentro de la trama de vida pareciera hacer posible un acercamiento entre la tradición hermenéutica continental y la filosofía analítica del lenguaje. En el presente artículo se sostiene que esta intuición debe ir acompañada de una revisión de la concepción del sujeto implícita en el “principio de caridad” de Donald Davidson. Sin esa reconcepción, el principio de caridad se convierte en una forma encubierta de (...) imperialismo conceptual incompatible con el espíritu de la hermenéutica continental. Se concluye el artículo con algunas observaciones sobre el relativismo a la luz de las consideraciones anteriores. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Notes.

In 2004, Sam Harris published The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason which became a major bestseller. This marked the first of a series of series of bestsellers that took a harder line against religion than has been the custom among secularists: Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris (2006), The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (2006), Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel C. Dennett (2006), God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science (...) Shows That God Goes Not Exist by Victor J. Stenger (2007), and God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (2007) by Christoper Hitchens. (shrink)

All editors and translators of Propertius seem convinced that the Roman poet has endowed the horse Arion with the power of speech. I present a few sample translations of the two lines.

For years theists have claimed that the constants of physics had to be finely tuned by God to the values that have for life in the universe to be possible. In my column of June, 2009 I showed that many of these claims are based on an improper analysis of the data. Even some of the competent scientists who write on this subject commit the fallacy of holding all the parameters constant and varying just one. When you allow all to (...) vary, you find that changes to one parameter can be easily compensated for by changes to another, leaving the ingredients for life in place. This point is also made nicely in a recent Scientific American cover story by Alejandro Jenkins and Gilad Perez. In this column I will discuss perhaps the most cited example of claimed fine-tuning, the Hoyle resonance. In 1953 the famous astronomer Fred Hoyle calculated that the production of carbon would not occur with sufficient probability unless that probability was boosted by the presence of an excited nuclear state of C12 at a very specific energy. In what appeared to be a remarkable victory for anthropic reasoning, Hoyle proposed that this previously unknown state must exist at about 7.7 MeV. (shrink)

A mathematical model of the natural origin of our universe is presented. The model is based only on well-established physics. No claim is made that this model uniquely represents exactly how the universe came about. But the viability of a single model serves to refute any assertions that the universe cannot have come about by natural means.

“Wittgenstein’s Ghosts. Between Deleuze and Derrida”. Both Derrida and Deleuze agree that with the advent of the moving image and the art of film, we need to articulate a new ontology or –in Wittgenstein’s terms–, a new grammar. Derrida suggests this much when he reflects on what he calls the return of ghosts, which he attributes to the advent of film and the communications media; Deleuze does the same in his studies of film, and in particular in what he calls (...) the time-image. They both carve a grammatical space where room is opened for us to talk about an experience that fuses, paradoxically, problematically, the real and the virtual. Wittgenstein is tracing this grammar in his discussions on inner experience and in his observations about the phenomenon of aspect-seeing. Articulating a new grammar requires also a new way of seeing and this new seeing is the purpose of his methods; “clairvoyant” methods we can call them, following Deleuze’s term for what the time image propitiates in the viewer, in that they allow us to see beyond things to their aspects, beyond substances to processes; in other words, they train us to think in moving time. Philosophy is thus always a work of mourning and a commerce with ghosts. What this means is that Wittgenstein is –as Derrida and Deleuze are too–, what we might call a philosopher of becoming. (shrink)

I show that the latter Wittgenstein's treatment of language and the mind results in a conception of the human subject that goes against the exclusive emphasis on the cognitive that characterizes our modern conception of knowledge and the self. For Wittgenstein, our identification with the cognitive ego is tantamount to a blindness to our own nature — blindness that is entrenched in our present culture. The task of philosophy is thus transformed into a form of cultural therapy that seeks to (...) awaken in us a sensitivity to different modes of awareness than the merely intellectual. Its substance of reflection becomes not only the field of conscious rational thought, but the tension in our nature between reason and vital feeling, that is, between culture and life. (shrink)

The Digital Revolution is transforming the way in which we interact with one another and relate to experience. The superabundance and superfluity of the virtual world, the fleeting moment and instantaneous pleasure it provides, begin to prevail as a cultural value and determine an attitude of detachment and indifference that extends to all aspects of our life. For Søren Kierkegaard this is a “demoniacal temptation” that leads to a life devoid of spiritual depth. In the midst of the undeniable bounties (...) of technology, reflection on this paradoxical nature of the technological in our lives becomes an urgent task. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's later philosophy is usually characterized as pragmatist, his account of linguistic meaning as conventionalist, and his methodology as naturalistic. Wittgenstein is said to have renounced in the later work his early concern with the Unsayable, and to have relocated philosophy within the realm of discourse. I argue against that picture of Wittgenstein's later philosophy in this dissertation. ;The central insight of Wittgenstein's discussion of rules and language in the Investigations is that meaning is not the result of a cognitive (...) achievement, but that it is grounded in precognitive natural reactions common to all human beings. I show that the appeal to the precognitive is transcendental, for it involves reference to a synthesis that is prior to discursive articulation and presupposed as a necessary condition of meaning. ;I argue against the conventionalist reading of Wittgenstein that the transcendental appeal to precognitive reactions in the discussion of rules is distinct from the appeal to a social context in the Private Language Argument, and that the relation between those two discussions is analogous to that between Kant's Transcendental Deduction and the Refutation of Idealism. ;The parallel with Kant helps to show how the failure to distinguish the empirical and transcendental levels in Wittgenstein's discussion leads to the conventionalist readings of his account of language . . It also shows that Wittgenstein is not subject to the charge of relativism commonly levelled against him . ;The distinction between empirical and transcendental levels, as it appears in the pivotal notion of Form of Life, reveals that Wittgenstein's methodology is not naturalistic but instead depends on a non-discursive mode of awareness. . I argue on this basis that Wittgenstein is closer to intuitive-realists than to pragmatists . ;Wittgenstein's Transcendentalism thus shows a deep continuity between the motivations behind his early and his later thought. In fact, the Unsayable plays a central role in the later work, for it is through non-discursive insight into the Unsayable that philosophy fulfills the therapeutic task that Wittgenstein assigns to it in the Investigations. (shrink)