David Lewis's work is of fundamental importance in many areas of philosophical inquiry and there are few areas of Anglo-American philosophy where his impact has not been felt. Lewis's philosophy also has a rare unity: his views form a comprehensive philosophical system, answering a broad range of questions in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of action and many other areas. This breadth of Lewis's work, however, has meant that it is difficult to know where to start in (...) Lewis's work and a casual reader may often miss some of the illuminating connections between apparently quite disparate pieces of Lewis's work. This book aims to make this body of work more accessible to a general philosophical readership, while also providing a unified overview of the many contributions Lewis has made to contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. The book can be divided into four parts. The first part examines Lewis's metaphysical picture - one of the areas where he has had the greatest impact and also the framework for the rest of his theories. The second section discusses Lewis's important contributions in the philosophy of mind, language and meaning. The third part explores some of Lewis's work in decision theory, metaethics and applied ethics, areas where his work in not necessarily as widely appreciated, but in which he has done a range of work that is both accessible and important. The final section focuses on Lewis's distinctive philosophical method, perhaps one of his most significant legacies, which combines naturalism with "common-sense" theorizing. (shrink)

In this book, Daniel Patrick Kelly examines Kant's Critique of Pure Reason through the lens of historical contextualization and highlights the importance of Kant's "Transcendental Dialectic" in the greater justification of his overarching transcendental idealism.

In this study Daniel Lister assesses the radical critiques of state schooling in America and criticises reliance on functional explanations to articulate the connection between schools and society.

In 656, the Gnomon of Zhou (Zhoubi 周髀) was canonized as one of the Ten Mathematical Classics (Suanjing shishu 算經十書) that would serve as the basis of contemporary curricula, testing and, later, the study of the history of mathematics in ancient China. Itself purporting to have been transmitted from the beginning of human civilization to the Duke of Zhou 周公 (r. 1042–1036 bce), most modern scholars follow Qian Baocong (1968) in positing that the text was redacted from earlier materials circa (...) 100 bce. In this paper, I will present linguistic evidence that supports Christopher Cullen (1996) and early Qian Baocong’s (1924, 1932) position that the received Gnomon of Zhou came together much later, in the first or second century ce, at around the same time or later than the Nine Chapters on Mathematical Procedures (Jiuzhang suanshu 九章算術). In addition, I will present evidence connecting its early reception and transmission history to the Far North/Northwest that might explain features of this strange text and its strange position in discussions of cosmology in the Middle Period Chinese capitals further south. (shrink)

Christian Smith has described the religious attitudes of American youth and many adults as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. In this formulation the word “therapeutic” does much work, and is meant to indicate that the goal of life is to be happy, to which end religion is instrumental. Martha Nussbaum has argued that Hellenistic schools of philosophy were therapeutic and instrumental in much the same way, and that this is a possible mode of philosophy even today. Appealing to the historical investigations of (...) Pierre Hadot and Giovanni Reale, this paper shows that Neoplatonism was an even more successful form of therapeutic philosophy, a fact which Augustine recognized and to which he responded in his therapeutic masterpiece Confessions, through his depiction of his mother as a sage. This suggests that Catholicism can be powerful when presented therapeutically, which might be a more appropriate mode for evangelism in our therapeutic age. (shrink)

The Cambridge History of Science, vol. 1, Ancient Science. Edited by Alexander Jones and Liba Taub. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. xix + 642. $160.

This article takes stock of the seeming wealth of visual and material sources concerning stars and numbers that has come down to us from early imperial China (221 BCE–755 CE) and their minimal impact on how we write the history of astronomy and mathematics in this period. My goal is to offer ideas about how we might better engage with these sources and work across ancient and modern disciplines. I begin by outlining the conceptual categories into which our historical subjects (...) divided these sciences, followed by an overview of those visual and material sources we know from textual sources to have once existed versus those that are currently extant. The historiographic disconnect, I argue, is due in part to an inherent disconnect in the sources that have survived and, in some degree, to terminological and categorical confusion between those working in the history of science, divination, and art. Pointing to what are, in my opinion, good examples of how we might move forward and beyond the limits imposed by our sources and disciplinary boundaries, I then end on a list of questions I think fruitful to explore. What, for example, do we mean by “accuracy” when speaking of how constellations are represented in technical literature and tomb murals? (shrink)

Kant and the Path of German Idealism examines numerous key texts from the rich philosophical period spanning from Kant through Hegel to illuminate the consequential development of Kant's core systematic principles by his successors, ultimately arguing in favor of the strength of Kant's discursive epistemic foundation.

This book contains an edited selection of the papers presented at the Second International Conference on the History of Ancient Mathematics and Astronomy (ICHAMA), organized by Tang Quan and Qu Anjing and held in Xi’an, 2–8 December 2018, commemorating the foundation. This collection, consisting of papers that have been refined and edited into scientific articles, provides an overview of how the history of science can be international, stepping beyond area studies, without being Euro-centric. Containing chapters written by East Asia scholars (...) who do not publish widely in English, the volume opens an important window into their projects and the state of scholarship in their respective countries in relation to the history of mathematics and astronomy. As the contributions span a spectrum of senior and junior scholars, they are of great interest to an academic audience of researchers and post-graduate students in the history of science and the history of mathematics and astronomy in particular. (shrink)

The successful specification of the definition of art has so far proven elusive. Discouraged by repeated failed attempts at the definition of art, numerous anti-essentialist philosophers have suggested alternative accounts. In this paper I defend the project of the definition of art by arguing that the strongest anti-essentialist arguments are unsuccessful in ruling out either the possibility or the value of a definition of art. Based on my observations regarding a blind spot in Wittgenstein’s anti-essentialist “look and see” approach, I (...) conclude by suggesting a new avenue of investigation for essentialism regarding art. (shrink)

Rights of nature is an idea that has come of age. In recent years, a diverse range of countries and jurisdictions have adopted these norms, which involve granting legal rights to nature or natural objects, such as rivers, forests, or ecosystems. This book critically examines the idea of natural objects as right-holders, and analyses legal cases, policies, and philosophical issues relating to this development. Drawing on contributions from a range of experts in the field, Rights of Nature: A Re-examination investigates (...) the potential for this innovative idea to revolutionize the concepts of rights, standing, and recognition as traditionally understood in many legal systems. Taking as its starting point Stone’s influential 1972 article ‘Should Trees Have Standing?’, the book examines the progress rights of nature have made since that time, by identifying central themes, unifying principles, and key distinctions in how rights of nature discourse has been operationalized in the disciplines of law, philosophy, and the social sciences. These themes and principles are illustrated through a wide variety of examples, including ecosystem services, indigenous thinking, and ecological restoration, demonstrating how the relationship between humanity and the natural world may be transforming. Taking a philosophical, political, and legal perspective, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental law and policy, environmental ethics, and philosophy. (shrink)

To the extensive literature on Aristotle's Ethics by scholars in the Anglo-American tradition, Engberg-Pedersen adds this major new interpretation of some of its most basic issues: the function of phronësis, the relation of phronësis to both moral virtue and theöria, the roles played by the different faculties of the soul in being an excellent human being, etc. Along the way he addresses problems at the root of all moral philosophy such as: the basic principle of morality, the best life for (...) a human being, and responsibility for action and moral character. It is a contemporary interpretation of Aristotle's Ethics which recalls the benefits of a careful study of him for understanding perennial ethical issues. (shrink)

Hume's discussion of miracles in his First Enquiry deserves our attention because it combines the two major modern tools used to debunk reasonable acceptance of miracles: the New Science's account of nature and critical history. However, although his conclusion is quite clear, the argument he uses to achieve it is not. It is unclear how this argument follows from his earlier positions. At different points it seems redundant, superfluous, excessive, and deficient. Because of the importance of its topic and its (...) peculiar combination of clarity and obscurity, Hume's essay has provoked a tremendous literature. (shrink)

Set in an interpretation of Aristotle, Dahl's book is a philosophical investigation into practical knowledge addressing such issues as whether it exists, what is it and what distinguishes it from other knowledge and belief. As its title indicates this book is divided into two distinct but related parts. The first part argues that Aristotle teaches that practical reason exists, i.e., that reason co-produces motivation for action, and that practical reason can provide an objective foundation for morality. The second part shows (...) that Aristotle's explanation of incontinence allows the incontinent man knowledge of what he ought to do in his present situation and a genuine conflict of motives. Although these two arguments are independent, they are mutually supporting: only because reason can provide some motivation for action can there be incontinence and incontinence presents a strong example of rational motivation. (shrink)

Bubacz has set an ambitious and important project for himself in this volume. He attempts to present an account of Augustine's theory of knowledge which is free of any theological presuppositions and to give a place to Augustine in the history of epistemology. Bubacz lucidly structures his discussions of each topic with these two goals in mind. The usual program is: a clear formulation of the general epistemological issue, a presentation and explication of relevant Augustinian texts, and an incorporation of (...) the Augustinian position into contemporary discussions. The attempt to bring together Augustine's theory of knowledge and contemporary epistemology also occasions original and interesting philosophical work by the author. Accordingly, this book would be notable to those who are interested in Augustine's thought, to contemporary epistemologists who might be tempted to dismiss the work of such a "God-centered" philosopher, and to those interested in a fresh discussion of epistemology. (shrink)

Behind this cute and misleading title is a Aristotelian defense of the foundations of Aristotle's moral philosophy. This work has a very precise focus: to excavate the cryptic definition of moral virtue found in Nicomachean Ethics 2.5. Hutchinson gives line-by-line analyses of the crucial arguments behind this definition, using doctrines from the Metaphysics, Categories, De Anima, and Physics to show the plausibility of their premises and the validity of their conclusions. So Hutchinson does not explain each of the virtues in (...) Aristotle's catalogue, but he does show the strength of his definition of virtue. (shrink)

According to James Griffin human rights should be grounded in an account of human dignity, based on “normative agency” – the human capacity to choose and pursue a conception of a worthwhile life. In this paper we take up Griffin’s insight that key legitimate human rights are designed to respect and protect this basic capacity, but reject his assumption that normative agency should always and everywhere be understood in a Western way. We argue that “normative agency” is an indeterminate concept (...) that can be differently understood in different cultural contexts and that thinking about human rights in East Asia should be guided by a Griffin-style approach coupled with an account of normative agency with East Asian characteristics. In developing this idea, we contrast our account with recent, moralized conceptions of Confucian dignity and respond to Griffin’s tacit worries about how to concretely implement views like ours in institutional practice. (shrink)

Does a political conception of human rights dictate a particular view of corporate human rights obligations? The U.N. “Protect, Respect, and Remedy” Framework and Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights hold that corporations have only a responsibility to respect human rights. Some critics have argued that corporations should be responsible for a wider range of human rights obligations, beyond merely an obligation to respect such rights. Furthermore, it has been argued that the Framework relied on a political conception of (...) human rights, and this is what led to limiting corporate obligations to mere respect for human rights. In this paper, I explore and critically assess this general claim about political conceptions of human rights. This involves distinguishing different types of political conceptions of human rights, as well as specifying what makes a theory of human rights a “political conception.” In light of this clarificatory discussion, I argue that the general thesis is false; the mere fact that a theory offers a political conception of human rights does not necessarily entail any certain range of corporate human rights obligations. Finally, I identify some of the other aspects of a theory of human rights that do affect the range of corporate obligations it will prescribe. (shrink)

In recent decades, environmental rights have been increasingly developed at both the national and international level, along with increased adjudication of these rights in both national (constitutional) courts and international human rights courts. These parallel trends raise a question as to whether it is better to develop and adjudicate environmental rights at the national or international level. This article considers the case made by James May and Erin Daly in favor of developing environmental rights at the national constitutional level and (...) adjudicating these rights in domestic courts. I consider the limitations of this case by showing that international environmental human rights can play a role that systematically benefits environmental protection, with adjudication in international human rights courts a key part of that process. This involves drawing on an argument offered by Allen Buchanan to justify a system of international legal human rights, which appeals to a number of benefits that such a system can provide. The argument is developed and applied to adjudication of environmental human rights in international human rights courts. First, it is shown how these benefits are realized in the area of environmental human rights. Second, it is shown how adjudication can enhance these benefits, both by providing a mechanism for their realization and by facilitating a mutually supportive relationship among them. On the basis of these enhanced benefits and the value that they add, it is concluded that there is strong justification for developing and adjudicating environmental human rights at the international level. (shrink)

Public discussions of political and social issues are often characterized by deep and persistent polarization. In social psychology, it’s standard to treat belief polarization as the product of epistemic irrationality. In contrast, we argue that the persistent disagreement that grounds political and social polarization can be produced by epistemically rational agents, when those agents have limited cognitive resources. Using an agent-based model of group deliberation, we show that groups of deliberating agents using coherence-based strategies for managing their limited resources tend (...) to polarize into different subgroups. We argue that using that strategy is epistemically rational for limited agents. So even though group polarization looks like it must be the product of human irrationality, polarization can be the result of fully rational deliberation with natural human limitations. (shrink)

The Hong and Page ‘diversity trumps ability’ result has been used to argue for the more general claim that a diverse set of agents is epistemically superior to a comparable group of experts. Here we extend Hong and Page’s model to landscapes of different degrees of randomness and demonstrate the sensitivity of the ‘diversity trumps ability’ result. This analysis offers a more nuanced picture of how diversity, ability, and expertise may relate. Although models of this sort can indeed be suggestive (...) for diversity policies, we advise against interpreting such results overly broadly. (shrink)

Computational philosophy is the use of mechanized computational techniques to instantiate, extend, and amplify philosophical research. Computational philosophy is not philosophy of computers or computational techniques; it is rather philosophy using computers and computational techniques. The idea is simply to apply advances in computer technology and techniques to advance discovery, exploration and argument within any philosophical area. -/- After touching on historical precursors, this article discusses contemporary computational philosophy across a variety of fields: epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, ethics and (...) social philosophy, philosophy of language and philosophy of mind, often with examples of operating software. Far short of any attempt at an exhaustive treatment, the intention is to introduce the spirit of each application by using some representative examples. (shrink)

Virtue ethics seems to be a promising moral theory for understanding and interpreting the development and behavior of artificial moral agents. Virtuous artificial agents would blur traditional distinctions between different sorts of moral machines and could make a claim to membership in the moral community. Accordingly, we investigate the “machine question” by studying whether virtue or vice can be attributed to artificial intelligence; that is, are people willing to judge machines as possessing moral character? An experiment describes situations where either (...) human or AI agents engage in virtuous or vicious behavior and experiment participants then judge their level of virtue or vice. The scenarios represent different virtue ethics domains of truth, justice, fear, wealth, and honor. Quantitative and qualitative analyses show that moral attributions are weakened for AIs compared to humans, and the reasoning and explanations for the attributions are varied and more complex. On “relational” views of membership in the moral community, virtuous machines would indeed be included, even if they are indeed weakened. Hence, while our moral relationships with artificial agents may be of the same types, they may yet remain substantively different than our relationships to human beings. (shrink)

A scientific community can be modeled as a collection of epistemic agents attempting to answer questions, in part by communicating about their hypotheses and results. We can treat the pathways of scientific communication as a network. When we do, it becomes clear that the interaction between the structure of the network and the nature of the question under investigation affects epistemic desiderata, including accuracy and speed to community consensus. Here we build on previous work, both our own and others’, in (...) order to get a firmer grasp on precisely which features of scientific communities interact with which features of scientific questions in order to influence epistemic outcomes. (shrink)

We examine the implications of dual‐processing theories of cognition for the moral domain, with particular emphasis upon ‘System 1’ theories: the Social Intuitionist Model (Haidt), moral heuristics (Sunstein), fast‐and‐frugal moral heuristics (Gigerenzer), schema accessibility (Lapsley & Narvaez) and moral expertise (Narvaez). We argue that these theories differ from each other in important ways and should be carefully distinguished. We examine these theories in the light of the ‘Berkowitz Rule’ with respect to educational practice and conclude with some thoughts about the (...) implications of this work for resetting the boundary between ethical theory and moral psychology. (shrink)

In 1957, Feyerabend delivered a paper titled ‘On the Quantum-Theory of Measurement’ at the Colston Research Symposium in Bristol to sketch a completion of von Neumann's measurement scheme without collapse, using only unitary quantum dynamics and well-motivated statistical assumptions about macroscopic quantum systems. Feyerabend's paper has been recognised as an early contribution to quantum measurement, anticipating certain aspects of decoherence. Our paper reassesses the physical and philosophical content of Feyerabend's contribution, detailing the technical steps as well as its overall philosophical (...) motivations and consequences. Summarising our results, Feyerabend interpreted collapse as a positivist assumption in quantum mechanics leading to a strict distinction between the uninterpreted formalism of unitary evolution in quantum mechanics and the classically interpreted observational language describing post-measurement outcomes. Thus Feyerabend took the no-collapse completion of the von Neumann measurement scheme to show the dispensability of the positivist assumption, leading the way to a realistic interpretation of quantum theory. We note, however, that there are substantial problems with his account of measurement that bring into question its viability as a legitimate foil to the orthodox view. We further argue that his dissatisfaction with the von Neumann measurement scheme is indicative of early views on theoretical pluralism. (shrink)

In a series of formal studies and less formal applications, Hong and Page offer a ‘diversity trumps ability’ result on the basis of a computational experiment accompanied by a mathematical theorem as explanatory background (Hong & Page 2004, 2009; Page 2007, 2011). “[W]e find that a random collection of agents drawn from a large set of limited-ability agents typically outperforms a collection of the very best agents from that same set” (2004, p. 16386). The result has been extremely influential as (...) an epistemic justification for diversity policy initiatives. Here we show that the ‘diversity trumps ability’ result is tied to the particular random landscape used in Hong and Page’s simulation. We argue against interpreting results on that random landscape in terms of ‘ability’ or ‘expertise.’ These concepts are better modeled on smother and more realistic landscapes, but keeping other parameters the same those are landscapes on which it is groups of the best performing that do better. Smoother landscapes seem to vindicate both the concept and the value of expertise. Change in other parameters, however, also vindicates diversity. With an increase in the pool of available heuristics, diverse groups again do better. Group dynamics makes a difference as well; simultaneous ‘tournament’ deliberation in a group in place of the ‘relay’ deliberation in Hong and Page’s original model further emphasizes an advantage for diversity. ‘Tournament’ 2 dynamics particularly shows the advantage of mixed groups that include both experts and non-experts. As a whole, our modeling results suggest that relative to problem characteristics and conceptual resources, the wisdom of crowds and the wisdom of the few each have a place. We regard ours as a step toward attempting to calibrate their relative virtues in different modelled contexts of intellectual exploration. (shrink)

Epistemic justifications for democracy have been offered in terms of two different aspects of decision-making: voting and deliberation, or ‘votes’ and ‘talk.’ The Condorcet Jury Theorem is appealed to as a justification in terms votes, and the Hong-Page “Diversity Trumps Ability” result is appealed to as a justification in terms of deliberation. Both of these, however, are most plausibly construed as models of direct democracy, with full and direct participation across the population. In this paper, we explore how these results (...) hold up if we vary the model so as to reflect the more familiar democratic structure of a representative hierarchy. We first recount extant analytic work that shows that representation inevitably weakens the voting results of the Condorcet Jury Theorem, but we question the ability of that result to shine light on real representative systems. We then show that, when we move from votes to talk, as modeled in Hong-Page, representation holds its own and even has a slight edge. (shrink)

Understanding the dynamics of information is crucial to many areas of research, both inside and outside of philosophy. Using computer simulations of three kinds of information, germs, genes, and memes, we show that the mechanism of information transfer often swamps network structure in terms of its effects on both the dynamics and the fitness of the information. This insight has both obvious and subtle implications for a number of questions in philosophy, including questions about the nature of information, whether there (...) is genetic information, and how to arrange scientific communities. (shrink)

We situate Henrich’s book in the larger research tradition of which it is a part and show how he presents a wide array of recent psychological, physiological, and neurological data as supporting the view that two related but distinct processes have shaped human nature and made us unique: cumulative cultural evolution and culture-driven genetic evolution. We briefly sketch out several ways philosophers might fruitfully engage with this view and note some implications it may have for current philosophic debates in moral (...) and political theory and over the nature of extended cognition. We end by noting how Henrich’s view of the source of cultural design and innovation, and the prominence of place he gives to the extended process of cultural evolution, cuts against a cluster of broad but common views about human minds, recasting putative bugs as features and indicating that many of the distinctive features of our individual minds evolved to allow them to be effective cogs in the larger, more productive cultural machine. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between classical theism, natural law, and moral realism, focusing on the critical role of divine exemplarism in securing moral constraints. Drawing on the work of Bengson, Cuneo, and Shafer-Landau, the paper examines three central theses for a robust moral realism: (1) the existence of moral facts, (2) their stance-independence, and (3) the necessity of moral constraints. While Aristotelian essentialism addresses the first two theses by grounding moral truths in human nature, it falls short on the (...) third—constraint. The paper argues that classical theism, through divine exemplarism, provides the necessary resources to secure moral constraints that other metaethical proposals lack. By asserting that all essences reflect divine goodness, theism constrains the moral landscape, ensuring moral facts are not arbitrary and preventing any world from permitting violations of essential moral platitudes—such as the idea that it could ever be good to torture, act cruelly, or slander for fun. The paper concludes that classical theism strengthens moral realism while offering a simpler, more robust explanation than alternative theories. (shrink)