In this paper, we summarize the various impacts of incarceration with the aim of providing an overview of the ways mass incarceration affects society. In doing so, we look inside the black box of the largest penal experiment in world history: the quintupling of the prison population in the United States between 1973 and 2006. The question is, "What have been the social consequences of our incarceration policy?"One objective is to provide insight into what might be called the prison policy (...) paradox, namely, that a 500% generation_long growth in imprisonment has had little impact on crime. Answers are provided by looking inside the black box of penal policy and by identifying the various ways incarceration leads to social outcomes that are associated with public safety. The paper considers the problem of "public safety," because safety is a broader concept than crime. Though a desire for public safety includes a desire for low rates of crime, public safety connotes a more profound interest we have to live in a society where we feel secure pursuing our personal goals and fulfilling our life desires Using public safety as our criteria enables us to consider the ways incarceration affects our quality_of_life, especially through the way incarceration affects the informal social relations that promote the kind of profound social control that is a foundation for a sense of feeling safe.Three types of effects are described. Positive effects are those that improve public safety, negative effects reduce public safety, and "ambivalent" effects have the capacity to be both positive and negative. Five levels of social impacts on public safety are assessed:o Effects on individuals that change the way people act;o Effects on intimate relationships such as those with families and other loved ones;o Effects on social relationships that are felt as community_level outcomes;o Effects on institutions such as labor markets and the political economy;o Effects on democracy or social justice.Thus, the purpose of this paper is to summarize what is known, empirically and experientially, about the positive and negative ways incarceration affects levels of social expression. (shrink)

Emissions arising from the production and consumption of food are acknowledged as a major contributor to climate change. From a consumer’s perspective, however, the sustainability of food may have many meanings: it may result from eating less meat, becoming vegetarian, or choosing to buy local or organic food. To explore what food sustainability means to consumers, and what factors lead to changes in food practice, we adopt a sociotechnical approach to compare the food consumption practices in North West England with (...) two differing consumer groups. The first, supermarket shoppers ‘embedded’ in the mainstream food regime; and the second, who self-identify as sustainable food practitioners, and who perform a range of sustainable food consumption practices. We examine how our two groups experience changes in food practices and identify ‘fractures’ stemming from lifecourse and public events that emerge as points where change might occur. We suggest that ‘sharing spaces’ would be one possibility for prompting and nurturing fractures that can lead to greater sustainability in food practices. (shrink)

In the fallout from the war on terror is a revived Cold War, with more nuclear players than ever, across even more dry-tinder landscapes around the world.

Most specialists agree that Peirce upholds his abstract definitions of reality and truth simultaneously and consistently with his pragmatist clarifications of those concepts. But some might assume that his pragmatist clarifications (the third grade of clearness) restrict the extensions of abstract definitions (the second grade of clearness), such that anything real must both be independent of what anyone thinks about it, per the abstract definition, and be an object of the would-be “final opinion”, per the pragmatist clarification. I (...) call this reading Interpretive Dependence of the second grade of clearness on the third grade. In contrast, on Interpretive Independence, which I defend here, a concept can have a different extension on the second grade than it has on the third grade, such that it could be true, in a purely abstract sense, that there are realities that can never be known (metaphysical realism). “True” here must also be interpreted only according to an abstract definition, namely, one which Peirce endorses in 1906 and which, I argue, is a deflationary definition. Interpretive Independence not only allows Peirce to explain the intuitive appeal of metaphysical realism, while at the same time rejecting it, it also allows him to explain how there can be truths about fictional objects and truths in pure mathematics. (shrink)

In response to criticisms of the use of the Ideological Surround Model to analyze Tolerance of Ambiguity, emphasis is placed on how the methodologies of this model operate from Christian pacifist assumptions. This model seeks to promote social scientific methodologies that will allow competing perspectives to obtain increasing clarity on points of conflict.

Cognitive science is transforming our understanding of the mind. New discoveries are changing how we comprehend not just language, but thought itself. Yet, surprisingly little of the new learning has penetrated discussions and analysis of the most important social institution affecting our lives-the law. Drawing on work in philosophy, psychology, anthropology, linguistics, and literary theory, Steven L. Winter has created nothing less than a tour de force of interdisciplinary analysis. A Clearing in the Forest rests on the simple notion that (...) the better we understand the workings of the mind, the better we will understand all its products-especially law. Legal studies today focus on analytic skills and grand normative theories. But, to understand how real-world, legal actors reason and decide, we need a different set of tools. Cognitive science provides those tools, opening a window on the imaginative, yet orderly mental processes that animate thinking and decisionmaking among lawyers, judges, and lay persons alike. Recent findings about how humans actually categorize and reason make it possible to explain legal reasoning in new, more cogent, more productive ways. A Clearing in the Forest is a compelling meditation on both how the law works and what it all means. In uncovering the irrepressibly imaginative, creative quality of human reason, Winter shows how what we are learning about the mind changes not only our understanding of law, but ultimately of ourselves. He charts a unique course to understanding the world we inhabit, showing us the way to the clearing in the forest. (shrink)

Does philosophy make scientific progress, and if yes, how much? As Dellsén, Lawler, and Norton have recently argued, to answer this, we need to consider both empirical questions about the history of philosophy and theoretical questions about the definition of scientific progress. In this paper, I develop a case study about the origin of analytic philosophy—focusing on Frege to show that in this period we can document what I call a clear case for scientific progress in philosophy. That is, philosophy (...) made scientific progress over this period no matter what definitions of scientific progress we consider, even by the very high standards of scientific progress that pessimists about progress in philosophy endorse. Thus, if any of the existing accounts of progress are correct, philosophy made progress at the origin of analytic philosophy. (shrink)

ConclusionWhat I sought to demonstrate was that the relations between (a) how a case fits into the system, (b) what the main structure of the justification is, and (c) whether discretionary authority is used, are not as simple as suggested in the literature.What we saw is that if the justification for a decision in a particular case is a practical syllogism with an established legal rule as its major premiss, there are many possibilities: (a) the case did or did not (...) raise a conflict for the judge between his intuitions about reasonableness and his interpretation of the legal system; (b) the case had or had not a clear solution in conformity with the legal system; (c) the case was or was not decided according to what the system seemed to prescribe.Therefore, the main structure of a justification cannot inform us about questions as: Did the case fit into the system? Is discretionary authority used? The opposition between hard cases and clear cases is much too complex to be of any use to clarify such issues. (shrink)

(Shoshana Smith now goes by her married name, Shoshana Brassfield: http://philpapers.org/profile/37640) Descartes famously claims that everything we perceive clearly and distinctly is true. Although this rule is fundamental to Descartes’s theory of knowledge, readers from Gassendi and Leibniz onward have complained that unless Descartes can say explicitly what clear and distinct perception is, how we know when we have it, and why it cannot be wrong, then the rule is empty. I offer a detailed analysis of clear and distinct perception, (...) showing how Descartes answers these questions. Many doubts about the usefulness of the clarity and distinctness rule arise from the mistaken assumption that in clear and distinct perception, like sense perception, we must be able to establish a correspondence between perception and reality before we can have knowledge. I show that Descartes has a different metaphysical picture of clear and distinct perception. Clear and distinct perception is direct perception, typically of essences. On this view, by relying on the intellect instead of the senses, we can have direct perception not only of our own ideas, but also of a mind-independent reality. Because clear and distinct perception is direct perception, problems of correspondence do not arise. My account of clear and distinct perception also yields unique insight into other issues in Descartes, such as the Cartesian Circle and the doctrine of the free creation of the eternal truths. Completed at the University of California, 2005. Dissertation advisers: Janet Broughton, Hannah Ginsborg, Anthony A. Long. ProQuest UMI: 3187156. (shrink)

A passionate defence of humanity and a work of radical optimism from the international bestselling author of Postcapitalism How do we preserve what makes us human in an age of uncertainty? Are we now just consumers shaped by market forces? A sequence of DNA? A collection of base instincts? Or will we soon be supplanted by algorithms and A.I. anyway? In Clear Bright Future, Paul Mason calls for a radical, impassioned defence of the human being, our universal rights and freedoms (...) and our power to change the world around us. Ranging from economics to Big Data, from neuroscience to the culture wars, he draws from his on-the-ground reporting from mass protests in Istanbul to riots in Washington, as well as his own childhood in an English mining community, to show how the notion of humanity has become eroded as never before. In this book Paul Mason argues that we are still capable - through language, innovation and co-operation - of shaping our future. He offers a vision of humans as more than puppets, customers or cogs in a machine. This work of radical optimism asks: Do you want to be controlled? Or do you want something better? (shrink)

Descartes's general rule that “whatever is clearly and distinctly perceived is true” has traditionally been criticized on two closely related grounds. As Leibniz, for example, puts it, clearness and distinctness are of no value as criteria of truth unless we have criteria of clearness and distinctness; but Descartes gives none. And consequently, the standards of judgment which the rule in fact evokes are purely subjective and psychological. There must hence be set up analytic, logical “marks” by means of (...) which it can infallibly and without arbitrariness be recognized whether any ideas or propositions are or are not clear and distinct. (shrink)

In a Bayesian brain, every perceptual decision will take into account internal priors as well as new incoming evidence. A reality monitoring system—eventually providing the agent with a subjective sense of reality avoids them being confused about whether our experience is perceptual or imagined. Yet not all confusions we experience mean that we wonder whether we may be imagining: some confused experiences feel clearly perceptual but still feel not right. What happens in such confused perceptions, and can the Bayesian brain (...) explain this kind of confusion? In this paper, we offer a characterisation of perceptual confusion and argue that it requires our subjective sense of reality to be a composite of several subjective markers, including a categorical one that can clearly identify an experience as perceptual and connect us to reality. Our composite account makes new predictions regarding the robustness, the non-linear development and the possible breakdowns of the sense of reality in perception. (shrink)

In one of his contributions to The Nation, Peirce claims that ―Crystal clearness, such as we justly require in mathematics, in law, in economics, is in philosophy the characteristic of the second-rates.‖ The statement might seem paradoxical enough: isn't Peirce the author of How to Make our Ideas Clear (hereafter: HMIC), the seminal paper for the pragmatist tradition, a paper that is sure to be included in each and every anthology of American thought? How can clearness then be (...) ―the characteristic of the second-rates‖? I take it that these perplexities arise only in a superficial reading of HMIC and that the present quote tells quite a lot about Peirce's doctrine and style. My first section concerns the method one should adopt in philosophy according to Peirce and explains in part why belief and doubt play such an important role in the Illustrations series. The second one concerns the kind of problems Peirce felt attracted to and how we can make sense of what he says about the ―"strongest" thinkers. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Ideas and Perceptions Some Accounts of Clear and Distinct Perception Obscurity, Confusion, and Prejudice Clear and Distinct Perception in the Second Meditation The Nature of Clear and Distinct Perception Questions About Sensory Ideas Conclusion References and Further Reading.

Written by one of today's most creative and innovative philosophers, Ruth Garrett Millikan, this book examines basic empirical concepts; how they are acquired, how they function, and how they have been misrepresented in the traditional philosophical literature. Millikan places cognitive psychology in an evolutionary context where human cognition is assumed to be an outgrowth of primitive forms of mentality, and assumed to have 'functions' in the biological sense. Of particular interest are her discussions of the nature of abilities as different (...) from dispositions, her detailed analysis of the psychological act of reidentifying substances, and her critique of the language of thought for mental representation. In a radical departure from current philosophical and psychological theories of concepts, this book provides the first in-depth discussion on the psychological act of reidentification. (shrink)

The Mo-ho chih-kuan (Great cessation-and-contemplation) by T’ien-t’ai Chih-i (538–597) is among the most influential treatises in the long history of Buddhist scholarship. It is known for its brilliant insights and its systematic and comprehensive treatment of the Buddhist tradition. Clear Serenity, Quiet Insight is the first complete, fully annotated translation of this prodigious work by one of today’s foremost scholars on T’ien-t’ai (Tendai) Buddhism. -/- The extensive annotation accompanying the translation (Volumes 1 and 2) will help readers understand the original (...) text and implications of crucial passages and ideas, as well as the place the Mo-ho chih-kuan occupies in the development of Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Japanese Buddhism and its critical importance for figures such as Nichiren, who considered Chih-i the “great master” and quoted profusely from the text in his own writings. Volume 3 contains ample supplementary materials, including translations of related texts, a comprehensive glossary, and lists of Chinese terms and explanations of various sources. (shrink)

Deciding what role perspicuous representations play in Wittgenstein’s philosophy matters, not only for determining what one thinks of the contributions of this great figure of twentieth century philosophy but also for recognising the ‘live options’ for conducting philosophical enquiries full stop. It is not surprising, given this importance, that perspicuous representations is the topic of the opening chapter of Gordon Baker’s posthumous collection of essays on philosophical method. In that contribution he offers grounds for thinking that the relevant passage in (...) which the notion is explicitly mentioned (cited above) should be read as promoting a strongly therapeutic approach to philosophy: he exposes ‘this possibility’ in the modest hope of persuading receptive readers to explore it further for themselves (see Baker 2004, 46). I endorse some of Baker’s central insights about understanding and use of perspicuous representations but I firmly reject his conclusions about the end of philosophy. Specifically, I agree with him that Wittgenstein set his face against the very idea of philosophical ‘theorising’, but I deny that this led him (or ought to lead anyone) to promote a purely therapeutic philosophy. In the first three sections, I supply reasons for preferring an account of Wittgenstein’s approach to philosophy that emphasises its clarificatory ambitions. In doing so, I say something about: (i) what I take perspicuous representations to be and how they function; (ii) what motivates Baker’s reading and its implications; and (iii) how perspicuous and other forms of representations have been misused in attempts at so-called philosophical theorising. I conclude by proposing that in steering clear of both theory and extreme therapy, it is possible to prosecute a positive philosophy – one that employs perspicuous representations to bring ‘relevant connections’ to light for the purposes of enabling us to understand and reflect on aspects of various domains of human being. (shrink)

Clear Light of Day, Anita Desai’s ninth novel, is about a sibling relationship set against the backdrop of the change that the Indian society witnessed during the turbulent period around the country’s Independence. The novel is divided into four untitled sections suggesting the four dimensions of time and recording the changes that take place in a family and the country. While the first section of the novel is in the late 1970s, the second one transports the reader back to 1947. (...) Part three goes back even further in time and shows how children’s perception of the world around them has lifelong consequences. The fourth part revolves around two sisters, Bim and Tara, but focusing mainly on Bim. The novel is, as Desai says, “about time as a destroyer, as a preserver and about what the bondage of time does to people” (Sethy 142). (shrink)

Clear-cut designs have a number of methodological virtues, with respect to internal and external validity, which I illustrate by means of informal causal analysis. In contrast, a more uniform experimental practice across disciplines may not lead to progress if causal relations in the human sciences are highly dependent on the details of the context.

Clearing a Space for Human Action demonstrates how Karl Barth's concern for ethical description cannot be separated from his concern for a proper theological description of the God-human relationship. Early in his career, Barth attempted to describe human ethical agency in terms that respected the co-inherence of dogmatics and ethics, but in such a way that neither human nor divine agency suffered absorption into the other. This book's conclusion calls for a treatment of Barth's Dogmatics as a sustained theological ethical (...) ontology. Only then can we hope to understand Barth's treatment of the human and the Divine in other parts of the Dogmatics. (shrink)

Clearing algorithms are at the core of modern payment systems, facilitating the settling of multilateral credit messages with (near) minimum transfers of currency. Traditional clearing procedures use batch processing based on MILP - mixed-integer linear programming algorithms. The MILP approach demands intensive computational resources; moreover, it is also vulnerable to operational risks generated by possible defaults during the inter-batch period. This paper presents TORC3 - the Token-Ring Clearing Algorithm for Currency Circulation. In contrast to the MILP approach, TORC3 is a (...) real time heuristic procedure, demanding modest computational resources, and able to completely shield the clearing operation against the participating agents’ risk of default. (shrink)

In Seeing Clearly, Nicolas Bommarito brings together Buddhist theory and practice with a deceptively simple sophistication that few have managed in the contemporary era. Meditation teachers have contributed to the self-help section an abundance of guides to Buddhism and meditation, many of them elegantly worded and sometimes simple and practical. Yet many of these works also stumble unwittingly into philosophical problems discussed with great care and complexity in footnoted academic volumes read mostly by a small circle of scholars. Bommarito's accomplishment (...) as a philosopher is evident not only in the clarity of his exposition, but also in what he doesn't say, in the many philosophical blunders he does not fall... (shrink)

Discusses reasoning and clear thinking, including such aspects as the nature of facts, language and reasoning, false analogies, and prejudice.

Background: Conscience is an important concept in ethics, having various meanings in different cultures. Because a growing number of healthcare professionals are of immigrant background, particularly within the care of older people, demanding multiple ethical positions, it is important to explore the meaning of conscience among care providers within different cultural contexts. Research objective: The study aimed to illuminate the meaning of conscience by enrolled nurses with an Iranian background working in residential care for Persian-speaking people with dementia. Research design: (...) A phenomenological hermeneutical method guided the study. Participants and research context: A total of 10 enrolled nurses with Iranian background, aged 33–46 years, participated in the study. All worked full time in residential care settings for Persian-speaking people with dementia in a large city, in Sweden. Ethical considerations: The study was approved by the Regional Ethical Review Board for ethical vetting of research involving humans. Participants were given verbal and written study information and assured that their participation was voluntary and confidential. Findings: Three themes were constructed including perception of conscience, clear conscience grounded in relations and striving to keep a clear conscience. The conscience was perceived as an inner guide grounded in feelings, which is dynamic and subject to changes throughout life. Having a clear conscience meant being able to form a bond with others, to respect them and to get their confirmation that one does well. To have a clear conscience demanded listening to the voice of the conscience. The enrolled nurses strived to keep their conscience clear by being generous in helping others, accomplishing daily tasks well and behaving nicely in the hope of being treated the same way one day. Conclusion: Cultural frameworks and the context of practice needed to be considered in interpreting the meaning of conscience and clear conscience. (shrink)

This paper seeks to analyze and to motivate a trend toward virtue ethics and away from deontology in the business ethics account of organizational loyalty. Prevailing authors appeal to “transcendent” values (deontology), skepticism (there is no loyalty), or Aristotelianism (loyalty is seeking mutual self-interest). I argue that the “Aristotelian” view clears up the “egoist” difficulty with loyalty. Briefly, critics feel we must “transcend,” “replace,” “overcome” and most especially sacrifice self-interest on the altar of ethics and loyalty. I argue that few (...) things can be more ethical than loyalty to shared values. When a company and I both pursue the same value X, there becomes no difference between my seeking my best interest and my seeking the best interest of the company (and vice versa). Hence, the way out of the egoist difficulty with loyalty is seeing a company’s interests as my own (Aristotle’s third stage of friendship). (shrink)

Theorists of the legal process in common law countries have, in recent years, been preoccupied with hard cases. A hard case occurs where a legal rule or legal rules cannot determine a uniquely correct result when applied to given facts. This paper examines what theorists and law practitioners alike have believed to be a very different kind of case: the clear case. Practising lawyers assure us that clear cases occupy a large percentage of their case load. Professional law teachers design (...) teaching materials and often conduct themselves in the classroom with apparent assurance that most cases in the 'real world' of a law practice are clear cases. The lawyer is presented with material facts and rules which are rid of the difficulties giving rise to hard cases. The facts have been ascertained and proved. The lawyer has been able to sort out the material from the immaterial facts with a much-envied ability to determine the criteria of materiality. He has also discovered the rules and somehow has rejected some and accepted others as legally relevant. The lawyer need only deduce a conclusion by applying the relevant rule to the material facts. Choice, uncertainty, or human frailty enter the picture only when the lawyer makes that final deduction. Consequently, clear cases are supposed to be relatively easy. This Paper questions whether there is more to the competent lawyer's job in clear cases than carrying on the deductive process of applying the relevant rule to the material facts. The primary objective of this essay is to make an argument concerning the issue as to whether there is more to the competent lawyer's job in clear cases than carrying on the deductive process of applying the relevant rule to the material facts. My argument hinges upon what constitutes a properly decided judicial decision. And this, in turn, depends upon the differing conceptions about justice which underlie the activities of courts and legislatures in a democratic state. The Paper then connects those differing conceptions to such concepts as formal justice, substantive justice, liberty, guidance to lawyers, and accountability in the context of clear cases. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger has made uncovering the truth of being his life’s work. He ultimately came to locate this truth at the site of the clearing (lichtung), which allowed him to sweep away the traditional formulation of the question of being and begin anew with beyng. This second beginning, as Heidegger called it, stood apart from the original in that he saw fit to cloak beyng in nothingness. This paper explores Heidegger’s use of nothingness and his claim that in order to (...) overcome the divide between the two beginnings, we must leap into the abyss of the clearing. Given Heidegger’s interest in East Asian philosophy, his use of nothingness appears to resemble that of Daoism. Despite this outward similarity, however, this paper will argue that Heidegger’s doctrine of nothingness failed to grasp the cosmological significance of the clearing for he saw it only in terms of symbolizing the existential play of being. Thus while Heidegger argues that the clearing marks the unconcealement of beyng, Daoism uses the clearing to point us to the root of being in nothingness. (shrink)

It is common for philosophers to claim that doxastic voluntarism, the view that an agent can form beliefs voluntarily, is false, and therefore that agents do not have the kind of control over their beliefs required for a straightforward application of deontological concepts such as obligation or duty in the domain of epistemology. The role that the denial of doxastic voluntarism plays in an argument to the effect that agents do not have obligations with respect to belief is simply this.

The fourth and final chapter is devoted to addressing important criticisms of Being and Time from Ernst Tugendhat and Michael Theunissen that have impeded a proper understanding of the relationship between fundamental ontology and critical theory, thereby clearing ground for a more fruitful dialogue between the two. In particular, I respond to claims that call into question the ethical and social-ontological viability of fundamental ontology. While Tugednhat focuses exclusively on the self-relation and Theunissen on social ontology, neither are able to (...) bring both perspectives together, which the appropriative view accomplishes. As a result, the appropriative view avoids the long-standing charges of individualism, irrationalism, decisionism, and voluntarism. Finally, the chapter addresses an important ‘meta’ objection from Raymond Geuss that calls into question the very possibility of a quasi-transcendental, ontological approach to social criticism to vindicate the appropriative view as a viable approach to critical theory. (shrink)

This chapter concludes the book by offering some reflections on the ambitions of the project in relation to the broader political struggle for reparations in the United States. I begin by noting that while calls for reparative justice are often dismissed as utopian, shifting political circumstances can radically alter the prospects for progressive social change in ways that are difficult to predict. Given these conditions of uncertainty about when and how new openings in the struggle will arise, we must persist (...) in our efforts in order to be prepared when they do. Against this backdrop, the central aspiration of the book—to confront and reckon with whiteness in relation to the issue of reparative racial justice—can be understood as an attempt to clear the political ground of debris and obstacles so that intelligent collective action can be taken should the opportunity arise, while also encouraging the steady and stable growth of the reparations movement in the longer term. (shrink)

As a reader of philosophy, I am most drawn to philosophical works that contain a great deal of vagueness and a great deal of ambiguity. As a writer of philosophy, I have always tried to write as clearly and unambiguously as possible when analyzing texts that are anything but. Why should I prioritize clarity and lack of ambiguity in the philosophy I write but not in the philosophy I read? My answer to the question about my reading preference is that (...) I feel like vague, ambiguous works call the reader into the philosophical process in a different way than in works that strive for clarity and lack of ambiguity. My answer to the question about my writing preference is that I am not writing for readers. I am writing for myself, and I feel that I get more out of the philosophical writing process when I try to write clearly. (shrink)

In ‘Fuzzy gender: between female embodiment and intersex’, Ashley Tauchert offers a ‘fuzzy’ model for gender. Her proposed model aims to account for the normative boundaries of sex and gender, especially between females, transwomen, and intersexuals, in terms of a ‘gender line’ on which different gender categories are located. This reply paper aims to clear the fuzziness in Tauchert’s model by pointing out two critical problems. First, her model appears to be self-defeating, since the marginalized gender categories it attempts to (...) empower are defined in terms of the hegemonic binarism of the ‘pure’ heterosexual male and the ‘pure’ heterosexual female, which it tries to dislodge. Second, her model implies an infinite number of possible gender categories along the gender line; being so, it becomes theoretically inert and practically inadequate. In lieu of the fuzzy model, this paper suggests an alternative model of thinking through the black/white and grey gender categories. This model utilizes the metaphor of gender galaxies, where each gender category is treated as an independent, socially-conferred galaxy; each having specific societal concerns and political agenda. This model, as will be argued, provides firmer grounding for the political aspirations of these various gender categories. (shrink)

In both the Tractatus and the Investigations, Wittgenstein claimed that the aim of philosophy is to achieve clarity: to see clearly the logic or grammar of our language. However, his view of clarity underwent an important change, one of many changes that led Wittgenstein to write, in the preface to the Investigations, that his new ideas “could be seen in the right light only by contrast with and against the background of my old way of thinking.” I argue that certain (...) “grave mistakes” of the Tractatus were due to an idealised conception of clarity, and that a revised understanding of clarity is one of the main achievements of the Investigations. In the Tractatus Wittgenstein wrongly assumed that when we see language clearly, what we see will be determinate, exact, and complete. In the Investigations he realised that when we see language clearly we cannot specify in advance whether what we see will be determinate or vague, exact or inexact, complete or incomplete. I characterise this insight as a truism: when we see clearly, what we see might not be clear. Wittgenstein wants the Tractatus to serve as a warning to the reader of the Investigations; his own past mistakes are instructive and this is why we should read the Investigations against the background of his old way of thinking. (shrink)

Part 1. Energetic disturbances -- Energetic clutter gutter -- Energetic residue -- Energetic interference -- Personal atmosphere -- House anatomy -- Part 2. Plugging in -- creative clearing power -- Spiritual assistance -- Energy measurement (energy testing/dowsing) -- Part 3. Energy-clearing solutions (steps and protocols) -- House energy-clearing treatment (steps and protocol) -- Distance house energy-clearing treatment -- Business energy-clearing treatment -- Personal energy-clearing treatment (steps and protocol) -- Energy-clearing protocols for children, pets, and more!

Presenting an understanding of the mind, emotions, and communication, Calm, Clear, and Loving invites an understanding of the transformation of mind, both in a meditative and therapeutic context. It is relevant to those dealing with histories of abuse and trauma, for those in the fields of mental health, and for those on meditative and spiritual evolution.

Congress's national-security legislation will often require clear and specific congressional authorization before the executive can undertake certain actions. The War Powers Resolution, for example, prohibits any law from authorizing military hostilities unless it "specifically authorizes" them. And the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 required laws to amend FISA or repeal its "exclusive means" provision before they could authorize warrantless electronic surveillance. But efforts to legislate clear-statement regimes in national-security law have failed to induce compliance. The Clinton Administration inferred congressional (...) "authorization" for the 1999 Kosovo War from an appropriations statute that failed to specifically authorize the conflict. And the Bush Administration inferred congressional "authorization" for the NSA surveillance program from ambiguous language in the post-September 11th Authorization to Use Military Force. In both situations, executive-branch lawyers employed expansive theories of implied repeal and constitutional avoidance to evade the codified clear-statement requirements, and Congress and the courts acquiesced to the President's actions. Recent proposals to strengthen the clear-statement requirements in Congress's national-security framework legislation are unlikely to be effective without institutional mechanisms, such as points of order, that can deter future legislators from enacting vague or ambiguous legislation from which the executive might claim implicit congressional "authorization," and that can induce Congress to confront Presidents that act without specific congressional authorization. Simply enacting more narrow or explicit clear-statement requirements, or adding funding restrictions to Congress's framework legislation, fails to counter the aggressive interpretive doctrines that executives of both political parties have used to concoct congressional "authorization" from vague or ambiguous statutory language. (shrink)

The product of a Kickstarter fundraising campaign, "Clear and Present Thinking" is a college-level textbook in logic and critical thinking. Chapters: 1. Questions, Problems, and World Views 2. Good and Bad Thinking Habits 3. Basics of Argumentation 4. Fallacies 5. Reasonable Doubt 6. Moral Reasoning In an effort to reduce the cost of education for students, this textbook was funded by over 700 people through the Kickstarter online crowd-funding platform.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Clear Division of Labor Within Environmental Philosophy?William M. Throop (bio)In discussions about the future of environmental philosophy, I have found myself supporting two positions that are in tension with one another. The first, which has been well explored in the last decade, is that environmental philosophy should have a more dramatic impact outside of academic circles. It should affect policy and guide the behavior of non-philosophers, which usually (...) requires that it deeply engage the empirical details of problems it addresses. The second is that environmental philosophy needs to improve its status within the larger philosophical community, which requires its practitioners to use methods that dominate mainstream philosophy and to be conversant with contemporary work in ethical theory, epistemology, metaphysics, and continental philosophy. Some have argued that this tension places a double burden on those training to be environmental philosophers; they must demonstrate both theoretical and practical excellence. I fear that such a standard will limit [End Page 147] the growth of environmental philosophy. It will be daunting to new environmental philosophers and achieved by only a few.With respect to this tension, I suggest that environmental philosophy should support a robust division of labor. Many new environmental philosophers should be recruited from cohorts trained primarily in core areas of philosophy. Most of these thinkers will probably focus on highly theoretical issues—issues that anyone in the field would recognize as philosophical.Their knowledge of environmental problems may be superficial and their audience likely will consist primarily of other philosophers. Their impact beyond philosophy may be quite limited (except for their students). I come from this tradition, and I am still delighted by the purely intellectual puzzles that our field generates. Work of this sort should be honored, but our field will be sterile if it is dominated by this kind of thought.I hope that many other new environmental philosophers will be trained in interdisciplinary environmental graduate programs or "applied" philosophy Ph.D. programs where they will acquire the interdisciplinary expertise necessary to address practical problems and to effectively engage non-philosophical audiences. This group of "practical" environmental philosophers should also include a host of practitioners in other fields who contribute to philosophical dialogue. I suspect that much work in this area will be case-based, empirically sophisticated and, where it addresses non-philosophical audiences, more reliant on compelling metaphors than on tight arguments. I doubt that it is fruitful to view this group as applying the work of the former group. The aims, the sources of insight and the standards of quality for the two groups are categorically different. For practical philosophers, the political feasibility of a proposal matters, and the arguments must have the capacity to move relevant stakeholders. The results of this work may appear to be philosophy-lite to those in the first group, but only if judged by standards that are inappropriate if we accept a division of labor in the field.This division of labor cannot be an apartheid. Many promising innovations in environmental philosophy will come from the interface between these groups. And unfortunately, a good bit of questionable work done in each group may result from a failure to understand progress that has been made by the other group. For example, philosophers focused only on theory may draw implications for action that fail to accord with current empirical information. Practical philosophers may [End Page 148] critique simplified metaethical positions that have long been abandoned in favor of more sophisticated versions. A healthy dialogue and a mutual respect should diminish these dangers. Such a division of labor has significant implications for graduate education, hiring and evaluation of faculty, and allocation of prestige within the field. The health and growth of environmental philosophy will depend on part on how we address these implications.William M. Throop Bill Throop is provost and professor of philosophy at Green Mountain College, an environmental liberal arts college in Poultney, VT. His background is in epistemology and philosophy of science, but in the last decade his work has focused on conceptual and ethical issues in ecological restoration and wilderness preservation. E-mail: [email protected] © 2007 Indiana University Press... (shrink)

This article illustrates one way in which philosophical inquiry and empirical research can be combined to illuminate processes like learning and social identification. Over the past 20 years, my empirical work in classrooms and communities has drawn on philosophical discussions about how knowledge is interconnected with social relationships and how we should conceptualize multiple levels of explanation. Both empirical research and philosophy can be done in various ways, and I offer no comprehensive account of how the two relate. I focus (...) instead on one central goal of my work—to clear away assumptions that commonly limit our view of human activity and to offer alternative conceptualizations that open new pathways for thought and action. In pursuing this goal I have drawn on philosophical accounts of knowledge, identity and scientific explanation, as well as on philosophical methods for interrogating assumptions. My empirical analyses also provide philosophers useful cases to think with. Empirical research enriched by philosophical insights and methods can combine tools from both traditions to clear away unproductive assumptions and advance our understandings of the human world. (shrink)

Many of us, even on our happiest days, struggle to quiet the constant buzz of anxiety in the background of our minds. All kinds of worries—worries about losing people and things, worries about how we seem to others—keep us from peace of mind. Distracted or misled by our preoccupations, misconceptions, and, most of all, our obsession with ourselves, we do not see the world clearly—we do not see the world as it really is. In our search for happiness and the (...) good life, this is the main problem. But luckily there is a solution, and on the path to understanding it, we can make use of the rich and varied teachings that have developed over centuries of Buddhist thought. This book explores the central elements of centuries of Buddhist philosophy and practice, explaining how they can improve life and teach us how to live without fear. Mining important texts and lessons for practical guidance, it provides a guide to the very practical goals that underpin Buddhist philosophy. After laying out the basic ideas, the text walks readers through a wide range of techniques and practices we can adopt to mend ingrained habits. (shrink)

There is a long history of philosophers granting a privileged epistemic status to cognition of directly present objects. In this paper, I examine three important historic accounts which provide different models of this cognitive state and its connection with its objects: that of the Stoics, who are corporealists and think that ordinary perception may have an epistemically privileged status, but who seem to struggle to accommodate non-perceptual cognizance; that of Augustine, who thinks that incorporeal objects are directly present to us (...) in ‘intellectual perception’, and that, by way of contrast, ordinary sense-perception does not have a privileged epistemic status; and that of William of Ockham, who allows for unmediated action at a distance and is fairly generous about what counts as being directly present. (shrink)

Cognitivist motivational internalism is the thesis that, if one believes that 'It is right to ϕ', then one will be motivated to ϕ. This thesis—which captures the practical nature of morality—is in tension with a Humean constraint on belief: belief cannot motivate action without the assistance of a conceptually independent desire. When defending cognitivist motivational internalism it is tempting to either argue that the Humean constraint only applies to non-moral beliefs or that moral beliefs only motivate ceteris paribus. But succumbing (...) to the first temptation places one under a burden to justify what is motivationally exceptional about moral beliefs and succumbing to the second temptation saddles one with a thesis that fails to do justice to the practicality intuition that cognitivist motivational internalism is suppose to capture. In this paper, I offer a way of defending cognitivist motivational internalism, which does not require accepting that there is anything motivationally unusual about moral beliefs. I argue that no belief satisfies the Humean constraint: all beliefs are capable of motivating without the assistance of a conceptually independent desire. (shrink)