Michael Ayers (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264201
- eISBN:
- 9780191734670
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264201.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This book comprises three main chapters on Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, with extensive responses. It explores the common ground of the great early-modern rationalist theories, and provides an ...
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This book comprises three main chapters on Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, with extensive responses. It explores the common ground of the great early-modern rationalist theories, and provides an examination of the ways in which the mainstream Platonic tradition permeates these theories. One chapter identifies characteristically Platonic themes in Descartes’s cosmology and metaphysics, finding them associated with two distinct, even opposed attitudes to nature and the human condition, one ancient and ‘contemplative’, the other modern and ‘controlling’. It finds the same tension in Descartes’s moral theory, and believes that it remains unresolved in present-day ethics. Was Spinoza a Neoplatonist theist, critical Cartesian, or naturalistic materialist? The second chapter argues that he was all of these. Analysis of his system reveals how Spinoza employed Neoplatonist monism against Descartes’s Platonist pluralism. Yet the terminology — like the physics — is Cartesian. And within this Platonic-Cartesian shell Spinoza developed a rigorously naturalistic metaphysics and even, Ayers claims, an effectually empiricist epistemology. The final chapter focuses on the Rationalists’ arguments for the Platonist, anti-Empiricist principle of ‘the priority of the perfect’, i.e. the principle that finite attributes are to be understood through corresponding perfections of God, rather than the reverse. It finds the given arguments unsatisfactory but stimulating, and offers a development of one of Leibniz’s for consideration. These chapters receive informed and constructive criticism and development at the hands of, respectively, Douglas Hedley, Sarah Hutton and Maria Rosa Antognazza.Less
This book comprises three main chapters on Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, with extensive responses. It explores the common ground of the great early-modern rationalist theories, and provides an examination of the ways in which the mainstream Platonic tradition permeates these theories. One chapter identifies characteristically Platonic themes in Descartes’s cosmology and metaphysics, finding them associated with two distinct, even opposed attitudes to nature and the human condition, one ancient and ‘contemplative’, the other modern and ‘controlling’. It finds the same tension in Descartes’s moral theory, and believes that it remains unresolved in present-day ethics. Was Spinoza a Neoplatonist theist, critical Cartesian, or naturalistic materialist? The second chapter argues that he was all of these. Analysis of his system reveals how Spinoza employed Neoplatonist monism against Descartes’s Platonist pluralism. Yet the terminology — like the physics — is Cartesian. And within this Platonic-Cartesian shell Spinoza developed a rigorously naturalistic metaphysics and even, Ayers claims, an effectually empiricist epistemology. The final chapter focuses on the Rationalists’ arguments for the Platonist, anti-Empiricist principle of ‘the priority of the perfect’, i.e. the principle that finite attributes are to be understood through corresponding perfections of God, rather than the reverse. It finds the given arguments unsatisfactory but stimulating, and offers a development of one of Leibniz’s for consideration. These chapters receive informed and constructive criticism and development at the hands of, respectively, Douglas Hedley, Sarah Hutton and Maria Rosa Antognazza.
Quentin Smith (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199264933
- eISBN:
- 9780191718472
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199264933.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This book offers a view of the current state of play in epistemology in the form of twelve chapters by some of the philosophers who have most influenced the course of debates in recent years. Topics ...
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This book offers a view of the current state of play in epistemology in the form of twelve chapters by some of the philosophers who have most influenced the course of debates in recent years. Topics include epistemic justification, solipsism, scepticism, and modal, moral, naturalistic, and probabilistic epistemology. Such approaches as reliabilism, evidentialism, infinitism, and virtue epistemology are here developed further by the philosophers who pioneered them.Less
This book offers a view of the current state of play in epistemology in the form of twelve chapters by some of the philosophers who have most influenced the course of debates in recent years. Topics include epistemic justification, solipsism, scepticism, and modal, moral, naturalistic, and probabilistic epistemology. Such approaches as reliabilism, evidentialism, infinitism, and virtue epistemology are here developed further by the philosophers who pioneered them.
Shaun Nichols
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195169348
- eISBN:
- 9780199835041
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195169344.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This volume develops a new account of the nature of moral judgment. Evidence from developmental psychology and psychopathologies suggests that emotions play a crucial role in normal moral judgment. ...
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This volume develops a new account of the nature of moral judgment. Evidence from developmental psychology and psychopathologies suggests that emotions play a crucial role in normal moral judgment. This indicates that philosophical accounts of moral judgment that eschew the emotions are mistaken. However, the volume also argues that prevailing philosophical accounts that embrace a role for the emotions are also mistaken. The empirical work points to a quite different account of moral judgment than philosophers have considered, an account in which normative rules and emotions make independent contributions to moral judgment. Further, the volume argues that the emotions play an important role in the normative rules that get fixed in the culture. The history of norms indicates that norms that resonate with our emotions are more likely to survive.Less
This volume develops a new account of the nature of moral judgment. Evidence from developmental psychology and psychopathologies suggests that emotions play a crucial role in normal moral judgment. This indicates that philosophical accounts of moral judgment that eschew the emotions are mistaken. However, the volume also argues that prevailing philosophical accounts that embrace a role for the emotions are also mistaken. The empirical work points to a quite different account of moral judgment than philosophers have considered, an account in which normative rules and emotions make independent contributions to moral judgment. Further, the volume argues that the emotions play an important role in the normative rules that get fixed in the culture. The history of norms indicates that norms that resonate with our emotions are more likely to survive.
David B. Wong
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195305395
- eISBN:
- 9780199786657
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195305396.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
To be called a relativist, especially a moral relativist, is to be condemned as someone who holds that “anything goes”. Frequently the term is part of a dichotomy: either accept relativism or accept ...
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To be called a relativist, especially a moral relativist, is to be condemned as someone who holds that “anything goes”. Frequently the term is part of a dichotomy: either accept relativism or accept universalism: the view that only one true morality exists. This book defends a new version of relativism that is both an alternative to, and fits between, universalism and relativism as usually defined. Pluralistic relativism does accord with one aspect of relativism as usually defined: there is no single true morality. Beyond that, it is argued that there can be a plurality of true moralities, moralities that exist across different traditions and cultures, all of which address facets of the same problem: how we are to live well together. A comparative and naturalistic approach is applied to the understanding of moralities, with discussion of a wide array of positions and texts within the Western canon as well as in Chinese philosophy, and drawing on not only philosophy, but also psychology, evolutionary theory, history, and literature in making a case for the importance of pluralism in moral life and in establishing the virtues of acceptance and accommodation. A central theme is that there is no single value or principle or ordering of values and principles that offers a uniquely true path for human living, but variations according to different contexts that carry within them a common core of human values. We should thus be modest about our own morality, learn from other approaches, and accommodate different practices in our pluralistic society.Less
To be called a relativist, especially a moral relativist, is to be condemned as someone who holds that “anything goes”. Frequently the term is part of a dichotomy: either accept relativism or accept universalism: the view that only one true morality exists. This book defends a new version of relativism that is both an alternative to, and fits between, universalism and relativism as usually defined. Pluralistic relativism does accord with one aspect of relativism as usually defined: there is no single true morality. Beyond that, it is argued that there can be a plurality of true moralities, moralities that exist across different traditions and cultures, all of which address facets of the same problem: how we are to live well together. A comparative and naturalistic approach is applied to the understanding of moralities, with discussion of a wide array of positions and texts within the Western canon as well as in Chinese philosophy, and drawing on not only philosophy, but also psychology, evolutionary theory, history, and literature in making a case for the importance of pluralism in moral life and in establishing the virtues of acceptance and accommodation. A central theme is that there is no single value or principle or ordering of values and principles that offers a uniquely true path for human living, but variations according to different contexts that carry within them a common core of human values. We should thus be modest about our own morality, learn from other approaches, and accommodate different practices in our pluralistic society.
David B. Wong
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195305395
- eISBN:
- 9780199786657
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195305396.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
It is argued that moral ambivalence is best explained through a naturalistic approach that construes morality as a social invention for promoting and regulating social cooperation. Morality ...
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It is argued that moral ambivalence is best explained through a naturalistic approach that construes morality as a social invention for promoting and regulating social cooperation. Morality accomplishes this function through the shaping not only of behavior but also of motivational structures in human beings. Biological and cultural evolutionary theories identify plausible bases for the emergence of such an invention (e.g., the strength of self-concern combined with capacities to develop other concern, reliance on cultural norms to regulate and direct behavior and motivation). Such bases, together with the common conditions of social cooperation constrain the variety of ways that the function of morality could be fulfilled (e.g., norms of reciprocity are required, and justifications for the subordination of the interests of some to that of others). Within these constraints a plurality of moralities can be true. It is explained how the conditions for what counts as a true morality can vary with the meaning of moral concepts.Less
It is argued that moral ambivalence is best explained through a naturalistic approach that construes morality as a social invention for promoting and regulating social cooperation. Morality accomplishes this function through the shaping not only of behavior but also of motivational structures in human beings. Biological and cultural evolutionary theories identify plausible bases for the emergence of such an invention (e.g., the strength of self-concern combined with capacities to develop other concern, reliance on cultural norms to regulate and direct behavior and motivation). Such bases, together with the common conditions of social cooperation constrain the variety of ways that the function of morality could be fulfilled (e.g., norms of reciprocity are required, and justifications for the subordination of the interests of some to that of others). Within these constraints a plurality of moralities can be true. It is explained how the conditions for what counts as a true morality can vary with the meaning of moral concepts.
Isaac Levi
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199698134
- eISBN:
- 9780191742323
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199698134.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology, History of Philosophy
This volume presents a series of chapters which investigate the nature of intellectual inquiry: what its aims are and how it operates. The starting-point is the work of the American Pragmatists C. S. ...
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This volume presents a series of chapters which investigate the nature of intellectual inquiry: what its aims are and how it operates. The starting-point is the work of the American Pragmatists C. S. Peirce and John Dewey. Inquiry according to Peirce is a struggle to replace doubt by true belief. Dewey insisted that the transformation was from an indeterminate situation to a determinate or non-problematic one. This book's subject is changes in doxastic commitments, which may involve changes in attitudes or changes in situations in which attitudes are entangled. The question what justifies modification of doxastic commitments is a normative one, and so may not be understandable in purely naturalistic terms.Less
This volume presents a series of chapters which investigate the nature of intellectual inquiry: what its aims are and how it operates. The starting-point is the work of the American Pragmatists C. S. Peirce and John Dewey. Inquiry according to Peirce is a struggle to replace doubt by true belief. Dewey insisted that the transformation was from an indeterminate situation to a determinate or non-problematic one. This book's subject is changes in doxastic commitments, which may involve changes in attitudes or changes in situations in which attitudes are entangled. The question what justifies modification of doxastic commitments is a normative one, and so may not be understandable in purely naturalistic terms.
Hilary Kornblith
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199246311
- eISBN:
- 9780191597862
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199246319.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Argues that conceptual analysis should be rejected in favour of a more naturalistic approach to epistemology. There is a robust natural phenomenon of knowledge; knowledge is a natural kind. An ...
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Argues that conceptual analysis should be rejected in favour of a more naturalistic approach to epistemology. There is a robust natural phenomenon of knowledge; knowledge is a natural kind. An examination of the cognitive ethology literature reveals a category of knowledge that does both causal and explanatory work. It is argued that knowledge in this very sense is what philosophers have been talking about all along. Rival accounts of knowledge that are more demanding—requiring either that certain social conditions be met or that an agent engage in some sort of reflection—are discussed in detail, and it is argued that they are inadequate to the phenomenon. In addition, it is argued that the account of knowledge that emerges from the cognitive ethology literature can provide an explanation of the normative force of epistemic claims.Less
Argues that conceptual analysis should be rejected in favour of a more naturalistic approach to epistemology. There is a robust natural phenomenon of knowledge; knowledge is a natural kind. An examination of the cognitive ethology literature reveals a category of knowledge that does both causal and explanatory work. It is argued that knowledge in this very sense is what philosophers have been talking about all along. Rival accounts of knowledge that are more demanding—requiring either that certain social conditions be met or that an agent engage in some sort of reflection—are discussed in detail, and it is argued that they are inadequate to the phenomenon. In addition, it is argued that the account of knowledge that emerges from the cognitive ethology literature can provide an explanation of the normative force of epistemic claims.
Michael A Bishop and J. D. Trout
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- July 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195162295
- eISBN:
- 9780199835539
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195162293.003.0011
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter presents some concluding thoughts. It identifies three challenges that remain in the construction of a naturalistic epistemology. First, an effective epistemology needs to continue to ...
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This chapter presents some concluding thoughts. It identifies three challenges that remain in the construction of a naturalistic epistemology. First, an effective epistemology needs to continue to discover handy new heuristics that help us reason reliably about significant matters. Second, we need to identify with more effectiveness what is involved in human well-being. A third project essential to the development of a prescriptive, reason-guiding epistemology is social epistemology.Less
This chapter presents some concluding thoughts. It identifies three challenges that remain in the construction of a naturalistic epistemology. First, an effective epistemology needs to continue to discover handy new heuristics that help us reason reliably about significant matters. Second, we need to identify with more effectiveness what is involved in human well-being. A third project essential to the development of a prescriptive, reason-guiding epistemology is social epistemology.
Paul Horwich
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199251247
- eISBN:
- 9780191603983
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019925124X.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
Truth and meaning each have evaluative import. However, contrary to Dummett, Gibbard, Brandom, and many others, these notions are not constitutively normative — they are not themselves evaluative ...
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Truth and meaning each have evaluative import. However, contrary to Dummett, Gibbard, Brandom, and many others, these notions are not constitutively normative — they are not themselves evaluative concepts. One element of this argument is a discussion of why true belief is desirable. Another element is a demonstration — in case meaning is a matter of implicitly following rules for the use of words — that such rule following can be analyzed in terms that are purely naturalistic (i.e., non-normative and non-semantic).Less
Truth and meaning each have evaluative import. However, contrary to Dummett, Gibbard, Brandom, and many others, these notions are not constitutively normative — they are not themselves evaluative concepts. One element of this argument is a discussion of why true belief is desirable. Another element is a demonstration — in case meaning is a matter of implicitly following rules for the use of words — that such rule following can be analyzed in terms that are purely naturalistic (i.e., non-normative and non-semantic).
Steven Horst
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195317114
- eISBN:
- 9780199871520
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195317114.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This chapter examines the widespread assumptions that intertheoretic reductions are common in the natural sciences and that reducibility serves as a kind of normative constraint upon the legitimacy ...
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This chapter examines the widespread assumptions that intertheoretic reductions are common in the natural sciences and that reducibility serves as a kind of normative constraint upon the legitimacy of the special sciences. While this was the mainline view in philosophy of science in the mid‐twentieth century, it has received decisive criticism within philosophy of science since the 1970s. The basic reasons for this rejection of Carnap‐Nagel style reductionism are recounted in this chapter.Less
This chapter examines the widespread assumptions that intertheoretic reductions are common in the natural sciences and that reducibility serves as a kind of normative constraint upon the legitimacy of the special sciences. While this was the mainline view in philosophy of science in the mid‐twentieth century, it has received decisive criticism within philosophy of science since the 1970s. The basic reasons for this rejection of Carnap‐Nagel style reductionism are recounted in this chapter.
James Ladyman, Don Ross, David Spurrett, and John Collier
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199276196
- eISBN:
- 9780191706127
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199276196.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology, Philosophy of Science
This chapter defends a radically naturalistic metaphysics, which is motivated exclusively by attempts to unify hypotheses and theories that are taken seriously by contemporary science. For reasons to ...
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This chapter defends a radically naturalistic metaphysics, which is motivated exclusively by attempts to unify hypotheses and theories that are taken seriously by contemporary science. For reasons to be explained, this chapter takes the view that no alternative kind of metaphysics can be regarded as a legitimate part of our collective attempt to model the structure of objective reality. One of the most distinguished predecessors in this attitude is Wilfrid Sellars, who expressed a naturalistic conception of soundly motivated metaphysics when he said that the philosopher's aim should be “knowing one's way around with respect to the subject matters of all the special [scientific] disciplines” and “building bridges” between them. This chapter focuses on a sense of “understanding” that is perhaps better characterized by the word “explanation”, where an explanation must be true (at least in its most general claims). It is argued that a given metaphysic's achievement of domestication furnishes no evidence at all that the metaphysic in question is true, and thus no reason for believing that it explains anything.Less
This chapter defends a radically naturalistic metaphysics, which is motivated exclusively by attempts to unify hypotheses and theories that are taken seriously by contemporary science. For reasons to be explained, this chapter takes the view that no alternative kind of metaphysics can be regarded as a legitimate part of our collective attempt to model the structure of objective reality. One of the most distinguished predecessors in this attitude is Wilfrid Sellars, who expressed a naturalistic conception of soundly motivated metaphysics when he said that the philosopher's aim should be “knowing one's way around with respect to the subject matters of all the special [scientific] disciplines” and “building bridges” between them. This chapter focuses on a sense of “understanding” that is perhaps better characterized by the word “explanation”, where an explanation must be true (at least in its most general claims). It is argued that a given metaphysic's achievement of domestication furnishes no evidence at all that the metaphysic in question is true, and thus no reason for believing that it explains anything.
James Ladyman, Don Ross, David Spurrett, and John Collier
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199276196
- eISBN:
- 9780191706127
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199276196.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology, Philosophy of Science
This chapter examines Ontic Structural Realism (OSR) and its relationship with the philosophy of physics. OSR is the view that the world has an objective modal structure that is ontologically ...
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This chapter examines Ontic Structural Realism (OSR) and its relationship with the philosophy of physics. OSR is the view that the world has an objective modal structure that is ontologically fundamental, in the sense of not supervening on the intrinsic properties of a set of individuals. According to OSR, even the identity and individuality of objects depends on the relational structure of the world. In keeping with the principle of naturalistic closure (PNC), this account must not imply revision of special sciences for the sake of metaphysical comfort. The purpose of this chapter is to motivate OSR from contemporary fundamental physics, as the PNC requires. This chapter argues for a position that consists in the conjunction of eliminativism about self-subsistent individuals, the view that relational structure is ontologically fundamental, and structural realism (interpreted as the claim that science describes the objective modal structure of the world).Less
This chapter examines Ontic Structural Realism (OSR) and its relationship with the philosophy of physics. OSR is the view that the world has an objective modal structure that is ontologically fundamental, in the sense of not supervening on the intrinsic properties of a set of individuals. According to OSR, even the identity and individuality of objects depends on the relational structure of the world. In keeping with the principle of naturalistic closure (PNC), this account must not imply revision of special sciences for the sake of metaphysical comfort. The purpose of this chapter is to motivate OSR from contemporary fundamental physics, as the PNC requires. This chapter argues for a position that consists in the conjunction of eliminativism about self-subsistent individuals, the view that relational structure is ontologically fundamental, and structural realism (interpreted as the claim that science describes the objective modal structure of the world).
James Ladyman, Don Ross, David Spurrett, and John Collier
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199276196
- eISBN:
- 9780191706127
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199276196.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology, Philosophy of Science
This chapter consolidates the constraints on metaphysics as a unification of science by requiring that a metaphysical hypothesis respect the constraint of the principle of naturalistic closure (PNC). ...
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This chapter consolidates the constraints on metaphysics as a unification of science by requiring that a metaphysical hypothesis respect the constraint of the principle of naturalistic closure (PNC). Floridi criticizes what he calls the “eliminativist” interpretation of OSR, the view that self-subsistent individuals do not exist, on the grounds that it lets the tail of the quantum-theoretic problems over entanglement wag the dog of our general world-view. However, the Primacy of Physics Constraint (PPC), according to which failure of an interpretation of special-science generalizations to respect negative implications of physical theory is grounds for rejecting such generalizations, is endorsed in this chapter. Thus, Floridi's modus tollens may be considered a modus ponens: if the best current interpretation of fundamental physics says there are no self-subsistent individuals, then special sciences had better admit, for the sake of unification, of an ontological interpretation that is compatible with a non-atomistic metaphysics. The PNC is invoked again independently.Less
This chapter consolidates the constraints on metaphysics as a unification of science by requiring that a metaphysical hypothesis respect the constraint of the principle of naturalistic closure (PNC). Floridi criticizes what he calls the “eliminativist” interpretation of OSR, the view that self-subsistent individuals do not exist, on the grounds that it lets the tail of the quantum-theoretic problems over entanglement wag the dog of our general world-view. However, the Primacy of Physics Constraint (PPC), according to which failure of an interpretation of special-science generalizations to respect negative implications of physical theory is grounds for rejecting such generalizations, is endorsed in this chapter. Thus, Floridi's modus tollens may be considered a modus ponens: if the best current interpretation of fundamental physics says there are no self-subsistent individuals, then special sciences had better admit, for the sake of unification, of an ontological interpretation that is compatible with a non-atomistic metaphysics. The PNC is invoked again independently.
James Ladyman, Don Ross, David Spurrett, and John Collier
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199276196
- eISBN:
- 9780191706127
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199276196.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology, Philosophy of Science
This chapter argues that the idea of causation has similar status to ideas of cohesion, forces, and things. Appreciating the role of causation in a notional world is crucial to understanding the ...
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This chapter argues that the idea of causation has similar status to ideas of cohesion, forces, and things. Appreciating the role of causation in a notional world is crucial to understanding the nature of the special sciences, and the general ways in which they differ from fundamental physics. Causation, unlike cohesion, is both a notional-world concept and a folk concept. Moreover, causation, unlike cohesion, is a basic category of traditional metaphysics, including metaphysics that purports to be naturalistic but falls short of this ambition. This chapter also argues that causation, just like cohesion, is a representational real pattern that is necessary for an adequately comprehensive science. It begins with an account that eliminates causation altogether on naturalistic grounds, and then shows, using principle of naturalistic closure (PNC)-mandated motivations, why this outright eliminativism is too strong. The eliminativist argument to be discussed is due to Bertrand Russell, whose view has some important contemporary adherents among philosophers of physics.Less
This chapter argues that the idea of causation has similar status to ideas of cohesion, forces, and things. Appreciating the role of causation in a notional world is crucial to understanding the nature of the special sciences, and the general ways in which they differ from fundamental physics. Causation, unlike cohesion, is both a notional-world concept and a folk concept. Moreover, causation, unlike cohesion, is a basic category of traditional metaphysics, including metaphysics that purports to be naturalistic but falls short of this ambition. This chapter also argues that causation, just like cohesion, is a representational real pattern that is necessary for an adequately comprehensive science. It begins with an account that eliminates causation altogether on naturalistic grounds, and then shows, using principle of naturalistic closure (PNC)-mandated motivations, why this outright eliminativism is too strong. The eliminativist argument to be discussed is due to Bertrand Russell, whose view has some important contemporary adherents among philosophers of physics.
Jonathan M. Weinberg and Aaron Meskin
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199275731
- eISBN:
- 9780191706103
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199275731.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This chapter addresses three distinct philosophical issues concerning the imagination: the puzzle of emotions and fiction, imaginative resistance, and the distinction between imagination and ...
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This chapter addresses three distinct philosophical issues concerning the imagination: the puzzle of emotions and fiction, imaginative resistance, and the distinction between imagination and supposition. Standard approaches to these issues, which restrict themselves to the resources of folk psychology and metaphysics, are shown to be inadequate. Instead, an alternative approach rooted in careful exploration of the cognitive architecture of the imagination is developed. This approach transforms the aforementioned puzzles about the imagination into explananda apt for a scientifically-informed explanation. The result is an account of the imagination which, in addition to explaining these three key imaginative phenomena, shows promise for solving other related issues such as the epistemic value of modal intuitions. Moreover, it is a vindication of a certain kind of naturalistic approach to philosophy, not just in the philosophy of mind but also in aesthetics and epistemology.Less
This chapter addresses three distinct philosophical issues concerning the imagination: the puzzle of emotions and fiction, imaginative resistance, and the distinction between imagination and supposition. Standard approaches to these issues, which restrict themselves to the resources of folk psychology and metaphysics, are shown to be inadequate. Instead, an alternative approach rooted in careful exploration of the cognitive architecture of the imagination is developed. This approach transforms the aforementioned puzzles about the imagination into explananda apt for a scientifically-informed explanation. The result is an account of the imagination which, in addition to explaining these three key imaginative phenomena, shows promise for solving other related issues such as the epistemic value of modal intuitions. Moreover, it is a vindication of a certain kind of naturalistic approach to philosophy, not just in the philosophy of mind but also in aesthetics and epistemology.
Richard Crouter
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195379679
- eISBN:
- 9780199869169
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195379679.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Chapter 6 treats Niebuhr’s mixed reception among Protestant Christians during his lifetime and today, in popular as well as academic circles. The “positive thinking” and naïve optimism of Norman ...
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Chapter 6 treats Niebuhr’s mixed reception among Protestant Christians during his lifetime and today, in popular as well as academic circles. The “positive thinking” and naïve optimism of Norman Vincent Peale and his contemporary followers are anathema to Niebuhr. Treated with indifference in the “Sojourners movement” around Jim Wallis, Niebuhr’s perspective is honored in the publication First Things. Niebuhr’s most vociferous academic critic, Duke Divinity School’s theological ethicist, Stanley Hauerwas, writes from the perspective of pacifism. This chapter responds to Hauerwas’s critique that Niebuhr’s theology is more pragmatic and naturalistic than theistic, lacks a proper sense of the church, and compromises the radicality of Jesus’s self-giving love. Chapter 6 maintains that Niebuhr is fully within the trajectory of mainstream Christian thinking and argues that Hauerwas, and similar critics, could benefit from Niebuhr’s teaching on sin, humility, and self-awareness of the Christian life. Far from capitulating to a political agenda, Niebuhr’s stress on a radically transcendent deity challenges fundamentalism and the politicized use of religion in our day.Less
Chapter 6 treats Niebuhr’s mixed reception among Protestant Christians during his lifetime and today, in popular as well as academic circles. The “positive thinking” and naïve optimism of Norman Vincent Peale and his contemporary followers are anathema to Niebuhr. Treated with indifference in the “Sojourners movement” around Jim Wallis, Niebuhr’s perspective is honored in the publication First Things. Niebuhr’s most vociferous academic critic, Duke Divinity School’s theological ethicist, Stanley Hauerwas, writes from the perspective of pacifism. This chapter responds to Hauerwas’s critique that Niebuhr’s theology is more pragmatic and naturalistic than theistic, lacks a proper sense of the church, and compromises the radicality of Jesus’s self-giving love. Chapter 6 maintains that Niebuhr is fully within the trajectory of mainstream Christian thinking and argues that Hauerwas, and similar critics, could benefit from Niebuhr’s teaching on sin, humility, and self-awareness of the Christian life. Far from capitulating to a political agenda, Niebuhr’s stress on a radically transcendent deity challenges fundamentalism and the politicized use of religion in our day.
Jane Baxter and Wai Fong Chua
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199283361
- eISBN:
- 9780191712623
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199283361.003.0003
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Financial Economics
This chapter considers the different ways in which researchers have attempted to construct, narrate, and critique the practice of management accounting, providing illustrations from seminal studies. ...
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This chapter considers the different ways in which researchers have attempted to construct, narrate, and critique the practice of management accounting, providing illustrations from seminal studies. In doing so, it introduces seven ways of (re)framing practice, each drawing on different theories from the broader social sciences. In particular, this chapter introduces (a) a non-rational design frame; (b) a naturalistic frame; (c) a radical frame; (d) an institutional frame; (e) a structurationist frame; (f) a Foucauldian frame; and (g) a Latourian frame. Each (re)framing of management accounting is discussed in the subsequent sections of this chapter.Less
This chapter considers the different ways in which researchers have attempted to construct, narrate, and critique the practice of management accounting, providing illustrations from seminal studies. In doing so, it introduces seven ways of (re)framing practice, each drawing on different theories from the broader social sciences. In particular, this chapter introduces (a) a non-rational design frame; (b) a naturalistic frame; (c) a radical frame; (d) an institutional frame; (e) a structurationist frame; (f) a Foucauldian frame; and (g) a Latourian frame. Each (re)framing of management accounting is discussed in the subsequent sections of this chapter.
Panayot Butchvarov
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199264933
- eISBN:
- 9780191718472
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199264933.003.0013
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Fundamental disagreements in epistemology arise from legitimate differences of interest, not genuine conflict. This chapter discusses the three varieties of epistemology: naturalistic, subjective, ...
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Fundamental disagreements in epistemology arise from legitimate differences of interest, not genuine conflict. This chapter discusses the three varieties of epistemology: naturalistic, subjective, and epistemology-as-logic. All three have been with us at least since Socrates.Less
Fundamental disagreements in epistemology arise from legitimate differences of interest, not genuine conflict. This chapter discusses the three varieties of epistemology: naturalistic, subjective, and epistemology-as-logic. All three have been with us at least since Socrates.
Malcolm Budd
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199556175
- eISBN:
- 9780191721151
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199556175.003.0012
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter offers an account of the way a picture looks when it is seen as a depiction of its subject. The account — a perceived-resemblance account — is based on the idea of seeing one thing as ...
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This chapter offers an account of the way a picture looks when it is seen as a depiction of its subject. The account — a perceived-resemblance account — is based on the idea of seeing one thing as looking like another in a specific manner, namely as looking like the two-dimensional appearance of the picture's subject. This notion is elucidated in terms of a distinction between a perceiver's visual field and visual world. The chapter demonstrates that one advantage of the theory developed in it is that it yields easily a plausible account of naturalistic depiction. It concludes by showing that it accounts for many of the most significant and distinctive features of pictorial representation.Less
This chapter offers an account of the way a picture looks when it is seen as a depiction of its subject. The account — a perceived-resemblance account — is based on the idea of seeing one thing as looking like another in a specific manner, namely as looking like the two-dimensional appearance of the picture's subject. This notion is elucidated in terms of a distinction between a perceiver's visual field and visual world. The chapter demonstrates that one advantage of the theory developed in it is that it yields easily a plausible account of naturalistic depiction. It concludes by showing that it accounts for many of the most significant and distinctive features of pictorial representation.
Valerie Tiberius
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199202867
- eISBN:
- 9780191707988
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199202867.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This chapter takes up a challenge to the very idea that the Reflective Wisdom Account constitutes a normative, action-guiding theory of how to live. It argues that the fact that the reasons we have ...
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This chapter takes up a challenge to the very idea that the Reflective Wisdom Account constitutes a normative, action-guiding theory of how to live. It argues that the fact that the reasons we have to develop reflective virtues and act for the sake of our values are contingent does not provide any independent cause for concern about their normative status. It further argues that there is an important role for philosophers in the business of telling us what reasons we have, even within a naturalistic framework.Less
This chapter takes up a challenge to the very idea that the Reflective Wisdom Account constitutes a normative, action-guiding theory of how to live. It argues that the fact that the reasons we have to develop reflective virtues and act for the sake of our values are contingent does not provide any independent cause for concern about their normative status. It further argues that there is an important role for philosophers in the business of telling us what reasons we have, even within a naturalistic framework.
