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Contemporary Philosophy (contemporary + philosophy)
Selected AbstractsA brief history of the concept of free will: issues that are and are not germane to legal reasoningBEHAVIORAL SCIENCES & THE LAW, Issue 2 2007Phillip Cary Ph.D. Examining the history of the concept of free will helps distinguish metaphysical issues beyond the interest of a court of law from considerations about the nature of human action germane to legal reasoning. The latter include Plato's conception of the rational governance of the soul and Aristotle's conception of voluntary action, both of which arose before Hellenistic philosophers propounded analogues of modern positions against determinism (Epicureans) or for the compatibility of free will and determinism (Stoics). The concept of will itself also has a history, being first conceived as a distinct power by Augustine. Modern physics raised new problems about free will, as human motivations began to look less like rational perceptions of the good and more like mechanistic causes. Contemporary philosophy has not solved the problem of free will but has spun off analyses of the nature of action and moral responsibility that are of interest for legal reasoning. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Our Knowledge of Numbers as Self-Subsistent ObjectsDIALECTICA, Issue 2 2005William Demopoulos A feature of Frege's philosophy of arithmetic that has elicited a great deal of attention in the recent secondary literature is his contention that numbers are ,self-subsistent' objects. The considerable interest in this thesis among the contemporary philosophy of mathematics community stands in marked contrast to Kreisel's folk-lore observation that the central problem in the philosophy of mathematics is not the existence of mathematical objects, but the objectivity of mathematics. Although Frege was undoubtedly concerned with both questions, a goal of the present paper is to argue that his success in securing the objectivity of arithmetic depends on a less contentious commitment to numbers as objects than either he or his critics have supposed. As such, this paper is an articulation and defense of both Frege's analysis of arithmetic and Kreisel's observation. [source] The all-too-flexible abductive method: ATOM's normative status,JOURNAL OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 9 2008Jan-Willem Romeijn Abstract The author discusses the abductive theory of method (ATOM) by Brian Haig from a philosophical perspective, connecting his theory with a number of issues and trends in contemporary philosophy of science. It is argued that as it stands, the methodology presented by Haig is too permissive. Both the use of analogical reasoning and the application of exploratory factor analysis leave us with too many candidate theories to choose from, and explanatory coherence cannot be expected to save the day. The author ends with some suggestions to remedy the permissiveness and lack of normative force in ATOM, deriving from the experimental practice within which psychological data are produced. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 64:1,14, 2008. [source] Psychologism Revisited in Logic, Metaphysics, and EpistemologyMETAPHILOSOPHY, Issue 3 2001Dale Jacquette Psychologism is a philosophical ideology that seeks to explain the principles of logic, metaphysics, and epistemology as psychological phenomena. Psychologism has been the storm center of concerted criticisms since the nineteenth century, and is thought by many to have been refuted once and for all by Kant, Frege, Husserl, and others. The project of accounting for objective philosophical or mathematical truths in terms of subjective psychological states has been largely discredited in mainstream analytic thought. Ironically, psychologism has resurfaced in unexpected guises in the form of intuitionistic logic and mathematics, cognitivism, and naturalized epistemology. I examine some of the principal objections to psychologism , distinguishing roughly between good and bad or philosophically acceptable versus unacceptable psychologism , and consider the extent to which a new wave of psychologism may be gaining prominence in contemporary philosophy, and the light its successes and failures may shed on the original concept and underlying perspective of classical psychologism. [source] Aquinas on the Materiality of the Human Soul and the Immateriality of the Human IntellectPHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS, Issue 2 2009Gyula Klima This paper argues that Aquinas's conception of the human soul and intellect offers a consistent alternative to the dilemma of materialism and post-Cartesian dualism. It also argues that in their own theoretical context, Aquinas' arguments for the materiality of the human soul and immateriality of the intellect provide a strong justification of his position. However, that theoretical context is rather "alien" to ours in contemporary philosophy. The conclusion of the paper will point in the direction of what can be done to render Aquinas's position more palatable to contemporary philosophers. [source] Philosophical Issues in Tort LawPHILOSOPHY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 4 2008John Oberdiek The union of contemporary philosophy and tort law has never been better. Perhaps the most dynamic current in contemporary tort theory concerns the increasingly sophisticated inquires into the doctrinal elements of the law of torts, with the tort of negligence in particular garnering the most attention from theorists. In this article, I examine philosophically rich issues revolving around each of the elements constituting the tort of negligence: compensable injury, duty, breach, actual cause, and proximate cause. [source] An asset-based approach to indigenous development in TaiwanASIA PACIFIC VIEWPOINT, Issue 3 2009William T. Hipwell Abstract Numerous scholars studying community efforts to (re-)establish autonomy have begun to focus on the importance of empowerment in the economic, political and cultural spheres. There is a growing understanding that such empowerment can be hastened by affirmative development strategies that build on community assets and capacities rather than attempting to redress , and thereby emphasising , needs or lack. Such development work reflects intertwined currents in contemporary philosophy, influenced by the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche and of Gilles Deleuze. In Taiwan, a recent resurgence in identities among marginalised aboriginal or indigenous peoples (,Formosans') has been accompanied by novel approaches to development. This discussion heuristically employs a set of development theories that are essentially variants of ,asset-based community development' (ABCD) to suggest that a focus on affirmation and empowerment has been and can be a key to success in Formosan development initiatives. The paper presents the results of qualitative field research, illuminating three case studies of Formosan development , in Tsou, Tayal and Taroko territories. It argues that Formosan development will benefit from a focus on community capacity, political empowerment and social as well as physical assets, and that to an important degree this has already happened in some communities. 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