bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Pride, Fortune, and the Godless Man
Authors: Russell Paul
Published: October 2003

An adequate theory of moral responsibility must describe to what extent the virtuous can legitimately and reasonably expect some measure of happiness as their due reward (in this life or the next). Hume's approach to these issues downplays the importance of a system of legal rewards and punishments. Furthermore, Hume firmly rejects any system of divine rewards and punishments in a future state. His alternative approach to these matters does, however, place considerable weight on the importance of “pride and humility” in moral life, considered as a source of happiness or misery. I explain these features of Hume's system and show how they are related to his wider philosophical outlook concerning the relationship between religion and morality.
Responsibility Naturalized: A Qualified Defence of Hume
Authors: Russell Paul
Published: October 2003

This chapter provides a qualified defense of Hume's naturalistic approach to the problem of free will and moral responsibility. A particularly important theme is the contrast between Hume's naturalistic approach and the “rationalistic” approach associated with classical compatibilism. Whereas the rationalistic approach proceeds as an a priori, conceptual investigation into the nature and conditions of moral responsibility, the naturalistic approach is committed to an empirically oriented (i.e., psychologically informed) examination of these issues – giving particular prominence to the role of moral sentiment in understanding moral life and the place of justificatory issues as they arise within it. Whereas the rationalistic approach leads us into intractable difficulties and moral skepticism, the naturalistic approach makes real progress on this subject. On a more critical note, however, I also argue that, despite its strengths, Hume's theory of moral responsibility has significant weaknesses in the areas of moral virtue, moral capacity, and moral freedom.
Abortion and Social Responsibility
Authors: Shrage Laurie
Published: October 2003

This book argues that Roe v. Wade 's six‐month time span for abortion “on demand” polarized the American public, and obscured alternatives that could have gained broad public support. As a result, a predictable bureaucratic backlash to legal abortion has ensued that has placed legal abortion services out of reach for women who are poor, young, or live far from urban centers. Explores the origins of Roe's regulatory scheme and demonstrates that it resulted from concerns that have considerably less relevance in today's medical context. Endorses regulatory guidelines, first proposed by the American Bar Association in 1972, which would give states more flexibility in setting the time span for unrestricted abortion. Argues that the standard civil liberty defenses of abortion (i.e. privacy, involuntary servitude, self‐defense, religious freedom) offer better support for these guidelines than for Roe’s scheme, and that a time span for nontherapeutic abortions shorter than six months can both protect women's interests and advance important public interests. The book also critiques the individualism of “pro‐choice” post‐Roe abortion rights campaigns for failing to articulate how women's reproductive options depend on access to public services and resources and not only on being let alone. Urges reproductive rights activists to emphasize the interconnections both between social responsibility and respect for human life, and between the Samaritan obligations of pregnant women and those of other citizens. Explores feminist artwork on abortion to extrapolate tools for refocusing the abortion debate on these issues and for contesting the extremist tactics of the “pro‐life” movement.
Is Roe Viable?
Authors: Shrage Laurie
Published: October 2003

Examines criticisms and defenses of the “viability” criterion, which was introduced in Roe v. Wade to mark the cutoff for nontherapeutic abortions. The viability criterion opened a six‐month window for “abortion on demand,” which was (and remains) unusual by worldwide standards. Examines the origins of the viability cutoff and shows that it was introduced in later drafts of Blackmun's opinion because it was thought to be more compatible than other proposed cutoffs with the privacy‐based reasoning articulated in Roe. The rationale used by the Supreme Court is both mistaken and less relevant given abortion procedures available today. Because the six‐month time span for abortion on demand has deepened social divisions on abortion, has generated restrictions that unfairly burden poor and young women, and is not required to give women adequate access to abortion, new criteria for regulating legal abortion need to be developed.
From Reproductive Choice to Reproductive Barbie
Authors: Shrage Laurie
Published: October 2003

Evaluates “pro‐life” and “pro‐choice” media campaigns, featuring fetuses and coat hangers respectively, and shows how both reflect individualistic ideologies about responsibility and freedom. Rather than participate in public discourses that construe individual responsibility and liberty as simple moral alternatives, considers feminist political art that raises questions about our collective responsibilities to support others. Also considers visual and performance artwork that draws attention to the way that pregnancy and persons are culturally constructed. Urges reproductive rights activists to jettison the coat hanger image in favor of images that would promote constructive public dialog on access to contraception, child and family support, the duties of all citizens to provide life‐saving help, the positive aspects of enabling women to control their fertility, and the dangers of religious extremism.
The Framework of the Covenant Code
Authors: Van Seters John
Published: October 2003

This chapter pursues a literary analysis of the narrative context of the Covenant Code within the Sinai law‐giving episode and the code's relationship to, or original independence from, the Pentateuchal sources of that context. The opening laws, the prohibition of divine images, and the law of the altar are discussed as part of the code's framework and in comparison with similar laws in Deuteronomy. The epilogue in Exod 23:20–33 is compared with its parallel in Deut 7 and special attention is given to the “messenger” motif and its place in the wider biblical context. The analysis in this chapter concludes that the Covenant Code belongs to the Yahwist as an integral part of his larger Pentateuchal corpus.
God as the Good
Authors: Adams Robert Merrihew
Published: October 2003

This chapter introduces the book's central theses about the nature of the Good: that God is the Good itself, the definitive standard of excellence, occupying roughly the role assigned to the Form of the Good or the Beautiful in Plato's Republic and Symposium, and that the excellence of other things consists in a sort of resemblance to God. These are presented not as claims in the semantics of morals, about the meaning of “good”, but as claims in the metaphysics of morals, about the nature of goodness or (more precisely) of excellence. The chapter explores philosophical issues about these views and their implications regarding the nature of God.
The Transcendence of the Good
Authors: Adams Robert Merrihew
Published: October 2003

This chapter considers how far we should expect beliefs to be confirmed in the same way in ethics as in science, and argues that precisely by setting limits to empirical confirmation in ethics, the thesis of the transcendence of the Good enables theism to provide more adequately than naturalism can for a critical stance that is important to ethics. The Good's transcendence, its surpassing all other good things and all our conceptions of the Good, is understood here in qualitative and positive rather than formal and negative terms, and as supporting an open‐endedness in ideals of human life.
Devotion
Authors: Adams Robert Merrihew
Published: October 2003

This chapter defends devotion to the Good as such, or to God, as an integrative ideal and organizing principle for human motivation. It explores ways in which the infinite good or God can be loved in loving finite goods with full particularity. Ideas of higher order preferences and of alliance with God, and with those who love the Good play an important part in this integration of loves.
Persons and Causes
Authors: O'Connor Timothy
Published: October 2003

PERSONS AND CAUSES investigates the nature of freedom of action, or ‘metaphysical’ freedom, which is generally supposed to be a necessary condition on moral responsibility. The author develops a version of the Consequence Argument for the incompatibility of freedom with causal determinism. The bulk of the work is then devoted to giving a philosophical analysis of what must be true for human agents to act freely. He defends the coherence of the notion of agent causation, a metaphysically primitive form of causality uniquely exercised by persons, alternately drawing upon and criticizing earlier versions of the agent‐causationist account (particularly, Reid, Taylor, and Chisholm). He then provides an original account of the way reasons can explain agent‐causal activity—an account that gives a prominent place to intentions‐in‐action whose contents refer to the reason that explains the action. Finally, the author considers the objection that his account conflicts with the requirements of metaphysical Naturalism. He argues that insofar as this thesis can be made clear and is well motivated, it is consistent with the present account, given the possibility that metaphysically primitive causal capacities might emerge from fundamental physical capacities organized within certain complex systems.
Freedom and Determinism
Authors: O'Connor Timothy
Published: October 2003

The author considers the modal, or ”consequence,” argument for the incompatibility of free will and determinism. He diagnoses the defects in van Inwagen's original formulation of the Beta principle before recasting and defending a variant of the argument in terms of two simpler closure principles governing unavoidability. After disputing Frankfurt's case against the Principle of Alternative Possibilities, he argues that even if one rejects an alternative possibilities condition on moral responsibility, it would be implausible to conclude that responsibility is consistent with determinism.
Reasons and Causes
Authors: O'Connor Timothy
Published: October 2003

A theory of how reasons may explain agent‐causal actions is offered. Contrary to the causal theory of action, there can be an internal, non‐contrastive explanatory link between a prior motivational state and the intention‐in‐action that the agent causes. Davidson's criticisms of noncausal accounts of reasons explanations are considered and rebutted here when directed against the present account. The account is then enriched with a causal notion of ‘structured propensities’ to accommodate the fact that some actions, though undetermined, are more likely than others to be performed. Finally, the restrictivist position of Peter van Inwagen (which maintains that free actions are much rarer than ordinarily supposed) is criticized.
The Mandaeans
Authors: Buckley Jorunn Jacobsen
Published: October 2003

The Mandaeans are a Gnostic sect that arose in the Middle East around the same time as Christianity. Although it is one of the few religious traditions that can legitimately claim a 2000‐year literary history, there has been very little written about them in English. What little study of the religion there has been has focused on the ancient Mandaeans and their relationship to early Christianity. This book examines the lives and religion of contemporary Mandaeans, who live mainly in Iran and Iraq but also in diaspora communities throughout the world, including New York and San Diego (USA). The author seeks to cross the boundaries between the traditional history‐of‐religions study of the Mandaean religion (which ignores the existence of living Mandaeans) and the beliefs and practices of contemporary Mandaeans. She provides a comprehensive introduction to the religion, examining some of its central texts, mythological figures, and rituals, and looking at surviving Mandaean communities – showing how their ancient texts inform the living religion, and vice versa. The book is arranged in three parts: Beginnings; Rituals; and Native hermeneutics. A glossary and extensive endnotes are included.
From Iraq to California
Authors: Buckley Jorunn Jacobsen
Published: October 2003

An account is given of the life of a contemporary Mandaean poet, Lamea Abbas Amara, who was originally from Iraq, and now lives in San Diego, California. It discusses her religious origins, her relationships (and those of other contemporary Mandaeans) in the community, the complex relationship between Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and the Mandaeans, and her Mandaean beliefs and family history. The family history includes priests and goldsmiths (the Mandaeans are traditionally skilled goldsmiths and silversmiths). One of Lamea's poems is included at the end of the book.
Miriai
Authors: Buckley Jorunn Jacobsen
Published: October 2003

Focuses on the mythological figure of Miriai, who in some Mandaean traditions is Jesus’ mother, while in others she is portrayed as a positive figure, but with no associations with Jesus. The presence of Miriai in Mandaeism raises the possibility that there was a brief Christian stage in early stage in the religion. An examination is made of how the Mandaeans present Miriai in their mythologies. This first discusses the traditions about her in the Book of John, next her conversion from Judaism to Mandaeism, and then her appearance in the Friday and Saturday prayers preceding and following the Jewish Sabbath – as a repeater of the statement cutting the ties of Mandaeism with Judaism. The last section of the chapter is a general discussion of Miriai's elevated position in Mandaeism, as one whose traditions portray Mandaeism's critical attitude to its former home of Judaism.
The Ducks That Came to the Marshes
Authors: Buckley Jorunn Jacobsen
Published: October 2003

Starts the third part of the book, on native hermeneutics (interpretation issues). It gives an account of New York Mandaeans; Mandaeans first came to New York to the World Exposition in 1939, to show their silver and gold art. Accounts are given of various meetings of members of this community with the author, and their beliefs and practices are described.
Interpretive Strategies in The Scroll of Exalted Kingship
Authors: Buckley Jorunn Jacobsen
Published: October 2003

Along with texts such as The Great ‘First World’, the scroll of Exalted Kingship belongs to a category of Mandaean texts that might be called Mandaean priestly esoteric documents.’ Exalted Kingship is a large scroll, consisting of 1,363 lines, with drawings, and, in rather elliptical fashion, describes the initiation of the tarmida (a first‐level priest), which is the subject of Ch. 9. The text proceeds slowly, pausing and delving into lengthy dissertations on topics deemed suitable. In this chapter, selected sequential passages are examined from among the beginning of Exalted Kingship (lines 7–225), where the text plumbs the mysteries of the effects of the novice's words while he sits inside the šskinta (cult hut) on the second day of the initiation. Interpretations and underlying themes are presented.
Thousands of Names, Hundreds of Lineages
Authors: Buckley Jorunn Jacobsen
Published: October 2003

Deals with some aspects of the author's own ongoing research on Mandaean colophons, including the postscripts, which are called tariks. Colophons form family trees because they list names and thereby show the vital threads of scribal lineages through the centuries. The names of a great number of copyist priests, the colophons present nothing less than an unbroken Mandaean history. A translation of an entire tarik from one of the Manuscript A (1560) in Petermann's Ginza is included.
Taylor's Edwardsian Legacy
Authors: Sweeney Douglas A.
Published: October 2003

In his conclusion, Sweeney moves beyond the usual story of Edwardsian decline to a summary of Taylor's own substantial legacy to post‐Edwardsian America. He notes that in New England, Taylor's theology managed to split Connecticut's General Association, but his opening up of the Edwardsian culture changed the face of New England Theology. As America moved westward, Taylor's dilation of New England's traditional regional orthodoxies paved the way for the spread of its churches and their theology on the frontier. For Taylor, as for his American successors, the proof of one's theology lay in preaching and virtuous living.
Problems at the Roots of Law
Authors: Feinberg Joel
Published: October 2003

This collection of essays is united by a common concern with basic questions pertaining to law and morality and the relation between the two. The first essay considers whether judges must appeal to natural law or natural justice when the law seems incomplete or indeterminate. In cases in which the law is immoral, natural law theorists and legal positivists align in their rejection of a moral obligation to obey the law. The second essay defends the view that moral rights exist independently of institutional structures. The complex issue of criminal entrapment is the focus of the third paper, and the position defended is that although an entrapped person sometimes may not be held criminally liable for the crime she voluntarily commits as a result of police enticement, in many cases we may make adverse moral judgments about her conduct. The view espoused in the fourth essay is that completed crimes and failed attempts should be treated in the same way when determining the appropriate punishment. The fifth essay offers various arguments to support the claim that funding of the arts through taxation is justified. Among other things, the arts offer intrinsic, though often benefitless, value to society, which is worthwhile to maintain and preserve. In the sixth paper, the discussion focuses on the notion of pure evil, or sheer wickedness, contrasting it with that of mental illness (or sick! sick! sickness) and identifying some places in which this distinction blurs. The final essay in this collection looks at how, since Plato's time, moral language and psychiatric language have fused ideas of immorality and mental illness.
Criminal Entrapment
Authors: Feinberg Joel
Published: October 2003

The focus of this chapter is the conflict between various analyses of criminal entrapment. The question is who is the culprit when circumstances are arranged by police so that a person freely chooses to perform a crime that she otherwise would not commit? Entrapment is disturbing to us given our appreciation that every person seems capable (and thus predisposed) to commit some kinds of proscribed actions; thus, entrapment has become a derogatory term referring to an abuse of government power, and is often used as a defense in criminal law. This defense against liability considers both the strength of the police inducement and the strength of the defendant's predisposition to commit the crime. Although criminal liability is partly a matter of luck, not all moral judgments are matters of luck. In opposition to the view sometimes espoused by Thomas Nagel, whether a person deserves adverse moral judgment is not merely a matter of moral luck since it is not owing to luck that certain moral judgments correctly apply to her conduct: although there is reason to posit circumstantial bad luck, there is little reason to posit dispositional bad luck.
“Not With My Tax Money”
Authors: Feinberg Joel
Published: October 2003

This article takes up the issue of governmental subsidies of the arts, an issue that parallels an examination of governmental restraints on liberty in The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law. In the present article, after considering the limited support offered by considerations like rotational justice, it is argued that supporting the arts in part through government funds derived from mandatory taxation is justified on the grounds that it is good to create, maintain, and preserve things of high intrinsic value even when they do not generate benefits. This position is based upon a rejection of the ancient claim that all worthwhile things produce benefits either directly or indirectly for everyone.
Fusion
Authors: Feinberg Joel
Published: October 2003

This chapter considers the complexities arising from the fusion of moral and psychiatric norms. Although mental sickness is a traditional ground in both law and morality for the mitigation of culpability, it is seldom regarded now as a serious criminal defense. The present trend is to use the idea of sickness to condemn the behavior and aggravate culpability. Concerning the relation between sickness and wickedness, over time, these concepts have blurred together; both are complex and each contains elements of the other. By taking an historical approach, we see that concepts of mental illness and immorality first intermingled in the dialogues of Plato, who held that to have a morally bad character is to be out‐of‐kilter, a state that is difficult to distinguish from mental illness.
Currency Areas, Exchange Rate Systems, and International Monetary Reform
Authors: Mundell Robert
Published: October 2003

This chapter opens with a discussion on the dollar’s position as the world’s pre-eminent currency. It builds a case for currency unions by advocating monetary rules, suggesting that currency and free trade areas reinforce each other, and rejecting the criticism that “one-size-fits-all” monetary policy will not work across countries with differential growth rates. It then describes the benefits of a single-currency area for the world and how this may be implemented.
Unofficial Dollarization in Latin America
Authors: Feige Edgar L. , Faulend Michael , Šonje Velimir , Šošić Vedran
Published: October 2003

This chapter examines the extent to which the U.S. dollar has become the de facto currency in Latin America. The amounts of U.S. dollars in circulation in various Latin American countries were estimated. Argentina had the highest level of de facto dollarization. It represents a classic case of hysteresis, suggesting that once a threshold level of dollarization is reached, it may be maintained, producing what is called a dollarization “irreversibility”.
The Pros and Cons of Full Dollarization
Authors: Berg Andrew , Borensztein Eduardo R.
Published: October 2003

This chapter examines the benefits and costs of full dollarization. It considers emerging market economies in Latin America exposed to volatile capital flows, but not necessarily close, in an economic sense, to the United States. For an extremely dollarized economy, seigniorage revenues would be small, exposures of banks and businesses would make devaluation financially risky, and the exchange rate would not serve as a policy instrument since prices would be “sticky” in dollar terms. In such cases, dollarization offers more benefits and costs.
What Use Is Monetary Sovereignty?
Authors: Schuler Kurt
Published: October 2003

This chapter discusses the meaning, purpose, scope, and expected benefits of monetary sovereignty. Monetary sovereignty has become the focus of recent debates on dollarization, currency boards, and monetary unions. Concerns have been raised that replacing a national central bank with any of these monetary systems would reduce national monetary sovereignty, and by association, political sovereignty. It is argued that monetary sovereignty has been harmful for most developing countries because the rhetoric of sovereignty fails to distinguish between political, consumer and monetary sovereignty.
The Merit of a North American Monetary Union
Authors: Grubel Herbert G.
Published: October 2003

This chapter examines the benefits and costs of a common currency for Canada, the United States, and Mexico. It is argued that the experience of the European Monetary Union and countries such as Argentina show that labour market flexibility will increase as exchange rate adjustments are no longer available to absorb the consequences of rigidities. Canada and Mexico should take the lead in demanding the creation of a North American monetary union.
A Dollarization/Free‐Banking Blueprint for Argentina
Authors: Hanke Steve H.
Published: October 2003

This chapter analyses the impact of official dollarization on Argentina’s economy. It argues that replacing the peso issued by the central bank with dollar-denominated notes issued by offshore commercial banks would eliminate the perceived risk of peso depreciation, increase the supply of bank reserves, reduce banks’ demand for reserves, and encourage deposits into the banking system. This would lead to lower interest rates, and boost Argentina’s economy.
Introduction
Authors: Hamner M. Gail
Published: October 2003

American pragmatism is about the only philosophical movement indigenous to the U.S.A., but the question of what is American about it has never really received sustained attention. This is what this book sets out to do by means of an analysis of the works of two classical American pragmatists (Charles Sanders Peirce and William James) and their continental interlocutors. In answering the question, the book takes the form of a double project: first, American pragmatism marks a repositioning of British and European science, especially psychology, within theories of human knowing and being that emphasize the purposive and disciplined production of the self through habits (Peirce) or will (James); second, the engine of this repositioning is something the author terms America's slippery but persistent Puritan imaginary. The two aspects of the project come together in narratives about subjectivity (in the final two chapters on Peirce and James), since applying the methods and assumptions of natural science to the human self (in psychology) highlights the limitations and aporias of those methods and principles and, for the early pragmatists at least, underscores the necessity of religion. In addition to explaining the context of the book, this introduction describes its organization, the situation in which the philosophy of American pragmatism developed, and the methodology adopted by the book.
Prologue
Authors: Hamner M. Gail
Published: October 2003

A brief look is taken at the meanings of the terms ‘Puritans’, ‘Puritanism’ and ‘Puritan imagery’, giving a clarification of what they mean, and how they affect the author's reading of the pragmatists. An examination is also made of how the meaning of ‘Puritan’ changed over the course of the nineteenth century. In order to establish the cultural force of Puritan imagery, an investigation is also made of the context and means by which the American pragmatists took hold of and reinvented certain European scientific concepts. By examining the appeals to Puritanism from the Second Great Awakening to the Civil War, and from Reconstruction to the Gilded Age, it is shown how at different times and on behalf of particular causes, different stories about the history and destiny of America were inflected, in selective and specialized ways, by this or the other understandings of Puritanism.
Hermann von Helmholtz
Authors: Hamner M. Gail
Published: October 2003

This chapter and the next deals with the texts of two German thinkers who were widely read by Charles Sanders Peirce and William James – the German psychologists Hermann von Helmholtz and Wilhelm Wundt. They clarify the connections and differences between America and Europe, and specify the connections between science and philosophy in ways that intersect with the Puritan questions of identity, ethics, and politics. The work of von Helmholtz (with which that of Peirce has some parallels) evinces an understanding of science and natural law that was only partially accepted by the pragmatists, their criticism pivoting on a refusal to understand scientific inquiry as being constitutively devoid of purposiveness (final causality). The focus here is on particular concepts employed by both pragmatism and its continental interlocutors before going on (in the last two chapters) to consider how the Americans transformed them. Of particular importance, as far as Helmholtz is concerned, is the concept of causality: first, an analysis is made of Helmholtz's theory of causation and his conviction that the theory reconciles German transcendentalism and British empiricism; and second, it is demonstrated how Helmholtz's ‘physical sign theory’ (Zeichentheorie) places his reflections on causality in a semiotic frame.
Wilhelm Wundt
Authors: Hamner M. Gail
Published: October 2003

This chapter (and the last) deals with the texts of two German thinkers who were widely read by Charles Sanders Peirce and William James – Hermann von Helmholtz and Wilhelm Wundt. They clarify the connections and differences between America and Europe and specify the connections between science and philosophy in ways that intersect with the Puritan questions of identity, ethics, and politics. The work of Wundt (with which that of James has some parallels) is the outcome of the professionalization of psychology, a process that challenged the radical individualism and commitment to liberal democracy that was inherent in the American pragmatists’ cultural and political lineages and backgrounds. The focus here is on particular concepts employed by both pragmatism and its continental interlocutors before going on (in the last two chapters) to consider how the Americans transformed them. Of particular importance, as far as Wundt is concerned, are the concepts of will and consciousness.
William Hamilton
Authors: Hamner M. Gail
Published: October 2003

Demonstrates the resonance between Charles Sanders Peirce (the American pragmatist) and William Hamilton (a Scottish professor of logic and metaphysics), which can be outlined in three ways: first, both men present a philosophy that balances Kant's idealism with T.H. Reid's naturalism (Peirce calls this task a ‘critical common‐sensism’); second, they both discuss questions of faith in a manner that implies a transcendent or cosmological perspective; and third, they exhibit a focused interest in logic. However, the pragmatist always evinces slightly different priorities: while Hamilton remains a committed nominalist throughout his writings, Peirce attempts to reconcile Kant and British empiricism as part of his larger argument against nominalism; while Hamilton maintains a Calvinist trinitarianism, Peirce's musings on questions of faith direct him closer to Spinoza's panentheism; and finally, while Hamilton's logic remains an important but separate line of philosophical inquiry, Peirce develops a logic of relations that conjoins his interest in logic to his semiotic and phenomenology, and thus becomes a pervasive part of his philosophy. After giving a brief exposition of the main points of his philosophy, the discussion of Hamilton examines how relativity, conditionality, and free will inform his statements about causality, consciousness, belief, and action. Of greatest interest is how the concept of consciousness relates to the concept of belief, such that the former acts as the guarantor of the latter.
Charles Sanders Peirce
Authors: Hamner M. Gail
Published: October 2003

Charles Sanders Peirce was an American pragmatist whose notions of, and about community, inform not only his reformulation of ‘science’ and ontology but also the complex theory of continuity (synechism) that structures his pragmatism. Peirce's realism is examined through his theorizing of community and synechism, and an assessment of his attempt to reconcile Kant's idealism with British empiricism. One consequence of this reconciliation is a theory of truth that posits both the singleness of truth (a characteristic presumed by Hermann von Helmholtz and William Hamilton), and truth's infinite deferral in the light of the fallible modes of human perception and reasoning. Envisioning fallibilism as occurring always within and between communities of inquiry, Peirce develops the famous pragmatic supposition that truth is that which no one has a reason to disbelieve. The discussion of Peirce's realism includes his theory of generals and its resonance with Helmholtz's theory of the reality of natural laws; for both thinkers, the reality of a law (or general) differs from individual (and equally real) instances of that law, with the difference residing in Peirce's synechism, where Helmholtz attributes the reality of natural laws to the overarching action of causality.
William James
Authors: Hamner M. Gail
Published: October 2003

William James was an American pragmatist, and this chapter clarifies how his commitments to both scientific respectability and the psychological need for a personal universe to trap him in an epistemological pendulum swing between monism and dualism. Drawn to dualism (or functional dualism) both because of its tough‐minded empiricism and because it protects the real disjunction (and therefore sanctity) of individual will and action, James nevertheless covers it with a monistic canopy. The monism asserts the reality of spheres of consciousness with which our consciousness continually conjoins, and it functions to guarantee the personal character of the universe. The swing between dualism and monism is shown through James's psychological writings on will and consciousness, through his epistemological struggles within radical empiricism, and through his philosophical presentation of pragmatism. Through each facet of his writings, James exhibits the conviction that the mystery of the world transcends individual experience and, simultaneously, that individual experience is the best manner in which both – to probe and assist the mystery.
Stratospheric Ozone and Its Protection
Authors: Parson Edward A.
Published: October 2003

An introduction is given to the ozone layer issue, and the goals, context, and contributions of the book are described. The three main empirical arguments put forward in the book are summarised; these are threaded throughout the book and are developed in detail in the final chapter. The first argument concerns the factors accounting for the rapid formation of the ozone protection regime between 1986 and 1988 after ten years of deadlock (scientific assessment, institutional support for international negotiations and proposals, and leadership). The second argument concerns the strategy of conducting scientific assessment that allowed the two crucial assessments of 1986 and 1988 to achieve such a decisive influence in contrast with many previous assessments that did not. The third argument concerns the effects of technological options to reduce emissions of the offending chemicals (principally chlorofluorohydrocarbons, or CFCs), and the distribution of knowledge on the availability, cost, and other characteristics of these options among the policy actors.
Early Stratospheric Science, Chlorofluorocarbons, and the Emergence of Environmental Concern
Authors: Parson Edward A.
Published: October 2003

As background to the book, a brief and historically organized account is given of highlights in (1) the early science of the stratosphere, (2) the development and use of chlorofluorohydrocarbons (CFCs), and their atmospheric impacts, and (3) the initial appearance of environmental concerns about the use of CFCs disrupting the atmosphere by destroying the ozone layer.
The Search for Knowledge‐Based Resolution
Authors: Parson Edward A.
Published: October 2003

The major lines of scientific debate, research progress, and controversy over stratospheric ozone depletion from the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s are examined. Begins with the initial qualitative confirmation of the main points of the chlorine‐ozone depletion claim in 1976, which coincided with the resolution of the US policy debate over aerosols. It proceeds through 1985, with the seeming contradiction between slowly growing confidence that the main processes operating in the stratosphere were coming to be understood, and two shocking new claims of observed ozone losses that sharply called this confidence into question. In addition to reviewing substantive debates in stratospheric science, the chapter examines the multiple attempts over this period to synthesize and communicate the state of scientific understanding in assessments to inform policy making, culminating in 1985 with the first assessment that significantly influenced international policy debates.
Negotiations and Strategy, 1980–1987
Authors: Parson Edward A.
Published: October 2003

Domestic and international policy‐making on protection of the ozone layer are examined from 1980 to 1987. Tracks the 1982 resumption of international negotiations to protect the ozone layer after two further unsuccessful attempts. Follows the progression of these negotiations, and their interactions with domestic policy and corporate strategy, over five years: three years of stagnation leading to the 1985 Vienna Convention, followed by two years of rapid progress culminating in the 1987 Montreal Protocol — the first international agreement on concrete measures to reduce human contribution to ozone depletion.
Building an Adaptive Regime
Authors: Parson Edward A.
Published: October 2003

Reintegrates the discussions of science, technology, and policy to examine how the ozone protection regime has adapted since its formation. Discusses the linked processes of negotiation, assessment, and technological innovation that allowed the Montreal Protocol of 1987 to adapt repeatedly to new scientific knowledge and new technological capabilities, by strengthening and extending its control measures four times (1989–1990, 1991–1992, 1992–1995, 1995–1999). Finally, a brief assessment is made of the status of the regime at the end of the 1990s, including a review of several significant implementation problems.
The Theoretical and Practical Significance of the Ozone Regime
Authors: Parson Edward A.
Published: October 2003

The history of the ozone issue falls into three broad periods: a decade of deadlock from 1975 to 1985, despite repeated attempts to develop international cooperation; a rapid burst of ozone protection regime formation from 1986 to 1988, which produced the first agreement on concrete actions and most elements of the subsequent regime; and the period since 1989, which has been one of sustained progress in the elaboration and repeated adaptation of the regime's core control measures. These three distinct phases of the issue pose three explanatory challenges: explaining the dramatic transition from sustained deadlock by which the regime was established; explaining the persistent deadlock that preceded this transition; and explaining the sustained progress in building and adapting the regime that followed it. These are examined, stressing two types of processes: interactions between scientific assessments and the rhetorical use of scientific claims about environmental risk to support policy action or delay; and interactions between the setting and revision of regulatory targets, the assessment of technologies available to pursue the targets by reducing chemical usage, and the strategic responses of private industry. Some of the theoretical arguments advanced are then recast in practical terms to propose a set of lessons that the ozone issue may hold for other issues. The final section discusses limitations of the ozone regime.
A Relativistic Approach to Some Philosophical Problems
Authors: Unger Peter
Published: October 2003

Applies the semantic relativism developed in the previous chapters to key terms in several philosophical debates in order to establish philosophical relativity. In all of these cases, invariantism forces the skeptical position whilst contextualism resonates with our common sense views. These philosophical debates and their relevant terms are (1) the problem of epistemic skepticism via “know,” (2) the problem of freewill and determinism as instanced by compatibilism and incompatibilism via “can” and “freewill,” (3) the problem of specifying causal conditions via “cause,” and (4) the problem of explanation via “explanation.” (1), (3), and (4) are straightforward categorical problems in that the skeptic's success will simply mean that the terms involved fail to apply. (2) by contrast is a conditional problem such that it is contingent on the truth of determinism itself, which few assent to.
On the Status of Ostensible Intuitions
Authors: Unger Peter
Published: October 2003

Examines the objection to semantic relativity (and ipso facto to philosophical relativity) from our semantic intuitions, that takes common sense responses to questions about semantic content to support contextualism over invariantism, and takes the best explanation for such responses to be that they reflect objective deterministic facts regarding semantic content. Despite the acknowledged question‐begging nature of such an objection, it is deemed persuasive enough to warrant deeper analysis. The strengthened attack against invariantism (and in support of contextualism and against semantic relativity and therefore philosophical relativity) turns on invariantism's prima facie inability to account for agents possessing beliefs involving the contested lexical expressions. Two replies directly available to the invariantist (and hence indirectly available to the relativist) are formulated in detail, and a third direct reply for the relativist that turns on the denial of the deterministic nature of beliefs is tentatively suggested, prior to its extended development in the following chapter.
The Argument for the Secret Constitution
Authors: Fletcher George P.
Published: October 2003

This chapter argues that the Civil War began with one set of purposes, and ended with another. The original motive for resisting Southern secession was preserving the Union, but the final goal was to abolish slavery and reinvent the United States on the basis of a new set of principles – at the heart of which lay the Reconstruction Amendments. The principles of this new legal regime are so radically different from our original constitution that they deserve to be recognized as a second American constitution. Where the first constitution was based on principles of nationhood as a voluntary association, individual freedom, and republican elitism, the guiding premises of the second constitution are organic nationhood, equality of all persons, and popular democracy – all themes signaled in Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address.
Radical Gettysburg
Authors: Fletcher George P.
Published: October 2003

This chapter carefully analyzes the text of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address – beginning with the opening line, which evokes the Declaration of Independence rather than the Constitution – as the “preamble” to the new constitutional legal order. The author focuses on themes of nationhood, national identity, divine mission, equality and popular democracy, in contrast to the Constitution's original emphasis on a republic made up of free individuals.
Nationhood
Authors: Fletcher George P.
Published: October 2003

This chapter examines the history of America's commitment to the idea of nationhood as the ideological basis for subsequent developments in equality and popular democracy. The lives and work of Orestes Brownson and Francis Lieber are discussed, focusing on Brownson's communitarian views of nationhood and collective identity, and Lieber's emphasis on a common language and on the distinction between a “people” and a “nation”.
Loyalty and Betrayal
Authors: Fletcher George P.
Published: October 2003

This chapter confronts the problem of conferring meaning on the violence of armed conflict – is it crime, or is it war? – and addresses the questions of treason and loyalty that arose during the Reconstruction as the U.S. reached for reconciliation between North and South. These oppositions are illuminated in discussions of the treatment of John Brown following his raid on Harper's Ferry; the fate of Jefferson Davis; and the problem of the Prize Cases, in which the Supreme Court determined the legality of the Southern blockade.
Equality
Authors: Fletcher George P.
Published: October 2003

This chapter examines the myriad shadings of the concept of equality. The author discusses the origins and philosophical underpinnings of the phrase, “all men are created equal,” Immanuel Kant's concept of human dignity, and the impact of religion and nationalism on the theory of equality found in the Fourteenth Amendment. Special attention is paid to Charles Black's alternative reading of the Amendment's emphasis on citizenship as the requisite for equal treatment under the law.
The Revolution That Never Was
Authors: Fletcher George P.
Published: October 2003

This chapter addresses the problems arising from the clash of old and new ideologies during Reconstruction. Questions of federalism and states’ rights, and of equal protection and citizenship in light of abolition – illustrated in the landmark Slaughterhouse Case, and the Civil Rights Cases of 1883 – were ultimately referred to the Supreme Court. The author asserts that the Court's interpretation of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments in these cases served to undermine the cause of the new “secret” constitution.
Government as Partner Against the Past
Authors: Fletcher George P.
Published: October 2003

This chapter juxtaposes the role of government with the “paradox” of freedom. The U.S. government's varying role in regulating issues of employment (in Lochner), sexual relations (rape law, polygamy, sexual harassment), and questions of income tax, assisted suicide, and abortion are discussed.
Neither Blue Nor Gray
Authors: Fletcher George P.
Published: October 2003

This concluding chapter examines the postbellum rise of the philosophical school of Pragmatism, promoted in large part by Oliver Wendell Holmes. The author argues for Pragmatism as a response to the ideological extremes that spawned the Civil War, but asserts that neither path adequately describes the U.S. today. Rather, our nationhood rests in the tension between these two opposing ideals.
The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection
Authors: Smith Jane Idleman , Haddad Yvonne
Published: October 2003

Islamic concepts of life after death, reward and punishment, human decision, and divine judgment have always held a certain fascination for Western readers. Recent world events have served only to heighten those interests and to raise new questions about how Muslims understand the developments that are to signal the coming of the day of resurrection, whether martyrs have immediate access to paradise, who are the black‐eyed maidens waiting in paradise for the believers, and who will intercede for communities of Muslims, Christians, and Jews at the final judgment. The text looks at two distinct periods of time in the ongoing story of life after death in Islam. First is the period between individual death and the coming of the day of resurrection, about which the Qur’an says little and the traditions a great deal. Second is the series of events that will take place at the time of judgment, which are detailed thoroughly by the Qur’an. Interpretations of the materials related to each of these periods are provided first from the writings of the classical exegetes and theologians, and then from those of contemporary Muslim thinkers and writers. The narratives are presented so as to give the reader an overview of the whole process from death to resurrection to final consignment in the abodes of reward or of punishment. The entire discussion is placed within the framework of the Islamic understanding of God's expectations of human belief and behavior, and human ethical responses to those expectations. Two appendices deal respectively with evidence of afterlife concerns in pre‐Islamic Arabia, and the special case of women and children in the afterlife.