bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Retreat of Reason
Authors: Persson Ingmar
Published: February 2006

In ancient Greece, philosophy was mainly concerned with guidance on how to live our lives, a philosophy of life. It was then typically assumed that a life in accordance with reason, a rational life, would also be the happiest or most fulfilling life. This book resumes this project, which has been largely neglected in contemporary philosophy. It tries to show, however, that the aim of leading a rational life is at odds not only with the aim of leading the most fulfilling life, but also with the moral aims of leading the life which best promotes the maximization of fulfilment of all or the maximization of fulfilment justly distributed. It does this by exploring the extent to which attitudes to time, identity and responsibility are irrational. It also argues that neither the aim of living rationally nor any of the fulfilment aims can be rejected as less rational than any other. Thus, we face a dilemma of either having to enter a retreat of reason, insulated from everyday attitudes, or making reason retreat from its aspiration to be the sole controller of our attitudes. The book explores three areas in which there is a conflict between the rational life and a life dedicated to fulfilment-maximization. It argues that living rationally requires us to give up, first, our temporal biases, secondly, our bias towards ourselves and, thirdly, our responsibility to the extent that it involves the notion of desert and desert-entailing emotions. But giving up these attitudes is so overwhelmingly hard that the effort to do so not only makes our own lives less fulfilling, but also obstructs our efficient pursuit of the moral aim of promoting of a maximum of fulfilment justly distributed.
INTRODUCTION: SUBJECTIVISM AND OBJECTIVISM
Authors: Persson Ingmar
Published: February 2006

This chapter explains some distinctions which are central in the theory of practical reasons and value, namely the distinction between objectivism and subjectivism, and the distinction between externalism and internalism. Subjectivist theories take reasons and values to be definable in terms of some relation to desires and/or emotions had under some factually described circumstances. Objectivist theories deny either only the sufficiency of such a condition or both its sufficiency and necessity. By virtue of accepting the necessity of this sort of dependence upon attitudes, subjectivist theories are perforce internalist, whereas objectivist theories could be either internalist or externalist, depending on whether they accept the necessity of this link to attitudes. Objectivism is then distinguished both from inter-subjectivism and realism, which views reasons and values as irreducible.
THE STRUCTURE OF REASONS: INTERNALISM
Authors: Persson Ingmar
Published: February 2006

The purpose of this chapter is to defend the internalist view that reasons for action and desire conceptually require a link to desires. This link to desire takes a more direct form in the case of ‘apparent’ reasons, which form the content of our thoughts, than ‘real’ reasons, which are truths that may be unknown to us. It is claimed that practical reasoning, in which desires are derived, differs from theoretical reasoning in which beliefs are derived in two respects: it is not inferential, and the derived desire concerns a proposition which is ‘epistemically prior’, i.e. which can be established as true sooner, whereas the derived belief concerns a proposition which is epistemically posterior.
AN OBJECTIVE REQUIREMENT?
Authors: Persson Ingmar
Published: February 2006

In this chapter the fact that desires have a direction of fit which is opposite to that of beliefs is employed to suggest that objectivism with respect to reasons for desire is implausible. Because desires are not formed to fit the world, but are rather formed to make the world fit their content, the idea of value as something desires must fit is not called for. Rather, desires fill their function if their object is something that one can bring about, thus satisfying the desire. It is maintained that this opposition as regards direction of fit explains why practical reasoning consists in the derivation of a desire for something which is sufficient for the end desired, while theoretical reasoning consists in the derivation of a belief whose truth is necessary if the premises are true. Some objectivist theories, e.g., John McDowell’s, are examined and rejected.
REPRESENTATIONAL MECHANISMS
Authors: Persson Ingmar
Published: February 2006

This chapter develops the account of weakness of will suggested in the preceding chapter by indicating some factors which could prevent dispositional reasons from receiving episodic mental representation. One such factor is a bias towards the perceived (or a bias towards the present, as Derek Parfit calls it), i.e., a tendency to have one’s attention glued to what one currently perceives. Another such factor is derived from David Hume’s principles of association of ideascalled the mechanism of spontaneous induction, which induces one to imagine that the future will be like what one has experienced.
THE IRRATIONALITY OF THE BIAS TOWARDS THE FUTURE
Authors: Persson Ingmar
Published: February 2006

This chapter argues that the irrationality of the bias towards the future, i.e., the tendency to be more concerned about the future than the past, should be understood in roughly the same way as the irrationality of the bias towards the near. That is, it is due to representational distortions resulting from the bias towards the perceived, the mechanism of spontaneous induction and the general future-directedness of our imagination which reflects our experience of temporal succession. As opposed to what Derek Parfit suggests, it cannot be based in how we conceive of time, for in that case there would not be an ‘asymmetry’ he himself notes, that while the bias towards the future is very strong when we consider our own future, it is more or less non-existent when we consider the future of other people, even those close to us.
THE RATIONAL INSIGNIFICANCE OF IDENTITY AND CONTINUITY
Authors: Persson Ingmar
Published: February 2006

If we should endorse a factual nihilism to the effect that there is no defensible account of our identity, it follows that we should also endorse an evaluative nihilism to the effect that the bias towards oneself, i.e., the special concern and liking for a being for the reason that it is identical to oneself, is not rationally justifiable. This chapter argues that the bias towards oneself could not be based on the notion of personal identity, even if animalism or psychologism were correct by appealing to thought-experiments in which your body is radically disintegrated but an exactly similar copy of you is created a moment later out of different constituents. The replica would not be you on any plausible theory of personal identity, but it would seem to be rational to be as much concerned about it as about your future self. It has been objected that this could not be rational, since you could not anticipate having the experiences of this replica in the same intimate way as you could anticipate having your own future experiences. This objection is however shown to be unfounded by an analysis of anticipation of experiences as an act of imaginging having the experiences of a subject which could be distinct from yourself.
THE REQUIREMENT OF PERSONAL NEUTRALITY
Authors: Persson Ingmar
Published: February 2006

This chapter contends that, just as it is rationally permissible in the intra-personal domain of prudence to set aside the goal of maximizing the fulfilment of one’s own life in order to pursue some ideal, so it is rationally permissible in the inter-personal domain of morality to set aside the utilitarian goal of maximizing fulfilment overall in order to pursue some ideal. The argument for this extension derives from the rational insignificance of personal identity established in earlier chapters. Rationality only imposes a requirement of universalizability which leaves room for this choice between idealism and utilitarianism.
RESPONSIBILITY AND DESERT
Authors: Persson Ingmar
Published: February 2006

This chapter starts by analysing the concept of desert along lines suggested by Joel Feinberg. It then argues that this concept is applicable to us only if we have ultimate responsibility, i.e., responsibility for all conditions in virtue of which we have direct responsibility, but that we are not ultimately responsible for anything. It rebuts the attempt by Robert Nozick to block this regress argument against desert by an appeal to rights to our own bodily and psychological resources, as they are conceived in the rights-tradition of John Locke. It also contends that it would be of no avail to assume indeterminism: attributions of desert are undermined irrespective of whether determinism or indeterminism is true. Finally, it rejects the idea that we can have ultimate responsibility because we exercise a special sort of causation, agent-causation, which is irreducible to ordinary causation between events.
THE EMOTIVE GENESIS OF DESERT
Authors: Persson Ingmar
Published: February 2006

This chapter argues that the concept of desert evolves out of agent-oriented and comparative emotions. In chapter 6, it was seen that the agent-oriented emotion of anger is directed at what is taken as an epistemically ultimate cause of harm to oneself or someone closely related to oneself, i.e., as a cause about whose causal origin no belief is entertained. In comparison to the rival hypothesis that anger is directed at what is taken to be a conscious cause of harm, this hypothesis has the merit of providing a more plausible explanation of why people get angry with inanimate objects and of how simple-minded animals can feel anger. The chapter ends by suggesting that this hypothesis captures not only how we conceive of those to which we attribute desert, but also those to which we attribute rights to things they have acquired.
THE DILEMMA AS REGARDS RESPONSIBILITY
Authors: Persson Ingmar
Published: February 2006

Since it has been found in earlier chapters of part V that the concept of desert and of rights, along with agent-oriented emotions like anger, gratitude, remorse and feelings of guilt and comparative emotions like pride, shame, admiration and contempt, all presuppose the notion of an epistemically ultimate cause, this chapter contends that rationalists who seek to be as rational as possible will have to rid themselves of these concepts and emotions for their pursuit of causal inquiries will dissolve this notion. It does not follow that rationalists will have to rid themselves of the concept of justice, for even though differences with respect to desert and rights disappear, justice can survive in the shape of equality. If so, satisfactionalists who subject their goal of maximizing fulfilment to requirements of rationality, will not only aim to maximize fulfilment overall, but will also aim to distribute it as equally as possible. It will however not be rational for these satisfactionalists to join company with rationalists in the striving to rid themselves of all agent-oriented and comparative emotions, for this will interfere with their satisfactionalist goal. So, we face a third dilemma between rationalism and satisfactionalism, a dilemma as regards responsibility. This treatment of our attitudes surrounding responsibility is then compared to the celebrated treatment P. F. Strawson and, following him Jonathan Bennett, has given of ‘reactive attitudes’.
4 Prior on the Construction of Possible Worlds and Instants
Authors: Fine Kit
Published: February 2006

It is shown how the modal actualist might make sense of quantification over possible worlds and the tense-logical presentist might make sense of quantification over instants.
5 Plantinga on the Reduction of Possibilist Discourse
Authors: Fine Kit
Published: February 2006

This chapter critically examines Plantinga’s version of modal actualism, and his arguments against Prior’s version of modal actualism.
The Problem of Possibilia
Authors: Fine Kit
Published: February 2006

It is argued that actual objects are prior to possible objects, and that talk of possible objects may be understood as a way of talking of actual objects. An alternative approach to avoiding reference to possible objects, modal fictionalism, is found to be wanting.
2 ‘Being All, Knowing All, Loving All’
Authors: Marshall Paul
Published: February 2006

The classic characterizations of extrovertive mystical experience by R. M. Bucke, Rudolf Otto, W. T. Stace, and R. C. Zaehner are summarized and their limitations exposed. The author proceeds to give a more nuanced description of extrovertive phenomenology, based on his study of a large number of mystical accounts. Several kinds of extrovertive unity are distinguished, and details are given of other notable characteristics: self-transcendence, expansive knowledge, all-encompassing love, visual and auditory phenomena, altered time-experience, presences and realities, somatic phenomena, paranormal phenomena, and fusion of characteristics, including synaesthesia. The experiences are often uplifting, but there can be disturbing features too, especially in cases associated with drugs, mental breakdown, and kundalini arousal.
5 Empty your Mind
Authors: Marshall Paul
Published: February 2006

Although empty of contents, pure consciousness formed the basis of W. T. Stace’s explanation of content-rich extrovertive mystical experience, an explanation in which spirit and nature were radically separated. However, Stace’s approach is complicated by his borrowings from philosophical ideas that are not entirely harmonious, empirico-phenomenalist, Kantian, and Hegelian. The result is somewhat confused and fails to address important extrovertive characteristics. It is shown that Stace’s explanations of mystical experience can be fully understood only when the development of his metaphysical thought is taken into account. More recently, Robert Forman has also raised pure consciousness, but in a way that departs from Stace’s spirit-nature dualism. The possibility of a permanent extrovertive state, allegedly attainable through Transcendental Meditation and other spiritual practices, is considered.
6 Scholars Lock Horns
Authors: Marshall Paul
Published: February 2006

This chapter classifies mystical epistemologies into five types (direct contact, post-Kantian, mediatory, radical contextualist, naturalistic), and examines two competing perspectives on mystical experience. On the one hand, radical contextualists such as Bruce Garside and Steven Katz have claimed that mystical experience is largely a product of indoctrination and enculturation and is therefore conservative. On the other hand, deconstructivists such H. N. Wieman and Arthur Deikman have supposed that mystical experience depends on a deconditioning or reconditioning of experience that allows new insights to emerge. The latter position envisages a content-rich, nondual state of awareness that is to be distinguished from the contentless pure consciousness of Stace and Forman. Weaknesses in the contextualist case are brought out, and the deconstructivist position is found to be more appropriate for extrovertive experience and its circumstances. However, a simple deconditioning of experience is insufficient to explain the more complex extrovertive features, and further insights must be sought elsewhere.
Heidegger and the Question Concerning Technology
Authors: Pattison George
Published: February 2006

This chapter explores the philosophy of Heidegger, for whom the question of technology was central, and whose views typify a wide range of critical views. Heidegger sees technology as the ultimate outworking of Greek metaphysics, with Nietzsche as its ultimate ideologue. In technology, the world is subject to enframing by the goals of the technological project as the condition of its experienceability. This approach permeates the contemporary university, including the humanities. The poetry of Hölderlin, however, provides Heidegger with another perspective, one in which, in dialogue with the Pre-Socratics, we are invited to thinking as a radical counter-movement to technology.
From Thinking about God to Acting in the World
Authors: Pattison George
Published: February 2006

This chapter explores the ethical issues raised by genetic engineering, and the prospect of a posthuman future, or as some commentators put it, a posthuman present in which everyone has become cyborgs. A variety of positive and negative responses to this situation are noted, with particular reference to Fukuyama and Habermas. It is argued that such questions mark a limit to any purely rational philosophical ethics. Religious perspectives are not only legitimate, but may be seen as an implicit background for ethical argumentation, although this does not require a return to religion’s heteronomous control of human morality.
Postscript: City of the Homeless
Authors: Pattison George
Published: February 2006

The modern city is often seen as a massive instantiation of the principle of enframing, as ‘the city spectacular’ or ‘a container for spectacles’. But can there be holy places, sacred space, beyond the reach of enframing in such cities? Heidegger spoke of the graveyard as a place of remembrance within the flux of planetary homelessness, but even the traditional graveyard has been overtaken by contemporary practices for disposing of bodies. If one’s transience is accepted, in spatial and temporal terms, the city can still give scope for another view of ourselves and, as in Edwin Muir’s eponymous poem, become a place of transfiguration.
Systems and Indexes
Authors: Predelli Stefano
Published: February 2006

This chapter discusses the semantic behaviour of indexical expressions. Its main themes include the treatment of recorded messages, the assessment of the contextualist criticism of the traditional view of indexicality, and the analysis of discourse about fiction. Its main conclusion pertains to the logical behaviour of indexical languages, and challenges the restriction of semantic analysis to so-called proper contexts.
Chapter 3 The Vagaries of Action
Authors: Predelli Stefano
Published: February 2006

This chapter is devoted to the discussion of the token-reflexive approach to indexicality, and to further related themes, including the analysis of approximations and the discussion of the so-called puzzle of addressing. Its main conclusion is that token-reflexivity provides an incorrect analysis of indexicality, and that it yields unsatisfactory logical conclusions.
Durandus of St Pourcain
Authors: Iribarren Isabel
Published: February 2006

The controversy between the Dominican Durandus of St Pourcain and his order plays a central role in explaining how Thomas Aquinas became one of the most influential medieval theologians. Covering a period of almost twenty years in the early fourteenth century, this controversy saw the confrontation of two first-rate Dominican theologians, at a time when the order was fully engaged in promoting the doctrine of Aquinas. Hervaeus Natalis was a hard-line follower of Aquinas, who saw in Durandus an independent spirit and a threat to the order’s sense of doctrinal identity. Through a close examination of the central issues from unpublished manuscript sources, this book reveals a picture of the debate which challenges the standard accounts of a clear-cut clash between ‘Thomists’ and ‘anti-Thomists’. Aquinas did not rise to canonical status on a Dominican platform alone. Franciscan intellectual achievements had much to contribute, an aspect which recasts the role played by the rival mendicant order in the development of a Dominican intellectual tradition. A ‘maverick’ within his order, yet actively supported by the papacy, Durandus lived a career which illustrates the currents at work in the fourteenth-century church. Unconcerned about Dominican internal quarrels, the Avignonese papacy was more preoccupied with forming its own theological entourage away from the subverting forces of the new Franciscan spirituality.
4 Hervaeus Natalis's Commentary on the Sentences
Authors: Isabel Iribarren
Published: February 2006

This chapter presents Hervaeus Natalis’s early Trinitarian account from book I of his Sentences commentary. This account shows how Hervaeus’s first elaboration of Aquinas’s teaching was already potentially compatible with an eventual incorporation of Scotist conceptions and vocabulary.
The Worlds of Prostitution in the Early Republic
Authors: Ho Virgil K.Y.
Published: February 2006

The working conditions and lives of many prostitutes in Canton were not as horrific as frequently described in official propaganda and writings by concerned intellectuals. The reasons for their entry into this trade, their experiences at work, their fate, and their images in the eyes of the common people were so diverse that they defied any simple generalization. Prostitution also served a meaningful social purpose, generating a significant amount of revenue for the local ‘revolutionary’ government.
Schiller as Philosopher
Authors: Beiser Frederick
Published: February 2006

This book is an attempt to rehabilitate Schiller as a philosopher. It defends his philosophy against his Marxist, post-modernist and Kantian critics. Some chapters are exegetical, others thematic. The exegetical chapters (2-4) re-examine the arguments and context of some of his most important writings, Kallias Briefe, Anmut und Würde, and the Äesthetische Briefe. The thematic chapters treat Schiller’s intellectual development, his concept of freedom, his theory of tragedy, and his dispute with the Kantians. In defense of Schiller, it is argued that his project for an objective aesthetic was not misguided in principle, that he does not conflate aesthetic and moral values, that his concept of the beautiful soul should not be confused with its Rousseauian variants, and that his concept of grace does not mean acting from natural sentiment. It is also contended that Schiller offers a plausible revision of Kant’s moral philosophy, an interesting response to the problem of freedom in post-Kantian philosophy, and a much underrated theory of tragedy, and a remarkable attempt to square the demands of aesthetic autonomy with moral purpose in the arts. The aim is not to sanctify or whitewash Schiller, but to show that his critics have largely misunderstood him.
Grace and Dignity
Authors: Beiser Frederick
Published: February 2006

This chapter is an exegesis of Schiller’s Anmut und Würde. It discusses the sources and influences on the text, both classical and contemporary. It critically assesses Schiller’s attempt to bridge the Kantian dualisms with the concept of beauty. It contends that Schiller’s concept of grace has been seriously misunderstood by many of his critics, who tend to conflate it with natural character and confuse the distinction between temperamental and moral virtue.
Argument and Context of the Ästhetische Briefe
Authors: Beiser Frederick
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines the context and argument of Schiller’s most famous text. Schiller’s critics contend that the work is hopelessly divided into philosophical and historical halves. It is argued that the work is a coherent whole. An attempt is made to bring out the political context behind the work, especially its neglected affiliation with the republican tradition of Machiavelli, Montesquieu, Ferguson and Rousseau. Schiller’s hidden polemic against Fichte and Rousseau is also reconstructed.
The Philosophy of Freedom
Authors: Beiser Frederick
Published: February 2006

This chapter discusses the various meanings Schiller gave to freedom in his philosophical writings. It traces the development of Schiller’s thinking about freedom, and explains its relations to his predecessors and contemporaries, especially Spinoza, Kant, and Fichte. It argues that Schiller’s thinking about freedom involves his attempt to resolve the renewed tension between naturalism and moral responsibility that arose from the critique of the Kantian dualisms.
Theory of Tragedy
Authors: Beiser Frederick
Published: February 2006

This chapter outlines Schiller’s theory of tragedy, especially his attempt to explain the problem of tragic pleasure. Schiller’s theory is placed within its historical context, especially its relation to Aristotle and the Sturm und Drang.
2 Conceptions of Judah, I: Idolatrous Cults
Authors: MIDDLEMAS JILL
Published: February 2006

Because ancient Israel maintained copious literature that is theological in nature and the Golah community invested much energy in reflection on worship, it is important to consider how the situation in the homeland impacted theological conceptions of reality. This chapter considers biblical perceptions of what was considered by some as the ‘heterodox’ religiosity of Templeless Judah. Biblical literature about Templeless Judah remains almost exclusively focused on the on-going worship of deities either in distinction to or in addition to Yahweh. The chapter provides an overview of the types of worship practices attributed to the population in the homeland. In conjunction with that discussion, it is noted that the evidence for these practices does not stem from sixth-century Judah itself and tends to serve a greater theological agenda.
4 The Voice of the Land: Lamentations
Authors: MIDDLEMAS JILL
Published: February 2006

This chapter turns to Lamentations as it is most widely regarded as stemming from Templeless Judah. Of the five poems in the book, chapters 1, 2, 4, and 5 have the greatest claim to belong to Templeless Judah. These chapters of the book of Lamentations are used typologically to isolate prominent concepts. Five themes are found to be distinctive to the religious thought of Templeless Judah: (1) an emphasis on the extent of unalleviated human suffering, (2) the explicit assertion of uncertainty in future possibilities, (3) the downplaying of the association of human sin and judgement, (4) the need to witness to pain through the expression of grief especially within worship, and (5) the forming of grief in such a way as to limit it and evoke a future orientation. The delineation of themes distinctive to Judah provides a measuring rod with which to approach other material thought to stem from the homeland.
Conclusion
Authors: MIDDLEMAS JILL
Published: February 2006

The title, ‘The Troubles of Templeless Judah’, encapsulates the dual foci of this book. On the one hand, there is great difficulty in approaching this time period from an historical perspective as sources are incomplete, their usage in an historical task is disputed as are conclusions based on them. Moreover, other sources of information for Judah exhibit an ideological stance not in keeping with a perception from the homeland itself. Additionally, ‘troubles’ alludes to the type of literature that stems from Judah. Ironically, the Templeless laments enabled the alleviation of the suffering of the sixth-century Judahites whilst providing the means to overturn the lamentable situation faced by modern interpreters of the period formerly known as the exile.
United Against the United States? The EU's Role in Global Trade and Finance
Authors: Henning C. Randall , Meunier Sophie
Published: February 2006

In economic relations, the EU has the capacity to exercise a global role on par with the United States. Yet the EU is not always able to effectively defend its interests. While the EU has firmly established its role as a global player in trade, it has faced difficulties in acquiring such a role in money and finance. Institutional legacies best explain this uneven progress. EU trade policy-making is centralized, whereas centralization is incomplete in the area of money and finance. Power struggles among the various EU bodies and member-states hamper effectiveness.
Parliamentary Government or Division of Powers: Is the Destination Still Unknown?
Authors: Shackleton Michael
Published: February 2006

The increasing power of the European Parliament has been one of the most steady and striking developments of Europe’s past several decades. Most analyses of the EP tend to see this process as moving the EU somewhat toward a model of parliamentary government, converging on the institutions prevalent in most European countries. But in fact, the EP now plays a role much more like an autonomous separation-of-powers legislature on the US model, and its future development is likely to move further in this direction.
Stock Exchange Competition and the Nasdaq Bargain in Europe
Authors: Posner Elliot
Published: February 2006

Small capitalization markets like the US Nasdaq have proliferated in Europe in recent years as part of a broad but uneven process of financial reforms. Though often seen as a fairly direct response to financial globalization and market forces, they are, in fact, the product of supranational entrepreneurship and intra-European national rivalries. Nationally-based stock markets suddenly created small-cap markets not because of widely-perceived market pressures, but in response to moves by the European Commission that threatened to replace national markets with European ones.
The Dynamics of EU Enlargement in American Perspective
Authors: Scherpereel John A.
Published: February 2006

The territorial expansion of the USA provides an interesting comparative vantage point for the recent and on-going enlargement of the European Union. Incumbents and prospective members on both sides of the Atlantic have faced similarly fundamental questions: Who are ‘we’? (When) should we apply for membership? (When) should we admit applicants? What are the normative, institutional, and policy implications of expansion? In light of the US experience, this chapter examines the European pathways to membership, decisions to expand, and power asymmetries.
1 Introduction
Authors: Scully Roger
Published: February 2006

This chapter introduces the study by explaining its key questions, and how the book addresses them. The importance of the issue of socialisation within European institutions is discussed and explained. The chapter then provides a brief introduction to the chosen research site for the study, the European Parliament. This introduction explains why the Parliament provides a highly appropriate focus for examining the general issue that is addressed by the book. Next, a brief discussion is presented of some of the methodological issues raised by the study, and how they are dealt with. Finally, the chapter elaborates on how subsequent chapters develop the main arguments.
Chapter 5 Work and Retirement Plans Among Older Americans
Authors: Abraham Katharine G. , Houseman Susan N.
Published: February 2006

This chapter focuses on older individuals' plans for retirement and the realization of those plans. Using HRS data, the widespread interest among workers approaching retirement age in cutting back on their hours or changing the type of work they do, as a transition to, or in lieu of, full retirement, is documented. The extent to which these individuals are able to realize their plans is then examined. It is shown that those who plan to stop working altogether generally do, while those who plan to reduce their hours or change the type of work they do most often do not realize these plans. The factors that influence whether and how older individuals realize plans to reduce their hours and remain employed are considered.
Chapter 7 Strategies to Retain Older Workers
Authors: Mulvey Janemarie , Nyce Steven
Published: February 2006

This chapter begins by outlining the economic and demographic realities facing employers, and spells out how these change the ‘retirement promise’. The effects of several factors on older workers' retirement patterns are quantified, including early retirement incentives in DB plans, retiree medical coverage, and various work/life benefits including phased retirement and eldercare programs. The potential increase in older workers' labour force participation from changing these benefit offerings are estimated. It is argued that these will only marginally offset expected gaps between labour supply and demand in the coming decade.
Chapter 8 Developments in Phased Retirement
Authors: Hutchens Robert , Papps Kerry L.
Published: February 2006

This chapter explores why employers might permit phased retirement only after employees officially retire. This issue is addressed based on interviews with close to 1,000 establishments regarding their phased retirement policies. Employers were asked whether they would permit an older worker to reduce hours, and, if so, whether they favoured reduction in hours before or after official retirement. Results show that many employers do not indicate a strong preference; rather, they seem open to informally arranged reductions in hours, both before and after official retirement. Statistical methods were used to analyze what types of employers might permit hour reductions to occur before and/or after official retirement. The findings suggest that the preference for retire/rehire is at the individual rather than the establishment level, often due to pension and other benefit plan inducements. Government policy could enhance work/retirement flexibility by clarifying the meaning of what constitutes retirement under tax and labour law.
Chapter 10 Changes in Accounting Practices Will Drive Pension Paradigm Shifts
Authors: Fore Douglas
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines proposed changes in US and international pension accounting standards and the rationales for such changes. It is shown that convergence is on the way in international pension accounting, and this is probably a good thing in terms of fundamental principles of finance. Convergence will also change the way pension investments are managed. Plan sponsors must become more aware of these changes in the accounting arena and the impact they will have on pension as well as corporate finance.
Chapter 11 Why Pension Fund Management Needs a Paradigm Shift
Authors: Ambachtsheer Keith
Published: February 2006

This chapter addresses the following question: is this traditional lens a good one through which to see the pension fund management world in the future, and if not, why not? What would a better lens impart? It examines ‘old’ paradigm pension fund management practices and the results they have produced. It then identifies material flaws in current practices and suggests ways improve pension fund management.
Chapter 12 Profitable Prudence: The case for Public Employer Defined Benefit Plans
Authors: Anderson Gary W. , Brainard Keith
Published: February 2006

This chapter focuses on the lessons private industry could learn from state and local government pensions, It begins with a brief history of public pensions. It then compares public and private pensions, and discusses benefits to employees and public defined benefit plans as financial engines. It is argued that public pension plans are in a strong position to handle the coming influx of retirees, since, unlike Social Security (mainly a pay-as-you-go program); public pensions are rather well-funded (approximately 95 percent in 2003).
3 National Closure During the Golden Age of Welfare Expansion
Authors: Ferrara Maurizio
Published: February 2006

This chapter focuses on the Trente Glorieuses (1945-1975), and identifies the first seeds of spatial reconfiguration in the field of social protection: the appearance of new membership spaces (e.g. supplementary pension schemes), the creation of the European Communities, and the establishment of a coordination regime regulating the social entitlements of migrant workers within the EC. The chapter discusses the original division of labour between the market-making functions of the EC, and the redistributive functions left to the member states. It also reconstructs the emergence of a distinct EC “constitutional order” and its creeping implications for national social rights through legal integration.
5 From Welfare States to Welfare Regions
Authors: Ferrara Maurizio
Published: February 2006

The chapter discusses the increasing role of sub-national territories as new, distinctive and relatively autonomous “bounded spaces” in certain areas of social protection, notably health care, active labour market policies, social services and assistance. This new development is illustrated by reference not only to within-state trends of social protection regionalization, but also to novel forms of transnational regional groupings. The Italian case is presented in detail as an emblematic example of the shift from welfare state to welfare regions.
6 New Boundaries, New Structuring? On the Future of Social Protection in the European Union
Authors: Ferrara Maurizio
Published: February 2006

This chapter presents a map describing the new spatial architecture of social protection in the European Union resulting from free movement and competition rules, and their effects on traditional welfare state boundaries. The destructuring consequences of the new boundary configuration are discussed, with specific reference to pensions systems and the issue of migration. The chapter concludes by highlighting the margins of manoeuvre for a possible “nesting” of nation-based forms of social protection in a wider EU space, capable of promoting adaptation and reform, while upholding at the same time the basic pre-conditions for maintaining adequate levels of social protection.
Metaphysics, Mathematics, and Meaning
Authors: Salmon Nathan
Published: February 2006

This volume brings together Nathan Salmon’s papers on topics in the metaphysics of existence, non-existence, and fiction; modality and its logic; strict identity, including personal identity; numbers and numerical quantifiers; the philosophical significance of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems; and semantic content and designation.
An Empire of Thin Air (1988)
Authors: Salmon Nathan
Published: February 2006

The modal theory that David Lewis defended in On the Plurality of Worlds (Blackwell, 1986) is criticized. According to Lewis, to say that John Kerry might have won the 2004 presidential election is to say that someone very similar to Kerry does win his presidential election in a parallel universe (in an alternative “possible world”). This theory is indicative of a serious misunderstanding of such modal expressions as ‘possibly’ and ‘necessarily’, which are concerned not with any goings on in parallel universes but with what might have been. One need not disbelieve in possible worlds to recognize that they are not parallel universes.
The Fact that x = y (1987)
Authors: Salmon Nathan
Published: February 2006

For any pair of objects, x and y, if x = y, then the fact that x = y is an identity fact. And conversely. (If x ≠ y, then there is no fact that x = y.) Among the facts that obtain in every possible world are all the identity facts. It is argued that the fact that x = y, is such exists, bears a very special relation to the trivial, a priori, fact that x = x: they are one and the same.
This Side of Paradox (1993)
Authors: Salmon Nathan
Published: February 2006

Salmon’s critique of the conventional wisdom concerning the logic of what might have been is defended against Timothy Williamson’s rejoinder. It is argued that Williamson’s variation of Salmon’s modal paradox, properly understood, yields further support for Salmon’s solution over Williamson’s.
Personal Identity: What's the Problem? (1995u)
Authors: Salmon Nathan
Published: February 2006

It is argued that the traditional problem of personal identity bifurcates into two problems, having different solutions: an essentialist problem of personal identity and a reductionist problem. The proof of the determinacy of identity, combined with an application of the doctrine of impossible worlds, is applied to rejecting, and thereby solving, the latter problem. A solution is offered to the essentialist problem, invoking the continuation of the same functioning brain.
Pronouns as Variables (2005)
Authors: Salmon Nathan
Published: February 2006

Peter Geach’s view that anaphoric pronouns are bound variables is defended against the current orthodoxy that Gareth Evans’s E-type anaphoric pronouns, which do not occur within the scope of their grammatical antecedent, are definite descriptions (as with Stephen Neale), or rigidified variants (as with Evans).
Language: A Biological Model
Authors: Millikan Ruth Garrett
Published: February 2006

Guiding the work of most linguists and philosophers of language today is the assumption that language is governed by rules. This volume presents a different way of viewing the partial regularities that language displays, the way they express norms and conventions. It argues that the central norms applying to language are non-evaluative; they are more like those norms of function and behavior that account for the survival and proliferation of biological species. Specific linguistic forms survive and are reproduced together with cooperative hearer responses because some portion of the time these patterns of production and response benefit both speakers and hearers. What needs to be reproduced, however, for a given language to survive is not specific conceptual rules or inference patterns, but only satisfaction conditions concerning distal objects and properties, and essential elements of hearer response. Thus, the psychological processes that support the use of proper names, of words for kinds, properties and so forth, need to be examined anew, resulting in a fairly uncompromising rejection of conceptual analysis as a tool in philosophy. Further results concern the distinction between the propositional content and the force of a linguistic utterance and a new description of illocutionary acts. It turns out that neither the intentionality of thought nor the intentionality of language is derived from the other. Also, the processes involved in understanding language are best modeled as a form of direct perception of the world parallel, for example, to perception mediated by the natural signs contained in structured light, and results in a radically new description of how children learn language.
Language Conventions Made Simple
Authors: Millikan Ruth Garret
Published: February 2006

The conventionality of natural language is captured in much simpler terms than David Lewis’s, displaying its continuity with more rudimentary conventions involving neither coordinations, regular conformity (either de facto or de jure) nor rational underpinnings. This “natural conventionality” is composed of two simple characteristics:(1) natural conventions are reproduced patterns, (2) they are proliferated due partly to weight of precedent, rather than due, for example, to their intrinsically superior capacity to perform certain functions. These two characteristics are discussed as they characterize simple non-coordinating conventions, then simple coordination conventions, and finally language conventions. The paper argues that the conception of conventions universally adopted in speech act theory is mistaken, and points to a new way of understand the nature of illocutionary acts.
In Defense of Public Language
Authors: Millikan Ruth Garret
Published: February 2006

Chomsky has claimed that both common sense and technical notions of public language or “externalized language” are confused, ill-defined, or of no scientific interest. This chapter agrees with Chomsky’s criticisms of the various notions of public language with which he is concerned. But given the right understanding of language conventions and the right understanding of the functions of public language, public language is the raison d’etre and the foundation on which inner language is built and maintained.
The Language–Thought Partnership: A Bird's Eye View
Authors: Millikan Ruth Garret
Published: February 2006

The whole of this work is sketched in miniature on the relation between language and thought. Previously, closeups of this terrain were offered in various papers and books, and these were referenced freely. But the main purpose here is to explain the relations among the parts, hoping this can serve as a short introduction to the author’s work on language and thought for some, and as a clarification of the larger plan for others.
Why (Most) Kinds are not Classes
Authors: Millikan Ruth Garret
Published: February 2006

Most category words do not designate classes but units of another kind entirely. These units are called “real kinds,” among which are “historical kinds” and “eternal kinds”. The ontology of historical kinds and eternal kinds is compared to that of individuals, and it is argued that just as in the case of individuals, different people may identify the same real kinds in different ways, so that no particular set of properties or paradigms or exemplars will be definitional of any word designating the kind.
Pushmi-pullyu Representations
Authors: Millikan Ruth Garret
Published: February 2006

Pushmi-pullyu representations (P-PRs) are in one breath both descriptive and directive, the simplest being animal’s signals to conspecifics, such as danger signals and mating displays. P-PRs also appear in human language: “No Johnny, we don’t eat peas with our fingers”; “The meeting is (hereby) adjourned”. Human intentions are P-PRS in thought, as are perceptual representations representing affordances. Inner representations of the social roles that we play as we play them are P-PRS, as we fall into doing “what one does”. These primitive ways of thinking are an essential glue holding human societies together.
Aristotle on Teleology
Authors: Johnson Monte Ransome
Published: February 2006

Aristotle is commonly considered the inventor of teleology, although the precise term originated in the eighteenth century. But if teleology means the use of ends or goals in natural science, then Aristotle was rather a critical innovator of teleological explanation. Teleological notions were widespread among Aristotle’s predecessors, but he rejected their conception of extrinsic causes such as intelligence or god as the primary cause for natural things. Instead, he considers nature itself as an internal principle of change and as an end, and his teleological explanations focus on what is intrinsically good for natural substances themselves. Aristotle’s philosophy was later conflated with the teleological proof for the existence of god, the anthropic cosmological principle, creationism, intelligent design, vitalism, animism, anthropocentrism, and opposition to materialism, evolution, and mechanism. But and examination of both his explicit methodology and the explanations actually offered in his scientific works (on physics, cosmology, theology, psychology, biology, and anthropology) shows that Aristotle’s aporetic approach to teleology drives a middle course through traditional oppositions between: causation and explanation, mechanism and materialism, naturalism and anthropocentrism, realism and instrumentalism.
Introduction
Authors: Johnson Monte Ransome
Published: February 2006

Teleology is central to Aristotle’s scientific method. He applies teleological explanations to many disciplines, including physics, cosmology, meteorology, theology, biology, zoology, anthropology, political science, and ethics. Although there has been much discussion of the role of teleology with respect to each of these specialized domains, there has been no comprehensive treatment of the issue. But a thoroughgoing investigation can tell us much about Aristotle’s philosophy, about Greek philosophy in general, and about our own natural philosophy.
Gap? What Gap?
Authors: Kirk Robert
Published: February 2006

Any system with the basic package is a decider; any decider with directly active perceptual information has the ‘basic package-plus’ and is a ‘decider-plus’. This chapter argues that being a decider-plus is logically sufficient for perceptual consciousness. First, on the provisional assumption that the basic package-plus includes all the purely functional conditions necessary for perceptual-phenomenal consciousness, the sole-pictures argument of Chapter 4 is extended to cover any decider-plus, not just zombies; then that assumption is defended. No merely natural or nomological or brute necessity has to be invoked. Among numerous likely objections discussed are those relating to blindsight; automatism; the usual objections to functionalist accounts of consciousness; the ‘explanatory gap’; and Carruthers’s critique of rival accounts to his own.