bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A History of Backwardness
Authors: Amsden Alice H.
Published: October 2003

This chapter examines how late industrialization in South Korea was at first retarded by a state too weak to intervene and stimulate capital expenditures. It also takes the position that when industrialization began to accelerate, it did so in response to government initiatives and not to the forces of the free market. The Korean state was able to consolidate its power in the 1960s because of the weakness of the social classes: workers were a small percentage of the population, capitalists were dependent on state largesse, the aristocracy was dissolved by land reform, and the peasantry was atomized into smallholders. The behavior of the Korean state became influenced by two forces outside the class structure: the student movement and the American occupation forces. The student movement kept the new government relatively honest, and the American occupation forces drove the Korean military toward developmentalism, the only realistic course to reduce dependence on American support.
The Dynamics of Growth
Authors: Amsden Alice H.
Published: October 2003

Late industrialization is characterized by three facets of growth, as South Korea exemplifies. The first relates to diversification, or entrepreneurial decisions concerning penetration of new industries – which ones to penetrate, when, and with what size investment. The second relates to stabilization or short‐run macroeconomic policies to maintain the level of economic activity. The third relates to the growth momentum itself. Once underway, growth gains a momentum whose properties are distinct depending on the presence or absence of new technological discoveries. This chapter is divided into three parts, each devoted to one of these facets of growth.
The Paradox of “Unlimited” Labor and Rising Wages
Authors: Amsden Alice H.
Published: October 2003

The forces behind the operation of the labor market and real wage increases in South Korea are examined. It is argued that in industries in which the technology transfer problem was fairly complicated and in which Korea lacked experience, workers were paid relatively high wages, not because of a shortage of particular skills, but in order to induce them to exercise their intelligence and make imported technology work. The wage rate in Korea was driven up especially fast by the exigencies of learning because the learning experience was especially intense since it was undertaken by local rather than foreign firms, happened in a great spurt, and occurred in large, bureaucratic enterprises. Business was also pressured by government to share its wealth with labor. Because scarcity and demand alone cannot explain the operation of the labor market, the chapter ends with a discussion of the imperatives of technology and the skill set of late industrialization that have driven big businesses to pay more.
The Boom in Education
Authors: Amsden Alice H.
Published: October 2003

One reason why Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea appear to have industrialized rapidly is that they have invested relatively heavily in education. A well‐educated work force, both white‐ and blue‐collar, is a general property of late industrialization, distinguishing it from earlier industrial change, and premised on the learning of production processes and procedures that are characteristic of more advanced economies. Thus, formal education of the workforce and the apprenticeship of firms to foreign technical assistants (rather than the apprenticeship of workers in particular crafts) lie at the heart of late industrial expansion. This chapter, therefore, is devoted to both formal education and foreign technical assistance, and ends with a firm‐level illustration of interaction between the two. Learning is explored in the second manufacturing affiliate of the Samsung Group, the Cheil Wood Company, founded in 1954.
Classical Chisholmian Internalism
Authors: Plantinga Alvin
Published: October 2003

In order to examine the relationship between warrant and justification, I turn, in this chapter, to the views of Roderick Chisholm, or, more precisely, to the classical Chisholm (as expressed in editions one and two of his Theory of Knowledge and in his The Foundations of Knowing). In important respects, the classical Chisholm's internalism displays much continuity with the deontological internalism of Descartes and Locke. The classical Chisholm's official position on warrant (or positive epistemic status, as he calls it) is that warrant is a matter of fulfilling epistemic obligation – a matter of a proposition's being so related to a person that he can better fulfill his epistemic duty by accepting the proposition in question than by, e.g., withholding acceptance. Against Chisholm, I argue that (1) most of Chisholm's epistemic principles are false if warrant is what Chisholm officially says it is, and that (2) the fulfillment of epistemic duty (i.e., epistemic justification in its original and most natural sense) is neither sufficient nor necessary for warrant.
Exploring the Design Plan: Myself and My Past
Authors: Plantinga Alvin
Published: October 2003

In the first two chapters of Warrant and Proper Function, I presented my account of warrant; in the next seven chapters, I provide an explanation of how my account works in the main areas of our cognitive life. In this chapter, I begin this explanation by examining how warrant works with respect to self‐knowledge (or introspection) and memory. In the course of examining self‐knowledge and its relationship to warrant, I first argue against Derek Parfit's claim that we do not know and cannot justifiably believe that there is such a thing as a persisting subject of experience that is distinct from any of those experiences of which it is the subject. Second, I briefly argue that the beliefs that we are neither our brains nor our bodies (nor something like computer programs) are beliefs that have a good deal of warrant for us. Turning next to memory, I (first) provide a brief discussion of the phenomenology of memory and (second) argue that typical memory beliefs are basic (i.e., not accepted on the evidential basis of other beliefs) and are capable of having a great deal of warrant for us.
Other Persons and Testimony
Authors: Plantinga Alvin
Published: October 2003

In this chapter, I continue my explanation of how my account of warrant works in the main areas of our cognitive life, here examining how warrant works with respect to beliefs about other persons (or other minds) and beliefs furnished by testimony. As regards the first topic, I am concerned with the question of how our beliefs ascribing mental states to others acquire warrant. I examine three possible answers to this question, namely, (1) that such beliefs acquire warrant by means of analogical arguments, (2) that they do so by way of being (or being like) scientific hypotheses, or (3) that they do so by means of Wittgensteinian criteria. I argue that none of these answers is correct, and then suggest an answer that is both closer to the truth and more in line with the general theory of warrant I propose. Turning next to testimony, I explore some of its salient characteristics, argue that testimonial evidence is a basic sort of evidence for us (the warrant furnished by testimony is not and could not be furnished by induction, analogy, or abduction) and, finally, show how my account deals with Gettier problems (or semi‐Gettier problems) involving testimony.
Epistemic Probability: Some Current Views
Authors: Plantinga Alvin
Published: October 2003

In circumstances where one proposition A (or group of propositions G) is propositional evidence for another proposition B, my believing A (or G) can confer warrant (for me) upon B. I use the term “epistemic probability” to refer to the relationship between a pair of propositions A and B when A is propositional evidence for B; more precisely, in those cases, I shall say that the epistemic conditional probability of B on A is high. In this chapter and the next, I concern myself with an analysis of epistemic conditional probability. The first thing to see, in trying to get a general grasp of this topic, is to note the divide between epistemic probability and objective probability. In this chapter, I distinguish the former from the latter and point out some debilitating problems with the three main accounts of the former (Bayesianism, the logical theory of probability, and the account of Henry Kyburg); in the next chapter, I propose what I hope is a better substitute.
Coherence, Foundations, and Evidence
Authors: Plantinga Alvin
Published: October 2003

In this chapter, I (1) examine the contrast between foundationalism and coherentism, and (2) consider evidentialism, a special variety of foundationalism. After arguing that the central tenet of coherentism is that the sole source of warrant is coherence, I argue that coherentism is mistaken and endorse foundationalism. I then offer some brief comments on the inadequacy of classical foundationalism and contrast classical foundationalism to the sort of foundationalism I endorse, which I call Reidian foundationalism. I next turn to an examination of evidentialism, specifically the evidentialism of William Alston, Richard Feldman and Earl Conee (which version of evidentialism I refer to as the AFC view). Taking “evidence” in a sufficiently broad sense, I concur with the AFC view in its claim that whenever some belief B has warrant for an agent S, it is the case that S has evidence for B; I also argue, however, that having evidence is not sufficient for warrant – proper function is also required (and here I part company with the AFC view).
Assessment, Deliberation, and Theory
Authors: Scheffler Samuel
Published: October 2003

The general argument of the previous chapter is here supplemented by a fuller discussion of the relationship between the moral assessment of action and agents’ deliberations about what to do. Scheffler begins by distinguishing between five different ways in which overtly moral considerations may impinge on an agent's deliberations, and he observes that no general rule tells us when moral considerations should function in these different ways. In light of this discussion, he rejects the idea that, in formulating a moral assessment of a person's action, we commit ourselves to thinking that the person himself should deliberate in explicitly moral terms. Accordingly, he argues, we need not worry that the pervasiveness of morality implies an overmoralized conception of deliberation or of the self.For similar reasons, Scheffler rejects a family of views that object to the very idea of a moral theory, understood as a system of general principles that can be combined with information about specific circumstances to yield moral verdicts.
The Case for Moderation
Authors: Scheffler Samuel
Published: October 2003

According to Scheffler, the view that morality is stringent derives its appeal from the sharp contrast it draws between morality and prudence, and also from its grounding in a notion of radical self‐transcendence. In arguing for the competing view that morality is moderate, Scheffler points to a basic tenet of our commonsense moral outlook, which holds that individuals are justified in devoting attention to their own basic projects and commitments out of proportion to the value of those projects from an impersonal standpoint. Just as a stringent morality is responsive to a notion of radical self‐transcendence, a moderate morality is responsive to a certain conception of personal integration and to a conviction that living morally is a realistic possibility for most people. Scheffler points out that moral beliefs shape our projects, commitments, and, ultimately, even our interests themselves, and he argues that this illustrates the way in which moderate morality serves to promote integrated lives. He concludes that the construal of morality as moderate makes better sense of the totality of our moral thought than does the view that morality is stringent.
Morality, Politics, and the Self
Authors: Scheffler Samuel
Published: October 2003

Develops the idea that it is in part a social and political task to achieve a measure of fit between the demands of morality and the individual's interests. The psychological bases of moral motivation are, in Scheffler's view, influenced by social institutions and practices. Social institutions and practices can help individuals to develop the psychological structures that will lead them to shape their interests so as to minimize conflicts with morality. Social institutions can also work more directly to reduce the degree of conflict between the demands of morality and individuals’ interests, insofar as a just and well‐ordered society minimizes the occasions on which it would be rational for people to violate moral requirements. These considerations support the conclusion that there are close and complex relations between social integration and personal, psychological integration; the smooth operation of each process conduces to and enhances the smooth operation of the other.
Socrates: From Happiness to Virtue
Authors: Irwin Terence
Published: October 2003

Chapter 4 focuses on the Euthydemus to discuss Socrates’ theories of happiness and wisdom. Firstly, it is pointed out that Socrates may be labelled as “eudamonist” because of the claim he makes in the Euthydemus that happiness is a general and not a particular virtue. Secondly, Socrates’ instrumentalist view according to which the different virtues may be means to one end, i.e., happiness, is examined. Thirdly, several arguments are discussed according to which Socrates demonstrates that wisdom is the only good.
Republic I
Authors: Irwin Terence
Published: October 2003

Chapter 11 considers book I of the Republic and mainly treats the role book I plays in the dialogue. It is argued that book I is written to illustrate how the Socrates of the early dialogues would have tried to find a definition of justice. Hence, the goal of this book appears to show the limits of a certain way of searching for definitions and to dismiss it. The role of the other characters of book I--Cephalus, Polemarchus, and Thrasymachus-- is relevant in order to describe fully the aporetic character of this approach.
Platonic Love
Authors: Irwin Terence
Published: October 2003

The main goal of chapter 18 is to emphasise the importance of love in the Republic but also more generally in Plato’s ethics. To begin with, it is considered how love is able to fill the gap between the rational and the irrational part of the soul. Thus, it is shown how love can be the key element to link self-regarding and other-regarding virtues. Finally, how love allows Plato to consider justice as a non-instrumental good is investigated.
Introduction: Philosophical Skepticism and Pyrrhonism
Authors: Fogelin Robert J.
Published: October 2003

The introduction offers a brief sketch of Pyrrhonian skepticism as it is presented in the works of Sextus Empiricus, and of competing interpretations of the scope of the Pyrrhonian doubt. Using terms derived from Galen, some read Sextus as a rustic skeptic, others read him as an urbane skeptic. On the rustic interpretation adopted by Jonathan Barnes, Miles Burnyeat, and others, the goal of Pyrrhonism is to attain suspension of belief on all matters, including the beliefs of everyday life. On the urbane reading given by Michael Frede, the target of skeptical doubt is limited to dogmatic philosophizing and closely related activities. Arguments are presented for adopting the urbane interpretation – the perspective from which this work is written.
Epistemic Grace
Authors: Fogelin Robert J.
Published: October 2003

Having completed the examination of competing accounts of how knowledge claims function, this chapter returns to and elaborates the account presented of them in Ch. 1. In our everyday use of knowledge claims, we rely on justificatory procedures that we have learned. Looking things up is an obvious example. Doubts also take place within justificatory procedures. We doubt things because they fail to meet certain standards. Three sorts of doubt are distinguished: hyperbolic doubts, eliminable but impractical doubts, and eliminable legitimate doubts. In daily life, we operate at the third or lowest level of scrutiny. When engaged in doing epistemology, however, philosophers tend to operate at the two higher levels of scrutiny with the result that they encounter Gettier problems or wind up in skepticism. This sets the stage for Part 2 in which various responses to skepticism are examined.
Some Advantages of Virtue Ethics
Authors: Slote Michael
Published: October 2003

Our commonsense thinking about the virtues has certain advantages over Kantian ethics and commonsense morality narrowly conceived. The latter two are committed to a self‐other asymmetry with respect to moral goodness and rightness: what harms the agent is not treated as morally criticizable in the way that what harms other people is. By contrast, our ordinary understanding of virtues allows for both self‐benefiting and other‐benefiting virtues, and what harms or is likely to harm the agent counts against his or her possession of the virtue of prudence as much as what is likely to harm others counts against his or her having the virtue of benevolence or kindness. But to treat what harms the agent as irrelevant to our deepest or most important ethical evaluations downgrades or devalues the agent himself or herself, and this criticism, while not applying to our ordinary thought about the virtues, does hold against both Kantianism and commonsense morality.
Two Kinds of Intrinsic Goodness
Authors: Slote Michael
Published: October 2003

Two different kinds of intrinsic goodness are often conflated. A state of affairs can be intrinsically good (e.g. the virtuous being happy), but certain things can be intrinsically good for a person, a constitutive element in his or her welfare. These notions do not come together, as Kant's example of the prosperous but evil individual manifestly indicates: intuitively, such a state of affairs is in itself intrinsically bad but is nonetheless intrinsically good for, i.e. beneficial to, the prosperous individual. Any virtue ethics needs to keep these concepts distinct.
Conclusion
Authors: Slote Michael
Published: October 2003

A commonsense virtue ethics can contribute to moral education by pointing out the importance of self‐regarding virtues. That importance is often ignored or neglected in school ”values” curricula.
A Derivation of Consequentialism
Authors: Cummiskey David
Published: October 2003

This chapter argues that consequentialism provides a natural and straightforward interpretation of the formula of the end‐in‐itself. We treat rational nature as an end, and not a mere means, by promoting, first, the conditions necessary for the flourishing of rational nature and, second, the conditions necessary for the realization of the permissible ends of others. Although it is commonplace to assume that deontological constraints treat humanity as an end‐in‐itself, in fact, Kant provides no argument at all for agent‐centered or agent‐relative constraints on the maximization of agent‐neutral value. Indeed, Kant's argument (developed in Ch. 4) for the conclusion that rational nature is an end‐in‐itself just as easily implies that we should maximize the realization of morally objective ends. We must thus look elsewhere in Kant's theory for the promised refutation of consequentialism.
Introduction
Authors: Annas Julia
Published: October 2003

The book's methodology is set out: we must be critically aware of the theoretical assumptions we bring to the study of ancient ethics, or we risk importing anachronism. The limits of the ancient evidence should also be respected. We must also be aware of the structures of modern ethical theories and prepared to find that ancient theories differ. The ancient traditions and their major sources are listed: Aristotle, Stoics, Sceptics, Cyrenaics, Epicurus and hybrid theories.
The Virtues
Authors: Annas Julia
Published: October 2003

Virtue in ancient ethics is discussed from several perspectives. Virtues are dispositions with an affective aspect, involving the emotions, and an intellectual aspect, involving the development of practical reasoning and raising the issue of the unity of the virtues. The development of virtue may involve imitation of role models, or following rules and principles. The relation of virtue to right action and to supererogation is explored, as is the book's claim that virtue can be taken as the focus of what modern theories take to be morality.
Aristotelian Responses
Authors: Annas Julia
Published: October 2003

Later hybrid theories in Antiochus and Arius Didymus restate an Aristotelian position on the insufficiency of virtue for happiness, with some attempted compromise with the Stoic view, but these attempts, though interesting, are not successful.
Problems of Structure
Authors: Nagel Thomas
Published: October 2003

The main influence of the personal standpoint in determining acceptability concerns the character of individual life within the framework of the basic structure – how personal aims, interests, and commitments are left free to influence the conduct of life. If the personal standpoint could be satisfactorily accommodated for each individual in this domain, it might be possible to neutralize any further claims made by those with advantages in favor of a basic structure under which they would fare better than they could under a strongly egalitarian system. However, the problem of individual motivation remains a pressing obstacle for the impersonal desire for equality.
Rights
Authors: Nagel Thomas
Published: October 2003

In contrast to the difficulties faced by the pursuit of equality, the protection for each individual of a sphere of personal autonomy is the object of a well‐developed and effective tradition of ethical and institutional design. Its main resource is the definition and protection of individual rights. The recognition of a system of rights is a moral and social practice that permits some of the relations between persons to be governed by pure procedural justice (i.e., whatever outcomes result from the interaction of people who do not violate those rights are regarded as morally acceptable). Other values besides autonomy or individuality itself influence the design of such practices, and some rights are, to an important extent, instrumental in their justification.
Limits: The World
Authors: Nagel Thomas
Published: October 2003

It is a consequence of this account of political legitimacy that legitimate government will not always be possible. If fundamental interests or values are too radically opposed, it may be impossible to find enough common impartial motivation to support a framework within which all reasonable parties must agree they should be resolved. The license individuals have to concentrate on their own lives and those they specially care about is morally unproblematic, only if they can exercise it in the context of a just social order, which gives expression to their moral impersonal motives without encroaching unacceptably on the personal domain.
Value
Authors: Richardson John
Published: October 2003

This chapter examines Nietzsche's values and weighs the extent to which these do and do not break radically from the values of his philosophical predecessors. I try to specify how his stance “beyond good and evil” involves critiques both of the content of earlier values, and of their force. His disagreements over content raise troubling questions about his politics (in his promotion of inequality and rank order) and his ethics (in his stress on “having enemies,” and in his infamous views about women). His disagreements over the force of earlier values raise metaethical questions about how he can propose any values, given e.g., his denials of free will and of the efficacy of reflective consciousness. The chapter offers answers to these problems about his values.
Postwar Instability
Authors: Eichengreen Barry
Published: October 2003

The chapter covers the postwar boom and slump, which provided a first indication of how radically the environment had changed since before World War I, although contemporaries did not appreciate its lessons adequately. The different sections of the chapter look at the transition to generalized floating of exchange rates, the postwar boom and the postwar slump (1919–1921), and the aftermath of these.
Crisis and Opportunity
Authors: Eichengreen Barry
Published: October 2003

This is the third of three chapters that consider the operation of the reconstructed gold standard system following World War I. It describes the desperate attempts of policy makers to defend the gold standard and analyzes their role in aggravating the Great Depression. At the same time, it suggests that the collapse of the system provided new opportunities for constructive action. The Chinese character for ‘crisis’ combines the symbols for ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity’, and the point made in this chapter (Crisis and Opportunity) is much the same. The different sections of the chapter look at the links between domestic and international financial systems, the Austrian crisis of 1931 (which led, in effect, to it no longer being part of the gold standard system), the spread of the crisis to other countries, the abandonment of the gold standard by Britain, and the implications – which were that the stage had now been set for the collapse of the gold standard system.
Equality: Abilities and Marginal Utility
Authors: Hurka Thomas
Published: October 2003

Some versions of perfectionism, e.g., Plato's and Nietzsche's, are antiegalitarian, but this is often because of claims about desert or maximax aggregation, which the best perfectionism rejects. And this perfectionism can give at least qualified support to distributive equality by arguing that people's natural abilities are fairly close to equal and that there is diminishing marginal utility of resources, in that these are more important for enabling moderate perfection than for allowing improvements from there to the highest heights. Both these empirical claims are made more plausible by the Aristotelian values defended earlier in the book, especially those involving formal measures of theoretical and practical perfection.
The Nature of Necessity, Chapter VIII
Authors: Plantinga Alvin
Published: October 2003

The Classical Argument for possible nonexistent objects depends on both the possibility of singular negative existentials and the Ontological Principle. The Ontological Principle is the principle that any world in which a singular proposition is true, is one in which there is such a thing as its subject, or in which its subject has being if not existence. In this chapter, I show that the Ontological Principle is false and that whatever plausibility it enjoys is explained by the truth of a similar principle, namely, the Restricted Ontological Principle (which is the Ontological Principle applied only to predicative singular propositions). Thus, the Classical Argument fails. Moreover, I give an account of how fictional names function in order to show that statements about fictional subjects, for example, “Othello is a Moor”, do not express predicative singular propositions.
On Existentialism
Authors: Plantinga Alvin
Published: October 2003

Existentialism is the claim that quidditative properties and singular propositions are ontologically dependent upon the individuals they involve. In this essay, I consider two arguments for existentialism and find them both unconvincing. I then give an argument against the existential thesis that singular propositions are ontologically dependent on contingent objects. I conclude the essay by defending my argument against potential existentialist objections. In the process, I defend the claim that serious actualism – i.e., the view that no object could have had a property without existing – is true.
Why Propositions Cannot Be Concrete
Authors: Plantinga Alvin
Published: October 2003

In this chapter, a segment from my book Warrant and Proper Function, I argue that propositions cannot be concrete objects. In particular, I examine various ways in which the concretist might explain what it is for a proposition to be possible or necessary. I then demonstrate that the concretist is forced either to count far too many propositions as necessary or hold that blatant contradictions are possible. I conclude the chapter by suggesting that abstract objects, such as propositions, can stand in causal relations. Thus, the fact that propositions are not concrete does not entail the falsity of the causal requirement – i.e., the requirement that a knower stands in a causal relation to the object of knowledge.
Living High and Letting Die: A Puzzle About Behavior Toward People in Great Need
Authors: Unger Peter
Published: October 2003

This chapter examines both the nature of our Basic Moral Values and the disagreement between Preservationists and Liberationists on when it is wrong not to aid. Basic Moral Values divide into primary values and secondary values: whereas the former specify what our moral motivations should be when we deliberate about what we morally ought to do, the latter point to our epistemic responsibility to know certain nonmoral facts about our situation when deliberating about what we morally ought to do. When our responses to different moral cases depend upon the conspicuousness to us of another's suffering, these responses reflect little about our Basic Moral Values. Our intuitions for such cases promote a distorted conception of our primary values. When this distortion is rectified, we may appreciate the Liberationist claim that it is as wrong not to alleviate distant suffering as it is not to lessen nearby or conspicuous suffering.
Between Some Rocks and Some Hard Places: On Causing and Preventing Serious Loss
Authors: Unger Peter
Published: October 2003

The distortional psychological tendencies that promote misleading responses to moral cases not linked to lessening distant suffering are difficult to identify given the complexities in accounting for our responses to cases of ethically serious causal conflict. This difficulty lessens when we consider several‐option moral problems with at least two ‘active’ options rather than classic two‐option cases like the trolley problem, which distinguish between initiating and allowing. The features of several‐option cases liberate us from the influence of constraining factors that inhibit us from responding positively to loss‐lessening behavior. Whereas these highly subjective constraining factors, like protophysical thinking and projective separating, generate distorted moral responses, their positive counterparts, like projective grouping, show that since each person whom an agent's conduct might affect has an equal claim on his or her conduct, by his or her conduct there must occur the least serious suffering possible.
Heaven, Morality, and the Meaning of Life
Authors: Walls Jerry L.
Published: October 2003

It is argued that naturalistic views of reality undermine both morality and meaning – naturalism has difficulty not only in making sense of altruism but also in providing us with deeply persuasive moral motivation, motivation that is not only sustained in the face of reflective awareness but is even strengthened by it. Reflective awareness in this sense requires an understanding of morality in relation to basic ontological commitments, ranging from cosmology to what one believes about the ultimate origin and nature of moral feelings. To sustain deeply persuasive motivation in the light of reflective awareness requires a rationally convincing account of obligation, and without this sort of moral motivation, life loses much of its depth of meaning; conversely, without depth of meaning, moral motivation suffers. By contrast with naturalism, it is shown how orthodox Christian faith, particularly in its doctrine of heaven, both underwrites morality and charges our lives with depth of meaning. It provides resources that allow us to be fully, rationally reflective in our commitment to the moral life, and explains why we are genuinely obligated to do what is right, and why any rational person should be moral.
Cartesian Truth
Authors: Vinci Thomas C.
Published: October 2003

Written in the tradition of analytic reconstruction, Cartesian Truth provides a systematic reinterpretation of central themes in Descartes's epistemology, metaphysics and ontology, theory of perception, both philosophical and empirical, logic, and doctrine of method. For example, it shows how the intuitive and syllogistic aspects of the cogito relate to one another and that Descartes's case for substance dualism depends on the intuitive cogito. It further argues that Descartes employs a single pattern of reasoning based on the ”rule of truth” in all of his major existential proofs, including the proofs of his own existence, God, and the external world; that the rule of truth can be regarded as a conservative extension of the intuitive cogito. Grounded in a reinterpretation of the theory of ideas and Descartes's notion of cause, a case is made that the causal principle of the objective reality of our ideas can be regarded as a reformulation of the rule of truth. The book also provides a detailed reconstruction of Descartes's doctrine of sense perception, including the difficult doctrine of the material falsity of ideas of the senses (”secondary qualities”) but also arguing that Descartes countenances a phenomenological dimension to the sense experience of primary qualities that he attributes to the faculty of imagination, and that the phenomenology is influenced by reasoning and undergoes development from the experience of the child to that of the adult. A case is made that the phenomenology of experience provides material for the systematic errors of commonsense; but a case is also made that the senses and the imagination provide not only material for error but a sensory foundationalism expressed in the notion (explicitly formulated for the first time in the Principles of Philosophy) of clear but not distinct ideas of the senses. An error theory is an important tool in the inventory of revisionary philosophers, more dialectically potent than Descartes's method of doubt as traditionally understood. In the context of contemporary epistemology, the author shows how Cartesian error theory can function as part of a notion of epistemic responsibility in an effective method for dealing with claims of dogmatic opponents, in a way well illustrated by Descartes's own use of the method against his scholastic and commonsense realist opponents.
Self Knowledge and the Rule of Truth
Authors: Vinci Thomas C.
Published: October 2003

Basic Cartesian intuitions are directed at simple natures, not truths; but intuitions are also a foundation for propositional knowledge. There are two basic objectives of this chapter: (1) to show how Descartes gets from intuitions to propositional knowledge, and (2) to show how his solution to this problem structures his thinking on the main issues in Cartesian epistemology. I maintain that the solution to (1) is to be found in the principle if we perceive the presence of an attribute A, there must be an actually existing substance to which A is attributed. This principle gets its clearest expression in the Principles of Philosophy but also appears in the Rules for the Direction of the Mind and in the Meditations where, I argue, it appears in the form of the Rule of Truth. I show how this principle is derived from the cogito, understood both as inference and as intuition, how this principle plays a role in Descartes theory of consciousness and self‐knowledge, in the case for substance dualism, and in the theory of clear and distinct ideas.
Why Is Death Bad?
Authors: Kamm F. M.
Published: October 2003

Examines the question of why death is bad: is it bad for the person who dies, and, if so, why? The question of what the scientific criteria should be for the person who dies is dealt with later in the book. The discussion is based on an assumption that death is painless, not untimely, and involves no afterlife or return to life, only posthumous non‐existence; it also assumes that the concern is with why death is bad for the person who dies rather than any people who remain alive, and that even if everyone died at once, something worse has happened to each person than would have happened if that person and everyone else had lived instead. The approach taken to the question by Epicurus (How can death be bad for anyone at all?) and Thomas Nagel's response to this (his ‘Deprivation Account’) are examined, and then various criticisms of Nagel's approach are presented and discussed. Additional objections to Nagel's approach are considered in the next chapter.
Accounting for Asymmetry?
Authors: Kamm F. M.
Published: October 2003

Offers a final proposal on the two questions of the question of why death is bad, and whether it is worse than prenatal non‐existence (the asymmetry thesis); it is concerned with whether there are properties observable from a view outside life, rather from within it, that help explain why death is worse than prenatal non‐existence, and if so, whether these properties must make non‐existence‐in‐the‐future different from non‐existence‐in‐the‐past in ways other than just that it is in the future. The chapter is also concerned with what more we can say about the fact, or beliefs about the fact, that something exists in the future that will help illuminate the explanatory role of this fact. Many of the factors that may explain why death is really worse depend on asymmetries related to time: the (supposed) fact that causation has a direction (forward), so that the past affects the future, but the future does not affect the past; the (supposed) fact that there is a direction in time, from past to future; and the fact that there is a before and after in the passage of time. However, some of these features may not be objective at all, rather, they may be features of the subjective view of those who are observing another's life from the outside, and if this were so, the asymmetrical features dependent on the asymmetries related to time and causation might explain the asymmetrical attitude, but they might not justify it. The chapter comes to focus on three factors: the Insult Factor, that death happens to a person who has already existed and undoes him; the Future Deprivation Factor, that death deprives the person who dies of significant future goods (the Thomas Nagel/Derek Parfit point); and the Extinction Factor, that death means the possibility of anything significant for the person in the future is over.
Are There Irrelevant Utilities?
Authors: Kamm F. M.
Published: October 2003

Examines cases in which the choice faced is not between different numbers of lives but between equal numbers of lives when saving one group but not the other would be accompanied by some additional lesser good; the aim is to investigate whether and under what conditions substitution of equivalents and aggregation are incorrect and, accordingly, under what conditions additional utilities (goods) should be irrelevant to the choice made. Distinctions are made between direct and indirect need for aid and between extra utilities that would come to persons whose lives are at stake and those whose lives are not at stake; distinctions are also made between different types of irrelevance — one type based on different spheres of interest and considerations of fairness, and the other on relative insignificance of effect. Five principles for the second type of irrelevance, describing which extra utilities should be relevant and why (the Principle of Irrelevant Utility), are examined in this chapter and the following two (Chs 9 and 10); cases are dealt with in which not only each person has a right to have his life preserved, but also in which we merely take an interest in each person's special interest in his own survival; these three chapters also re‐examine the justification for counting numbers of lives. In connection with defending the Principle of Irrelevant Utility, the concept of ‘Sobjectivity’ is introduced, and a detailed description given of how subjective and objective, personal and impersonal, and partial and impartial perspectives interrelate when decisions are being made as to which extra utilities to count and which not to count. Ch. 8 looks at one possible justification for the Principle of Irrelevant Utility: that concerned with the particular combination of the objective and subjective that is to do with how we view the interests of those involved, here designated Sobjectivity1; it makes the point that we should not always make the move to substituting equivalents, since that move is not necessarily appropriate in those cases where, in helping one side, we can do all the good that we would do if we helped the other, as well as additional good.
Sobjectivity: Aggregation and Scales of Equivalents and Cost
Authors: Kamm F. M.
Published: October 2003

Continues the exploration of ‘Sobjectivity’ addressed in Ch. 8 and 9 as applied to justifying the Principle of Irrelevant Utility with respect to the question of saving different groups of lives, and advances two more combinations of objective and subjective views, here designated ‘Sobjectivism4’ and ‘Sobjectivism5’. Sobjectivism4 is a move in the direction of aggregating significantly lesser losses of life, and distinguishes costs from equivalents; Sobjectivism3 (presented in Ch. 8) in combination with Sobjectivism4 is viewed as most accurately representing commonsense morality (rather than Sobjectivity1 (Ch. 8) or Sobjectivism2 (Ch. 9)). In the fifth type of Sobjectivity, Sobjectivism5, everything of concern to individuals is always allowed to be aggregated on the scale of equivalents, no matter how small — the approach is just straightforwardly utilitarian in aggregating everything. Overall, the chapter contrasts the permissibility of aggregating certain extra utilities as costs that inhibit the saving of lives with the impermissibility of aggregating these extra utilities as equivalents to and so substitutable for lives. The results obtained on irrelevant utilities are applied to the paradox of group beneficence, and the distinction between extra utility that is distributed over many people whose lives are not at stake and extra utility that is concentrated on the person whose life is at stake is considered further; in conclusion, a brief comparison is made between Sobjectivity and contractualist moral reasoning.
The Gnostic Body
Authors: Wallace Vesna A.
Published: October 2003

This chapter looks at the Kālacakratantra and the Kālacakra tradition as a Buddhist gnostic system. To do this it examines the various ways in which the tantric system interprets gnosis and its functions, and delineates the practices for actualizing it. The different sections of the chapter discuss the individual in relation to gnosis; gnosis as the all‐pervading mind and as the four bodies of the Buddha; gnosis and mental afflictions; gnosis and karma; and gnosis and sexual bliss.
The Significance of Tarski's Theory of Truth
Authors: Soames Scott
Published: October 2003

Can Tarski's definition of truth be taken to be an analysis of truth – i.e., a method of defining formal truth predicates that are capable of playing the role of truth in all theoretical contexts in which that notion is needed? It is argued that although Tarski's truth predicates can play many of the roles demanded of truth, they cannot play the role of truth in theories of meaning and interpretation. Crucial to the argument is the observation that there is a conceptual connection between our ordinary notions of truth and meaning, in virtue of which statements of the truth conditions of sentences provide some information about their meanings. Since there is no corresponding connection between Tarski's notion of truth and the notion of meaning, statements of the Tarski‐truth conditions of sentences provide no information about meaning. The chapter closes with a detailed defense of Tarski's model‐theoretic analysis of logical truth and logical consequence against John Etchemendy's objections to it.
What Is Truth?
Authors: Soames Scott
Published: October 2003

An attempt is made to articulate a broad philosophical perspective on truth, incorporating important insights of Tarski and Kripke, without their artificial restrictions on the bearers of truth. Among these insights none is more important than their essentially deflationist conception of truth. For Tarski and Kripke, truth is not a contentious metaphysical or epistemological notion, and a successful analysis of it should not be laden with controversial philosophical consequences. Rather, the content of the claim that a putative truth bearer is true is equivalent (in a sense to be made precise) to that of the truth bearer itself, a fact that endows the truth predicate with important practical and theoretical utility. The chapter closes with the examination of a range of deflationary theories of truth that attempt to incorporate this insight – e.g., the classical redundancy theory of truth, Peter Strawson's performative theory of truth, and Paul Horwich's minimalist theory of truth – and an attempt to separate what is correct, and worth preserving, in them from what is not.
Public Vision, Private Lives
Authors: Cladis Mark S.
Published: October 2003

Cladis reflects on the nature and place of the public and private in the work of Rousseau and, more generally, in democratic society. The tension between the hopes and desires of the individual and the requirements of a shared public life was at the heart, or the knot, of Rousseau's life and thought. Cladis leads the reader on an exploration of the conflicting claims with which Rousseau wrestled – prerogatives and obligations to self, friends, family, vocation, civic life, and humanity. At the juncture of diverse theological and secular traditions, including Enlightenment optimism and Augustinian pessimism, Rousseau forged a vision of human happiness found not exclusively in the public or private, but in a complex combination of the two.

In Part I, Cladis employs the Garden–Fall myth to narrate Rousseau's rather dismal account of the human journey into social life. Yet, contrary to most interpreters of Rousseau, Cladis maintains that if we categorically identify the natural with the good and the social with evil, we fail to do justice to Rousseau's provocative account of our joy and sorrow in solitude and community. Part II explores the limits and possibilities of Rousseau's three paths to partial redemption – the public path (the reformed society), the private path (the escape into solitude), and the tense, middle way between them.

Throughout this study, Cladis listens closely to the religious pitch in Rousseau's voice. He shows that Rousseau, when attempting to portray the most characteristic aspects of the public and private, reached for a religious vocabulary. Honoring both love of self and love of that which is larger than the self – these twin poles, with all the tension between them – mark Rousseau's work, vision, and challenge – the challenge of twenty‐first century democracy.
The City
Authors: Cladis Mark S.
Published: October 2003

Explores analytically the very idea of the state of nature, the inevitability of the Fall, and the nature and origin of moral and physical evil. What is the purpose of Rousseau's state of nature: a scientific, historical account of humans’ prehistory; an eternally valid account of human psychology and sociology; a measuring rod in the hands of a social critic; a fantasy for the nostalgic; a metaphor of solitude; an argument against Hobbes? Rather than having to decide between these, each is explored to see whether Rousseau did not put the state of nature to many uses. The rest of the chapter explores the nature of evil and human culpability in the context of a fall that begins with practical inevitability and ends with limited autonomy.