bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Trying, Deserving, Succeeding
Authors: Hurka Thomas
Published: October 2003

Chapters 8–10 discuss the measurement of individual perfections, especially the theoretical and practical perfection that realize theoretical and practical rationality. This chapter introduces the basic structure of this measurement, which looks both to the number of certain states a person has – beliefs for theoretical perfection, intentions for practical perfection – and their score on a dimension of quality. It then elaborates on the dimension of number by discussing the further conditions a state must meet to count for perfection. Are all beliefs of a person relevant, or only those that are true, justified, or both? Do all the ends he intends count, or only those he achieves, is justified in believing he will achieve, or both? Discussion of these alternatives raises issues about romanticism, prudence, relations between the mind and world, and more.
Unity and Complexity
Authors: Hurka Thomas
Published: October 2003

Continues the discussion of theoretical and practical perfection by examining the considerations that give some beliefs and intentions more quality and therefore value than others. It argues that Aristotelian considerations about rationality as essential to humans require measures of quality to be formal, considering only formal properties of beliefs and ends rather than their substantive content. There are two such measures: the extent of a belief's or end's content in space, time, and objects involved, and the degree to which different beliefs and ends are organized in a hierarchical structure. Together, these measures value explanatorily organized knowledge, a unified life, and complex, difficult activities such as games.
Politics, Co‐Operation, and Love
Authors: Hurka Thomas
Published: October 2003

Concludes the discussion of theoretical and practical perfection by connecting formal measures of extent and hierarchical organization to further specific values in political action, cooperation, and mutual love. (The chapter also continues to develop the two rational perfections in parallel, with parallel measures for each.) It concludes by answering objections to the account and connecting it to historical perfectionists such as Aristotle, Leibniz, Nietzsche, and Bradley.
Liberty
Authors: Hurka Thomas
Published: October 2003

The book's final three chapters address the common objection that perfectionism is unacceptable because it is hostile to the central political values of liberty and equality. This chapter argues that perfectionism can give considerable positive support to liberty if it treats autonomous choice as a perfection, as there are independent reasons to do, and emphasizes how little the state can do to promote a person's perfection; as Green and others emphasize, that is mostly for him to do. The result is not an absolute commitment to the “harm principle” but considerable support. The chapter concludes by contrasting perfectionism's commitment to liberty with its rejection of the stronger ideal of state neutrality, which forbids even noncoercive promotion of the good; perfectionism strongly favors such promotion.
Equality: Co‐Operation and the Market
Authors: Hurka Thomas
Published: October 2003

This chapter further develops the perfectionist case for distributive equality by arguing that different people's perfections do not compete but often cooperate, so one person's achieving perfection encourages or requires others to do so. This cooperativeness is the core of Marx's argument for distributive equality and strengthens the case from natural abilities and diminishing marginal utility given in Ch. 12. The chapter then considers perfectionist arguments of Green and Bosanquet for private property and the free market, arguing that while these have some merit they do not overturn the general perfectionist case for equality; its arguments here echo those of Hobhouse.
When National Politics Met Crime
Authors: Gest Ted
Published: October 2003

Crime first became a major national issue in the 1964 presidential contest between incumbent Democrat Lyndon Johnson and Republican challenger Barry Goldwater. The rising crime rates prompted Goldwater to speak frequently about the problem. Johnson won the election handily, but he recognized the seriousness of the issue and named a blue‐ribbon commission on law enforcement and the administration of justice to study it. The study panel was resisted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director J. Edgar Hoover, but it proceeded nevertheless. The commission's 1967 report laid out a compelling critique of the criminal justice system but watered down many of its long list of recommendations. Still, it established the groundwork for shifting anticrime policy from what had been predominantly a local issue to a federal focus.
The Rise and Fall of LEAA
Authors: Gest Ted
Published: October 2003

A major federal anticrime agency had its roots in an Office of Law Enforcement Assistance established in the presidency of Lyndon Johnson. The agency was enacted into law in a wide‐ranging crime law enacted in 1968. Its name was changed to the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA); its purpose was to distribute federal aid to state and local criminal justice programs. But Congress ordered the agency to be headed by an unwieldy troika of administrators. A succession of leaders over a decade frequently changed policy directions, setting an erratic course while spending almost $1 billion annually in some years. The agency funded some pioneering programs, such as units in prosecutors’ offices to help crime victims and witnesses. Eventually, however, its programs lacked sufficient proof of significant impact on the crime problem or the justice system. President Jimmy Carter proposed its elimination in 1980 and Congress agreed.
The “Get‐Tough” 1980s
Authors: Gest Ted
Published: October 2003

By 1980, the violence rate had reached its highest level in memory, including a modern record of more than 23,000 homicides. The victor in the presidential race that year, Ronald Reagan, was surrounded by key supporters and advisers who wanted to make crime a high administration priority. The administration named a violent crime task force that called in August 1981 for a stronger federal role and changes in the law to favor the prosecution side. Three years later, a coalition of Republicans and moderate Democrats used a parliamentary maneuver to enact the most far‐ranging federal anticrime law in 16 years. Key players in pushing the anticrime agenda included Republicans like Edwin Meese, a longtime Reagan aide who later became Attorney General; Representative Dan Lungren of California, and prosecutor/crime victims advocate Lois Herrington; on the Democratic side were Senators Joseph Biden of Delaware and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, and Representative William Hughes of New Jersey. An important provision of the law was a requirement that “sentencing guidelines” restrict federal judges’ power to set penalties in criminal cases. Others created a federal fund to support programs that aided crime victims and set up a “forfeiture” procedure by which law enforcers could seize the assets of suspects and convicts.
Making a Federal Case of It
Authors: Gest Ted
Published: October 2003

Over the years, Congress has consistently increased the jurisdiction of federal courts over crime, from 17 specified offenses when the nation was founded to several thousand now. More than 40% of federal criminal provisions enacted since the Civil War have appeared since 1970. The most dramatic growth was in drug cases, which composed 5% of the federal caseload in 1947 but amounted to 36 percent just 50 years later. An Armed Career Criminal Act in 1984 allowed federal prosecutors to charge suspects who had three local felony convictions. Later laws made carjacking a federal crime and gave the FBI authority over “deadbeat dads” who cross state lines and terrorism involving abortion clinics. A few measures were struck down by the Supreme Court, including one involving use of firearms at schools and another allowing federal civil cases by sexual‐assault victims. In the executive branch, the administration of President George H. W. Bush created a program called ‘Operation Triggerlock’ to pursue firearms cases, and both Bush and successor Bill Clinton directed the FBI to put more emphasis on investigating local violent crime. By 2001, the federal government had taken a prominent role in many categories of crime prosecution that once were the province of states and localities.
Capitol Crime Extravaganza
Authors: Gest Ted
Published: October 2003

The high crime rates of the early 1990s and a string of sensational crimes from coast to coast set the stage in 1994 for the most extensive and costly federal anticrime bill ever. Bill Clinton had made crime fighting a top priority, particularly after his health care reform bill had faltered. Congress had taken the initiative, led by Democrats Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware and Representative Charles Schumer of New York. The Democrats came up with a way to put $30 billion for anticrime programs into a ‘trust fund’ created by a reduction in the federal bureaucracy. Soon it seemed that Clinton's 100,000 community police officers, a Republican demand for more prisons, and various other programs to combat violence against women and other crime problems all could be funded. Republicans backed off support of big allocations for crime prevention ideas like ‘midnight basketball’ for teens, and the National Rifle Association fought against a proposed ban on assault‐style weapons. The result was a donnybrook that kept Congress in session through most of the summer. Republicans eventually won a series of concessions on funding, although the assault weapon provision survived and the law was passed. In the process, Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill was seen as so flawed that the crime law played a significant part in the Republicans’ seizing control of the House of Representatives in the 1994 elections. Five years later, the crime law's impact on crime rates was uncertain; in fact, crime had begun to fall long before many of its provisions could have had much effect.
Essays in the Metaphysics of Modality
Authors: Plantinga Alvin
Published: October 2003

This book is a collection of my essays, dating from 1969, concerning the metaphysics of modality. The first two chapters are a defense of the idea of modality de re against criticisms from William Kneale and W. V. Quine, and an elaboration on the notions of possible worlds and essences. In the third chapter, I conclude that the Theory of Worldbound Individuals is false, even when fortified with Counterpart Theory. Chapter 4 contains an argument for the conclusion that there neither are, nor could have been, possible but nonexistent objects. In the next chapter, I develop this theme in greater detail and argue for the compatibility of actualism – i.e., the view that there neither are, nor could have been, any nonexistent objects – and possible worlds. Both Chs. 6 and 7 contain an account of the relationship between proper names and essences, my view being that proper names express essences and that sometimes different proper names for the same object express different essences of that object. The end of Ch. 7 and all of Ch. 8 are an examination of existentialism (the theory that propositions and states of affairs ontologically depend on their subjects) and arguments against it. In Ch. 9, I defend my theory of modality against objections raised by John Pollock. In Ch. 10, I sketch out what the commitments of modal realism are, and argue that David Lewis's modal theory is not a modal realist theory. Finally, in the concluding chapter I argue that propositions cannot be concrete objects.
Transworld Identity or Worldbound Individuals?
Authors: Plantinga Alvin
Published: October 2003

The Theory of Worldbound Individuals (T.W.I.) is the view that each object exists in just one possible world. In this chapter, I argue that (a) there is no good reason to accept T.W.I. and (b) T.W.I. has implausible consequences. I begin by demonstrating that traditional arguments for T.W.I., including the Problem of Transworld Identification, are based on confusion and do not pose problems for the thesis that objects exist in more than one possible world. In the final section of the chapter, I argue that T.W.I. entails that every object has all of its properties essentially. Moreover, T.W.I. entails this even if it is fortified with David Lewis's Counterpart Theory.
Actualism and Possible Worlds
Authors: Plantinga Alvin
Published: October 2003

In this essay, I defend the compatibility of actualism – i.e., the view that there neither are, nor could have been, any nonexistent objects – and possible worlds. I begin by demonstrating how on the Canonical Conception of possible worlds one is committed to the idea that there are, or could have been, nonexistent objects. I then develop an actualist conception of possible worlds, properties, and essences. In particular, I deny that properties are set theoretical entities; something that the Canonical Conception endorses. Finally, I provide an actualist understanding of propositions such as there could have an object distinct from each object that actually exists – an understanding that does not commit one to belief in nonexistent objects.
The Boethian Compromise
Authors: Plantinga Alvin
Published: October 2003

The Fregean view of proper names is that proper names express properties. I begin the essay by pointing out the inadequacies of anti‐Fregean views with respect to puzzles presented by empty proper names, negative existentials containing proper names, and by propositional identity in the context of propositional attitudes. I then develop the Boethian view, which claims that (1) proper names do indeed express properties, (2) proper names express essences, and (3) different proper names of an object can express logically equivalent but epistemically inequivalent essences of that object. The Boethian view is a compromise because it holds that proper names only express essences and that the reference of proper names, in at least some cases, is determined in the way the anti‐Fregeans suggest. Finally, in light of the Boethian compromise, I revise my account of proper names given in The Nature of Necessity , and endorse the position that different proper names of the same object can express different essences.
Replies to My Colleagues
Authors: Plantinga Alvin
Published: October 2003

In this essay, I consider several objections raised by John Pollock against my account of modality. I define possibilism – i.e., the view that there is a property that does not entail existence, but is entailed by every property – and then give a more adequate definition of actualism based on its disagreement with possibilism. Pollock argues that the property of nonexistence is such that objects exemplify it in worlds in which they do not exist and based on this fact concludes that serious actualism is false. I give an argument that nonexistence is necessarily unexemplified and a separate argument for the conclusion that serious actualism is true. I conclude the essay by arguing that it does make a difference whether we accept existentialism or essentialism.
Privacy, Intimacy, and Isolation
Authors: Inness Julie C.
Published: October 2003

From the Supreme Court to the bedroom, privacy is an intensely contested interest in our everyday lives and privacy law. Some people appeal to privacy to protect such critical areas as abortion, sexuality, and personal information. Yet, privacy skeptics argue that there is no such thing as a right to privacy. I argue that we cannot abandon the concept of privacy. If we wish to avoid extending this elusive concept to cover too much of our lives or shrinking it to cover too little, we must come to understand it. After exploring the privacy arguments of philosophers and constitutional and tort privacy law, I argue for a new definition of privacy and an explanation of its value that clarifies and resolves many of our conflicts. Privacy is critical because it allows us to protect a realm in which we can have intimate relations with others.
Introduction: The Chaotic World of Privacy
Authors: Inness Julie C.
Published: October 2003

Why is privacy important enough to pay attention to in the first place? In this chapter, I explore the importance of privacy. Which privacy definitions should we reject? Which definition of privacy should we accept? What is the value of privacy?
Common Debates in the Philosophical and Legal Privacy Literature
Authors: Inness Julie C.
Published: October 2003

Are there any common threads to the legal and philosophic privacy arguments? Careful exploration of the legal and philosophical privacy debates reveals that they express common concerns and that a framework for thinking about the definition and value of privacy can be constructed from them. In this chapter, I show how this framework emerges from thinking about such theorists as Anita Allen, Ferdinand Schoeman, and William Prosser.
Beyond Isolation: A Control‐Based Account of Privacy
Authors: Inness Julie C.
Published: October 2003

It is often argued that privacy is antithetical to publicity, that it works by separating the individual from others, restricting the access others have to particular areas of her life. While thinking of privacy in terms of separation may appear inescapable, there is an alternative: privacy may function by providing the individual with control over certain aspects in her life. Faced with this rift between separation and control‐based definitions of privacy, I argue that privacy should be understood in terms of control over a realm of our lives.
Information, Access, or Intimate Decisions About Our Actions? The Content of Privacy
Authors: Inness Julie C.
Published: October 2003

Someone possesses privacy to the extent that she has control over certain aspects of her life. What is the content of privacy? Does privacy regulate information about ourselves, access to ourselves, or does it focus on intimate decisions about our actions? Philosophers such as James Rachels, Ruth Gavison, and the Supreme Court all disagree about the scope of privacy. I suggest that the various areas protected by privacy are linked by the common denominator of intimacy – privacy's content covers intimate information, access, and decisions.
Personhood or Close Relationships? The Value of Privacy
Authors: Inness Julie C.
Published: October 2003

Privacy provides us with control over intimate decisions, such as becoming a parent. These decisions are intimate because they derive their meaning and value from our love and liking. The privacy literature contains two differing arguments about the value of privacy. Privacy might be valuable because of consequentialist reasons – it promotes the creation of close relationships. There is also a deontological account of privacy's value – privacy is valuable because agents are free beings. I suggest that privacy is valuable because it acknowledges our respect for persons as autonomous beings with the capacity to love, care, and like.
Intimacy‐Based Privacy: The Answer to Legal Privacy Debates
Authors: Inness Julie C.
Published: October 2003

Since the legal evolution of privacy in the work of such diverse individuals as Samuel Warren, Louis Brandeis, and Estelle Griswold, the contentious realm of tort and constitution privacy law has continued to grow. Despite, or perhaps because of, the rapid growth of privacy law, the right to privacy has been, and continues to be, widely criticized by thinkers such as Hyman Gross and William Prosser. According to my account, intimacy is the feature that links together much tort and constitutional privacy law.
The Common Mind
Authors: Pettit Philip
Published: October 2003

This book is in three sections, with two chapters in each. It begins with questions of psychology: questions to do with what it means to be an intentional agent and, in particular, what it means to be an agent with the capacity for thought. Having sketched an overall view of the intentional, thinking agent, it then goes on to explore the difference that social life makes to the mentality of such agents; in effect, it outlines a social ontology. And, having developed a picture of the mind in society – of the common or social mind – it turns, finally, to the lessons of this picture for the pursuit of social and political theory: for the explanation of what happens on the social scene and for the evaluation of the different ways in which that scene may be structured.
Intentionality
Authors: Pettit Philip
Published: October 2003

To be an intentional system, to be a system which has beliefs and desires and the like, is to be exposed perceptually to a certain sort of environment and to interact with that environment in a way that makes sense, and makes sense nonaccidentally, in belief–desire terms. There are regularities characteristic of beliefs and desires, regularities that dictate both the effect of certain sort of evidence on what beliefs and desires are maintained, and the effect of certain sorts of belief–desire profiles on what responses are evinced. Those regularities will typically identify what it is to be evidentially rational in the attitudes one holds and responsively rational in the responses one makes, though they may also point us toward obstacles that get in the way of rational performance. A system will count as an intentional agent to the extent that its interactions with its environment, or at least some of its interactions, are governed by such regularities.
Thought
Authors: Pettit Philip
Published: October 2003

A subject will be a thinking subject if and only if, among the things that it can do intentionally, it can do things that are designed to promote the prospect of its meeting various constraints of rationality – to promote the prospect of its having beliefs that are indeed true, for example, or the prospect of its performing actions that are indeed desirable. This chapter is devoted to building up a picture of what it is like for an intentional system to be, not just intentional, but capable of thought – to be a subject like one of us. I identify two crucial requirements that must be fulfilled by any thinking system and most of the chapter is given to how these are met in the human case. I describe the first requirement as that of intentional ascent, the second as that of rule‐following. The discussion of rule‐following offers an “ethocentric” line on the well‐known Wittgensteinian problems.
For Individualism, Against Collectivism
Authors: Pettit Philip
Published: October 2003

The issue between individualism and collectivism is whether society involves the presence of any regularities or forces which compromise the picture of human beings as intentional agents – the picture charted in the first part of the book. Many social scientists, and many philosophers too, have suggested that did we have a full understanding of the factors at work in social life, we would realize that the common‐or‐garden, intentional image of human beings is radically mistaken. The thinkers who maintain this view are collectivists, in the terminology used here, while those who reject it, those who deny that social forces or regularities are inimical in this way to intentional autonomy or autarchy, are individualists. The chapter argues the case for individualism, contrasting it with the core theses defended by collectivists. Many doctrines thought to be implicit in individualism, however, are quite independent of the doctrine as it is described here; thus it does not entail the atomism rejected in Ch. 4, nor the methodological individualism rejected in Ch. 5.
For Holism, Against Atomism
Authors: Pettit Philip
Published: October 2003

This issue between individualism and collectivism has to do with how far individuals are compromised from on high, by aggregate or structural factors. It is a vertical issue, as we may put it. The issue between atomism and holism, by contrast, has a horizontal character. The question bears, not on the relation between high‐level factors and individual human beings but on the relation between the individuals themselves; it is the question as to how far people's social relationships with one another are of significance in their constitution as subjects and agents. Atomists occupy an extreme position according to which it is possible for a human being to develop all the capacities characteristic of our kind in total isolation from her fellows, if indeed she has any fellows; there is no incoherence, as it is often put, in the notion of the solitary individual. Holists deny this claim, arguing that one or another distinctive capacity – usually the capacity for thought – depends in a noncausal or constitutive way on the enjoyment of social relationships. Drawing on analysis in the first part of the book, this chapter maintains that thought does require social relationships in a constitutive manner, at least if thought is to be “commonable” – accessible in principle to others.
Social Theory
Authors: Pettit Philip
Published: October 2003

What are the implications of holistic individualism for social explanation? This chapter argues that it points us toward a distinctive picture of individual‐level interpretation, under which we seek out the contents of people's thoughts – the reasons from which they implicitly or explicitly reason their way to action. It then goes on to show that nevertheless, it makes room for explanation of a sort that prescinds from such thoughts: structural and historicist explanation, which goes to high‐level or remote determinants; and rational‐choice explanation, which invokes a sort of self‐interest that has no obvious presence in day‐to‐day reasoning. Explanatory pluralism or ecumenism is quite consistent, then, with the ontological picture developed earlier.
Political Theory
Authors: Pettit Philip
Published: October 2003

There are three main sorts of theorizing found in modern political theory. First, the contract‐centered approach, which asks after the political institutions that people would choose if they were placed in a suitable position of choice. Second, the value‐centered approach, which asks after the goods or rights that institutions should realize and investigates the requirements of those values. And third, the institution‐centered approach, which takes different values and asks whether they are institutionally feasible, whether the arrangements they require can be reliably set up and sustained. The final chapter looks at each of these kinds of theorizing, exploring the impact of holistic individualism, in particular holism, on the different enterprises.
Illusions of Innocence: An Introduction
Authors: Unger Peter
Published: October 2003

Given the facility with which wealthy Western nations can reduce child mortality rates in developing countries, we should reject the view that it is not wrong to do nothing to lessen distant suffering as this view strongly conflicts with the truth about morality. This is the minority position known as Liberationism, first espoused by Peter Singer, according to which moral intuitions derive from sources far removed from basic moral values. Thus, moral intuitions (of the sort that it is acceptable not to alleviate distant suffering) not only fail to reflect those values but also often point in the opposite direction. This position contrasts with the majority view known as Preservationism, according to which our moral intuitions about particular cases reflect our basic moral values, and thus ground the claim that it is permissible not to lessen distant suffering. This chapter concludes with a brief discussion of some ethical puzzles that make the Liberationist approach more intuitively appealing.
Living High, Stealing and Letting Die: The Main Truth of Some Related Puzzles
Authors: Unger Peter
Published: October 2003

A specific distortional tendency promotes our misleading responses to many moral cases; one example is the lenient response often given to cases of distant suffering. Various factors are relevant to this distortion including futility thinking, the conspicuousness of suffering, the difference between proper property and money, and the Doctrine of Double effect, according to which harm to others either as an end or as a means is more blameworthy than harm as a mere foreseen consequence. Upon consideration, we find that none of these factors adds support to the Preservationist approach. When conduct typically regarded as objectionable – lying, promise‐breaking, cheating, stealing – are needed to lessen the serious suffering of fairly innocent people, it is morally good, though not morally required, to engage in such conduct.
Between Some Harder Rocks and Rockier Hard Places: On Distortional Separating and Revelatory Grouping
Authors: Unger Peter
Published: October 2003

This chapter considers, first, two strange psychological phenomena, and second, the distortional impact of projective separating. According to the psychological Phenomenon of No Threshold, if an action is deemed wrong by our moral intuitions, it remains wrong no matter how many people's suffering that action would alleviate. According to the Phenomenon of Near Tie‐Breaker, by contrast, to ensure a small gain in one area, it is acceptable to cause serious suffering in another area, provided that the suffering is balanced by the prevention of an equivalent amount of suffering in the first area. These conflicting phenomena, far from reflecting our basic moral principles, indicate the distortional power of projective separating (the view that we can distinguish between the persons linked to a given situation or problem and those outside that situation). Since the intuitions flowing from these conflicting phenomena cannot reflect our basic moral values, we may adopt a Liberationist view of the cases in which each of these phenomena arise.
Metaethics, Better Ethics: From Complex Semantics to Simple Decency
Authors: Unger Peter
Published: October 2003

To reconcile the unusual behavior judgments made in the preceding chapters with the more ordinary moral assessments made by most people, it is necessary to offer a semantic account of moral talk and moral thought. This semantic account is multidimensional and context sensitive. The terms that figure in moral judgments have an indexical aspect to their semantics and thus are sensitive to the contexts in which they are used, which allows the context to determine what is, for that situation, close enough to complete conformity with morality. When people seek to move outside the tough contexts set by Liberationism, a dim view rightly is taken of their mental or judgmental activity.
Causality and Explanation
Authors: Salmon Wesley C.
Published: October 2003

Brings together 26 of Salmon's essays, including 7 that have never before been published and others that are difficult to find. Part I (Introductory Essays: Causality, Determinism, and Explanation) comprises five essays that presuppose no formal training in philosophy of science and form a background for subsequent essays. Parts II (Scientific Explanation) and III (Causality) contain Salmon's seminal work on these topics. The essays in Part II present aspects of the evolution of the author's thought about scientific explanation, and include critical examination of the claim that explanations are arguments and a carefully reasoned defense of explanatory asymmetry. Those in Part III develop the details of the theory sketched in Ch. 1. This theory identifies causal connections with physical processes that transmit causal influence from one space‐time location to another, and it incorporates probabilistic features of causality, keeping open the possibility that causality operates in indeterministic contexts. Part IV (Concise Overviews) offers survey articles that discuss advanced material but remain accessible to those outside philosophy of science. Essays in Part V (Applications to Other Disciplines: Archaeology and Anthropology, Astrophysics and Cosmology, and Physics) address specific issues, in particular, scientific disciplines, including the applicability of various models of explanation.
A New Look at Causality
Authors: Salmon Wesley C.
Published: October 2003

Offers a novel approach, in terms of causal processes and causal interactions, to the fundamental philosophical problems raised by David Hume in the eighteenth century. His classic critique initiated a lively philosophical controversy that continues today. The author shows how twentieth‐century science, especially quantum mechanics with its challenges to determinism, has opened a new way to attack Hume's problems.
Comets, Pollen, and Dreams Some Reflections on Scientific Explanation
Authors: Salmon Wesley C.
Published: October 2003

Examines three basic approaches to scientific explanation (the epistemic, modal, and ontic conceptions) that have been advocated by influential writers in the second half of the twentieth century and are still held today. It shows how fundamental differences in these approaches emerge when they confront explanation in scientific contexts in which statistical laws and functional explanations play major roles. The author argues that the ontic conception, in which events are explained by showing how they fit into the physical patterns found in the world, is best equipped to handle explanations that are problematic for the other approaches.
Scientific Explanation
Authors: Salmon Wesley C.
Published: October 2003

The unification tradition embraces the idea that scientific explanation consists in showing that apparently disparate phenomena can be seen to be fundamentally similar. Michael Friedman and Philip Kitcher, who accept different versions of this tradition, are contemporary proponents of the view. The causal tradition, advanced by Michael Scriven, and embraced in a modified version by the author, says – roughly and briefly – that to explain an event is to identify its cause. This chapter explores the possibility of rapprochement between these two dominant traditions regarding scientific explanation that have generally been seen as mutually incompatible. It shows how progress in the development of both approaches has eradicated many – perhaps all – of the grounds for conflict between them.
The Importance of Scientific Understanding
Authors: Salmon Wesley C.
Published: October 2003

Outlines many different types of human understanding, and shows how scientific explanations enable us to understand the universe in which we live. It reflects on the great increases in scientific understanding during the past century, and exhibits the value of such understanding as we move into the twenty‐first century. The author recognizes the serious issues concerning values that face humanity at this time, and does not believe that science alone can solve these problems. He argues nevertheless that increased scientific understanding can furnish the information we all need to formulate a responsible social policy.
Causal and Theoretical Explanation
Authors: Salmon Wesley C.
Published: October 2003

Supplements the statistical‐relevance (S‐R) model of scientific explanation with causal components. Some S‐R relationships can be explained by reference to spatiotemporally continuous causal connections. In this context, it is crucial to distinguish genuine causal processes – those with the ability to transmit marks – from pseudoprocesses. Other S‐R relationships are explained terms of common causes. It introduces causal processes and the common cause principle, and it presents the strategy for incorporating causal considerations into the theory of scientific explanation, while making it seem natural to appeal to unobserved or unobservable entities.
Why Ask, “Why?”?
Authors: Salmon Wesley C.
Published: October 2003

Attempts to provide the general outlines of a causal theory of scientific explanation that can incorporate the virtues of both the standard inferential view and previous causal accounts. The new theory relies heavily upon a distinction between causal processes and causal interactions, and upon the principle of the common cause. Two types of causal forks, conjunctive and interactive, are distinguished; each is seen to have a distinct function in the account of scientific explanation. The common cause principle is invoked to show how unobservable entities play a fundamental explanatory role, thereby clarifying the explanatory power of theories.
Explanatory Asymmetry
Authors: Salmon Wesley C.
Published: October 2003

Provides a penetrating analysis of the temporal asymmetry of explanation; it gives reasons why the explanatory facts must precede, rather than follow, the fact to be explained. This is an issue of fundamental importance that has almost always been relegated to declarations based on unanalyzed philosophical or commonsense intuition.
Van Fraassen on Explanation
Authors: Salmon Wesley C. , Kitcher Philip
Published: October 2003

Coauthored by Philip Kitcher, deals critically with the view – whose most influential proponent is Bas van Fraassen – that the traditional problems of scientific explanation can be resolved by means of pragmatic considerations alone. This approach, elaborated in 1980 in The Scientific Image , has found much favor among philosophers of science. As this chapter reveals, however, the traditional problems do not disappear when the resources of pragmatics are brought to bear. The authors show that if van Fraassen introduces constraints that allow him to avoid the “anything goes” theory of explanation, then he must face what he would regard as the unacceptable supposition that there is an objective virtue of theories distinct from their saving of the phenomena.
An “At‐At” Theory of Causal Influence
Authors: Salmon Wesley C.
Published: October 2003

The propagation of causal influences through space‐time plays a fundamental role in scientific explanation. Taking as point of departure, a basic distinction between causal interactions (which are localized in space‐time) and causal processes (which may extend through vast regions of space‐time), this chapter attempts an analysis of the concept of causal propagation on the basis of the ability of causal processes to transmit “marks.” The analysis rests upon the “at–at” theory of motion that has figured prominently in the resolution of Zeno's arrow paradox. It is argued that this explication does justice to the idea that causal processes can transmit causal influence without invoking anti‐Humean “powers” or “necessary connections.” Although at the time this essay was first written, the author treated causal processes in terms of capacity to transmit marks, the basic concept of transmission works equally well in the conserved quantities theory introduced in Ch. 16.
Probabilistic Causality
Authors: Salmon Wesley C.
Published: October 2003

Provides a critical analysis and comparison of the theories of probabilistic causality offered by Hans Reichenbach I.J. Good and Patrick Suppes. Each of these theories faces some fundamental difficulties. In the end, the author argues that probabilistic causality cannot be explicated in terms of statistical relations among discrete events alone. Instead, we must take into account the physical processes that provide causal connections among events. In the time since this essay was first written, the literature on probabilistic causality has burgeoned, and the topic has become a major area of concern to many philosophers.
Causality Without Counterfactuals
Authors: Salmon Wesley C.
Published: October 2003

The author replaces his earlier explication of causal processes in terms of capacity for mark transmission with an analysis of the capacity for transmission of conserved quantities. This new theory was formulated in response to criticisms of Phil Dowe and Philip Kitcher. It relies heavily on modified versions of the seminal ideas of Phil Dowe, and overcomes a number of difficulties faced by the author's previous view. It eliminates a philosophically undesirable dependence on counterfactual conditions; it provides analyses of Y and λ types of causal interactions; and it suggests an avenue for avoiding problems about laws of nature.
Indeterminacy, Indeterminism, and Quantum Mechanics
Authors: Salmon Wesley C.
Published: October 2003

Uses a historical approach to explore the extent to which quantum theory mandates indeterminism. Drawing on important examples in the history of physics, it discusses explicitly the crucial distinction – often overlooked in the philosophical literature – between indeterminacy of physical quantities and causal indeterminism. It pursues at a more sophisticated level, issues raised in Ch. 2 concerning determinism and indeterminism in modern science. It concludes that quantum indeterminacy is an objective feature of the world, but that the jury is still out regarding quantum indeterminism.
Alternative Models of Scientific Explanation
Authors: Salmon Wesley C. , Salmon Merrilee H.
Published: October 2003

Coauthored with Merrilee Salmon, addresses archaeologists and other anthropologists interested in the nature of scientific explanation. A group called the new archaeologists, concerned to assure the scientific status of archaeology, had become convinced that a sine qua non of science is the construction of explanations conforming to Hempel's D‐N model. The authors aim was to show that a much wider class of covering law models of explanation is available, and that others in this set are more suitable than the D‐N model for archaeology and anthropology. At the same time, they show that the so‐called systems approach, advocated by other archaeologists, has all of the shortcomings of the D‐N model without offering improvements in exchange.
Causality in Archaeological Explanation
Authors: Salmon Wesley C.
Published: October 2003

This chapter extends the discussion of the preceding chapter, and emphasizes the causal dimensions of explanation in archaeology. The author considers the sorts of situations that archaeologists want to explain, and notes that many of these are events that result from a complex set of factors, some of which are positively relevant to the occurrence of the event and others that are negatively relevant. In addition, many events that archaeologists want to explain are events that had a very low probability of occurrence. The author argues that formal philosophical models of explanation, such as the D‐N and the I‐S models, are ill suited to the task of archaeological explanation. What is needed, he says, is the development of a probabilistic account of causality that can supplement notions of statistical relevance in explanations of archaeological phenomena.
The Formulation of Why‐Questions
Authors: Salmon Wesley C.
Published: October 2003

Is a response to a criticism, posed by an anthropologist (M. Cartmill), of the Statistical Relevance (S‐R) model of explanation. The author claims that the objection does not hold. Although he believes that the model must be supplemented by causal considerations, he maintains that the S‐R schema constitutes a correct basis on which acceptable explanations can be erected (see Ch. 22). In answering Cartmill's question, the author examines the high‐probability requirement of Hempel's Inductive Statistical (I‐S) model, and clarifies some fundamental features of the S‐R model. His response connects directly to van Fraassen's pragmatic theory, which is discussed from a different angle in Ch. 11.
Quasars, Causality, and Geometry
Authors: Salmon Wesley C.
Published: October 2003

Shows how the failure of astrophysicists to honor the distinction between causal processes and pseudoprocesses vitiates much of the discussion of quasars since their discovery in 1963. In this case, the theory of causality presented in this book bears directly on recent developments in an exciting branch of physical science. An appendix to the chapter presents numerous examples of the application of the fallacious argument connecting variation in brightness of an astronomical object with its compactness (the cΔt Size Criterion).
Heaven
Authors: Walls Jerry L.
Published: October 2003

The Christian doctrine of heaven has been a moral source of enormous power in Western culture. It has provided a striking account of the ultimate good in life and has for two millennia animated the hope that our lives can be fully meaningful. Recently, however, the doctrine of heaven has lost much of its grip on the Western imagination and has become a vague and largely ignored part of the Christian creed. Not only have our hopes been redefined as a result, but also our very identity as human beings has been altered. In this book, Jerry L. Walls argues that the doctrine of heaven is ripe for serious reconsideration. He contends not only that the orthodox view of heaven can be defended from objections commonly raised against it, but also that heaven is a powerful resource for addressing persistent philosophical problems, not the least of which concern the ground of morality and the meaning of life. Walls shows how heaven is integrally related to central Christian doctrines, particularly those concerning salvation, and tackles the difficult problem of why faith in Christ is necessary to save us from our sins. In addition, heaven is shown to illumine thorny problems of personal identity, and to be an essential component of a satisfactory theodicy. Walls goes on to examine data from near‐death experiences from the standpoint of some important recent work in epistemology, and argues that they offer positive evidence for heaven. He concludes that we profoundly need to recover the hope of heaven in order to recover our very humanity.
Introduction
Authors: Walls Jerry L.
Published: October 2003

The first part of this introduction puts forward some examples of conflicting historical and contemporary views on Christian belief in heaven. The second part goes on to discuss the two basically different images of heaven that have recurred down the ages: the theocentric view, which in its extreme version casts heaven as a timeless experience of contemplating God, and requires no human dimension; and the anthropocentric view, where the emphasis is on being reunited with family and friends, and heaven being essentially like this life, but without the evil and suffering. The third part discusses the question of why, though many still profess belief in heaven, this belief is now more vague and ambivalent than it has ever been, and has been entirely rejected by some on philosophical, cultural, intellectual, or moral grounds. The author believes that the transmutation of belief in heaven from a vitally positive, spiritual, and moral source into a decidedly negative one represents a religious and cultural shift of cosmic proportions, and that from this viewpoint alone, the doctrine is ripe for serious consideration.
Heaven and God's Goodness
Authors: Walls Jerry L.
Published: October 2003

A critical examination is presented of the case made against heaven by the naturalistic philosopher David Hume (who can be described as a minimal theist), arguing that his case rests mainly on his views on God, which are discussed at length. A brief consideration is then given to two contemporary views of God: those of Paul Davies, the 1995 recipient of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion and a scientist, who could be described as a contemporary deist, and sees God's relation to the world rather as Hume does; and Richard Swinburne, who has recently produced a philosophical defense of revelation. The main thrust of the chapter is to show that any meaningful account of God's goodness implies some notion of heaven, and that the notion of heaven is not just an appendage to the main body of Christian doctrine, but pervades it through and through.
Heaven, the Nature of Salvation, and Purgatory
Authors: Walls Jerry L.
Published: October 2003

The first part of the chapter discusses the debate on how to get to heaven, and whether salvation is by moral transformation and good works, or by faith alone. The answer to this question obviously has implications for our view of what heaven is like – in other words, there is a natural connection between heaven and the nature of salvation. This connection is explored, and then arguments are put forward to show that true Christian faith is morally and spiritually transforming, focusing on the atonement, and the claim that Jesus is the Son of God incarnate, both of which are discussed in some detail. The last part of the chapter discusses the doctrine of purgatory.