To see the other types of publications on this topic, follow the link: Philosophical Decision Theory.
Books on the topic 'Philosophical Decision Theory'
Create a spot-on reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and other styles
Consult the top 50 books for your research on the topic 'Philosophical Decision Theory.'
Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you need: APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, etc.
You can also download the full text of the academic publication as pdf and read online its abstract whenever available in the metadata.
Browse books on a wide variety of disciplines and organise your bibliography correctly.
1
Williamson, Jon. Bayesian nets and causality: Philosophical and computational foundations. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Find full text
2
Kant, Immanuel. Sette scritti politici liberi. Edited by Maria Chiara Pievatolo. Florence: Firenze University Press, 2011. http://dx.doi.org/10.36253/978-88-6655-000-6.
Full textAbstract:
At the end of the eighteenth century, before and during the French Revolution, Kant wrote intensively about politics. This book brings together the translations of his principal philosophical-political works, with the editor's annotations, from the essay on Enlightenment through to the writing on progress. The texts are subject to a Creative Commons licence, so that they can be amended without restrictions, retaining the same rights. Open access publication alone can achieve freedom in the public use of reason. The decision to free a classic work from economic monopoly and censure is intended to demonstrate that open access is not an academic theory but a reality that can give value and meaning to the establishment of a public university. Making Kant read means much more than merely reading him.
3
Easwaran, Kenny. Foundations of Bayesian Epistemology: A Philosophical Introduction. Taylor & Francis Group, 2020.
Find full text
4
Easwaran, Kenny. Foundations of Bayesian Epistemology: A Philosophical Introduction. Taylor & Francis Group, 2018.
Find full text
5
Easwaran, Kenny. Foundations of Bayesian Epistemology: A Philosophical Introduction. Taylor & Francis Group, 2020.
Find full text
6
Williamson, Jon. Bayesian Nets and Causality: Philosophical and Computational Foundations. Ebsco Publishing, 2004.
Find full text
7
Williamson, Jon. Bayesian Nets and Causality: Philosophical and Computational Foundations. Oxford University Press, 2005.
Find full text
8
Levi, Isaac. Decisions and Revisions: Philosophical Essays on Knowledge and Value. Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Find full text
9
Attanasio, John. Philosophical Ruminations. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190847029.003.0007.
Full textAbstract:
Ideas matter. Constitutional jurisprudence decisions reflect overarching intellectual trends in society. The Buckley Constitution reflects the influence of modern individualistic libertarianism in contemporary American society. Some prominent authors have glimpsed more inclusive approaches to free speech. For example, renowned First Amendment theorist Alexander Meiklejohn sought to illustrate an inclusive approach to freedom of speech in his timeless metaphor of a town meeting. This chapter begins by outlining several wrong turns that the campaign finance cases have taken which render an inclusive approach impossible. One involves equating spending money with speaking. Spending money to speak is at most a combination of speech and action. Moreover, monetary limitations on political campaigning are similar to content neutral time, place, and manner restrictions. Some authors concerned with the distribution of speech rights have overtly offered a more egalitarian free speech approach. They include Jürgen Habermas, Bruce Ackerman, and Ronald Dworkin.
10
Lisovskiy, Petro, and Yulia Lisovska. THEORY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS. Kyiv: Vydavnychyi dim «Kondor», 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.36994/978-617-8052-97-3-2022-176.
Full textAbstract:
In the textbook, the authors highlight the philosophical-historical process of the wisdom of the peoples of the world as a hypothetical picture of the quality of the reinterpretation of the individual, the state, and society in the theory of international relations. Attention is focused on the method of quantum computerization as a phenomenal digital communication in the international legal field. It is predicted that under the conditions of the international post-covid syndrome, quantum vaccination occupies a significant place in the hierarchical nature of the crystalline structure of the universe. This will contribute to a qualitatively new cycle of wise decisions among the peoples of the world. The manual is designed for teachers, students and anyone interested in international relations.
11
Panzironi, Francesca. Networks. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.270.
Full textAbstract:
A network may refer to “a group of interdependent actors and the relationships among them,” or to a set of nodes linked by a web of interdependencies. The concept of networks has its origins in earlier philosophical and sociological ideas such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “general will” and Émile Durkheim’s “social facts”, which adressed social and political communities and how decisions are mediated and ideas are structured within them. Networks encompass a wide range of theoretical interpretations and critical applications across different disciplines, including governance networks, policy networks, public administration networks, social movement networks, intergovernmental networks, social networks, trade networks, computer networks, information networks, and neural networks. Governance networks have been proposed as alternative pluricentric governance models representing a new form of negotiated governance based on interdependence, negotiation and trust. Such networks differ from the competitive market regulation and state hierarchical control in three aspects: the relationship between the actors, decision-making processes, and compliance. The decision-making processes within governance networks are founded on a reflexive rationality rather than the “procedural rationality” which characterizes the competitive market regulation and the “substantial rationality” which underpins authoritative state regulation. Network theory has proved especially useful for scholars in positing the existence of loosely defined and informal webs of experts or advocates that can have a real and substantial influence on international relations discourse and policy. Two examples of the use of network theory in action are transnational advocacy networks and epistemic communities.
12
Lu-Adler, Huaping. Kant and a Philosophical History of Logic. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190907136.003.0002.
Full textAbstract:
This chapter discusses certain exegetical challenges posed by Kant’s logic corpus, which comprises the Logic compiled by Jäsche, Kant’s notes on logic, transcripts of his logic lectures, and remarks about logic in his own publications. It argues for a “history of philosophical problems” method by which to reconstruct a Kantian theory of logic that is maximally coherent, philosophically interesting, and historically significant. To ensure a principled application of this method, the chapter considers Kant’s conception of history against the background of the controversy between eclecticism and systematic philosophy that shaped the German philosophical discourse during the early eighteenth century. It thereby looks for an angle to make educated decisions about how to select materials from each of the periods considered in the book and builds a historical narrative that can best inform our understanding of Kant’s theory of logic.
13
Bartha, Paul. Probability and the Philosophy of Religion. Edited by Alan Hájek and Christopher Hitchcock. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199607617.013.38.
Full textAbstract:
There is a long history of fruitful connections between work in probability theory and the philosophy of religion. This chapter explores these connections through discussion of two classic arguments: the fine-tuning argument and Pascal’s Wager. The formulation and assessment of both arguments relies upon increasingly sophisticated applications of the probability calculus and other formal tools. Two themes emerge from a survey of recent work. First, diverse forms of ‘philosophical technology’ are invaluable in constructing precise models, clarifying objections and identifying new approaches to venerable arguments concerning the existence of God and the rationality of religious belief. Second, benefits flow in the reverse direction as well: the philosophy of religion is fertile ground for testing ideas in formal epistemology and decision theory.
14
Gover, K. E. Art and Authority. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198768692.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
Art and Authority is a philosophical essay on artistic authority and freedom: its sources, nature, and limits. It draws upon real-world cases and controversies in contemporary visual art and connects them to significant theories in the philosophical literature on art and aesthetics. Artworks, it is widely agreed, are the products of intentional human activity. And yet they are different from other kinds of artifacts; for one thing, they are meaningful. It is often presumed that artworks are an extension of their makers’ personality in ways that other kinds of artifacts are not. This is clear from our recognition that an artist continues to own his or her creation even once the art object, in which the artwork inheres, belongs to another. But it is far from clear how or why artists acquire this authority, and whether it originates from a special, intimate bond between artist and artwork. In response to these questions, the book argues for a ‘dual-intention theory’ of artistic authorship, in which it is claimed that authorship entails two orders of intention. The first, ‘generative’ moment, names the intentions that lead to the production of an artwork. The second, ‘evaluative’ moment, names the decision in which the artist decides whether or not to accept the artwork as part of their corpus.
15
Arrhenius, Gustaf, Krister Bykvist, Tim Campbell, and Elizabeth Finneron-Burns, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Population Ethics. Oxford University Press, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190907686.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
This handbook presents up-to-date theoretical analyses of problems associated with the moral standing of future people in current decision-making. Future people pose an especially hard problem for our current decision-making, since their number and their identities are not fixed but depend on the choices the present generation makes. Do we make the world better by creating more people with good lives? What do we owe future generations in terms of justice? Such questions are not only philosophically difficult and important, but also directly relevant to many practical decisions and policy issues, including on climate, health, population control and taxation. If we are to adequately assess such issues, we must be able to determine the value of differently sized populations. The aim of this handbook is to shed light on the value of population change and the nature of our obligations to future generations, and to offer practical guidance to policy-makers as to how our duties to future generations should be discharged. It contains an extensive and accessible introduction for those unfamiliar with the topic of population ethics as well as original work from key figures in academic debates on population ethics covering three main themes: (1) ways out of the paradoxes of population ethics, (2) questioning some philosophical and methodological assumptions underlying these paradoxes, and (3) several applications of population ethics to real world issues.
16
Arrhenius, Gustaf, Krister Bykvist, Tim Campbell, and Elizabeth Finneron-Burns, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Population Ethics. Oxford University Press, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190907686.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
This handbook presents up-to-date theoretical analyses of problems associated with the moral standing of future people in current decision-making. Future people pose an especially hard problem for our current decision-making, since their number and their identities are not fixed but depend on the choices the present generation makes. Do we make the world better by creating more people with good lives? What do we owe future generations in terms of justice? Such questions are not only philosophically difficult and important, but also directly relevant to many practical decisions and policy issues, including on climate, health, population control and taxation. If we are to adequately assess such issues, we must be able to determine the value of differently sized populations. The aim of this handbook is to shed light on the value of population change and the nature of our obligations to future generations, and to offer practical guidance to policy-makers as to how our duties to future generations should be discharged. It contains an extensive and accessible introduction for those unfamiliar with the topic of population ethics as well as original work from key figures in academic debates on population ethics covering three main themes: (1) ways out of the paradoxes of population ethics, (2) questioning some philosophical and methodological assumptions underlying these paradoxes, and (3) several applications of population ethics to real world issues.
17
Dowling, Michael, and Brian Lucey. The Future of Behavioral Finance. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190269999.003.0030.
Full textAbstract:
The future of behavioral finance necessitates that the research areas of behavioral corporate finance and investor psychology develop richer models of financial decision-making behavior. Behavioral corporate finance requires expanding the focus from chief executive officer characteristics to those of the entire top management team, and also involves greater understanding of organizational theory. A greater focus is needed on cross-cultural factors and how they interact with behavioral influences. Investor psychology needs a more comprehensive theory of the drivers of investor behavior and better data. This need is strong for investor sentiment research, which might offer the most potential to advance understanding of psychological influences on asset pricing. The chapter expands on these ideas and discusses an overall context of the future philosophical development of behavioral finance and the inevitable push for greater openness, replicability, and reliability in research.
18
Priest, Graham. Logic: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780198811701.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
Logic is often perceived as having little to do with the rest of philosophy, and even less to do with real life. Logic: A Very Short Introduction shows how wrong this conception is. It explores the philosophical roots of the subject, explaining how modern formal logic deals with issues ranging from the existence of God and the reality of time to paradoxes of probability and decision theory. Along the way, the basics of formal logic are explained in simple, non-technical terms, showing that logic is a powerful and exciting part of modern philosophy. It also covers the subjects of algorithms and axioms, and proofs in mathematics.
19
Gendler, Tamar Szabó, and John Hawthorne, eds. Oxford Studies in Epistemology Volume 6. Oxford University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198833314.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
Oxford Studies in Epistemology is a biennial publication offering a regular snapshot of state-of-the-art work in this important field. Under the guidance of a distinguished editorial board composed of leading epistemologists in North America, Europe and Australasia, it publishes exemplary papers in epistemology, broadly construed. Topics within its purview include: (a) traditional epistemological questions concerning the nature of belief, justification, and knowledge, the status of skepticism, the nature of the a priori, etc.; (b) new developments in epistemology, including movements such as naturalized epistemology, feminist epistemology, social epistemology, and virtue epistemology, and approaches such as contextualism; (c) foundational questions in decision-theory; (d) confirmation theory and other branches of philosophy of science that bear on traditional issues in epistemology; (e) topics in the philosophy of perception relevant to epistemology; (f) topics in cognitive science, computer science, developmental, cognitive, and social psychology that bear directly on traditional epistemological questions; and (g) work that examines connections between epistemology and other branches of philosophy, including work on testimony, the ethics of belief, etc. Topics addressed in volume 6 include the nature of perceptual justification, intentionality, modal knowledge, credences, epistemic supererogation, epistemic and rational norms, expressivism, skepticism, and pragmatic encroachment. The various writers make use of a variety of different tools and insights, including those of formal epistemology and decision theory, as well as traditional philosophical analysis and argumentation.
20
Smith, Holly M. Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199560080.003.0001.
Full textAbstract:
Chapter 1 describes the central issue addressed by the book and then outlines the common philosophical responses to this issue and the type of solution for which the author will argue. The central issue is that we are epistemically limited agents who must contend with false beliefs or uncertainty in trying to ascertain and do what is right according to traditional moral theories. Common responses to this “epistemic problem” for morality include the “Austere” Response (sticking with traditional theories even though they are often unusable); the “Pragmatic” Response (abandoning traditional theories in favor of more user-friendly ones); and the “Hybrid” Response (seeking the advantages of both approaches in a two-tier structure that marries a traditional moral theory with more usable decision-guides). The advantages and disadvantages of all three responses will be assessed in subsequent chapters.
21
Shea, Nicholas. Neural Mechanisms of Decision-Making and the Personal Level. Edited by K. W. M. Fulford, Martin Davies, Richard G. T. Gipps, George Graham, John Z. Sadler, Giovanni Stanghellini, and Tim Thornton. Oxford University Press, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199579563.013.0062.
Full textAbstract:
Can findings from psychology and cognitive neuroscience about the neural mechanisms involved in decision-making tell us anything useful about the commonly-understood mental phenomenon of making voluntary choices? Two philosophical objections are considered. First, that the neural data is subpersonal, and so cannot enter into illuminating explanations of personal-level phenomena like voluntary action. Secondly, that mental properties are multiply realized in the brain in such a way as to make them insusceptible to neuroscientific study. The chapter argues that both objections would be weakened by the discovery of empirical generalizations connecting subpersonal properties with personal-level phenomena. It gives three case studies that furnish evidence to that effect. It argues that the existence of such interrelations is consistent with a plausible construal of the personal-subpersonal distinction. Furthermore, there is no reason to suppose that the notion of subpersonal representation relied on in cognitive neuroscience illicitly imports personal-level phenomena like consciousness or normativity, or is otherwise explanatorily problematic.
22
Havstad, Joyce C., and Matthew J. Brown. Inductive Risk, Deferred Decisions, and Climate Science Advising. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190467715.003.0006.
Full textAbstract:
This chapter discusses the philosophical viability of Ottmar Edenhofer and Martin Kowarsch’s proposed pragmatic-enlightened model of science advising, as well as the practical application of their proposed model to the case of climate science advising. Edenhofer and Kowarsch’s model makes central use of a cartographic metaphor—one in which scientists and policymakers craft and consider different scientific routes to various value-laden ethical, political, and social destinations. But the argument from inductive risk poses a significant challenge to the viability of the metaphor, and hence, to the workability of the model. The chapter opens with a discussion of the challenge that inductive risk poses for the pragmatic-enlightened model, and closes with a discussion of how stakeholder engagement must be reconceived in order to meet that challenge.
23
Dunnington, Kent. Humility, Pride, and Christian Virtue Theory. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198818397.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
This book proposes an account of humility that relies on the most radical Christian sayings about humility, especially those found in Augustine and the early monastic tradition. It argues that this was the view of humility that put Christian moral thought into decisive conflict with the best Greco-Roman moral thought. This radical Christian account of humility has been forgotten amid contemporary efforts to clarify and retrieve the virtue of humility for secular life. The book shows how humility was repurposed during the early modern era—particularly in the thought of Hobbes, Hume, and Kant—better to serve the economic and social needs of the emerging modern state. This repurposed humility insisted on a role for proper pride alongside humility, as a necessary constituent of self-esteem and a necessary motive of consistent moral action over time. Contemporary philosophical accounts of humility continue this emphasis on proper pride as a counterbalance to humility. By contrast, radical Christian humility proscribes pride altogether. The book shows how such a radical view need not give rise to vices of humility such as servility and pusillanimity, nor need such a view fall prey to feminist critiques of humility. But the view of humility set forth makes little sense abstracted from a specific set of doctrinal commitments peculiar to Christianity. The book argues that this is a strength rather than a weakness of the account since it displays how Christianity matters for the shape of the moral life.
24
Diamond, James A. Biblical Questioning. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198805694.003.0003.
Full textAbstract:
Questions posed by God and biblical characters in the Hebrew Bible are often philosophically empowering moments. They transpire from the very inception of human history, according to the Bible’s own reconstructed version of it. Rather than divinely imposed law, biblical questioning is a vital tool initiating the decisive biblical way toward truth through independent investigation. Questions then recur throughout various biblical narratives, revealing the Bible’s philosophical dimension. As such, they may indicate the Bible’s conception of the essential expression of humanity, or where the Bible locates the beginning of serious thought, and how it suggests proceeding in the search for truth and the highest good. This chapter explores specific episodes where questions are posed, beginning with the Garden of Eden and ending with the book of Job.
25
Allen, Colin, Peter M. Todd, and Jonathan M. Weinberg. Reasoning and Rationality. Edited by Eric Margolis, Richard Samuels, and Stephen P. Stich. Oxford University Press, 2012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195309799.013.0003.
Full textAbstract:
The article explores five parts of Cartesian thought that include individualism, internalism, rationalism, universalism, and human exceptionalism demonstrating the philosophical and psychological theories of rationality. Ecological rationality comes about through the coadaptation of minds and their environments. The internal bounds comprising the capacities of the cognitive system can be shaped by evolution, learning, or development to take advantage of the structure of the external environment. The external bounds, comprising the structure of information available in the environment, can be shaped by the effects of minds making decisions in the world, including most notably in humans the process of cultural evolution. The internal constraints on decision-making including limited computational power and limited memory in the organism and the external ones include limited time push toward simple cognitive mechanisms for making decisions quickly and without much information. Human exceptionalism is one of the strands of Residual Cartesianism that puts the greatest focus on language and symbolic reasoning as the basis for human rationality. The invention of symbolic systems exhibits how humans deliberately and creatively alter their environments to enhance learning and memory and to support reasoning. Nonhuman animals also alter their environments in ways that support adaptive behavior. Stigmergy, an important mechanism for swarm intelligence, is the product of interactions among multiple agents and their environments. It is enhanced through cumulative modification, of the environment by individuals.
26
Mele, Alfred R. Free Will. Oxford University PressNew York, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197574232.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
Abstract Do we have free will? This book is an opinionated guide through a philosophical maze that leads to an answer. The main philosophical theories and arguments about free will are explained, and their pros and cons are explored. Topics discussed include the meaning of “free will,” connections between free will and moral responsibility, compatibilism and incompatibilism, determinism and indeterminism, decision-making, the ability to do otherwise than one did, philosophical skepticism about free will, and alleged challenges that some experiments in neuroscience pose to the existence of free will. The author’s own unique position on free will is explained in the final chapter.
27
Ferracioli, Luara. Liberal Self-Determination in a World of Migration. Oxford University Press, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190056070.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
This book focuses on three key questions regarding the movement of persons across international borders: (1) What gives some residents of a liberal society a right to be considered citizens of that society such that they have a claim to make decisions with regard to its political future? (2) Do citizens of a liberal society have a prima facie right to exclude prospective immigrants despite their commitment to the values of freedom and equality? And (3) if citizens have this prima facie right to exclude prospective immigrants, are there moral requirements regarding how they may exercise it? The book therefore tackles the most pressing philosophical questions that arise for a theory that does not endorse a human right to immigrate: the questions of who exercises self-determination in the area of immigration, why they have such a right in the first place, and how they should go about exercising it.
28
Graff Zivin, Erin. Anarchaeologies. Fordham University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.5422/fordham/9780823286829.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
How do we read after the so-called death of literature? If we are to attend to the proclamations that the representational apparatuses of literature and politics are dead, what aesthetic, ethical, and political possibilities remain for us today? This book brings together works of continental philosophy and critical theory (Emmanuel Levinas, Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Rancière) and works of art from Argentina (J. L. Borges, Juán José Saer, Ricardo Piglia, César Aira, Albertina Carri, the Internacional Errorista) in order to practice what Graff Zivin calls anarchaeological reading: reading for the blind spots, errors, points of opacity or untranslatability in works of philosophy and art. Rather than “applying” concepts from the former in order to understand or elucidate the latter, the book aim to expose works of philosophy, literary theory, narrative, poetry, film, and performance art/activism to one another. The work of aesthetic or political expression, then, does not appear as an object of study in the conventional sense, but rather as a possible source of philosophical and political thought itself. Ethical and political concepts such as identification and recognition, decision and event, sovereignty and will, are read as constitutively impossible, erroneous, through these acts of interdisciplinary and interdiscursive exposure.
29
Chen, Min, J. Michael Dunn, Amos Golan, and Aman Ullah, eds. Advances in Info-Metrics. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190636685.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
Info-metrics is a framework for modeling, reasoning, and drawing inferences under conditions of noisy and insufficient information. It is an interdisciplinary framework situated at the intersection of information theory, statistical inference, and decision-making under uncertainty. In a recent book on the Foundations of Info-Metrics, Golan (OUP, 2018) provides the theoretical underpinning of info-metrics and the necessary tools and building blocks for using that framework. This volume complements Golan’s book and expands on the series of studies on the classical maximum entropy and Bayesian methods published in the different proceedings started with the seminal collection of Levine and Tribus (1979) and continuing annually. The objective of this volume is to expand the study of info-metrics, and information processing, across the sciences and to further explore the basis of information-theoretic inference and its mathematical and philosophical foundations. This volume is inherently interdisciplinary and applications oriented. It contains some of the recent developments in the field, as well as many new cross-disciplinary case studies and examples. The emphasis here is on the interrelationship between information and inference where we view the word ‘inference’ in its most general meaning – capturing all types of problem solving. That includes model building, theory creation, estimation, prediction, and decision making. The volume contains nineteen chapters in seven parts. Although chapters in each part are related, each chapter is self-contained; it provides the necessary tools for using the info-metrics framework for solving the problem confronted in that chapter. This volume is designed to be accessible for researchers, graduate students, and practitioners across the disciplines, requiring only some basic quantitative skills. The multidisciplinary nature and applications provide a hands-on experience for the reader.
30
Gatzia, Dimitria Electra, and Berit Brogaard, eds. The Epistemology of Non-Visual Perception. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190648916.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
Most of the research on the epistemology of perception has focused on visual perception. This is hardly surprising given that most of our knowledge about the world is attributable to our visual experiences. This edited volume is the first to instead focus on the epistemology of non-visual perception—hearing, touch, taste, and cross-sensory experiences. Drawing on recent empirical studies of emotion, perception, and decision-making, it breaks new ground on discussions of whether perceptual experience can yield justified beliefs and how to characterize those beliefs. The Epistemology of Non-Visual Perception explores questions not only related to traditional sensory perception, but also to proprioceptive, interoceptive, multisensory, and event perception, expanding traditional notions of the influence that conscious non-visual experience has on human behavior and rationality. Contributors investigate the role that emotions play in decision-making and agential perception and what this means for justifications of belief and knowledge. They analyze the notion that some sensory experiences, such as touch, have epistemic privilege over others, as well as perception’s relationship to introspection, and the relationship between action, perception, and belief. They engage with topics in aesthetics and the philosophy of art, exploring the role that artworks can play in providing us with perceptional knowledge of emotions. The essays collected here, written by top researchers in their respective fields, offer perspectives from a wide range of philosophical disciplines and will appeal to scholars interested in philosophy of mind, epistemology, and philosophical psychology, among other topics.
31
Patell, Cyrus R. K. Lucasfilm. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350100633.
Full textAbstract:
From Star Wars: A New Hope to The Rise of Skywalker, this is the first complete assessment and philosophical exploration of the Lucasfilm universe. Lucasfilm examines the ways these iconic films were shaped by global cultural mythologies and world cinema, as well as philosophical ideas from the fields of aesthetics and political theory. Cyrus Patell also looks at how this ever-expanding universe of cultural products and enterprises became a global brand and asks: can a film director be both an auteur and a corporation? More than any other film franchise, Star Wars and Lucasfilm have become part of the cultural imagination. The passionate fan base has played a decisive role in the themes, content, casting and direction of George Lucas’ oeuvre. Within these pages, Patell explores what it means for films and their creator to become part of cultural history in an unprecedented way.
32
Buckwalter, Wesley, and John Turri. Moderate Scientism in Philosophy. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190462758.003.0013.
Full textAbstract:
Moderate scientism is the view that empirical science can help answer questions in nonscientific disciplines. This chapter evaluates moderate scientism in philosophy. It reviews several ways that science has contributed to research in epistemology, action theory, ethics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. It also reviews several ways that science has contributed to our understanding of how philosophers make judgments and decisions. Based on this research, it concludes that the case for moderate philosophical scientism is strong: Scientific practice has promoted significant progress in philosophy, and its further development should be welcomed and encouraged.
33
Roskies, Adina L. What's “Neu” in Neuroethics? Edited by John Bickle. Oxford University Press, 2009. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195304787.003.0019.
Full textAbstract:
This article highlights some of the more exciting ethical issues raised by neuroscience and shows how some philosophical issues are framed by neuroethics. It suggests that despite the significant areas of overlap between questions raised by genetics and those raised by neuroscience, there are areas in which the ethical issues raised by the two diverge. The article discusses the ability of neuroscience to illuminate issues involving consciousness, the self, personhood, decision making, and the freedom of will and moral cognition. It concludes that even if it is admitted that the questions in neuroethics and genethics were not distinct, it would be a fallacy to conclude that there is no need for neuroethics.
34
Schwenkler, John. Anscombe's Intention. Oxford University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190052027.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
This book provides a careful, critical, and appropriately contextualized presentation of the main lines of argument in G.E.M. Anscombe’s seminal book, Intention, at a level appropriate to the advanced undergraduate but also capable of benefiting specialists in action theory, ethics, and the history of analytic philosophy. It begins by situating Anscombe’s project in relation to the controversy she initiated over the decision by the University of Oxford to award an honorary degree to Harry Truman, and the connection she saw between her Oxford colleagues’ willingness to excuse Truman’s murderous actions and the situation of moral philosophy at the time. It also documents many of the ways Anscombe drew on the thought of Aristotle, Aquinas, and Wittgenstein, as well as the points at which her argument engages with the work of then-contemporary authors, especially R.M. Hare and Gilbert Ryle. Against this background, the primary focus of the book is on presenting Anscombe’s arguments and assessing the plausibility and philosophical power of the position she develops. Topics that receive especially close attention include: Anscombe’s argument that the primary role of the concept of intention is in the description of what happens in the world, and not of an agent’s state of mind; her account of action as a teleological unity; the relation between rationalizing explanation and causal explanation; the difference between practical and theoretical reasoning; and the possibility of non-observational self-knowledge of what one intentionally does.
35
Rottenberg, Elizabeth. For the Love of Psychoanalysis. Fordham University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.5422/fordham/9780823284115.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
For the Love of Psychoanalysis: The Play of Chance in Freud and Derrida is a book about what exceeds or resists calculation—in life and in death. It is a book about what emerges, and perhaps only emerges, from the difference between psychoanalysis and philosophy. Part I, “Freuderrida,” opens with a nontraditional Freud: a Freud associated not with sexuality, repression, unconsciousness, and symbolization, but with accidents and chance. It begins with the accidents both in and of Freud’s writing, the unexpected insights that simultaneously produce and disrupt our received ideas of psychoanalytic theory. Whether this disruption is figured as a “foreign body,” as “traumatic temporality,” as “spatial unlocatability,” or as the “death drive,” it points to something that is neither simply inside nor simply outside the psyche, neither psychically nor materially determined. Where Part I, “Freuderrida,” leaves us open to the accidents of psychoanalytic writing, Part II, “Freuderrida,” addresses itself to what transports us back and limits the openness of our horizon. And here the example par excellence is the death penalty and the cruelty of its calculating decision. If “Freuderrida” insists on the death penalty, if it returns to it compulsively, it is not only because its calculating drive is inseparable from the history of reason as philosophical reason; it is also because the death penalty provides us with one of the most spectacular and spectacularly obscene expressions of Freud’s death drive.
36
Keil, Geert, Lara Keuck, and Rico Hauswald, eds. Vagueness in Psychiatry. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780198722373.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
Blurred boundaries between the normal and the pathological are a recurrent theme in almost every publication concerned with the classification of mental disorders. However, systematic approaches that take into account the philosophical discussions about vagueness are rare. This is the first volume to systematically draw various lines of philosophical and psychiatric inquiry together–including the debates about categorial versus dimensional approaches in current psychiatric classification systems, the principles of psychiatric classification, the problem of prodromal phases and subthreshold disorders, and the problem of overdiagnosis in psychiatry–and to explore the connections of these debates to philosophical discussions about vagueness. The book consists of an introduction (Part I) followed by three parts. Part II encompasses historical and recent philosophical positions regarding the nature of demarcation problems in nosology. Here the authors discuss the pros and cons of gradualist approaches to health and disease and the relevance of philosophical discussions of vagueness to these debates. Part III narrows the focus to psychiatric nosology. The authors approach the vagueness of psychiatric classification by drawing on contentious medical categories, such as PTSD or schizophrenia, and on the dilemmas of day-to-day diagnostic and therapeutic practice. Against this background, the chapters critically evaluate how current revisions of the ICD classifications and DSM manuals conceptualize mental disorders and how they are applied in various contexts. Part IV is concerned with social, moral, and legal implications that arise when being mentally ill is a matter of degree. Not surprisingly, the law is ill-equipped to deal with these challenges due to its binary logic. Still, the authors show that there are more and less reasonable ways of dealing with blurred boundaries and of arriving at warranted decisions in hard cases.
37
Rhodes, Bill. An Introduction to Military Ethics. ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2009. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9798400672057.
Full textAbstract:
This comprehensive overview examines the many facets of military ethics as they are applied during times of armed conflict and times of peace. An Introduction to Military Ethics: A Reference Handbook presents the philosophical and conceptual foundations of military ethics, offering an excellent foundation for exploration and discussion of these issues. It focuses first on the 2,500-year legacy of the "just war theory" and its application through history. It then moves to the application of that tradition in the modern era, showing how acts of terrorism by nonstate participants require a new theory and way of thinking about when and how armed force can be justifiably employed. Further, the author analyzes how new theories might alter the fundamental identity of traditional defensive military forces. The book also addresses peacetime ethical issues, such as gender integration and the role of religion in the military. The book is essential reading for military officers and students, as well as those policymakers who confront decisions about how to deploy military force during the War on Terror.
38
Nahmias, Eddy. Free Will as a Psychological Accomplishment. Edited by David Schmidtz and Carmen E. Pavel. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199989423.013.30.
Full textAbstract:
This chapter analyzes free will in terms of a complex set of psychological capacities that agents possess and exercise to varying degrees, focusing on the capacities for imagination. To have free will is to possess these psychological capacities such that the agent is the author of his or her actions and can deserve credit or blame for them. To act of one’s own free will is to have had (reasonable) opportunity to exercise these capacities in making decisions and acting. There is a long philosophical tradition of treating free will as the set of capacities that, when properly functioning, allow us to make decisions that contribute to a good or flourishing life. On this view, free will is a psychological accomplishment. Free will also allows us to be the causal source of our actions in a way that is compatible with determinism and naturalism.
39
Cutter, Mary Ann G. Thinking Through Breast Cancer. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190637033.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
Anyone who has been diagnosed with breast cancer or is acquainted with someone who has been diagnosed with breast cancer knows that cancer raises a host of questions concerning its nature, how we know it, and how we treat it. Such questions frame the difficult decisions that patients must make about their treatment, care, and mortality. Thinking Though Breast Cancer: A Philosophical Exploration of Diagnosis, Treatment, and Survival is a philosophical investigation of the second leading cause of cancer death among women. It is a study of how breast cancer is described, explained, evaluated, and socialized in medicine. Further, it is an investigation of the ethical implications of understanding breast cancer. These include the extent to which informed consent is secured, patient harms are minimized, patient benefits are maximized, and access to appropriate breast cancer care is made possible. The inquiry draws on clinical information as well as philosophical advice and provides suggestions about how to navigate the complex and, at times, uncertain terrain of breast cancer knowledge and care. In this way, the book is not simply an academic overview of what we know about breast cancer. It is a personal search for guidance about managing the complex, confusing, and scary terrain of breast cancer diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment.
40
Hassoun, Nicole. Global Health Impact. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197514993.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
Every year 9 million people are diagnosed with tuberculosis, every day more than 13,400 people are infected with AIDs, every 30 seconds malaria kills a child. Many people suffer and die young because they cannot access essential medicines. This book argues that people have a right to access these medicines and proposes some new Global Health Impact labeling, investment, and licensing strategies that encourage pharmaceutical companies to improve global health (global-health-impact.org/new). The idea is to rate these companies based on their medicines’ impacts. Highly rated companies will get a Global Health Impact label to use on their products. Socially responsible investment companies and universities might also take the ratings into account in making investment or licensing decisions. After arguing that people do have a right to access essential medicines, this book explores this proposal, its philosophical justification, and its prospects for success.
41
Millum, Joseph. Moral Parenthood. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190695439.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
Most people believe that parents have moral rights and responsibilities regarding their children. These rights and responsibilities undergird the nuclear family and are essential to the flourishing of its members. However, their basis and contents are hotly contested. Do a child’s genetic parents have a right to parent her? Many people’s gut responses affirm the importance of genetic ties, but the moral justification for tying parental rights to genetics is unclear. Parents are permitted to make far-reaching decisions about their children’s medical care, education, religious practice, and discipline. When can parental rights be limited by the interests of the child or of society? Matters are no more settled regarding parental responsibilities. A man who conceives a child through voluntary sexual intercourse is commonly thought to acquire parental responsibilities, even if he took every precaution against conception. Yet sperm donors are widely thought to have no responsibilities toward their progeny. What underlies these disparate judgments? Parents are expected to do a lot for their children. But there are surely limits. Sometimes parents must balance the needs of multiple family members or just want time for themselves. What is the extent of parental responsibilities? This book provides a philosophical account of the foundations of moral parenthood. It explains how parental rights and responsibilities are acquired, what those rights and responsibilities consist in, and how parents should make decisions for their children. In doing so, it provides a set of frameworks to help solve pressing ethical dilemmas relating to parents and children.
42
Lærke, Mogens. Leibniz’s Encounter with Spinoza’s Monism, October 1675 to February 1678. Edited by Michael Della Rocca. Oxford University Press, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195335828.013.013.
Full textAbstract:
This article is concerned with Leibniz’s reading of Spinoza’s substance monism. It focuses on a particular period in Leibniz’s philosophical development, from October 1675 to February 1678. This period spans from the time Leibniz, in his De summa rerum papers, developed a rudimentary system in several aspects reminiscent of Spinozism, to the time he first read Spinoza’s Opera posthuma in early 1678. The article reconstructs a decisive shift in Leibniz’s attitude towards Spinoza’s substance monism that took place around 1677. Around 1675–1676, when Leibniz first heard of Spinoza’s philosophy from Tschirnhaus, Leibniz was playing with the option of a monist system where all things are conceived as modes of a single substance. He was also considering a parallelist metaphysical structure where explanatory parallelism between thought and extension is grounded in ontological parallelism. When Leibniz changed his intellectual setting in late 1676—moving from Paris to Hanover—his intellectual attitude toward Spinoza also changed, maybe in part as a result of his exchanges with the Danish catholic Nicolas Steno. In his critical comments on the first book of Ethics, from early 1678, Leibniz developed a comprehensive critique of Spinoza where he put to use and tested some of his own most recent philosophical discoveries. I thus show how he used his theory of predication to challenge Spinoza’s theory of attributes, and how he used the principle equipollence of the full cause and the entire effect to challenge Spinoza’s theory of causation and refute substance monism.
43
Cutter, Mary Ann G. What Are the Ethical Implications of Understanding and Treating Breast Cancer? Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190637033.003.0007.
Full textAbstract:
Philosophically speaking, the question “What are the ethical implications of understanding breast cancer?” raises a host of issues, including informed consent, risk assessment, and access to breast cancer care. What we find is that, initially, there are adequate guidelines for informed consent, adequate efforts to develop risk assessment measures, and a decent level of access to breast cancer care in the United States. But things can be improved from an ethical standpoint. Upon reflection, the informed consent process would benefit from a more explicit discussion of uncertainty in breast cancer medicine and the ways breast cancer patients make decisions about their care. Risk assessments would benefit from a more personalized approach. Access to breast cancer care could be improved by continued studies of the diverse forces that limit access to proper breast cancer care.
44
Rhodes, R. A. W. On Local Knowledge. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198786115.003.0010.
Full textAbstract:
This chapter decentres the normative arguments favouring local knowledge suggesting the notion is more elusive than many recognize. It summarizes the mainstream political science and the interpretive views of local knowledge; unpacks the family of ideas that constitute local knowledge; identifies ten family resemblances, suggesting that local knowledge is: situated, embedded, ever-changing, contested, contingent and generative, performative practice, experiential, specialized, and comprised of folk theories that are authentic, natural, and accessible. It distinguishes between recovering local knowledge as advice to decision makers and as inscription. It describes four ways of collecting stories about local knowledge; observation, questionnaire, focus group, and Most Significant Change. Finally it decentres local knowledge, highlighting its complex specificity, contingency, and generative characteristics. Throughout, the chapter plays with such genres of presentation as telling tales from the field and aphorisms in the philosophical style as well as describing the various ways in which others tell their stories.
45
Bloch, Sidney, and Stephen A. Green, eds. Psychiatric Ethics. 5th ed. Oxford University Press, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780198839262.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
Ethical issues inherent in psychiatric research and clinical practice are invariably complex and multifaceted. Well-reasoned ethical decision-making is essential to deal effectively with patients and enhance their care. Drawing on the positive reception of Psychiatric Ethics since its first publication in 1981, this highly anticipated fifth edition offers psychiatrists and other mental health professionals a coherent guide to dealing with the diverse ethical issues that challenge them. This edition has been substantially updated to reflect the many changes that have occurred in the field during the past decade. Its 25 chapters are grouped in three sections, as follows: 1) clinical practice in child and adolescent psychiatry, consultation-liaison psychiatry, psychogeriatrics, community psychiatry, and forensic psychiatry; 2) relevant basic sciences such as neuroethics and genetics; and 3) philosophical and social contexts including the history of ethics in psychiatry and the nature of professionalism. Principal aspects of clinical practice in general, such as confidentiality, boundary violations, and involuntary treatment, are covered comprehensively, as is a new chapter on diagnosis. Given the contributors’ expertise in their respective fields, Psychiatric Ethics will undoubtedly continue to serve as a significant resource for all mental health professionals, whatever the role they play in psychiatry. It will also benefit students of moral philosophy in their professional pursuits.
46
Reber, Arthur S. The First Minds. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190854157.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
The book presents a novel theory of the origins of mind and consciousness dubbed the Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC). It argues that sentience emerged with life itself. The most primitive unicellular species of bacteria are conscious, though it is a sentience of a primitive kind. They have minds, though they are tiny and limited in scope. There is nothing even close to this thesis in the current literature on consciousness. Hints that cells might be conscious can be found in the writings of a few cell biologists, but a fully developed theory has never been put forward before. Other approaches to the origins of consciousness are examined and shown to be seriously or fatally flawed, specifically ones based on: (a) the assumption that minds are computational and can be captured by an artificial intelligence (AI), (b) efforts to discover the neurocorrelates of mental experiences, the so-called Hard Problem, and (c) looking for consciousness in less complex species by identifying those that possess precursors of those neurocorrelates. Each of these approaches is shown to be either essentially impossible (the AI models) or so burdened by philosophical and empirical difficulties that they are effectively unworkable. The CBC approach is developed using standard models of evolutionary biology. The remarkable repertoire of single-celled species that micro- and cell-biologists have discovered is reviewed. Bacteria, for example, have sophisticated sensory and perceptual systems, learn, form memories, make decisions based on information about their environment relative to internal metabolic states, communicate with one another, and even show a primitive form of altruism. All such functions are indicators of sentience. Conversations with a caterpillar function as a literary vehicle Finally, the implications of the CBC model are discussed along with a number of related issues in evolutionary biology, philosophy of mind, the possibility of sentient plants, the ethical repercussions of universal animal sentience, and the long-range impact of adopting the CBC stance.
47
Hunter, David. Directives for Knowledge and Belief. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198758709.003.0005.
Full textAbstract:
To understand belief directives it is helpful to start with knowledge directives, for they can be unspecific in an important way, are not as puzzling from a first-person point of view, and are viewed by common sense as more fundamental. A person’s duties, personal obligations, and rights are, common sense holds, relevant but not decisive to what they ought to know, and so to what they ought to believe. It further holds that people ought in general to know what they ought to do and even, to some extent, what they are doing. And it allows that a person may be required to know something for which they have no evidence. All of this poses difficulties for the philosophical view that facts about a person’s evidence are relevant to what they ought to believe.
48
Laski, Gregory. Making Reparation; or, How to Count the Wrongs of Slavery. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190642792.003.0004.
Full textAbstract:
This chapter focuses on the conflicting temporal frames deployed by postbellum authors and activists seeking redress. While there was brief national attention given to reparations in the years following the Civil War, the project lost much of its official sanction after the collapse of Reconstruction. By 1896, the majority opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson would argue that servitude did not count in defining race-based discrimination. The Plessy decision thus made it more crucial to clarify what was wrong with slavery and how to account for its effects. Narratives appearing in this moment took up this task: from Samuel Hall’s 47 Years a Slave, to Callie House’s articulations of the aims of the ex-slave pension movement, to Stephen Crane’s The Monster. The chapter argues that Crane’s novella conceives the wrong of slavery in a way that can help resolve the problem of causality confronting philosophical debates about making amends even today.
49
Cappelen, Herman, and Josh Dever. Making AI Intelligible. Oxford University Press, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192894724.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
Can humans and artificial intelligences share concepts and communicate? One aim of Making AI Intelligible is to show that philosophical work on the metaphysics of meaning can help answer these questions. Cappelen and Dever use the externalist tradition in philosophy of to create models of how AIs and humans can understand each other. In doing so, they also show ways in which that philosophical tradition can be improved: our linguistic encounters with AIs revel that our theories of meaning have been excessively anthropocentric. The questions addressed in the book are not only theoretically interesting, but the answers have pressing practical implications. Many important decisions about human life are now influenced by AI. In giving that power to AI, we presuppose that AIs can track features of the world that we care about (e.g. creditworthiness, recidivism, cancer, and combatants.) If AIs can share our concepts, that will go some way towards justifying this reliance on AI. The book can be read as a proposal for how to take some first steps towards achieving interpretable AI. Making AI Intelligible is of interest to both philosophers of language and anyone who follows current events or interacts with AI systems. It illustrates how philosophy can help us understand and improve our interactions with AI.
50
Peteet, John, Mary Lynn Dell, and Wai Lun Alan Fung, eds. Ethical Considerations at the Intersection of Psychiatry and Religion. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780190681968.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
Psychiatry and religious/spiritual share an interest in human flourishing, a concern with beliefs and values, and an appreciation for community. Yet historical tensions between science and religion have often reinforced disciplinary boundaries and obstructed dialogue, leaving clinicians uncertain about how to approach ethical dilemmas arising between them. Common questions concern conflicting values, the ways that religion/spirituality informs the value commitments of patients and their clinicians, and what principles should guide the interaction between clinicians’ own professional and personal commitments.This volume aims to help readers think more clearly about these issues as they present to psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, religious professionals working in mental health settings, bioethicists and trainees in these disciplines. Rather than philosophical arguments or practice guidelines, chapter authors offer a conceptual framework for understanding the role of religion/spirituality in ethical decision-making, as well as pragmatic guidance for approaching challenging cases. Authors in Part One explore several dimensions of the ethical challenges presented by religious/spiritual related to diagnosis, integrated treatment, harmful religion, and the work of ethics committees and religious professionals. Those in Part Two consider ways of approaching these issues as they arise in different clinical contexts, such as forensic, consultation-liaison, geriatric, child, international and community psychiatry, as well as in psychiatric research and teaching.