【Philosophy】African philosophy cannot be a thing
This essay unpacks several arguments about the metaphilosophic nature of African philosophy and charts a way through the problems these arguments enco... [more]
【Philosophy】Fusion Philosophy and Epistemic Injustice
I use the concept of epistemic injustice to think through the practice and methodology of comparative, or fusion, philosophy. I make two related claim... [more]
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Malfunctions
A persistent boast of the historical approach to functions is that functional properties are normative. The claim is that a token trait retains its functional status even when it is defective, diseased, or damaged and consequently unable to perform the re
Populational heritability: Extending Punnett Square concepts to evolution at the metapopulation leve
In a previous study, using experimental metapopulations of the flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum, we investigated phase III of Wright's shifting balance process (Wade and Griesemer 1998). We experimentally modeled migration of varying amounts from demes
John Polkinghorne and the task of addressing a messy world
As a physicist-theologian, John Polkinghorne has done a great service for the community of scholars engaged in the theology-and-science dialogue as well as for a broader audience of interested persons. We examine Polkinghorne's theological method to see
The possibility of meaning in human evolution
Science undermines the certitude of non-naturalistic answers to the question of whether human life has meaning. I explore whether evolution can provide a naturalistic basis for existential meaning. Using the work of philosopher Daniel Dennett and scientis
Zygon conversations:: Responses to year 2000 articles -: Thick naturalism:: Comments on Zygon 2000
The term naturalism arouses strong emotions; religious naturalism even more. In this essay, naturalism is explored in a variety of contexts, in contrast to supernaturalism (in metaphysics), normativism (in ethics and epistemology), and rationalism (in the
The early intellectual careers of Bakhtin and Herzen: Towards a philosophy of the act
The article explores common ground shat ed by Alexander Herzen's 'Dilettantism in Science' (1843) and Mikhail Bakhtin's 'Towards a Philosophy of the Act' (1919) in the context of the Russian intellectual tradition as a whole. The primary aim is to e
Philosophy, rhetoric, and power: A response to critics
The paper distinguishes Mark Bevir's logical approach to the theory of history from the historiography of Hayden White and the sociology of Michel Foucault. Rather than seeing these approaches as inherently contradictory, it suggests that historiography
Imagining the history of ideas
Mark Bevir's The Logic of the History of Ideas has a number of strong points. For example, Bevir is nonreductive in his approach to explanation, his procedural individualism rightly favours 'bottom up' explanations, based on the particular facts of a c
The logic of the history of ideas
This paper provides a short summary of Mark Bevir, The Logic of the History of Ideas. Logic stands here as a subset of Wittgenstein's notion of philosophy as a matter of the grammar of our concepts. It studies the forms of reasoning appropriate to a disc
Fanning the spark of hope in the past: The British Marxist historians
Walter Benjamin wrote in his Theses in the Philosophy of History: 'Only that historian will have the gift of fanning the spark of hope in the past who is firmly convinced that even the dead will not be safe from the enemy [the ruling class] if he wins. A
For a moderate relativism in the sociology of science. On the philosophical presuppositions and cons
The new sociology of science makes the relativist claim that social factors influence the generation and evaluation even of valid scientific knowledge, and mainly for its relativism it is sharply criticized by philosophers. The central objections of the c
Mortal losses, vital gains: The role of spirituality
Grief and its management constitute the general topic of this paper. A personal dynamic of reframing is articulated and defined as a major experiential source of human spirituality. The argument is that exercises in the comparative free association of los
The concept of truth in a finite universe
The prospects and limitations of defining truth in a finite model in the same language whose truth one is considering are thoroughly examined. It is shown that in contradistinction to Traski's undefinability theorem for arithmetic, it is in a definite se
Remarks on the modal logic of Henry Bradford Smith
H.B.Smith, Professor of Philosophy at the influential 'Pennsylvania School' was (roughly) a contemporary of C.I. Lewis who was similarly interested in a proper account of 'implication'. His research also led him into the study of modal logic but in a
Sets and classes as many
In this paper the view is developed that classes should not be understood as individuals, but, rather, as 'classes as many' of individuals. To correlate classes with individuals 'labelling' and 'colabelling' functions are introduced and sets identif