Isaac Beekman, whom Jacob identifies as “the first mechanical philosopher of the Scientific Revolution”, was confident that “God had so constructed the whole of nature that our understanding … may thoroughly penetrate all the things on earth” (Jacob 1988, p. 52). Similar theses are propounded with the same confidence today, notably by people who describe [...]
Aaron Sell and Leda Cosmides and John Tooby and Daniel Sznycer and Christopher von Rueden and Michael Gurven, “Human adaptations for the visual assessment of strength and fighting ability from the body and face”, in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, forthcoming.
Abstract
Selection in species with aggressive social interactions favours the evolution of cognitive [...]
I am not here concerned to enquire under what circumstances some of us might with advantage take a lesson from the cow. I have really no doubt that such exist.
G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica: With the Preface to the Second Edition and Other Papers, Thomas Baldwin (Ed), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, [1903] 1993, p. 96. [...]
In the latest issue of the British Academy Review, there is an excerpt from Robin Dunbar’s 2007 Joint British Academy/British Psychological Society Lecture, appearing under the title “Why Humans aren’t just Great Apes” [PDF]. The article begins with Dunbar recapitulating his famous argument for his eponymous number, complete with the following, lovely, table.
The number ~150 [...]
Children are rarely still, while elderly philosophers will sometimes remain rigid for minutes together.
Sir Francis Galton, Memories of My Life, Methuen, London, 1908, p. 278.
An electrical engineer is not a voltmeter’s way of making another voltmeter.
Sterelny, Kim. 1994. “Science and Selection”, in Biology and Philosophy, Vol. 9, No. 1, January 1994, pp. 45–62.
From Mark Wilson, “Theory Façades”, in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. 104, No. 1, December 2004, pp. 273–288.
From Alan Baker, “Complexity Unfavoured”, in Analysis, Vol. 68, No. 297, January 2008, pp. 85–88.
Martin Russocki, “Untitled Subway Portrait”, from The Threepenny Review, Issue 85, Spring 2001.
Reprinted in Harper’s, Vol. 304, No. 1820, January 2002, p. 28.
[...]Anja Löbert, “Cliff Richard’s Self-Presentation as a Redeemer”, in Popular Music, Vol. 27, No. 1, January 2008, pp. 77-97.
Although tremendously popular, Great Britain’s long-term icon Cliff Richard has been widely neglected by popular music studies. This article aims to correct this omission by introducing an argument that claims that Cliff Richard portrays himself to a [...]
The rejection of group selection in the 1960s was based on three arguments, like the legs of a stool [...]
David Sloan Wilson and Edward O. Wilson, “Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology”, in The Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 82, No. 4, December 2007, p. 331.
Furthermore, it provides a resolution of the long-standing debate between empiricism and realism.
Craig Dilworth, The Metaphysics of Science: An Account of Modern Science in Terms of Principles, Laws and Theories, 2nd Ed, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 173, Springer, Amsterdam, 2007.
In this respect, an opera is like a living thing—like a porcupine, say.
Joseph Raz, The Practice of Value, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005, p. 78.
The painter might be at a loss to paint a picture of an idea, especially if he is not familiar with conceptual art.
Gilbert Harman, “The Intrinsic Quality of Experience”, in Philosophical Perspectives, Vol. 4, Action Theory and Philosophy of Mind, 1990, pp. 31–52.
Steven E. Boër and William G. Lycan, “Who, Me?”, in The Philosophical Review, Vol. 89, No. 3, July 1980, pp. 427–466.
Takashi Yagisawa, “Yes, You!”, in Philosophia, Vol. 17, No. 2, March 1987, pp. 169-186.
Steven E. Boër and William G. Lycan, “Yes, Who?”, in Philosophia, Vol. 17, No. 2, March 1987, pp. 187-190.
“sometimes selection is like kissing”
Shapiro, Larry, and Elliott Sober. 2007. “Epiphenomenalism—The Do’s and the Don’ts”, in Peter Machamer and Gereon Wolters (Ed.), Studies in Causality: Historical and Contemporary, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh. [PDF]
A story is told of Igor Stravinsky, who was getting increasingly irritated by a talkative man in the train seat alongside him. When the man, after describing his young wife in glowing terms, reached into his pocket and pulled a wallet-sized photograph of her; Stravinsky cupped the photo in both hands, and then remarked “She [...]
In which Jonathan Bennett refers to all females working on conditionals at the time of his writing by employing a single proper name:
Whenever I report what someone ‘told me’, ‘warned me’, or the like, I always mean that he or Dorothy did so in a personal communication.
Bennett, Jonathan. 2003. A Philosophical Guide to Conditionals, Oxford [...]
I am aware this will have little interest for most readers, but it looks like JSTOR is finally going to be enabling DOI for journals that wish to have their content identifiable in this way. This is very good news. JSTOR is easily the best online database for academic journals. It is [...]
Among those Americans who care enough about politics to have registered themselves with The Democratic Party and intend to vote in the upcoming Democratic primary elections, 7 percent think that Barack Obama is a Muslim (CBS Poll). I find it very difficult to interpret this sort of information. In particular, I am curious how [...]
On some accounts, the creative activity of God is mobilized by an entirely inexhaustible and uninhibited love. This love, which is understood as being totally without limit and condition, moves God to desire a plenum of existence in which everything that can conceivably be an object of love is included. God wants to love as [...]
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
and look at this prepronominal funferal, engraved and retouched and edgewiped and puddenpadded, very like a whale’s egg farced with pemmican, as were it sentenced to be nuzzled over a full [...]