Thick Evaluation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Kirchin
Keyword(s):  
Bernard Williams ◽  
Descriptive Content ◽  
Jonathan Dancy ◽  
Radical Nature ◽  
Thick Concepts ◽  
The World ◽  
Philippa Foot ◽  
Dividing Line

Having dismissed two other anti-separationist strategies, this chapter presents the best way of attacking separationism and articulating nonseparationism. It is denied that thick concepts can be split into thin evaluation and nonevaluative descriptive content by showing that thick evaluation is itself a basic and fundamental response to the world. Evaluation cannot be reduced to stances that are merely pro or con, as separationists do, because doing so results in a strange view of the world. This idea is elaborated in many ways: the proposal’s radical nature is revealed since the notion of the evaluative is shown to stretch further than one might think; it is suggested that there is no obvious clear dividing line between evaluative and nonevaluative concepts; there is a final discussion of evaluative flexibility; and two worries from Chapter Two are met. Work by Jonathan Dancy, Philippa Foot, Gilbert Ryle, and Bernard Williams is discussed.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Kirchin
Keyword(s):  
Hilary Putnam ◽  
Bernard Williams ◽  
General Methodology ◽  
Thick Concepts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Philippa Foot ◽  
The Difference

This chapter introduces the distinction between thin and thick concepts and then performs a number of functions. First, two major accounts of thick concepts—separationism and nonseparationism—are introduced and, in doing so, a novel account of evaluation is indicated. Second, each chapter is outlined as is the general methodology, followed, third, by a brief history of the discussion of thick concepts, referencing Philippa Foot, Hilary Putnam, Gilbert Ryle, and Bernard Williams among others. Fourth, a number of relevant contrasts are introduced, such as the fact–value distinction and the difference between concepts, properties, and terms. Lastly, some interesting and relevant questions are raised that, unfortunately, have to be left aside.

scholarly journals Areal Typology of Mainland Southeast Asia: What We Learn from the Wals Maps

MANUSYA ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 18-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard Comrie
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
The World ◽  
Language Area ◽  
Asian Languages ◽  
Mainland Southeast Asia ◽  
Dividing Line

Mainland Southeast Asia has long been recognized as a classic example of a linguistic area, but earlier characterizations of this language area have typically been intuitive, for instance providing seemingly impressive lists of features known to be shared by Mainland Southeast Asian languages but without considering a list of features on which these languages differ, without explicitly considering the extent to which the features in question are common or rare across the world as a whole. By using the maps in the World Atlas of Language Structures, it is possible to build up a more structured assessment of the extent to which Mainland Southeast Asia constitutes a linguistic area. Many maps show a clear delimitation between Mainland Southeast Asia and the rest of Eurasia, although the precise boundary varies from map to map, as does the presence and location of intermediate zones. The dividing line between Mainland Southeast Asia and Insular Southeast Asia is much less clear-cut, thus providing some evidence for a more general Southeast Asian linguistic area.

Reply to Bernard Williams' ‘Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline’

Philosophy ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 76 (4) ◽  
pp. 605-614 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hilary Putnam
Keyword(s):  
Central Issue ◽  
Bernard Williams ◽  
Primary Qualities ◽  
Absolute Conception ◽  
The World ◽  
The Absolute

In ‘Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline,’ Williams is mistaken in thinking that I accused him of thinking that that we can describe the world ‘as it is anyway’ without using concepts. Our real disagreement is over whether it makes sense to think that the concepts of physics do this. The central issue is this: the notion of ‘absoluteness’ is defined using at least one semantical notion (‘convergence’). If Williams' view is to work, I argue, at least one semantical notion needs to be absolute. But Williams himself concedes that semantical notions cannot be reduced to physical ones, and the ‘absolute conception’ is supposed to be given in terms of primary qualities alone.

Chapter I. The Home Economy

1984 ◽  
Vol 108 ◽  
pp. 5-20
Keyword(s):  
World Economy ◽  
Slow Growth ◽  
Fourth Quarter ◽  
Total Output ◽  
Consumer Spending ◽  
Primary Stimulus ◽  
The World ◽  
Economic Trends ◽  
Dividing Line

The dividing line in recent economic trends came at the beginning of last year when a two-year phase of slow growth came to an end. Total output, which had risen at a rate of only 1½ per cent a year between the first quarter of 1981 and the fourth quarter of 1982, rose by 2½-3 per cent during 1983. This change of tempo coincided with an upturn in the world economy, but owed little to it initially. Exports followed rather than led a recovery which was based mainly on consumer spending, particularly on durables. Most of this spending was financed by borrowing, but the primary stimulus probably came from falling inflation.

scholarly journals SPIRITUALITY AND TOLERANCE: THE CASE OF NORTH MACEDONIA

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 1959-1964
Author(s):  
Ali Pajaziti
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Religious Tolerance ◽  
Descriptive Content ◽  
The North ◽  
The World ◽  
Private And Public

Tolerance is one of the values that is becoming more and more important in different world agendas, especially at a time when theories of conflicts between cultures, civilizations and religions are being furiously propagated, and when the world is facing a multidimensional crisis. Today, tolerance is needed as air. Its spirit should be distributed in all dimensions of life, it must "be applied as a principle in education; we need to build generations in conjunction with this crucial value. (Yilmaz, 2004: 109) Religious tolerance implies the generosity that one shows to another religion, outside of their own; it is a moral determination to keep the supporters of that religion calm in practicing their spirituality in private and public life, although they may absolutely disagree with it and consider it false faith. (Pohle, 1912) Religion and tolerance are related in both theoretical and practical terms. It has been shown by numerous examples in history, close and distant, as well as by the current situation in global terms. Religious tolerance implies that a person does not discriminate another person’s religious beliefs even though he may think that they are or can be wrong. The tolerant way of thinking based on dialogue reduces the number of dogmatic people among the wits, fanatics and extremists among the believers, and tyrants among the politicians. (Šušnjić, 2004: 1, 7-16) The majority of citizens consider religion as a driving force in the way of creation of a tolerant, multiultural and cohesive society. This paper deals with binom spirituality and tolerance in the North-Macedonian Context. Methods use in the research are descriptive, content analysis, case study etc.

When Death Comes Too Late: Radical Life Extension and the Makropulos Case

2021 ◽  
Vol 90 ◽  
pp. 147-166
Author(s):  
Michael Hauskeller
Keyword(s):  
Good Reason ◽  
Life Extension ◽  
Bernard Williams ◽  
The World ◽  
Radical Life Extension ◽  
Do So ◽  
Makropulos Case

AbstractFamously, Bernard Williams has argued that although death is an evil if it occurs when we still have something to live for, we have no good reason to desire that our lives be radically extended because any such life would at some point reach a stage when we become indifferent to the world and ourselves. This is supposed to be so bad for us that it would be better if we died before that happens. Most critics have rejected Williams’ arguments on the grounds that it is far from certain that we will run out of things to live for, and I don't contest these objections. Instead, I am trying to show that they do not affect the persuasiveness of Williams’ argument, which in my reading does not rely on the claim that we will inevitably run out of things to live for, but on the far less contentious claim that it is not unthinkable we will do so and the largely ignored claim that if that happens, we will have died too late.

Utilitarianism, For and Against

1975 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 549-559
Author(s):  
D. P. Dryer
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Bernard Williams ◽  
The World ◽  
Stuart Hampshire

Utilitarianism, For and Against contains in a single volume a slightly revised version of An Outline of a System of Utilitarian Ethics which J. J. C. Smart published in 1961, together with a critique of it by Bernard Williams. Stuart Hampshire gives another critique in Morality and Pessimism.* After touching on Hampshire I shall outline what seems distinctive of Smart's utilitarianism then consider Williams’ objections.If I remember rightly, Bentham wrote an ‘analysis of the effects of Christianity on the temporal happiness of mankind’. In his Leslie Stephen Lecture, Hampshire gives utilitarianism a similar examination. We all know that for its fathers, utilitarianism was not simply a moral theory. They set out to do good in the world. Hampshire acknowledges that for long utilitarianism did much good.

When children remember: A history of the Tutsi genocide through the eyes of children (1994–2006)

2019 ◽  
Vol 101 (910) ◽  
pp. 37-57
Author(s):  
Hélène Dumas
Keyword(s):  
Survival Strategies ◽  
Social And Emotional ◽  
Radical Nature ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Brothers And Sisters

AbstractDrawing on a corpus of accounts written by survivor children in 2006, this article looks at the Tutsi genocide through the eyes of children, enabling us to see the radical social and emotional transgressions of 1994 from a new angle. As members of society and prime targets of the genocide, these children tell how the world of their childhood was turned upside-down, through the unique intensity of their own words. An idealized “before”, inhabited by the beloved characters of their parents, brothers and sisters, is brutally swept away as everything they have known becomes inverted. Forced to watch killings and cruelty, they adopt survival strategies that show how thoroughly they understand the radical nature of what is unfolding. An extreme distrust of adults will forever mark these children – now orphans – who still live in “the time of the genocide”.

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