Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Eric Wiland
Keyword(s):  
Moral Testimony ◽  
Opposite View

When we don’t know what to do, we often go to others for help, and we sometimes trust what they say. Pessimists about moral testimony think that there is something problematic about relying upon others for forming our views about what’s right and wrong. They think it is much better to grasp moral truths by oneself. This book argues for exactly the opposite view: it is better to be guided by others than to grasp moral truths by oneself. This Introduction gives a very concise chapter-by-chapter overview of the book.

Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility Volume 6

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Agency ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Moral Testimony ◽  
Quality Of Will ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Standing To Blame

This is the sixth volume of Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility. The papers were drawn from the fourth biennial New Orleans Workshop in Agency and Responsibility (NOWAR), held November 2–4, 2017. The essays cover a wide range of topics relevant to agency and responsibility: the threat of neuroscience to free will; the relevance of resentment and guilt to responsibility; how control and self-control pertain to moral agency, oppression, and poverty; responsibility for joint agency; the role and conditions of shame in theories of attributability; how one might take responsibility without blameworthy quality of will; what it means to have standing to blame others; the relevance of moral testimony to moral responsibility; how to build a theory of attributabiity that captures all the relevant cases; and how thinking about blame better enables us to dissolve a dispute in moral philosophy between actualists and possibilists.

Reactionaries of the lectern: Universalism, anti-empiricism and corporatism in Austrian (and German) social theory

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-305
Author(s):  
Alan Scott ◽  
Silvia Rief
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Vienna Circle ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Grand Theory ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Opposite View ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Early Manifestation

This article discusses one early manifestation of a recurring theme in social theory and sociology: the relationship between general (‘universal’ or ‘grand’) theory and empirical research. For the early critical theorists, empiricism and positivism were associated with technocratic domination. However, there was one place where the opposite view prevailed: science and empiricism were viewed as forces of social and political progress and speculative social theory as a force of reaction. That place was Red Vienna of the 1920s and early 1930s. We examine how this view came to be widespread among Austro-Marxists, empirical researchers and some members of the Vienna Circle. It focuses on the arguments and institutional power of their opponents: reactionary, universalistic and corporatist social theorists. The debate between Catholic corporatist theory and its empiricist critics is located not merely in Vienna but also within wider debates in the German-speaking world. Finally, we seek to link these lesser-known positions to more familiar strands of social thought, namely, those associated with Weber and, more briefly, Durkheim and Elias.

Paralysis alienorum progressiva familialis

1903 ◽  
Vol 3 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 402-403
Author(s):  
A. A. Artemov ◽  
A. N. Bernstein
Keyword(s):  
Opposite View

Ever since the time of Esmarch and Iessen, very many scientists have recognized the undoubted connection between progressive paralysis and syphilis; there is, however, and the opposite view - hence the idea of steam and meta-syphilis was strengthened.

The imagist approach to inferential thought patterns

1995 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph D. Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Conscious State ◽  
Natural Phenomenon ◽  
Logical Thinking ◽  
Roller Coaster ◽  
Thought Patterns ◽  
Opposite View ◽  
Inferential Thinking ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Inferential Processing ◽  
Ostensive Definition

Tmagists' hold that inferential thinking is built up from combinations of sensory and sensorimotor images in various patterns and modalities, and that the images are a more basic mental and neurophysiological operation than the logical thinking and conceptualization that are built up front them. 'Computationalists' hold just the opposite view — that images result from previous inferential processing which is more basic than the images. Suppose we define inference as the kind of thought process that we actually undergo when we do logical thinking, and not in the trivial sense in which any natural phenomenon which receives an 'input' from another then 'responds' to this 'input' (as for example when a ball responds to being hit by flying off at a certain angle). And suppose we define an 'image ' as any instance of imagining what it would be like to entertain some conscious state which we are not undergoing at the time — as for example when we imagine what it would be like to see something, to ride a roller coaster or to have a headache. I. e., 'images ' can be kinaesthetic and proprioceptive s well as sensory. Then it can be shown that inferential thinking is built up from patterns of images, including importantly the imaging of rhythm patterns corresponding to logical syntax. Furthermore, the acquisition of these inference rules can also be traced to a process of trying to imagine scenarios which might serve as counterexamples to the rules, and this kind of 'imagining ' can also be explained in terms of both sensory and proprioceptive images. The reason for this is twofold: First, even the apparently 'imageless ' concepts used to imagine such scenarios (e.g., the concept 'president') consist in each case of a feeling of preparedness to entertain a pattern of images which would be appropriate to provide a directly or indirectly ostensive definition of the concept in question, and this feeling of preparedness can be sensed proprioceptively. Secondly, a concept, even if it is not experienced as involving imagery, may nonetheless occur as an element of a larger pattern whose rhythm can be imaged. This paper defends an expanded version of the imagist approach, suggesting an important pragmatic role for the proprioceptive sensing of rhythm patterns in the acquisition and use of inference skills.

Jane Austen’s Questioning of Gender and Genres

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Laure MASSEI-CHAMAYOU
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Jane Austen ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Conduct Books ◽  
Northanger Abbey ◽  
Gothic Novels ◽  
Opposite View

If Jane Austen admits in her correspondence that she was eventually pleased with Thomas Gisborne’s Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex (1797), the Anglican theologian nonetheless endorsed the prejudices shared by most eighteenth-century moralists towards novels. Now, in Northanger Abbey, a novel filled with literary allusions, Jane Austen’s narrator bravely takes the opposite view by launching into a bold defence of the genre. Besides resorting to a biting irony to scrutinize her society’s axioms, rules and power relations, her novels notably question Manichean representations of masculine and feminine roles. Jane Austen’s choice to distance herself from the strictly gendered models inherited from conduct books, sentimental, or gothic novels, further combines with her questioning of generic conventions. This article thus aims at exploring how Jane Austen engaged with these representations while articulating her subtle didacticism. Her aim was not merely to raise the respectability of the novel genre, but also to provide a possible answer to the crisis of values that was threatening the very foundations of the political and social order.

Liverpool, Louisiana?

2021 ◽  
pp. 101-120
Author(s):  
Jim Powell
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Opposite View ◽  
Do So

This chapter considers the other myth of the war years: that Liverpool was overwhelmingly Confederate in its sympathies. Much contrarian evidence emerges: the port of Liverpool prospered during the war; its trade was always more dependent on the Northern States of America than on the Southern; the depredations of the CSS Florida and the CSS Alabama, warships built on Merseyside for the Confederacy, far from being a source of pride for Liverpool merchants, were for most a threat and an embarrassment. A noisy and partisan support for the Confederacy certainly existed in the port, but perceptions have been clouded by the romance of blockade-running – which accounted for less than 1 per cent of Liverpool’s wartime trade – and by the furore over the building of Confederate warships. The chapter shows that Laird Brothers, who built the Alabama and the notorious Laird rams, were approached to build warships for the Union and agreed to do so. The conclusion is that, while the opposite view cannot be maintained either, the idea that Liverpool was overwhelmingly pro-Confederate is unsustainable.

Accepting Moral Testimony

2021 ◽  
pp. 5-27
Author(s):  
Eric Wiland
Keyword(s):  
Basic Problem ◽  
Moral Testimony ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Specific Sense

This chapter clarifies the putatively problematic phenomenon: what it is to accept moral testimony, and what seems to be the basic problem with it. It argues that you accept testimony that p, just in case 1) you believe the testimony that p for a testimonial reason, and 2) either a) the testimonial reason to believe p in fact makes the difference whether you believe p, or b) would alone be enough for you to believe p were there no nontestimonial reasons to believe (or disbelieve) p. To identify what seems to be the basic problem with accepting moral testimony, we need to understand how morality fits in to this formula. Philosophers often claim that accepting pure moral testimony is problematic. This chapter distinguishes three different ways of understanding purity and identifies the specific sense of purity that characterizes the alleged problem.

Observation and Experience

2019 ◽  
pp. 106-150
Author(s):  
Sarah McGrath
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Moral Community ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Testimony ◽  
The World ◽  
Moral Claims

This chapter explores how experience and observation contribute to moral knowledge. It defends the view that experience and observation can contribute to moral knowledge in any of the ways in which they contribute to our ordinary, non-moral knowledge of the world around us, including by empirically confirming and disconfirming moral claims. I argue that moral testimony has important implications for the possibility of confirming moral views by non-moral observations. I also argue that membership in a moral community, which puts one in a position to compare the moral opinions of others with one’s own, can contribute to moral knowledge not only by affording evidence for or against one’s opinions, but also by providing feedback that can serve to calibrate one’s capacity for judgment so that future exercises of that judgment are more likely to deliver knowledge. The chapter concludes with a discussion of a priori moral knowledge.

'IF it Ain't in the Notes…’ Dental Record-keeping in Adversity

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-52
Author(s):  
Stephen Henderson
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Trial Judge ◽  
Record Keeping ◽  
Opposite View ◽  
As If

There are some dento-legal mantras that have, by default, come to be understood as the truth, for example: “If it ain't in the notes, it didn't happen” and “Good records, good defence; poor records, poor defence; no records, no defence.” The opposite view was offered by the trial judge in a dental clinical negligence case in recent years. The judge's view can be summed up as: “If you don't make a note of something that has happened, you leave yourself at risk of proceedings like these.”

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