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Conceptions of Parenthood: Ethics and The Family

Our parents often have a significant impact on the content of our beliefs, the values we hold, and the goals we pursue and becoming a parent can also have a similar impact on our lives. In Conceptions of Parenthood Michael Austin provides a rigorous and accessible philosophical analysis of the numerous and distinct conceptions of parenthood. Issues considered are the nature and justification of parental rights, the sources of parental obligations, the value of autonomy, and the moral obligations and tensions present within interpersonal relationships. Austin rejects the 'proprietarian', 'best interests of the child', and 'biological' conceptions of parenthood as failing to generate parental rights and obligations but considers more sympathetically the 'custodial relationship', 'consent', and 'causal' conceptions of parenthood and ultimately defends a 'stewardship' conception. Finally Austin explores the 'stewardship' view for practical and moral questions related to family life and social policy regarding the family, such as the education of children, the religious upbringing of children and state licensing of parents.

concepts: a travelogue (Thinking Media)

Concepts seem to work best when created in that interspace between theory and praxis, between philosophy, art, and science. Deleuze himself has generated many concepts in this encounter between philosophy and non-philosophy (art, literature, film, botany, etc): his ideas of affects and percepts, of becoming, the stutter, movement-image and time-image, the rhizome, to name but a few.In the case of this volume, the "other" is the "other" to English language/culture (and its philosophy): what happens, if instead of "other disciplines," we take other cultures, other languages, other philosophies? Does not the focus on English as a hegemonic language of academic discourse deny us a plethora of possibilities, of possible Denkfiguren, of possible concepts? This collection is a kind of travelogue. The journey does not follow a particular trajectory-some countries are not on the map; some are visited twice. So, there is no claim to completeness involved here-it is rather an invitation to answer to the call … there is much to explore!

concepts: a travelogue (Thinking Media)

Concepts seem to work best when created in that interspace between theory and praxis, between philosophy, art, and science. Deleuze himself has generated many concepts in this encounter between philosophy and non-philosophy (art, literature, film, botany, etc): his ideas of affects and percepts, of becoming, the stutter, movement-image and time-image, the rhizome, to name but a few.In the case of this volume, the "other" is the "other" to English language/culture (and its philosophy): what happens, if instead of "other disciplines," we take other cultures, other languages, other philosophies? Does not the focus on English as a hegemonic language of academic discourse deny us a plethora of possibilities, of possible Denkfiguren, of possible concepts? This collection is a kind of travelogue. The journey does not follow a particular trajectory-some countries are not on the map; some are visited twice. So, there is no claim to completeness involved here-it is rather an invitation to answer to the call … there is much to explore!

Concepts and Approaches in Evolutionary Epistemology: Towards an Evolutionary Theory of Knowledge (Theory and Decision Library #36)

The present volume brings together current interdisciplinary research which adds up to an evolutionary theory of human knowledge, Le. evolutionary epistemology. It comprises ten papers, dealing with the basic concepts, approaches and data in evolutionary epistemology and discussing some of their most important consequences. Because I am convinced that criticism, if not confused with mere polemics, is apt to stimulate the maturation of a scientific or philosophical theory, I invited Reinhard Low to present his critical view of evolutionary epistemology and to indicate some limits of our evolutionary conceptions. The main purpose of this book is to meet the urgent need of both science and philosophy for a comprehensive up-to-date approach to the problem of knowledge, going beyond the traditional disciplinary boundaries of scientific and philosophical thought. Evolutionary epistemology has emerged as a naturalistic and science-oriented view of knowledge taking cognizance of, and compatible with, results of biological, psychological, anthropological and linguistic inquiries concerning the structure and development of man's cognitive apparatus. Thus, evolutionary epistemology serves as a frame­ work for many contemporary discussions of the age-old problem of human knowledge.

Concepts and Categories: Philosophical Essays (Filosofia Ser.)

Although Isaiah Berlin liked to say that he left philosophy for the history of ideas after the Second World War, there is a decided continuity between his more purely philosophical writings, most of which are collected in this volume, and the more historical work for which he is better known. Included here are Berlin's early arguments against logical positivism and later essays which more evidently reflect his life-long interest in political theory, intellectual history and the philosophy of history. In two related pieces he gives his view on the philosopher's task, to uncover the various models - the concepts and categories - that we bring to our experience, and that help to form it. In his own words 'The goal of philosophy is always the same, to assist men to understand themselves and thus operate in the open, and not wildly, in the dark.'

Concepts and Categories: Philosophical Essays, Second Edition

"The goal of philosophy is always the same, to assist men to understand themselves and thus to operate in the open, not wildly in the dark."--Isaiah Berlin This volume of Isaiah Berlin's essays presents the sweep of his contributions to philosophy from his early participation in the debates surrounding logical positivism to his later work, which more evidently reflects his life-long interest in political theory, the history of ideas, and the philosophy of history. Here Berlin describes his view of the nature of philosophy, and of its main task: to uncover the various models and presuppositions--the concepts and categories--that men bring to their existence and that help form that existence. Throughout, his writing is informed by his intense consciousness of the plurality of values, the nature of historical understanding, and of the fragility of human freedom in the face of rigid dogma. This new edition adds a number of previously uncollected pieces that throw further light on Berlin's central philosophical concerns, and a revealing exchange of letters with the editor and Bernard Williams about the genesis of the book.

Concepts and Categories: Philosophical Essays, Second Edition

"The goal of philosophy is always the same, to assist men to understand themselves and thus to operate in the open, not wildly in the dark."--Isaiah Berlin This volume of Isaiah Berlin's essays presents the sweep of his contributions to philosophy from his early participation in the debates surrounding logical positivism to his later work, which more evidently reflects his life-long interest in political theory, the history of ideas, and the philosophy of history. Here Berlin describes his view of the nature of philosophy, and of its main task: to uncover the various models and presuppositions--the concepts and categories--that men bring to their existence and that help form that existence. Throughout, his writing is informed by his intense consciousness of the plurality of values, the nature of historical understanding, and of the fragility of human freedom in the face of rigid dogma. This new edition adds a number of previously uncollected pieces that throw further light on Berlin's central philosophical concerns, and a revealing exchange of letters with the editor and Bernard Williams about the genesis of the book.

Concepts and History: John Dunn’s Lectures in China

This book brings together three recent talks given by John Dunn in China: two full lectures, and one shorter talk followed by the transcription of an extended Q&A session with some eminent Chinese political philosophers and historians of political thought. These three chapters are followed by an intellectual-biographical interview with Dunn. Each of the chapters bears some relevance to Chinese political thought or at least pursues a general ‘East meets West’ theme. The chapters can be read in any order, although they present some common themes.

Concepts and Measurement of Quality of Life in Health Care (Philosophy and Medicine #47)

Questions concerning the notion of quality of life, its definition, and its ap­ plications for purposes of assessment and measurement in social and medical contexts, have been widely discussed in Scandinavia during the last ten years. To a great extent this discussion mirrors the international develop­ ment in the area. Several methods for the assessment and measurement of quality of life have been borrowed from the UK and the US and then further developed in northern Europe. But there has also been an internal develop­ ment. This holds in particular for the social arena, where Scandinavia has had a special tradition both in theory and practice. In this volume an attempt is made to illustrate some aspects of the philo­ sophical, and in general theoretical, discussion concerning quality of life in Scandinavia. In addition, some prominent scholars from other parts of Europe, i. e. , France, the Netherlands, the UK and Italy, have been invited to contribute. The volume is divided into three sections. The first contains philosophical analyses of the general notion of quality of life and proposes a number of different explications. The second section considers various ap­ plications of the notion of quality of life in health care. The papers serve to disentangle some intellectual and ethical problems that stem from these ap­ plications. The third section is more practical and focuses on methods of measuring quality of life in medicine and health care.

Concepts and method in social science: Giovanni Sartori and His Legacy (PDF)

Careful work with concepts is a cornerstone of good social science methodology. Concepts and Method in Social Science demonstrates the crucial role of concepts, providing a timely contribution that draws both on the classic work of Giovanni Sartori and the writing of a younger generation of scholars. In this volume, major writings of Sartori are juxtaposed with other work that exemplifies important approaches to concept analysis. The book is organized into three key sections: Part I : Sartori on Concepts and Methods #65533; including an examination of the necessary logical steps in moving from conceptualization to measurement and the relationships among meanings, terms and observations. Part II: Extending the Sartori Tradition #65533; eminent scholars analyse five key ideas in concept analysis: revolution, culture, democracy, peasants and institutionalization within the context of the Sartori tradition. Part III: In the Academy and Beyond #65533; both an engaging autobiographical essay written by Giovanni Sartori and reflections from former students provide a unique context in which to situate this varied and rigorous discussion of concept analysis and qualitative methods. Concepts and Method in Social Science is an accessible text that is well suited to advanced undergraduates and graduate students, providing a distinct and coherent introduction to comparative political analysis.

Concepts and Theories of Modern Democracy

This highly acclaimed and popular academic text is now available in a new edition, having been revised and updated to cover the analyses of the use, abuse and ambiguity of many essential concepts used in political discourse and political studies. These include basic concepts such as liberty, democracy, rights, representation, authority and political power. New to this edition are three sections of great topical interest: entirely original analysis of global terrorism, which puts the recent developments of Islamic terrorism into perspective by comparing it with earlier examples of terrorist tactics by a variety of state agencies, revolutionary groups and minority nationalist movements extended discussion on multiculturalism, which supplements theoretical arguments with succinct summaries of the differing ways in which ethnic and cultural minorities have been dealt with in Canada, Britain, France and the Netherlands section on democratization that focuses on the problems, social and political and even theological, involved in turning authoritarian regimes into stable democracies in the Middle East and elsewhere. Concepts and Theories of Modern Democracy is a stimulating guide to current world problems as well as essential reading for foundation courses at first or second year level such as elements of politics, political concepts and ideas and fundamentals in politics.

Concepts and Theories of Modern Democracy

This highly acclaimed and popular academic text is now available in a new edition, having been revised and updated to cover the analyses of the use, abuse and ambiguity of many essential concepts used in political discourse and political studies. These include basic concepts such as liberty, democracy, rights, representation, authority and political power. New to this edition are three sections of great topical interest: entirely original analysis of global terrorism, which puts the recent developments of Islamic terrorism into perspective by comparing it with earlier examples of terrorist tactics by a variety of state agencies, revolutionary groups and minority nationalist movements extended discussion on multiculturalism, which supplements theoretical arguments with succinct summaries of the differing ways in which ethnic and cultural minorities have been dealt with in Canada, Britain, France and the Netherlands section on democratization that focuses on the problems, social and political and even theological, involved in turning authoritarian regimes into stable democracies in the Middle East and elsewhere. Concepts and Theories of Modern Democracy is a stimulating guide to current world problems as well as essential reading for foundation courses at first or second year level such as elements of politics, political concepts and ideas and fundamentals in politics.

Concepts at the Interface

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Research on concepts has concentrated on how people apply concepts when presented with a stimulus. Equally important, however, is the use of concepts offline, while planning what to do or thinking about what is the case. There is strong evidence that inferences driven by conceptual thought draw heavily on special-purpose resources--sensory, motoric, affective, and evaluative. At the same time, concepts afford general-purpose recombination and support content-general reasoning processes, which have long been the focus of philosophers. There is a growing consensus that a theory of concepts must encompass both kinds of processes. Nicholas Shea shows how concepts can act as an interface between content-general reasoning and special-purpose systems. Concept-driven thinking can take advantage of the complementary costs and benefits of each. This book sets out an empirically-based account of the different ways in which thinking with concepts leads us to new conclusions and underpins planning and decision-making. It also outlines three useful implications of this account. First, it allows us to reconstruct the commonplace idea that thinking draws on the meaning of a concept. Second, it offers insight into how human cognition avoids the frame problem and the complementary, less discussed, 'if-then problem' for dispositions acquired from experience. Third, it shows that metacognition can apply to concepts and concept-driven thinking in various ways. The framework developed in the book elucidates what makes concept-driven thinking an especially powerful cognitive resource.

Concepts at the Interface

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Research on concepts has concentrated on how people apply concepts when presented with a stimulus. Equally important, however, is the use of concepts offline, while planning what to do or thinking about what is the case. There is strong evidence that inferences driven by conceptual thought draw heavily on special-purpose resources--sensory, motoric, affective, and evaluative. At the same time, concepts afford general-purpose recombination and support content-general reasoning processes, which have long been the focus of philosophers. There is a growing consensus that a theory of concepts must encompass both kinds of processes. Nicholas Shea shows how concepts can act as an interface between content-general reasoning and special-purpose systems. Concept-driven thinking can take advantage of the complementary costs and benefits of each. This book sets out an empirically-based account of the different ways in which thinking with concepts leads us to new conclusions and underpins planning and decision-making. It also outlines three useful implications of this account. First, it allows us to reconstruct the commonplace idea that thinking draws on the meaning of a concept. Second, it offers insight into how human cognition avoids the frame problem and the complementary, less discussed, 'if-then problem' for dispositions acquired from experience. Third, it shows that metacognition can apply to concepts and concept-driven thinking in various ways. The framework developed in the book elucidates what makes concept-driven thinking an especially powerful cognitive resource.

Concepts at Work: On the Linguistic Infrastructure of World Politics

Concepts are socially and linguistically constructed and used for multiple purposes, such as justifying war in the name of democracy; or, using the idea of democracy to resist Western intervention and influence. In this fascinating and novel edited collection, Piki Ish-Shalom and his team of authors interrogate the “conceptions of concepts” in international relations. Using theoretical frameworks from Gramsci and Bourdieu, among others, the authors show that not interrogating the meaning of the language we use to talk about international relations obscures the way we understand (or portray) IR. The authors examine self-determination, winning in war, avoidance of war, military design and reform agenda, vagueness in political discourse, “blue economy,” friendship, and finally, the very idea of the “international community” itself. As the author asserts, Bourdieu’s sociology of field and Gramsci’s political theory combined “offer us a sociopolitical theory of relations of power and domination concealed by doxic knowledge and taken-for-granted rules, in which essential contested concepts and political-serving conceptions can and do play an important role.”

Concepts, Frames and Cascades in Semantics, Cognition and Ontology (Language, Cognition, and Mind #7)

This open access book presents novel theoretical, empirical and experimental work exploring the nature of mental representations that support natural language production and understanding, and other manifestations of cognition. One fundamental question raised in the text is whether requisite knowledge structures can be adequately modeled by means of a uniform representational format, and if so, what exactly is its nature.Frames are a key topic covered which have had a strong impact on the exploration of knowledge representations in artificial intelligence, psychology and linguistics; cascades are a novel development in frame theory. Other key subject areas explored are: concepts and categorization, the experimental investigation of mental representation, as well as cognitive analysis in semantics. This book is of interest to students, researchers, and professionals working on cognition in the fields of linguistics, philosophy, and psychology.

Concepts & Images: Visual Mathematics (Design Science Collection)

1. Introduction . 1 2. Areas and Angles . . 6 3. Tessellations and Symmetry 14 4. The Postulate of Closest Approach 28 5. The Coexistence of Rotocenters 36 6. A Diophantine Equation and its Solutions 46 7. Enantiomorphy. . . . . . . . 57 8. Symmetry Elements in the Plane 77 9. Pentagonal Tessellations . 89 10. Hexagonal Tessellations 101 11. Dirichlet Domain 106 12. Points and Regions 116 13. A Look at Infinity . 122 14. An Irrational Number 128 15. The Notation of Calculus 137 16. Integrals and Logarithms 142 17. Growth Functions . . . 149 18. Sigmoids and the Seventh-year Trifurcation, a Metaphor 159 19. Dynamic Symmetry and Fibonacci Numbers 167 20. The Golden Triangle 179 21. Quasi Symmetry 193 Appendix I: Exercise in Glide Symmetry . 205 Appendix II: Construction of Logarithmic Spiral . 207 Bibliography . 210 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Concepts and Images is the result of twenty years of teaching at Harvard's Department of Visual and Environmental Studies in the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, a department devoted to turning out students articulate in images much as a language department teaches reading and expressing one­ self in words. It is a response to our students' requests for a "handout" and to l our colleagues' inquiries about the courses : Visual and Environmental Studies 175 (Introduction to Design Science), YES 176 (Synergetics, the Structure of Ordered Space), Studio Arts 125a (Design Science Workshop, Two-Dimension­ al), Studio Arts 125b (Design Science Workshop, Three-Dimensional),2 as well as my freshman seminars on Structure in Science and Art.

Concepts in Action: Representation, Learning, and Application (Language, Cognition, and Mind #9)

This open access book is a timely contribution in presenting recent issues, approaches, and results that are not only central to the highly interdisciplinary field of concept research but also particularly important to newly emergent paradigms and challenges. The contributors present a unique, holistic picture for the understanding and use of concepts from a wide range of fields including cognitive science, linguistics, philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, and computer science. The chapters focus on three distinct points of view that lie at the core of concept research: representation, learning, and application. The contributions present a combination of theoretical, experimental, computational, and applied methods that appeal to students and researchers working in these fields.

Concepts in Law (Law and Philosophy Library #88)

During the last decades, legal theory has focused almost completely on norms, rules and arguments as the constitutive elements of law. Concepts were mostly neglected. The contributions to this volume try to remedy this neglect by elucidating the role concepts play in law from different perspectives. A main aim of this volume is to initiate a debate about concepts in law. Åke Frändberg gives an overview of the many different uses of concepts in law and shows amongst others that concepts in the law should not be confused with the role of concepts in descriptions of the law. Dietmar von der Pfordten criticizes the restriction to norms as parts of the law in contemporary legal theory by questioning what concepts are and what their function is, both in general and in legal conceptual schemes. Giovanni Sartor assumes the inferential analysis of meaning proposed by Alf Ross in his ground breaking paper Tû-tû and addresses the question how possession of a concept, including the rules defining it, is possible without endorsing these rules. Jaap Hage argues that 1. legal status words such as 'owner' have a meaning because they denote things or relations in institutional reality, 2. the meaning of these words consists in this denotation relation, 3. knowledge of this meaning presupposes knowledge of the rules governing these words. Torben Spaak contributes to this volume with an exemplary analysis of one of the most central concepts of the law, namely that of a legal power. Lorenz Kähler discusses the role of concepts in determining the scope of application of legal rules and raises from this perspective the question to what extent legal concept formation can be arbitrary. Ralf Poscher argues that as soon as a concept is used in stating the law, the precise scope of application of this concept has become a legal matter. This means that the use of ‘moral’ concepts in the law does not automatically lead to a moral import into the law. Dennis Patterson holds that Hart’s concept of law can be understood as a so-called ‘practice theory’ and provides an overview of such a theory.

Concepts of Deity: (pdf) (Philosophy of Religion Series)

The Concepts of Ethics: (pdf)

Concepts of Justice

In Concepts of Justice D. D. Raphael gives a philosophical survey of the development of the idea of justice. While the framework is historical, the aim is philosophical analysis and criticism. Part I begins with 'Ancient Roots': justice in the Bible, in Aeschylus' Oresteia, in the philosophers Plato and Aristotle, and among jurists and theologians in the Middle Ages. Part II, 'Modern Shoots', deals with philosophers from Hobbes to Rawls, and others of the modern age. Some of the writings considered will be unfamiliar to many readers, who will find that eminence as a political theorist is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition of significant thought about justice. Part III, 'Historical Fruits', draws some conclusions from the whole survey, pinning down the notion of fairness, and asking why this notion embraces apparently disparate ideas, notably 'merit' and 'need'. The developing role of justice and the emergence of novel features during the last three centuries is also discussed. Raphael does not assume that the theories of philosophers must reflect the thought and usage of people generally: some do while others are idiosyncratic, and a number of philosophers neglect the usage of the concept in the context of law. While this book is not a comprehensive history, it is comprehensive in its scope.

Concepts of Mass in Contemporary Physics and Philosophy (PDF)

The concept of mass is one of the most fundamental notions in physics, comparable in importance only to those of space and time. But in contrast to the latter, which are the subject of innumerable physical and philosophical studies, the concept of mass has been but rarely investigated. Here Max Jammer, a leading philosopher and historian of physics, provides a concise but comprehensive, coherent, and self-contained study of the concept of mass as it is defined, interpreted, and applied in contemporary physics and as it is critically examined in the modern philosophy of science. With its focus on theories proposed after the mid-1950s, the book is the first of its kind, covering the most recent experimental and theoretical investigations into the nature of mass and its role in modern physics, from the realm of elementary particles to the cosmology of galaxies. The book begins with an analysis of the persistent difficulties of defining inertial mass in a noncircular manner and discusses the related question of whether mass is an observational or a theoretical concept. It then studies the notion of mass in special relativity and the delicate problem of whether the relativistic rest mass is the only legitimate notion of mass and whether it is identical with the classical (Newtonian) mass. This is followed by a critical analysis of the different derivations of the famous mass-energy relationship E = mc2 and its conflicting interpretations. Jammer then devotes a chapter to the distinction between inertial and gravitational mass and to the various versions of the so-called equivalence principle with which Newton initiated his Principia but which also became the starting point of Einstein's general relativity, which supersedes Newtonian physics. The book concludes with a presentation of recently proposed global and local dynamical theories of the origin and nature of mass. Destined to become a much-consulted reference for philosophers and physicists, this book is also written for the nonprofessional general reader interested in the foundations of physics.

Concepts of Meaning: Framing an Integrated Theory of Linguistic Behavior (Philosophical Studies Series #92)

This volume includes contributions from well-known philosophers of language and semanticists. It is a useful collection for students in philosophy of language, semantics and epistemology. It discusses new research in semantics, theory of truth, philosophy of language and theory of communication from a trans-disciplinary perspective and addresses issues such as sentence meaning, utterance meaning, speaker's intention and reference, linguistic context, circumstances and background theories.

Concepts of Power in Kierkegaard and Nietzsche (Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies)

The name Friedrich Nietzsche has become synonymous with studies in political power. The application of his theory that the vast array of human activities comprises manifestations of the will to power continues to influence fields as diverse as international relations, political studies, literary theory, the social sciences, and theology. To date, the introduction of Søren Kierkegaard into this discussion has been gradual at best. Long derided as the quintessential individualist, the social dimension of his fertile thought has been neglected until recent decades. This book situates Kierkegaard in direct dialogue with Nietzsche on the topic of power and authority. Significant contextual similarities warrant such a comparison: both severely criticized state Lutheranism, championed the self and its imaginative ways of knowing against the philosophical blitzkrieg of Hegelianism, and endured the turbulent emergence of the nation-state. However, the primary justification remains the depth-defying prescience with which Kierkegaard not only fully anticipates but rigorously critiques Nietzsche's power position thirty years in advance.