92:3 July 2009
Philosophy and Engineering
Deadline for submissions: July 30, 2008
Advisory Editors: Peter Simons
(University of Leeds) <p.m.simons@leeds.ac.uk>
and Sir Duncan Michael (Arup Group)
The discipline of engineering provides an interesting family of
problems for philosophical investigation, and ideas deriving from the ontology
of action, process, and structure are increasingly being applied to engineering
specifications of complex artefacts, their production and their functions. This
issue addresses itself to philosophically interested engineers as well as to
philosophers and the general reader, and aims to further the growing fruitful
interaction between the two disciplines. Topics to be explored may include the
following: How does engineering differ from science? How does design relate to
function? What is acceptable risk and how should it impinge on engineering
decisions? Who bears responsibility for engineering failures and disasters in
complex projects? What special skills are required by engineers and how are
they imparted? What is the nature of technical artefacts? Does engineering
require or underwrite a particular ontology? Can philosophy help in the design,
creation and deployment of engineering products, for example by providing the
ontological framework for computer representations of complex artefacts?
92:4 October 2009
Forgiveness
Deadline for submissions: October 31,
2008
Advisory Editor: Leo Zaibert
(University of Wisconsin, Parkside) <zaibert@uwp.edu>
Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. Taken literally, this famous passage is
puzzling. For on the one hand if they really did not know what they were doing,
and assuming that this ignorance was not culpable, then surely they should be
excused, and not forgiven. Forgiveness, as a matter of sheer logic, presupposes
culpable wrongdoing. On the other hand, if they did know that they were doing
wrong, then presumably they should have been punished and, again, not forgiven.
To understand forgiveness, it seems, we need to know how exactly it differs
from a series of other phenomena such as punishing and blaming, on the one
hand, and pardoning and condoning on the other. This issue of The Monist
welcomes contributions addressing these and related questions, including: What,
if anything, justifies forgiveness? How does forgiveness relate to mercy,
leniency, and mere forgetting? Can, or should, forgiveness be granted
unconditionally, or does it necessitate repentance on the part of the
wrongdoer? And what, for that matter, is repentance? Can forgiveness be granted
by anyone or only by those directly wronged? And how is purely mental
forgiveness related to that sort of forgiveness that is communicated to the wrongdoer,
or to someone else, in words?
93:1 January 2010
The Meaning of Life
Deadline for submissions: January 31, 2009
Advisory Editor: Quentin Smith (Western Michigan
University) <quentin.smith@wmich.edu>
The vagueness and ambiguity of the question ‘Is there a meaning of human
life?’ is standardly resolved by reformulations using more precise categories
from the philosophy of religion or from moral realism. But are there
alternatives to such reformulations? Consider:
(1) Biology: the
meaning of human life is to survive and reproduce; because we no longer have to
struggle to survive and reproduce, we are no longer in a position to experience
this meaning.
(2) Physics: Hawking
has argued that the meaning is in principle expressible in terms of a ‘complete
unified theory’, which will throw light inter alia on‘the
question of why it is that we and the universe exist.’
(3) Psychology: People talk of sensing ‘emptiness’ in depression and ‘fullness’
in joy. Can these metaphors be justified as referring to modes of epistemic
access to some mind-independent meaning of human life that is neither religious
nor ethical in nature?
(4) Art: Some hold that
there are artistic symbols which somehow express the meaning of human life but
in a way that is not expressible in linguistic form. Can such a linguistic
ineffability theory be philosophically defended?
Are there other
approaches to defending a theory of the meaning of human life? Is it possible
to articulate a formal structure or account of meaning which all such theories
must share? Articles are invited addressing these and related questions in an
analytical spirit.
93:2 April
2010
Race
Deadline for submissions: April 30, 2009
Advisory Editors: Robin Andreasen (University of
Delaware) < robina@udel.edu> and Ron Mallon <rmallon@philosophy.utah.edu>
This issue of The Monist will explore race – both the concept and the category – from a philosophical point of view. The focus will be
not only on the metaphysical and epistemological issues related to racial
classification, but also on the social and psychological aspects of race. What
is race? What sort of category is it, ontologically speaking? Is it an empty
category? If not, is it a biological kind, a social kind, or perhaps both? How
is race conceptualized both scientifically and in everyday discourse? What is
the proper relationship between scientific and everyday conceptions of race?
What are the biological, social, historical, and political origins of racial
thinking? What aspects of human cognition, if any, shape racial thinking? Can a
better understanding of race help our efforts to challenge racism and racial
injustice? How would race be conceptualized in a just (non-racist) society?
Would an ideal society conserve or eliminate racial classification schemes? Of
particular interest will be papers that aim to integrate treatments of these
questions in the wider discourse of science and philosophy.
93:3
July 2010
Intellectual Property
Deadline for submissions: July 31, 2009
Advisory Editor: Richard Davies (University of Bergamo) <davies@unibg.it>
Your university library’s copy of The Monist is the
property of the library. If you take it home without permission, you have
stolen it. Even if you merely photocopy an article from this copy, you may have
breached the intellectual property rights of publisher and author. While the
library owns one copy of the journal, the journal seems to ‘own’ the content.
Something similar holds, too, of other reproducible products of human ingenuity
such as digital images, music, movies, and software. This issue of The
Monist is devoted to questions such as: What are the objects and
property-relations involved in such cases? What ontological categories
(particular vs. universal; concrete vs abstract;
tokens vs types) are in play here, and what are their
identity conditions? How do such entities begin to exist or go out of
existence? What is ‘managed’ by digital rights management, and what is
‘identified’ by digital object identifiers? When does quoting, sampling or reverse
engineering becomes piracy? How is copying related to
faking, forging and counterfeiting, and what roles do notions such as
‘resemblance’ and ‘intention to mislead’ have in these cases? How does the
value and meaning (economic, aesthetic or even religious) we attribute to an artefact (be it a banknote, a painting or a supposed relic)
depend on how we relate it to its source?
93:4
October 2010
Philosophical History of Science
Deadline for submissions: October 31, 2009
Advisory Editor: Niccolo Guicciardini (University of Bergamo) <niccolo.guicciardini@fastwebnet.it>
The cultural turn in the history of science has displaced the
once common view of science as a system of thought with a new conception of
science as a social or cultural phenomenon. This trend has driven a wedge
between the history of science as sociocultural process and epistemological or
methodological questions about science as a system of thought. As a result, the
more traditional philosophical history of science, in which the system of
thought is at the center and our present knowledge provides the language in
which past science is discussed, is in disfavor. Nonetheless a few thinkers
have swum against this tide, notably Howard Stein, in whose work the concepts
of present science are used uncompromisingly in the study of early modern and
even ancient science.
We invite contributions re-examining the methodological debates
about the history of science and focusing on specific analyses such as those to
be found in Stein's work. Our goal is to avoid the endlessly repeated
generalities that have made these debates so fruitless in recent years. We
welcome contributions both for and against the received rejection of a
philosophically-minded approach to the history of science.
94:1
January 2011
Powers
Deadline for submissions: January 31, 2010
Advisory Editor: Neil Williams (University at Buffalo) <new@buffalo.edu>
A sewing needle is swiped across a bar
magnet, then pushed through a piece of cork and dropped into a glass of water.
The needle will point immediately to the nearest pole. A female moth releases a
small trace of sex pheromone; immediately males of the species up to two miles
away will be attracted to her. The evidence for such causal powers is all
around us. And as is shown in the response to the work of authors such as
George Molnar and C. B. Martin, the thought that objects might be inherently
powerful is on the rise. What is the nature of such causal powers? How are they
to be characterised? What place do non-powers have within power-based
ontologies? To what extent can powers be explanatory? Can powers exist entirely
ungrounded? Contributions are invited addressing these and connected issues
about the role and nature of powers.
94:2 April 2011
The Architecture of Reality
Deadline for submissions: April 30, 2010
Advisory Editor: Matthew H. Slater (University of Idaho)
<matthew.slater@uidaho.edu>
Humans are dividers and systematizers,
confidently wielding the classificatory knife in the natural sciences and
in metaphysics alike. But are we carving nature at its joints? We can
identify distinct ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ components to this
basic question. Horizontal: Is the world ‘intrinsically jointed’? Are
there natural properties or natural kinds? Are there natural units which
instantiate these properties and kinds? Vertical: Is reality divided into
levels? If so, is there a fundamental level comprising reality’s ultimate
furniture? If not, what? Presumably, these two sets of questions intersect. But how, precisely? What, in short, is the architecture of
reality? Might we require multiple ‘architectural plans’ to
describe nature correctly, or would just one do? We invite contributions
on both the ground- level metaphysical issues (proposals for particular
architectures or particular approaches to plan-drawing) and to methodological
issues concerning these efforts.
94:3 July 2011
Morality and Climate Change
Deadline for submissions: July 31, 2010
Advisory Editors: Simon Caney (Oxford University) <simon.caney@magd.ox.ac.uk> and
Derek Bell (University of Newcastle) < derek.bell@ncl.ac.uk>
The prospect of
human induced climate change raises many ethical issues. What criteria
should we use to assess the impacts of climate change? Can cost benefit
analysis capture all the ethically significant impacts? Do current
generations have an obligation to future generations not to bring about
long-term dangerous climate change? Is discounting the well-being of
future generations obligatory or permissible or indefensible? Some
potential impacts of climate change are not known with certainty and this
raises the question of how we should respond to risky or uncertain impacts on
the earth's climate. For example, should current generations adopt a
version of the 'precautionary principle' when considering whether to engage in activities
which produce high levels of greenhouse gases? Who should bear the
burdens of dealing with global climate change? How should the right to engage
in activities which emit carbon dioxide be distributed? Is carbon trading just
and, if so, under what conditions? Are some entitled to compensation or
reparations for the harmful effects of anthropogenic climate change? In
addition to the above, we face ethical question pertaining to how decisions
about climate policy should be taken. Papers are invited on any of the above
themes.
94:4 October 2011
Cosmopolitanism: For and Against
Deadline for submissions: October 31, 2010
Advisory Editor: Gillian Brock (The University of
Auckland)<g.brock@auckland.ac.nz>
According to cosmopolitanism, every person has global stature
as the ultimate unit of moral concern and is therefore entitled to equal
respect and consideration no matter what her citizenship status or other
affiliations happen to be. This issue of The Monist is intended as a
forum for debates about the pros and cons of cosmopolitanism. It will address
questions such as: What does cosmopolitanism require by way of obligations of
justice to all? What kinds of reforms to our global and local institutions do
cosmopolitan concerns require? Are these requirements feasible? In addition to
our obligations to everyone, do we have further, more demanding, obligations to
compatriots or to family members? Do non-cosmopolitan theories provide a better
account of our obligations and allow us a more useful framework for mediating
the interests of compatriots and non-compatriots?
95:1
January 2012
Dilemmas of
Multiculturalism
Deadline for submissions: January 31, 2011
Advisory Editor: H. E. Baber (University of San
Diego)<baber@sandiego.edu>
History shows that
cultural diversity can enrich societies and lead to great flowerings of
creativity and prosperity –
but that it can also threaten social cohesion. The present issue of the Monist
is concerned with the dilemmas that arise when, for example, the
cultural norms
of minority communities conflict with the norms of
the larger society. To what extent are liberal democracies obliged to
accommodate illiberal communities whose policies and practices
constrain the
options of their members? Is multiculturalism bad for women insofar as
traditional cultures promote practices and prescribe roles for women
that are,
by Western standards, restrictive or oppressive? Is
multiculturalism good for minority communities? Is there, for example,
a conflict of interest between cultural
preservationists and those individuals who would prefer to assimilate
into the
wider culture? Do individuals in minority communities have an
obligation to
identify with ancestral cultures? Are cultural and communal attachments
constraints external to the self or are they self-defining, and so
vital for
well-being?
Cultures have always evolved, both from within and through contact with
other
cultures. Traditional societies in particular are experiencing radical
change
as they are drawn into the emerging global economy. Are efforts to
maintain
traditional languages, practices and traditions of necessity in the
interest of
members of these societies? Do such efforts preserve a culture
or thwart its natural development? Contributors are invited to address
these
and related questions posed by multiculturalism.
95:2
April 2012
Experimental Philosophy
Deadline for submissions: April 30, 2011
Advisory Editor: James Beebe (University at Buffalo)<jbeebe2@buffalo.edu>
In recent years an increasing number of philosophers have been
utilizing the experimental methods of the cognitive sciences to test key
empirical claims advanced in various areas of philosophical dispute. Much of
the time these experiments have taken the form of philosophical thought
experiments presented to ordinary subjects which test whether the responses
elicited match philosophers' claims. A number of surprising findings have been
made by experimental philosophers that seem to bear directly on debates in
action theory, epistemology, ethics, folk psychology, metaphysics and
philosophy of language. But the philosophical significance of these findings
continues to be the subject of debate. Contributions are invited that present
results of applying experimental methods to philosophical hypotheses or address
the significance of these results and the methodological challenges posed by
experimental philosophy.
95:2
April 2012
Experimental Philosophy
Deadline for submissions: April 30, 2011
Advisory Editor: James Beebe (University at Buffalo)<jbeebe2@buffalo.edu>
In recent years an increasing number of philosophers have been
utilizing the experimental methods of the cognitive sciences to test key
empirical claims advanced in various areas of philosophical dispute. Much of
the time these experiments have taken the form of philosophical thought
experiments presented to ordinary subjects which test whether the responses
elicited match philosophers' claims. A number of surprising findings have been
made by experimental philosophers that seem to bear directly on debates in
action theory, epistemology, ethics, folk psychology, metaphysics and
philosophy of language. But the philosophical significance of these findings
continues to be the subject of debate. Contributions are invited that present
results of applying experimental methods to philosophical hypotheses or address
the significance of these results and the methodological challenges posed by
experimental philosophy.
95:3
July 2012
Neuroethics
Deadline for submissions: July 31, 2011
Advisory Editor: Juha Räikkä (University of Turku) <jraikka@utu.fi>
New
discoveries in the neurosciences are not only helping in the treatment
of psychiatric and neurological disorders, they are also providing new
tools for enhancing people's mental capacities, revealing neural bases
of antisocial behaviour, and offering potential neurochemical
strategies for counteracting such behavior. At the same time, the
neurosciences are beginning to have an impact on our philosophical
understanding of ourselves as social and moral beings. This issue of The Monist is
devoted to questions of both the ethics of neuroscience and the
neuroscience of ethics. Do neuroimaging, neurosurgery, or neural
nanotechnology present us with new ethical issues? Do neuroscanning
devices, for example, pose a potential threat to what might be called
neural privacy? What are the ethical limits of neuroscientific research
and of the potential new technologies which might be based thereon? Can
a deeper understanding of the neurology of altruistic choices throw
light on traditional ethical questions? Papers are particularly welcome
which address these and other questions at the borderlines of
neuroscience and moral philosophy.
95:4
October 2012
Music
Deadline for submissions: July 31, 2011
Advisory Editor: Julian Dodd <julian.dodd@manchester.ac.uk>
Music raises many fascinating questions for both analytical aesthetics and philosophy quite generally. Ontological concerns have been particularly pressing in recent times. What kind of entity is a work of music? How are such entities individuated? Do they depend for their existence on their performances? Other compelling issues are more squarely aesthetic. For example, many have supposed that works of pure, instrumental music lack both meaning and representational content. But if this is true, what could understanding such works consist in? And how could it be possible for certain musical works to have the significance, depth and profundity that we commonly attribute to them? Other aesthetic questions concern music’s relation to the emotions, the desirability of ‘historically informed’ performance practices, and the nature of the value we find in listening to music. Submissions are invited that take forward the debate in any of these, or related, areas.
96:1 January 2013
Constitution and Composition
Deadline for submissions: January 31, 2012
Advisory Editors: Randall Dipert and David
Hershenov <dh25@buffalo.edu, rdipert@buffalo.edu>
There is the statue and there is the clay. How to make sense of the relation between them? Some philosophers have claimed that only a theory of constitution can do this job in a way that will deliver intact the familiar objects of our world. Others argue that the philosophical costs of constitution theories are too great. They point to puzzles about how objects in a constitution relation could differ in modal properties, persistence conditions, causal powers or cognitive capacities. Some defend a compositional view, according to which objects are composed of smaller entities embedded within them. Are there variants of the just-mentioned puzzles which apply also to compositional views? And if so, do such puzzles mean that the metaphysics of the everyday world will have to be drastically revised? Papers are invited addressing these and other problems related to the metaphysics of composition and constitution.