Howard Wettstein

Film and the Emotions explores the complicated relationship between filmed entertainment, such as movies and television shows, and our capacity to feel emotions. This volume of The Midwest Studies in Philosophy covers topics such as the role of imagination in our capacity to respond emotionally to films, how emotions felt in response to films relate to emotions felt about real events, and the moral implications of responding emotionally to fictions, among others. This collection includes nineteen original articles from experts on film and emotion, including Noel Carroll, Gregory Currie, Susan Feagin, Stacie Friend, Robert Hopkins, Peter Lamarque and Peter Goldie, Derek Matravers, Carl Plantinga, and Murray Smith.

A distinction is developed between two uses of definite descriptions, the "attributive" and the "referential." the distinction exists even in the same sentence. several criteria are given for making the distinction. it is suggested that both russell's and strawson's theories fail to deal with this distinction, although some of the things russell says about genuine proper names can be said about the referential use of definite descriptions. it is argued that the presupposition or implication that something fits the description, present in both uses, has a different genesis depending upon whether the description is used referentially or attributively. this distinction in use seems not to depend upon any syntactic or semantic ambiguity. it is also suggested that there is a distinction between what is here called "referring" and what russell defines as denoting. definite descriptions may denote something, according to his definition, whether used attributively or referentially

Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Volume XXIV, Life and Death: Metaphysics and Ethics is an important contribution to the literature on the intersection of issues of metaphysics and issues of ethics. In the Midwest Studies tradition, twenty of the more important philosophers writing in this area have contributed original papers that extend the boundaries of philosophical discussion of issues that are of both theoretical and practical concern to a wide-ranging audience. Topics considered include the concept of human life, the relationship between the concept of personal identity and the understanding of death, normative appraisals of death, capital punishment, euthanasia, the postponement of death and the impact of a theory of death and afterlife on one's ethical perspective.

The problem of theodicy is a philosophical classic. I argue that not only are the classical answers suspect, but that the question itself is problematic. In its classical form, the problem presupposes a conception of divinity—call it “perfect-being theology”—that does not go without saying. Even so, there is a significant gap between what the Western religions tell us about the reign of justice and what we seem to find in the world. I argue that approaches to evil need to maintain focus on this discrepancy. I conclude with some suggestions for the shape of “nonopiate” ways of coming to terms with evil.

It has long been urged against traditional theism, very long indeed, that God’s perfections—specifically in the domains of goodness, knowledge and power—are logically incompatible with the existence of unwarranted human suffering. It has almost equally long been urged that the problem is illusory—or at least surmountable; the tradition of theodicy must be only moments younger than the problem. The debate is a philosophical classic, with many ingenious moves on both sides, and epicycles galore. But whatever one’s view on the details of the debate, it is difficult—and I think unwise—to resist the sense that evil presents a real and indeed substantial problem for the Western religious tradition.