P. L. Smith

Aristotle describes the activity of political rule using two different frameworks. In the first politics is an art, an application of reason to achieve the happiness of the community. In the second political activity is praxis, excellent activity choiceworthy as an end in itself. The first, followed exclusively, implies that the wisest individual should rule, while giving him little reason to wish to. The second, followed exclusively, points again towards monarchy but in an opposite way, spurring those most serious about virtue to desire sole rule for themselves. This article explores the tension between the two frameworks and their possible reconciliation, arguing that viewing politics solely as art fails to do justice to our political nature, while viewing it solely as praxis leaves political virtue without content. Reconciling them is essential for grasping Aristotle’s deepest arguments for republican self-government, while shedding new light on his preference for the theoretical life.

This essay extends the observations made in E. Johanna Hartelius’ The rhetoric of expertise about the nature of expertise in digital contexts. I argue that digital media introduce a scale of communication—many-to-many—that reshapes how the invention of knowledge occurs. By examining how knowledge production on Wikipedia occurs, I illustrate how many-to-many communication introduces a new model of “participatory expertise.” This model of participatory expertise challenges traditional information routines by elevating procedural expertise over subject matter expertise and opening up knowledge production to the many. Additionally, by hosting multiperspectival conversations on Wikipedia, the participatory model of expertise introduces epistemic turbulence into traditionally tranquil encyclopedia culture.

Este artículo busca identificar las razones que llevaron a Hume a adoptar lo que él llamó escepticismo mitigado. En primer lugar defiende que nadie empieza a filosofar siendo un escéptico, ni siquiera cuando adopta un escepticismo antecedente de tipo cartesiano. En segundo lugar arguye que Hume juzgó que los argumentos escépticos tradicionales, basados en el método de la antinomia, incluso los de Bayle, no son decisivos para convertir a alguien en un escéptico, ya que en general admiten respuesta y son débiles. Después de establecer la confianza de Hume en su ciencia empírica de la naturaleza humana, muestra, en tercer lugar, que los buenos argumentos que pueden llevar a alguien a adoptar el escepticismo están basados en los descubrimientos de esa ciencia. Es fundamental percatarse de que esa ciencia denuncia los principios del entendimiento como imperfectos, involucrando errores, confusiones, falacias y contradicciones. Así, Hume revela la importancia que el empirismo y la doctrina de los ídolos de Bacon tuvieron para su escepticismo mitigado. Finalmente, una breve comparación entre la “Conclusión” del libro I con la “Conclusión” del libro III del Tratado confirma la interpretación de que los argumentos escépticos más fuertes dependen del descubrimiento de defectos constitutivos de la mente humana

This dissertation explores fundamental ethical questions through an examination of the key classical discussions of friendship: Plato's Lysis, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Cicero's Laelius, and Montaigne's and Bacon's essays on friendship. ;Should and can people act selflessly for one another's good? Is our concern for friendship and love rooted in neediness or in strength? Is it possible to love another simply for his own sake, or only because of the benefits that we seek for ourselves? Are the best friendships found between the best individuals, or does the need for friendship wane with increased strength of soul and understanding? ;The author argues that, according to the Lysis, friendship is rooted chiefly in need but also involves a non-utilitarian sympathy for those who are akin. ;Analyzing Aristotle's treatment of the three kinds of friendship in the Ethics, she finds pleasure and utility to be major ingredients in the highest "friendship of virtue," and the affinity of kindred spirits to be a major, neglected theme. Aristotle's exposition of the relationship between friendship and justice reveals the pervasiveness of individuals' concerns with their own good, and the moral confusions that characterize most friendships and that come to light when friends quarrel. Aristotle's comparison between friendship in the various regimes and in the family shows both the injustice of the traditional family and its true source of strength. Love of "being" or of one's own life animates benefactors' love of their beneficiaries and friends' desire to lose themselves in one another's concerns. The theme of friendship is for Aristotle a transition to the philosophic life, in which friendship wanes in importance but does not disappear. Although we are not free to choose anything other than what appears to us to be best, we can include the good of others as a subordinate part of the good that reason seeks. ;The author also provides a critical analysis of Montaigne's claim that friendship is the greatest good in life, and an exposition of Cicero's sympathetic but critical portrayal of a great political friendship and of the deficiencies of both Epicurean and Stoic ideals of self-sufficiency

A number of recent discussions have argued that George Price's equationfor representing evolutionary change is a powerful and illuminatingtool, especially in the context of debates about multiple levels ofselection. Our paper dissects Price's equation in detail, and comparesit to another statistical tool: the calculation and comparison ofaverage fitnesses. The relations between Price's equation and equationsfor evolutionary change using average fitness are closer than issometimes supposed. The two approaches achieve a similar kind ofstatistical summary of one generation of change, and they achieve thisvia a similar loss of information about the underlying fitnessstructure.

This book is a fresh examination of Aristotle's teaching on the relation between reason and moral virtue in the Nicomachean Ethics, taking as its point of departure the oft-noted, but still perhaps not sufficiently appreciated fact, that this treatise is the first half of a two-volume work on political science. As such, it lays the foundation for Aristotelian political science and, in significant ways, for the field of political science altogether. The proper aim of the political community according to Aristotle is to promote the human good; it is the task of the Nicomachean Ethics to elaborate what this good is. It provides Aristotle's fullest answer to the most radical question about justice, the question of why we should be just or moral at all, in its teaching on the essential relation of virtue to happiness.

This book offers a comprehensive account of the major philosophical works on friendship and its relationship to self-love. The book gives central place to Aristotle's searching examination of friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics. Lorraine Pangle argues that the difficulties surrounding this discussion are soon dispelled once one understands the purpose of the Ethics as both a source of practical guidance for life and a profound, theoretical investigation into human nature. The book also provides fresh interpretations of works on friendship by Plato, Cicero, Epicurus, Seneca, Montaigne and Bacon. The author shows how each of these thinkers sheds light on central questions of moral philosophy: is human sociability rooted in neediness or strength? is the best life chiefly solitary, or dedicated to a community with others? Clearly structured and engagingly written, this book will appeal to a broad swathe of readers across philosophy, classics and political science.

The core pluralist thesis about logic, broadly construed, is the claim that two or more logics are correct. In this thesis I discuss a uniquely interesting variant of logical pluralism that I call logical contextualism. Roughly, the logical contextualists’ thought is that, for fixed values p and q, the statement “p entails q” and its cognates such as “q is a logical consequence of p” or “the argument from p to q is logically valid,” are true in some contexts and false in others. After developing a contextualist account of logical pluralism I proceed to examine implications that, if true, logical contextualism would have on discussions about reasonable disagreement among epistemic peers and on discussions about the aim and purpose of argumentation. I show that logical contextualism allows for the possibility of logically-based reasonable disagreements among epistemic peers. In the face of such disagreements there is no obligation to revise one’s belief, nor is there any obligation to degrade the peer status of the agent with whom one stands in disagreement. The possibility of logically-based reasonable disagreements, it will be argued, suggests a reconceptualization of the aims and purpose of argumentation. Most accounts of the purpose of argumentation hold that argumentation’s primary purpose is to achieve rational agreement on a contested issue. Such an agreement is thought to require that at least one of the parties in the argumentation change their beliefs or commitments. However, the existence of logically-based reasonable disagreements, I argue, implies that there are some argumentations that ought not to resolve with agreement. Therefore, rather than understanding argumentation as purely an effort to convince an opponent, or as a means to reach consensus, I claim that argumentation ought to be understood as an effort to gain a better understanding of divergent and perhaps irreconcilable perspectives.

Using a simulated two-party negotiation, we examined how trustworthiness and power balance affected deception. In order to trigger deception, we used an issue that had no value for one of the two parties. We found that high cognitive trust increased deception whereas high affective trust decreased deception. Negotiators who expressed anxiety also used more deception whereas those who expressed optimism also used less deception. The nature of the negotiating relationship (mutuality and level of dependence) interacted with trust and negotiators’ affect to influence levels of deception. Deception was most likely to occur when negotiators reported low trust or expressed negative emotions in the context of nonmutual or low dependence relationships. In these relationships, emotions that signaled certainty were associated with misrepresentation whereas emotions that signaled uncertainty were associated with concealment of information. Negotiators who expressed positive emotions in the context of a nonmutual or high dependence relationship also used less deception. Our results are consistent with a fair trade model in which negotiator increases deception when contextual and interpersonal cues heighten concerns about exploitation and decrease deception when these cues attenuate concerns about exploitation.

Using a simulated, two-party negotiation, we examined how characteristics of the actor, target, and situation affected deception. To trigger deception, we used an issue that had no value for one of the two parties (indifference issue). We found support for an opportunistic betrayal model of deception: deception increased when the other party was perceived as benevolent, trustworthy, and as having integrity. Negotiators’ goals also affected the use of deception. Individualistic, cooperative, and mixed dyads responded differently to information about the other party’s trustworthiness, benevolence, and integrity when deciding to either misrepresent or leverage their indifference issue. Mixed dyads displayed opportunistic betrayal. Negotiators in all-cooperative and all-individualistic dyads used different information in deciding whether to leverage their indifference issues and used the same information (benevolence) differently in deciding whether to misrepresent the value of their indifference issue.