This commentary note proposes that the Buddhist principle of Dependent Origination (paṭicca-samuppāda) functions as a structural supplement to Western phenomenology by clarifying a dimension that phenomenological discourse has left incomplete. While phenomenology has offered careful and rigorous descriptions of how phenomena appear within lived experience, it has tended to leave implicit the question of why such appearances arise in the particular ways they do. The generative and conditional framework underlying manifestation has remained largely unarticulated. Drawing on the basic structure (...) of the Twelvefold Chain of Dependent Origination, this paper argues that phenomena are not unreal but unfixed, arising as conditionally effective events rather than as self-subsistent substances. Even momentary arising and cessation possess reality insofar as they function causally within a network of relations. From this perspective, Dependent Origination is neither a metaphysical hypothesis nor a religious doctrine, but an observable phenomenological fact and the very mode through which cognition arises. By interpreting appearance, cognition, and naming as dependently arisen processes, this commentary reconsiders the epistemological implications of phenomenology and offers a non-nihilistic reading of the Diamond Sutra’s formula, “A is not A; therefore, it is called A.” Dependent Origination, it is argued, does not negate phenomenology but completes it by making explicit the conditional structure that renders experience, meaning, and knowledge possible. (shrink)

My commentary focuses on Khalidi's defense of episodic memory as a cognitive kind. His argument relies on merging two distinct accounts of episodic memory—the phenomenal and the etiological. I suggest that Khalidi's framework can be used to carve the contemporary memory literature differently. On this view, the phenomenal account supports constructive episodic simulation as a cognitive kind, the etiological account supports event memory as a cognitive kind, and episodic memory ceases to be. The question for Khalidi is, then, how (...) to evaluate this alternative proposal—and more broadly how to adjudicate between competing and overlapping accounts of cognitive kinds. (shrink)

ABSTRACT One of the obstacles in the study of post-classical Sufi literatures has been the sceptical attitude toward Sufi commentary on Arabic and Persian lyrical poetry (specifically ‘mystical’ or ‘Sufi allegorical’ readings of the lyric). This attitude has prevented a wider appreciation of Sufi interpretations of such poetry. While there are signs of a shift in attitudes as scholars grapple with different Sufi commentators and their discussions of notable verses, many still hold to their scepticism. Although studies of individual (...) commentaries will be necessary to reform these attitudes, a general response to the sceptical views may help to orient those studies, particularly one that draws its evidence and arguments from representative Sufi commentators and theorists of the lyric. This paper attempts such a response. Following a brief outline of critiques of Sufi commentary, and the reasons for continued scepticism toward commentators, I suggest how shifting understandings around the ambiguity present in the lyric should help to make allegorical interpretations seem more plausible as a collection of meanings in the archive that was persuasive to many readers, the figurative language of the lyric being able to support both literary-historical and allegorical interpretations of words, phrases, or images in particular verses. Sufi commentators used this ambiguity as a means by which to explore the meanings of the allegory according to the principle ‘The figurative is the bridge to the Truth–Reality’. Sufi theorists, moreover, discussed how the figurative language of the lyric and its allegoresis by way of commentary could serve distinct functions for different kinds of readers in Sufi knowledge–practice. If the figurative form of the lyric was more suitable for non-Sufi readers or novices in Sufism to encounter its ‘specific meanings’, commentary, expressed in the technical language of Sufism, could assist more advanced Sufi readers to verify its ‘general meanings’. Far from diminishing the lyric, Sufi commentary only enhanced its value, showing it to possess both literary beauty as well as profound depth of meaning. I invoke Paul Griffiths’s ‘religious reading’ to suggest that an approach to the lyric that privileges the views of Sufi commentators is not only feasible, it can even be valuable for specialists of the lyric in the contemporary academy. (shrink)

Palmquist’s Commentary provides the first definitive clarification on Kant’s Philosophy of Religion in English; it includes the full text of Pluhar’s translation, interspersed with explanations, providing both a detailed overview and an original interpretation of Kant’s work. Offers definitive, sentence-level commentary on Kant’s Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason Presents a thoroughly revised version of Pluhar’s translation of the full text of Kant’s Religion, including detailed notes comparing the translation with the others still in use today Identifies (...) most of the several hundred changes Kant made to the second (1794) edition and unearths evidence that many major changes were responses to criticisms of the first edition Provides both a detailed overview and original interpretation of Kant’s work on the philosophy of religion Demonstrates that Kant’s arguments in Religion are not only cogent, but have clear and profound practical applications to the way religion is actually practiced in the world today Includes a glossary aimed at justifying new translations of key technical terms in Religion, many of which have previously neglected religious and theological implications. (shrink)

This commentary note expands upon the cognitive framework established in the author’s previous study, "Understanding the Diamond Sutra through the Lens of Ordinary Mind." It seeks to deepen the earlier discussion by proposing a “phenomenological turn” in the interpretation of the sutra’s core linguistic formula: “A is not A, therefore it is called A.” While the previous work emphasized the integration of samatha and vipassanā, this note focuses on the radical reorientation found in the act of naming. The author (...) argues that this second "A" is not merely a pragmatic return to conventional language, but a phenomenological recognition that arises only after discriminative boundary-making has ceased. By acknowledging vivid, transient phenomena through the lens of Dependent Arising (Pratītyasamutpāda), this study demonstrates how language can be used in a state of "Ordinary Mind" without the "glue" of conceptual fixation. (shrink)

This commentary offers a provocative re-evaluation of modern political dysfunction—specifically the deepening crises of hypocrisy and polarization—by synthesizing Freudian psychoanalysis with the epistemological framework of Yogācāra (Consciousness-Only) Buddhism. The author introduces the metaphor of the "Caged Id" to describe the structural predicament of the modern political actor: a state where the primal, narcissistic drives of the Id are not dissolved, but are instead trapped within the ego-centric prison of the Manas-vijnana (말라식). ​The paper argues that contemporary ideologies (democracy, socialism, (...) etc.) often function as "instrumental expressions"—sophisticated masks designed to provide moral legitimacy to the narcissistic expansions of the Manas-driven Id. By examining the historical counter-examples of Admiral Yi Sun-sin and Marcus Aurelius, the author demonstrates that true political transformation requires more than institutional reform; it demands a "Mindfulness of the Manas" and a return to the Ordinary Mind (평상심). This work serves as a call for a shift from ideological warfare to an "Epistemological Honesty" that seeks the dissolution of the egoic pivot as a prerequisite for genuine, non-egoic governance. (shrink)

The Meno, one of the most widely read of the Platonic dialogues, is seen afresh in this original interpretation that explores the dialogue as a theatrical presentation. Just as Socrates's listeners would have questioned and examined their own thinking in response to the presentation, so, Klein shows, should modern readers become involved in the drama of the dialogue. Klein offers a line-by-line commentary on the text of the Meno itself that animates the characters and conversation and carefully probes each (...) significant turn of the argument. "A major addition to the literature on the Meno and necessary reading for every student of the dialogue."--Alexander Seasonske, Philosophical Review "There exists no other commentary on Meno which is so thorough, sound, and enlightening."-- Choice Jacob Klein was a student of Martin Heidegger and a tutor at St. John's College from 1937 until his death. His other works include Plato's Trilogy: Theaetetus, the Sophist, and the Statesman, also published by the University of Chicago Press. (shrink)

This is the first comprehensive commentary on the Athenaion Politeia since that of J.E. Sandys in 1912. The Introduction discusses the history of the text; the contents, purpose and sources of the work; its language and style; its date, and the evidence for revision after the completion of the original version; and the place of the work in the Aristotelian school. The Commentary concentrates on the historical and institutional facts which the work sets out to give, their sources (...) and their relation to other accounts. Textual and linguistic questions are also addressed. (shrink)

This is the first English translation of Proclus' commentary on Plato's Parmenides. Glenn Morrow's death occurred while he was less than halfway through the translation, which was completed by John Dillon. A major work of the great Neoplatonist philosopher, the commentary is an intellectual tour de force that greatly influenced later medieval and Renaissance thought. As the notes and introductory summaries explain, it comprises a full account of Proclus' own metaphysical system, disguised, as is so much Neoplatonic philosophy, (...) in the form of a commentary. (shrink)

This article is a preliminary edition — introduction, text, translation, commentary — of a previously unknown commentary on Aristotle’s _Categories_, recently discovered in the Archimedes Palimpsest. The two lemmas covered (both incompletely) in the fourteen surviving pages are 1a20–b15, concerning the distinction between ‘said of a subject’ and ‘in a subject’, and 1b16–24, where Aristotle maintains that different genera are divided by different differentiae. By extrapolating from this sample, the commentary can be inferred to have been considerably (...) longer than the longest _Categories_ commentary to survive intact, that of Simplicius. On this and other grounds, we argue that it is probably a fragment of Porphyry’s monumental lost commentary, the _Ad Gedalium_. A prominent feature of the new commentary is its extensive concentration on resolving puzzles raised against the _Categories_. Some of the material is completely absent from the remainder of the surviving _Categories_ tradition. The earlier commentators and critics cited by name in it are Andronicus, Boethus, Nicostratus and Herminus. (shrink)

This Commentary offers a critique of an eco-relational approach in robot ethics, highlighting the importance of articulating an ecologically-sensitive ethical orientation that incorporates the entire more-than-human world, including technological entities like forms of artificial intelligence. While the eco-relational approach enhances our understanding of the complex way in which morally significant properties operate on a phenomenological level, it is not without its flaws. In particular, this perspective focuses on ethical concepts when it needs to be rooted in ethical systems, misrepresents (...) the extant literature on relational approaches to moral status, and is insufficiently ecological in a way that would bring machines into the moral universe by way of their location in and importance to the larger environment. At a time when the legal status of robots is being decided before moral questions are settled, it remains important to get the contours of relevant debates right so that the robot ethics discourse brings us closer to developing practical solutions for ethical dilemmas emerging in our increasingly technological age. (shrink)

The fine editions of the Aristotelian Commentary Series make available long out-of-print commentaries of St. Thomas on Aristotle. Each volume has the full text of Aristotle with Bekker numbers, followed by the commentary of St. Thomas, cross-referenced using an easily accessible mode of referring to Aristotle in the Commentary. Each volume is beautifully printed and bound using the finest materials. All copies are printed on acid-free paper and Smyth sewn. They will last.

Commentary on the first Ukrainian translation of Thomasius’ work entitled “Nucleus disputationis de plagio literario maxime theoreticus, thesibus paucis & brevibus comprehensus”, which is one of the Appendices to the famous “Philosophical dissertation on literary plagiarism”.

This is an invited commentary on "Physical Time within Human Time" (Gruber, Block, & Montemayor, 2022) and "Bridging the Neuroscience and Physics of Time" (Buonomano & Rovelli, 2021). I’m very sympathetic to aspects of each proposal. In this article, I offer some comments, starting with (Buonomano & Rovelli, 2021).

We argue that the need for commentary in commonly used linear calculi of natural deduction is connected to the “deletion” of illocutionary expressions that express the role of propositions as reasons, assumptions, or inferred propositions. We first analyze the formalization of an informal proof in some common calculi which do not formalize natural language illocutionary expressions, and show that in these calculi the formalizations of the example proof rely on commentary devices that have no counterpart in the original (...) proof. We then present a linear natural deduction calculus that makes use of formal illocutionary expressions in such a way that unique readability for derivations is guaranteed – thus showing that formalizing illocutionary expressions can eliminate the need for commentary. (shrink)

This commentary challenges the conclusions reached by Franklin Miller and Robert Truog in their criticism of the President's Council's White Paper, "Controversies in the Determination of Death." I agree with much of Miller and Truog's criticism of the rationale offered by the President's Council for accepting neurological criteria for determining death but argue that they too quickly dismiss the alternative rationale of determining death by neurological criteria-i.e., the destruction of the psychophysical integrity of the human being that occurs when (...) the potential for consciousness and every other mental function is lost due to catastrophic injury to the brain. By focusing on the death of bodies instead of human beings, their view absurdly implies that decapitation would not necessarily result in one's death. Since total brain failure is a form of physiological decapitation, the neurological criterion coheres perfectly well with the ordinary understanding of decapitation as death. (shrink)

The commentary on Plato's Republic by Proclus (d. 485 CE), which takes the form of a series of essays, is the only sustained treatment of the dialogue to survive from antiquity. This three-volume edition presents the first complete English translation of Proclus' text, together with a general introduction that argues for the unity of Proclus' Commentary and orients the reader to the use that the Neoplatonists made of Plato's Republic in their educational program. Each volume is completed by (...) a Greek word index and an English-Greek glossary that will help non-specialists to track the occurrence of key terms throughout the translated text. The first volume of the edition presents Proclus' essays on the point and purpose of Plato's dialogue, the arguments against Thrasymachus in Book I, the rules for correct poetic depictions of the divine, a series of problems about the status of poetry across all Plato's works, and finally an essay arguing for the fundamental agreement of Plato's philosophy with the divine wisdom of Homer which is, in Proclus' view, allegorically communicated through his poems. (shrink)

This new translation of Thomas Aquinas’s most important study of Aristotle casts bright light on the thinking of both philosophers. Using a new text of Aquinas’s original Latin commentary (René-Antoine Gauthier’s Leonine edition of 1984), Robert Pasnau provides a precise translation that will enable students to undertake close philosophical readings. He includes an introduction and notes to set context and clarify difficult points as well as a translation of the medieval Latin version of Aristotle’s _De anima _(On the Soul) (...) so that readers can refer to the text Aquinas had at hand. In his _De anima commentary_, Aquinas offers the first and most original of his studies of Aristotle. His influential, cogent reading of Aristotle’s notoriously difficult text not only contributes to our understanding of the Greek philosopher but also expresses in full detail Aquinas’s own views on central philosophical topics. Writing at the height of his intellectual powers, Aquinas considers in full detail the nature of the soul, the mind-body problem, the role of the intellect, the character of sensation, and many other related issues. (shrink)

In this commentary, I will discuss a particular category of epiphanies, which we might call “epiphanies of existence.” These are experiences in which the existence of something (oneself, a bird, or the whole) is suddenly revealed through a specific pathos. I will focus on the reports of six experiences (by Coleridge, Hadot, Sartre, Wittgenstein, Kant, Murdoch), but I shall mostly concentrate on Wittgenstein’s, Sartre’s and Murdoch’s interpretations of their own respective experiences. I will begin my discussion by highlighting common (...) features between their accounts, suggesting on this ground that they are all undergoing the same type of experience. Then I shall argue that Sartre’s epiphany of existence, as described in his novel Nausea, is not, contrary to what Chappell thinks, a dysepiphany. Finally, I shall argue that Murdochs’ epiphany of the kestrel, one of Chappell’s favorite examples of epiphany, is indeed an epiphany of existence akin to the one described by Sartre in Nausea. On this ground, I shall argue that Chappell’s reading of Murdoch’s epiphany might be wrong. (shrink)

This commentary is a response to Patrícia Jerónimo’s article ‘Legal translation and the challenges of overcoming language barriers in court practice: Evidence from Portuguese courts’. It offers not only a detailed analysis of how to implement Directive 2010/64/EU in Portugal, but also provides a comprehensive overview of the socioprofessional background and institutional framework behind such implementation. Additionally, it presents concrete suggestions for improving the provision of legal interpretation and translation, focusing on quality standards, visibility, and professional recognition.

This article has two purposes. First, the author will provide a commentary on Donna Wood’s article on theory, research, passion, and integrity in business and society. This is in response to an invitation to serve as a raconteur onWood’s article. In fulfilling this role, the author will provide summary comments and then remark on each major section of her article. She provides a helpful and engaging overview of the business and society field that provides a backdrop for a consideration (...) of Corporate Social Performance (CSP) theory and measurement. Second, the author will present what he considers to be a few key questions or issues that need to be addressed as we seek to advance CSP measurement. (shrink)

This commentary argues that Maibom, in her book The Space Between: How Empathy Really Works, offers compelling epistemic reasons for empathizing with nonhuman animals. Maibom suggests that we learn more about the world when we empathize with those unlike ourselves, rather than reserving empathy only for those most like us. We argue that this conclusion extends beyond human-to-human cases of empathy, imploring us to practice empathy with other animals. We ground our case in Maibom’s claim that empathy, as a (...) form of perspective taking, is an inherently embodied and embedded process. Through the exploration of three test cases, we show that the common features of embodied experience allow humans to extend their empathy to animals, and that doing so has significant consequences for the ethics of animal welfare. (shrink)

Commentary on “The transmission sense of information” by Carl T. Bergstrom and Martin Rosvall Content Type Journal Article Pages 191-194 DOI 10.1007/s10539-010-9233-3 Authors James Maclaurin, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 26 Journal Issue Volume 26, Number 2.

I offer a commentary and criticism of the work Physical time within human time by Gruber, R. P., Block, R. A., and Montemayor, C. (2022). Front. Psychol. 13:718505. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.718505. Issues in the philosophy of time and the brain construction of time are discussed.

This commentary situates Louis Rodrigue’s paper “Michael of Ephesus’s Commentary on Chapters 6 to 9 of the Tenth Book of the Nicomachean Ethics” in the context of recent scholarship. It looks at several factors in Michael’s intellectual environment which may have played a role in his reading of the Nicomachean Ethics. It suggests that a more differentiated account of Neoplatonic anthropology might bring out key aspects of Michael’s position and proposes that a more explicit confrontation with the question (...) of Michael’s argument on the immortality of soul (particularly in light of his intellectual debt to Alexander of Aphrodisias) might contribute to a more complete account of Michael’s view of the good life. Finally, it finds Rodrigue’s arguments important and compelling. (shrink)

Translations and commentaries on Greek philosophy.

A Commentary on Livy Books XXXIV-XXXVII.

This commentary explores how Pichanick’s “What Does Socrates Learn from Diotima?” brings out the role of thumos in the later portion of Diotima’s speech in the Symposium. It will be argued that the implicitly thumotic nature of erotic longing in Diotima’s vision reflects a basic feature of human experience: our sense of being entitled to what we desire.

In my commentary, I focus on Ostaric’s account of the relation between the faculty of reflective judgment and empirical reality. She emphasizes, correctly, that the purposiveness at issue in the third Critique is a purposiveness of nature. I consider whether Ostaric’s “moral image realism” can connect reflective judgment to nature in a truly realist fashion, and argue that it cannot.

invited commentary on David Oderberg's call for conscientious objection in medicine to be permitted in the UK.

This commentary further explores some of the ethical issues raised by Prof. Peter Singer in his Lanson Lecture “Pandemic Ethics: Five Lessons”. In the first part, I distinguish a prioritarian approach to the allocation of scarce medical resources, from the utilitarian one advocated by Singer. I suggest that the prioritarian view better matches common intuitions about fair distribution, even though it likely needs to be balanced with other principles if it is to have plausibility in contexts like vaccine allocation. (...) In the second part of the commentary, I take a global perspective (as Singer himself does regarding the ethics of lockdowns), and highlight the controversial implications of adopting a fully cosmopolitan ethical outlook when deciding how to distribute Covid-19 vaccines. I also raise justice-related concerns about Singer’s proposal to use well-being as a single metric for evaluating public health policies. (shrink)

Commentary to Leslie McCall's 2005 paper "The complexity of intersectionality", with a review of her main points and some critical remarks.

This commentary begins by explaining how Mangan's important work leads to a question about the relation between non-sensory experiences and perception. Reflection on affect then suggests an addition to Mangan's view that may be helpful on this and perhaps some other questions. Finally, it is argued that acceptance of non-sensory experiences is fully compatible with epiphenomenalism.

The paper presents remaining manuscripts of Quaestiones in duodecim libros „Metaphysicorum” Aristotelis by Jean Buridan and the way in which they were divided into different redactions. Although Buridan’s commentaries were enormously popular at all European universities of late the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, they have not yet been adequately studied. Both their chronology and relations between different manuscripts in which the commentary was handed down remain unclear.Nine manuscripts containing Buridan’s commentary to Metaphysics are known. The most important (...) research on them were done by B. Michael and L.M. de Rijk. Their results show that there are probably three different redactions of this text. Redaction A seems to be the oldest one and it is dated from the earliest years of Buridan’s lectures at University of Paris (1340s). Redaction B is surely the newest one. There is also the third redaction, “the lecture from Erfurt” (lectura Erfordiensis), yet, its relation with other manuscripts has not been defined so far.In my paper I focus on presenting the most important doctrinal, methodological and stylistic differences which make singling out of three redactions possible. (shrink)

The commentary on Plato's Republic by Proclus (d. 485 CE), which takes the form of a series of essays, is the only sustained treatment of the dialogue to survive from antiquity. This three-volume edition presents the first complete English translation of Proclus' text, together with a general introduction that argues for the unity of Proclus' Commentary and orients the reader to the use which the Neoplatonists made of Plato's Republic in their educational program. Each volume is completed by (...) a Greek word index and an English-Greek glossary that will help non-specialists to track the occurrence of key terms throughout the translated text. The second volume of the edition presents Proclus' essays on the tripartite soul and the virtues, female philosopher rulers, and the metaphysics and epistemology of the central books of the Republic. The longest of the essays in Volume II interprets the nature and significance of the 'marriage number' whose miscalculation leads to the degeneration of the ideal city-state. (shrink)

Offering the first complete translation into modern English of Aquinas' unfinished commentary on Aristotle's Politics, this translation follows the definitive Leonine text of Aquinas and reproduces in English those passages of William of Moerbeke's exacting yet elliptical translation of the _Politics_ from which Aquinas worked. Bekker numbers have been added to passages from the _Politics_ for easy reference. Students of the history of political thought will welcome this study of a great classic, a commentary by a student of (...) Aristotle who is also a great political theorist in his own right. (shrink)

This commentary is part of a symposium on my book 'Getting Our Act Together: A Theory of Collective Moral Obligations' (Routledge, 2021). Here, I respond to the members of the North American Society for Social Philosophy’s 2022 Book Award Committee. I discuss whether most moral theory is individualistic, arguing that “traditional ethical theories” - meaning the traditions of Virtue Ethics, Kantian ethics as well as consequentialist ethics - certainly are. All of these focus on what individual agents ought to (...) do or how they ought to be. The commentators wonder whether any substantive moral theory can accommodate the idea of collective obligations? I suggest that one of my conditions for collective moral obligations is incompatible with objectivist versions of act-utilitarianism, which require moral agents to choose the option that actually maximises utility. Having said that, core elements of my account of collective moral obligations can be used with any substantive theory. Further, the theory—in its entirety—can be used with several substantive theories, including versions of all the major types of moral theory. How common are collective obligations? On my understanding, as fundamentally social thinkers, we are fairly flexible at switching between the we-mode and the I-mode, and will regularly respond to contextual cues for framing collective action scenarios. As such, I am not worried that there would be too few circumstances under which we have all-out collective obligations. What is more, we can generate such obligations by providing contextual cues for others that prompt them to frame situations as opportunities for joint action and to perform contributory actions. Another question raised by the commentators was if for having collective obligations it is crucial that we believe others will contribute? My answer is that such obligations do not necessarily depend on having positive evidence that concrete others are or will be contributing. Having said that, where we have positive evidence that others will not contribute and in particular where we know that their failure to contribute will unilaterally undermine the possibility of success of any collective action (as in strict joint necessity cases) this may undermine collective obligations. On my theory, what happens if people disagree on what is morally best? On my view, where such divergence between moral positions comes as a result of disagreement between morally motivated, reasonable, and well-informed people it undermines their collective obligation. Finally, are there “negative” collective duties? Yes, in fact collective harm cases can be conceived of as generating “negative” duties to collectively refrain from generating these kinds of harms, including our obligations to mitigate climate change through reducing greenhouse emissions. (shrink)

This article examines the citation of Didymus’ ‘first’ commentary on Pindar's Paeans in Ammon. Diff. 231 Nickau. It argues that the commentary on the Paeans was the first volume in Didymus’ commentary to all of Pindar.

This commentary argues that, in discussing the racial and cultural identities of cinematic representations of humanoid AI robots, nuances and differentiations are beneficial. It suggests that the essay on which the present text comments does not sufficiently acknowledge the range of identities found in AI films, in particular in Alex Garland's Ex Machina.

The fine editions of the Aristotelian Commentary Series make available long out-of-print commentaries of St. Thomas on Aristotle. Each volume has the full text of Aristotle with Bekker numbers, followed by the commentary of St. Thomas, cross-referenced using an easily accessible mode of referring to Aristotle in the Commentary. Each volume is beautifully printed and bound using the finest materials. All copies are printed on acid-free paper and Smyth sewn. They will last.

Commentary on Neuhaus and Parent, 'Gene doping--In Animals?' (2019).

The genre of philosophical commentary is characterized by an attitude of textual deference, or what I call a principle of authority. To read in conformity with the authority principle is to forego the prerogative to judge that the author has made a mistake. This article offers a defense of the principle of authority as hermeneutical precept by showing that it facilitates the practice of philosophy as care of the self. When its function is so understood, the authority principle turns (...) out to be compatible with a substantial degree of intellectual autonomy and is also epistemically benign. (shrink)

This commentary argues that the concept of news is a primitive term, one whose existence is not questioned, and that assumptions about the news need to be identified and questioned. One common assumption is that news is composed of things that are newsworthy, i. e., that news and newsworthiness are essentially the same, and that the prominence with which an event is covered in the news is an indicator of newsworthiness. Shoemaker's recent research with Akiba Cohen shows that news (...) and newsworthiness are in fact not the same. News is a social construct, a thing, a commodity, whereas newsworthiness is a cognitive construct, a mental judgment. Newsworthiness is not a good predictor of which events get into the newspaper and how they are covered. Newsworthiness is only one of a vast array of factors that influence what becomes the news and how prominently events are covered. (shrink)

A commentary on: The Alleged Coupling-Constitution Fallacy and the Mature Sciences by Ross, D., and Ladyman, J. (2010). The Extended Mind, ed R. Menary (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), 155–166.