The ability to sequence individual genomes is leading to the identification of an increasing number of genetic risk factors for serious diseases. Knowledge of these risk factors can often provide significant medical and psychological benefit, but also raises complex ethical and social issues. This paper focuses on one area of rapid progress: the identification of mutations causing long QT syndrome and other cardiac channel disorders, which can explain some previously unexplained deaths in infants (SIDS) and children and adults (SUDS) and (...) prevent others from occurring. This genetic knowledge, discovered posthumously in many cases, has implications for clinical care for surviving family members who might carry the same mutations. The information obtained from genetic testing, in the context of personal and family history, can guide individually tailored interventions that reduce risk and save lives. At the same time, obtaining and disclosing genetic information raises difficult issues about confidentiality and decision making within families. We draw on the experience of the Montefiore-Einstein Center for Cardiogenetics, which has played a leading role in the genetic diagnosis and clinical management of cardiac channel diseases, to explore some of the challenging ethical questions arising in affected families with adolescent children. We focus on the related issues of (1) family confidentiality, privacy and disclosure and (2) adolescent decision making about genetic risk, and argue for the value of interdisciplinary dialogue with affected families in resolving these issues. (shrink)

The present chapter provides a review of the literature addressing changes in memory performance in older adults (often retired individuals with an age between 60 and 80 years), compared to younger adults (often college students around age 20). While it is well-established that memory performance declines in older adults (e.g., Kausler, 1994; Ryan, 1992), it is now clear that not all aspects of memory are impaired (e.g., Balota & Duchek, 1988; Burke & Light, 1981; Craik, 1983; Schacter, Kihlstrom, Kaszniak & (...) Valdiserri, 1993; Shimamura, 1989). Dissociations across age groups with respect to impairments in different memory types/processes have provided (a) insights into the influence of aging on neuropsychological underpinnings of memory, and (b) leverage for memory theorists to develop a better understanding of normal memory functioning. This chapter involves three sections: First, we provide a summary of selected empirical findings that document the nature of age-related changes across a wide set of memory tasks. Although it is beyond the scope of the present chapter to review the rich literature concerning memory and aging, this section will acquaint the reader with examples of paradigms used to study distinct aspects of memory and the conclusions that researchers have reached regarding the influence of age on each memory type/process. Second, we discuss the major theoretical perspectives that have been proposed as explanatory constructs for these age-related memory deficits. Finally, we provide an overview of recent developments that shed some light on understanding the possible neurological underpinnings of aging on memory functioning. (shrink)

Male to male unprotected anal sex is the main route of HIV transmission in Australia. The Australian Study of Health and Relationships, a large, representative population survey of sexual health behaviors, found that six percent of males in the general population have engaged in homosexual activity. These findings were consistent with studies in Europeand North America. Condoms have been shown to reduce the transmission of HIV in the community. Barriers to the use of condoms include access,stigma,and cost? Nevertheless, increased condom (...) use has been reported among homosexual males, sex workers and injecting drug users although recent declines in condom use among homosexuals has presented new challenges in HIV prevention.The prevalence of male to male sexual activity may be higher in prison than in the general population. Sexual activity in prison can be consensual and non-consensual involving both homosexual / bisexual and heterosexual men. (shrink)

Male to male unprotected anal sex is the main route of HIV transmission in Australia. The Australian Study of Health and Relationships, a large, representative population survey of sexual health behaviors, found that six percent of males in the general population have engaged in homosexual activity. These findings were consistent with studies in Europeand North America. Condoms have been shown to reduce the transmission of HIV in the community. Barriers to the use of condoms include access,stigma,and cost? Nevertheless, increased condom (...) use has been reported among homosexual males, sex workers and injecting drug users although recent declines in condom use among homosexuals has presented new challenges in HIV prevention.The prevalence of male to male sexual activity may be higher in prison than in the general population. Sexual activity in prison can be consensual and non-consensual involving both homosexual / bisexual and heterosexual men. (shrink)

In 1908, Henri Poincar? claimed that: ...the mathematical facts worthy of being studied are those which, by their analogy with other facts, are capable of leading us to the knowledge of a mathematical law, just as experimental facts lead us to the knowledge of a physical law. They are those which reveal to us unsuspected kinship between other facts, long known, but wrongly believed to be strangers to one another. Towards the end of the twentieth century, with many more mathematical (...) facts since discovered, several mathematicians proposed overarching schemes to organise the facts they considered most significant. In this paper, I shall briefly discuss three of these schemes (those of Arnold, Atiyah, and Baez and Dolan), before drawing some philosophical consequences from their attempts. Rather than the kind of claim made by Frege that with the entry of imaginary numbers we reach the ?natural end of the domain of numbers?, we are dealing here with a more open-ended sense of conceptual growth. I shall illustrate this theme by discussing the elaboration of algebraic structures designed to measure symmetry. What emerges is that at any one time mathematicians are operating with a notion very similar to that discussed in the philosophy of science under the heading of ?natural kinds?. We find ?quasi-causal? talk of properties being ?responsible? for a phenomenon, projectability, the transfer of robust mechanisms between domains, and reference to entities not yet fully determined. Debates in philosophy of science prompt further questioning as to the ?naturalness? of these mathematical kinds, whether one should expect them to be dependent on varying human interests, whether there is a distinction between artefactual and real kinds, and whether there is convergence of kinds. I believe that these questions present a wonderful opportunity for a philosophy of mathematics to treat ?real? mathematics, while making powerful points of contact with philosophy of science, and philosophy in general. (shrink)

We argue that for theorists with a post-institutional conception of property, e.g., Rawlsians, there is no principled reason to limit the domain of distributive justice to tax and transfer-both tax policy and the rules of the private law are constructed in service to distributive aims. Such theorists cannot maintain a commitment to a normative conception of private law independent of their overarching distributive principles. In contrast, theorists with a pre-institutional conception of property can derive the private law from sectors of (...) morality independent of distributive justice. Nevertheless, we argue, this does not entail that the private law, for pre-institutional theorists, must be sanitized of equity-oriented values. Non-libertarian pre-institutional theorists holding principled commitments to equity-oriented values are free to invoke either tax and transfer or the rules of the private law to attain them. Footnotesa We are grateful to John G. Bennett, Harry Dolan, Edward McCaffery, and Ellen Frankel Paul for written comments on a previous draft and to Eric Mack, Fred Miller, Jeffrey Paul, A. John Simmons, and the other contributors to this volume for valuable discussions. (shrink)

In this book, which thoroughly revises and greatly expands his classic work Sameness and Substance, David Wiggins retrieves and refurbishes in the light of twentieth-century logic and logical theory certain conceptions of identity, of substance and of persistence through change that philosophy inherits from its past. In this new version, he vindicates the absoluteness, necessity, determinateness and all or nothing character of identity against rival conceptions. He defends a form of essentialism that he calls individuative essentialism, and then a (...) form of realism that he calls conceptualist realism. In a final chapter he advocates a human being-based conception of the identity and individuation of persons, arguing that any satisfactory account of personal memory must make reference to the life of the rememberer himself. This important book will appeal to a wide range of readers in metaphysics, philosophical logic, and analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Background Researchers engaged in the study of the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of genetics and genomics are often publicly funded and intend their work to be in the public interest. These features of U.S. ELSI research create an imperative for these scholars to demonstrate the public utility of their work and the expectation that they engage in research that has potential to inform policy or practice outcomes. In support of the fulfillment of this “translational mandate,” the Center for (...) ELSI Resources and Analysis (CERA), funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), aims to facilitate community-informed, ELSI research results synthesis and dissemination. However, little is known about how ELSI research scholars define the goals of translation and imagine the intended users of their research findings.Methodology We distributed a Qualtrics survey to ELSI scholars that aimed to determine: (1) researchers’ expectations for their research findings in relation to policy or practice outcomes, (2) the stakeholder groups researchers believe could benefit from their research findings, and (3) the methods researchers use to foster the uptake of their findings by those stakeholders.Results Most ELSI researchers surveyed thought there were stakeholders that could benefit from their research findings, including health care professionals, at-risk individuals, patients, and their family members, policy-makers, and researchers/scientists, and expected their research findings to inform the creation or revision of laws, policies, or practice guidelines. Most researchers planned to disseminate findings directly to relevant stakeholders, with fewer expecting dissemination support from research funders, universities, or other entities.Conclusion The broad range of research topics, disciplines, and set of potential end users represented in ELSI reseach complicate the work of a knowledge broker. Nonetheless, the CERA can play an important role in disseminating ELSI results to relevant stakeholders. Further research should explore outreach mechanisms. (shrink)

There is a long tradition in philosophy of using a priori methods to draw conclusions about what is possible and what is necessary, and often in turn to draw conclusions about matters of substantive metaphysics. Arguments like this typically have three steps: first an epistemic claim , from there to a modal claim , and from there to a metaphysical claim.

Lipsey and Lancaster's "general theory of second best" is widely thought to have significant implications for applied theorizing about the institutions and policies that most effectively implement abstract normative principles. It is also widely thought to have little significance for theorizing about which abstract normative principles we ought to implement. Contrary to this conventional wisdom, I show how the second-best theorem can be extended to myriad domains beyond applied normative theorizing, and in particular to more abstract theorizing about the normative (...) principles we should aim to implement. I start by separating the mathematical model used to prove the second-best theorem from its familiar economic interpretation. I then develop an alternative normative-theoretic interpretation of the model, which yields a novel second best theorem for idealistic normative theory. My method for developing this interpretation provides a template for developing additional interpretations that can extend the reach of the second-best theorem beyond normative theoretical domains. I also show how, within any domain, the implications of the second-best theorem are more specific than is typically thought. I conclude with some brief remarks on the value of mathematical models for conceptual exploration. (shrink)

Public investments in genomic and precision medicine have begun to yield clinically useful interventions, most recently, for example, two new, FDA-approved gene therapies for sickle cell disease (F...

Artificial intelligence has historically been conceptualized in anthropomorphic terms. Some algorithms deploy biomimetic designs in a deliberate attempt to effect a sort of digital isomorphism of the human brain. Others leverage more general learning strategies that happen to coincide with popular theories of cognitive science and social epistemology. In this paper, I challenge the anthropomorphic credentials of the neural network algorithm, whose similarities to human cognition I argue are vastly overstated and narrowly construed. I submit that three alternative supervised learning (...) methods—namely lasso penalties, bagging, and boosting—offer subtler, more interesting analogies to human reasoning as both an individual and a social phenomenon. Despite the temptation to fall back on anthropomorphic tropes when discussing AI, however, I conclude that such rhetoric is at best misleading and at worst downright dangerous. The impulse to humanize algorithms is an obstacle to properly conceptualizing the ethical challenges posed by emerging technologies. (shrink)

A collection of 14 essays honoring the life and work of Oxford philosopher Wiggins touching on topics from ancient philosophy to ethics, metaphysics and the theory of meaning. The contributing scholars debate many of the seminal issues of Wiggins' work, including the determinancy of distinctness, relative identity, naturalism in ethics, logic and truth in moral judgments, and the practical wisdom of Aristotle. The collection uniquely features replies by Wiggins to each of the papers. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, (...) OR. (shrink)

Drawing on work of the past decade, this volume brings together articles from the philosophy, history, and sociology of science, and many other branches of the biological sciences. The volume delves into the latest theoretical controversies as well as burning questions of contemporary social importance. The issues considered include the nature of evolutionary theory, biology and ethics, the challenge from religion, and the social implications of biology today (in particular the Human Genome Project).

We propose a formal framework for interpretable machine learning. Combining elements from statistical learning, causal interventionism, and decision theory, we design an idealised explanation game in which players collaborate to find the best explanation for a given algorithmic prediction. Through an iterative procedure of questions and answers, the players establish a three-dimensional Pareto frontier that describes the optimal trade-offs between explanatory accuracy, simplicity, and relevance. Multiple rounds are played at different levels of abstraction, allowing the players to explore overlapping causal (...) patterns of variable granularity and scope. We characterise the conditions under which such a game is almost surely guaranteed to converge on a optimal explanation surface in polynomial time, and highlight obstacles that will tend to prevent the players from advancing beyond certain explanatory thresholds. The game serves a descriptive and a normative function, establishing a conceptual space in which to analyse and compare existing proposals, as well as design new and improved solutions. (shrink)

According to dispositionalism about modality, a proposition <p> is possible just in case something has, or some things have, a power or disposition for its truth; and <p> is necessary just in case nothing has a power for its falsity. But are there enough powers to go around? In Yates (2015) I argued that in the case of mathematical truths such as <2+2=4>, nothing has the power to bring about their falsity or their truth, which means they come out both (...) necessary and not possible. Combining this with axiom (T), it is easy to derive a contradiction. I suggested that dispositionalists ought to retreat a little and say that <p> is possible just in case either p, or there is a power to bring it about that p, grounding the possibility of mathematical propositions in their truth rather than in powers. Vetter’s (2015) has the resources to provide a response to my argument, and in her (2018) she explicitly addresses it by arguing for a plenitude of powers, based on the idea that dispositions come in degrees, with necessary properties a limiting case of dispositionality. On this view there is a power for <2+2=4>, without there being a power to bring about its truth. In this paper I argue that Vetter’s case for plenitude does not work. However, I suggest, if we are prepared to accept metaphysical causation, a case can be made that there is indeed a power for <2+2=4>. (shrink)

Japan and the Enemies of Open Political Science argues that Eurocentric blindness is a scientific failing, not a moral one. In a way true of no other political system, Japan's greatness has the potential to enliven and reform almost all the main branches of Western Political Science. David Williams criticizes Western social science, Anglo-American Philosophy and French Theory and explains why mainstream economists, historians of political thought and postculturalists have ignored Japan's modern achievements. Williams demonstrates why the renewal of (...) social science and the nurturing of a "a philosophy of the Pacific Century" requires a sustained act of intellectual demolition. (shrink)

This paper compares and contrasts three different substantive principles of justice for making health care priority-setting or “rationing” decisions: need principles, maximising principles and egalitarian principles. The principles are compared by tracing out their implications for a hypothetical rationing decision involving four identified patients. This decision has been the subject of an empirical study of public opinion based on small-group discussions, which found that the public seem to support a pluralistic combination of all three kinds of rationing principle. In conclusion, (...) it is suggested that there is room for further work by philosophers and others on the development of a coherent and pluralistic theory of health care rationing which accords with public opinions. (shrink)

A cross-disciplinary dialogue among writers who are sympathetic to the humanist tradition, and interested in developing a new humanist project through debate. The book emerges from the Institute of Ideas' festival, the Battle of Ideas.

Ideas can define and transform society, but how healthy is intellectual life today? In a period when Big Brother refers not to George Orwell but to a reality TV show, and when bright young things are developing gameshow formats rather than scribbling essays; when thinkers join think tanks to design short-term government policy rather than reflecting on and challenging the status quo, and when the ever growing number of graduates seem more interested in job prospects than academic endeavour, is intellectual (...) life in terminal decline? This book looks at the idea of the public intellectual, considering whether such thinkers are becoming an endangered species. It also looks at the legacy of relativism and ethical doubts about the pursuit of knowledge, and the effect of such developments on intellectual life. The final section considers the expansion of higher education and the changing role of the academic. Taken together, the essays in this collection form a comprehensive overview of the intellectual climate today, and the possibilities for the future. This volume was previously published as a special issue of the journal _Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy _. (shrink)

Why study notations, diagrams, or more broadly the variety of nonverbal “representations” or “signs” that are used in mathematical practice? This chapter maps out recent work on the topic by distinguishing three main philosophical motivations for doing so. First, some work (like that on diagrammatic reasoning) studies signs to recover norms of informal or historical mathematical practices that would get lost if the particular signs that these practices rely on were translated away; work in this vein has the potential to (...) broaden our view of the specific normativity of mathematics beyond logical proof. Second, some work focuses on signs to highlight the open-ended and “nonrigorous” aspects of mathematical practice, and the role of these aspects in the historical development of mathematics. The third motivation is based on the following observation: the reason differences in signs matter in mathematics is that humans are finite agents, with cognitive and computational limitations. Accordingly, studying signs can be a way to study how human computational constraints shape the mathematics that we do, and to tackle the topic of mathematical understanding. (shrink)

The author of this book has traced the major lines of argument over those years in a most engaging style with clear descriptions of the concepts and ideas.

Interpretation -- Introduction -- Interpreting Plato -- The political culture of Plato's early dialogues -- Dialogue -- Character and history -- The mouthpiece principle -- Forms of evidence -- Desire -- Socrates and eros -- The subjectivist conception of desire -- Instrumental and terminal desire -- Rational and irrational desires -- Desire in the critique of Akrasia -- Interpreting Lysis -- The deficiency conception of desire -- Inauthentic friendship -- Platonic desire -- Antiphilosophical desires -- Knowledge -- Excellence as wisdom (...) -- The epistemic unity of excellence -- Dunamis and technê -- Goodness and form -- The epistemological priority of definitional knowledge -- Ordinary ethical knowledge -- Method -- The Socratic fallacy -- Socrates' pursuit of definitions -- Hupothesis -- Two postulates -- The geometrical illustration -- Geometrical analysis -- The method of reasoning from a postulate -- Elenchus and hupothesis -- Knowledge and aitia -- F-conditions -- Cognitive security -- Aporia -- Forms of aporia -- Dramatic aporia -- The example of Charmides -- Charmides as autobiography -- The politics of Sôphrosunê -- Critias' Philotimia -- Self-knowledge and the knowledge of knowledge -- Knowledge of knowledge and knowledge of the good -- Philosophy and the polis. (shrink)

David Williams explores the complex links between Condorcet as visionary ideologist and pragmatic legislator, and between his concept of modernity and the management of change. The Marquis de Condorcet was one of the few Enlightenment thinkers to witness and participate in the French Revolution. Based on an extensive array of printed and original manuscript sources, Williams' analysis of Condorcet's politics will be a major contribution to Enlightenment studies.

The Discovery of Evolution explains what the theory of evolution is all about by providing a historical narrative of discovery. Some of the major puzzles that confront anyone studying living things are discussed and it details how these were solved from an evolutionary perspective. Beginning with the emergence of the early naturalists in the seventeenth century, the scientific discoveries that led up to and then flowed from Darwin and Wallace's theory of evolution by natural selection are then discussed, and finally (...) the modern evolutionary studies at the close of the twentieth century are detailed. This new edition of The Discovery of Evolution is fully updated and contains a new chapter on the evolutionary studies of the twentieth century. By approaching the topic of evolution in this way, it is made accessible to the non-specialist and no previous study of biology is required in order to read and understand this book. (shrink)

The typical kind of color realism is reductive: the color properties are identified with properties specified in other terms (as ways of altering light, for instance). If no reductive analysis is available — if the colors are primitive sui generis properties — this is often taken to be a convincing argument for eliminativism. That is, realist primitivism is usually thought to be untenable. The realist preference for reductive theories of color over the last few decades is particularly striking in light (...) of the generally anti-reductionist mood of recent philosophy of mind. The parallels between the mind—body problem and the case of color are substantial enough that the difference in trajectory is surprising. While dualism and non-reductive physicalism are staples, realist primitivism is by and large a recent addition to the color literature. And it remains a minority position, although one that is perhaps gaining support. In this paper, we investigate whether it should be accepted, and conclude it should not be. (shrink)

This is an in-depth study of J.G. Fichte’s philosophy of mathematics and theory of geometry. It investigates both the external formal and internal cognitive parallels between the axioms, intuitions and constructions of geometry and the scientific methodology of the Fichtean system of philosophy. In contrast to “ordinary” Euclidean geometry, in his Erlanger Logik of 1805 Fichte posits a model of an “ursprüngliche” or original geometry – that is to say, a synthetic and constructivistic conception grounded in ideal archetypal elements that (...) are grasped through geometrical or intelligible intuition. -/- Accordingly, this study classifies Fichte’s philosophy of mathematics as a whole as a species of mathematical Platonism or neo-Platonism, and concludes that the Wissenschaftslehre itself may be read as an attempt at a new philosophical mathesis, or “mathesis of the mind.” -/- “This work testifies to the author's exact and extensive knowledge of the Fichtean texts, as well as of the philosophical, scientific and historical contexts. Wood has opened up completely new paths for Fichte research, and examines with clarity and precision a domain that up to now has hardly been researched.” Professor Dr. Marco Ivaldo -/- “This study, written in a language distinguished by its limpidity and precision, and constantly supported by a close reading of the Fichtean texts and secondary literature, furnishes highly detailed and convincing demonstrations. In directly confronting the difficult historical relationship between the Wissenschaftslehre and mathematics, the author has broken new ground that is at once stimulating, decidedly innovative, and elegantly audacious.” Professor Dr. Emmanuel Cattin. (shrink)

In 1962, the philosopher Richard Taylor used six commonly accepted presuppositions to imply that human beings have no control over the future. David Foster Wallace not only took issue with Taylor's method, which, according to him, scrambled the relations of logic, language, and the physical world, but also noted a semantic trick at the heart of Taylor's argument. _Fate, Time, and Language_ presents Wallace's brilliant critique of Taylor's work. Written long before the publication of his fiction and essays, Wallace's (...) thesis reveals his great skepticism of abstract thinking made to function as a negation of something more genuine and real. He was especially suspicious of certain paradigms of thought-the cerebral aestheticism of modernism, the clever gimmickry of postmodernism-that abandoned "the very old traditional human verities that have to do with spirituality and emotion and community." As Wallace rises to meet the challenge to free will presented by Taylor, we witness the developing perspective of this major novelist, along with his struggle to establish solid logical ground for his convictions. This volume, edited by Steven M. Cahn and Maureen Eckert, reproduces Taylor's original article and other works on fatalism cited by Wallace. James Ryerson's introduction connects Wallace's early philosophical work to the themes and explorations of his later fiction, and Jay Garfield supplies a critical biographical epilogue. (shrink)

Although deductive reasoning is a closed system, one's beliefs about the world can influence validity judgements. To understand the associated functional neuroanatomy of this belief-bias we studied 14 volunteers using event-related fMRI, as they performed reasoning tasks under neutral, facilitatory and inhibitory belief conditions. We found evidence for the engagement of a left temporal lobe system during belief-based reasoning and a bilateral parietal lobe system during belief-neutral reasoning. Activation of right lateral prefrontal cortex was evident when subjects inhibited a prepotent (...) response associated with belief-bias and correctly completed a logical task, a finding consistent with its putative role in cognitive monitoring. By contrast, when logical reasoning was overcome by belief-bias, there was engagement of ventral medial prefrontal cortex, a region implicated in affective processing. This latter involvement suggests that belief-bias effects in reasoning may be mediated through an influence of emotional processes on reasoning. (shrink)

This article examines how on-air conversations between journalists indicate how US television coverage of a race-related crisis can reflect racial ideology. Using critical discourse analysis, we examined interjournalistic discourse about African Americans in national network and cable news programs that aired after Hurricane Katrina reached New Orleans. While we expected conversational semantic items from conservative Fox News to reflect racial ideology, we also found such discursive elements from politically moderate and progressive news organizations such as CBS, CNN, and MSNBC. These (...) findings are consistent with Anxiety Uncertainty Management theory, which predicts that exposure to stressors in unfamiliar settings causes individuals to think in ethnocentric, dichotomous, stereotypical ways. Our research underscores the impact of white privilege on language, communication, and news production, and the need for cultural competence training to enhance journalists’ ability to discuss racial matters with ease. (shrink)

Die theoretische Logik, auch mathematische oder symbolische Logik genannt, ist eine Ausdehnung der fonnalen Methode der Mathematik auf das Gebiet der Logik. Sie wendet fUr die Logik eine ahnliche Fonnel­ sprache an, wie sie zum Ausdruck mathematischer Beziehungen schon seit langem gebrauchlich ist. In der Mathematik wurde es heute als eine Utopie gelten, wollte man beim Aufbau einer mathematischen Disziplin sich nur der gewohnlichen Sprache bedienen. Die groBen Fortschritte, die in der Mathematik seit der Antike gemacht worden sind, sind zum (...) wesentlichen Teil mit dadurch bedingt, daB es gelang, einen brauchbaren und leistungsfahigen Fonnalismus zu finden. - Was durch die Formel­ sprache in der Mathematik erreicht wird, das solI auch in der theoretischen Logik durch diese erzielt werden, namlich eine exakte, wissenschaftliche Behandlung ihres Gegenstandes. Die logischen Sachverhalte, die zwischen Urteilen, Begriffen usw. bestehen, finden ihre Darstellung durch Formeln, deren Interpretation frei ist von den Unklarheiten, die beim sprachlichen Ausdruck leicht auftreten konnen. Der Dbergang zu logischen Folgerungen, wie er durch das SchlieBen geschieht, wird in seine letzten Elemente zerlegt und erscheint als fonnale Umgestaltung der Ausgangsfonneln nach gewissen Regeln, die den Rechenregeln in der Algebra analog sind; das logische Denken findet sein Abbild in einem LogikkalkUl. Dieser Kalkiil macht die erfolgreiche Inangriffnahme von Problemen moglich, bei denen das rein inhaltliche Denken prinzipiell versagt. Zu diesen gehort z. B. (shrink)

Human thought is unable to acknowledge the reality of affliction. To acknowledge affliction means saying to oneself: I may lose at any moment, through the play of circumstances over which I have no control, anything whatsoever I possess, including those things which are so intimately mine that I consider them as being myself. There is nothing that I might not lose.

L'ingegneria concettuale è una branca della filosofia caratterizzata da un approccio normativo nei confronti della rappresentazione. Assunzione fondamentale è che i nostri dispositivi rappresentazionali possano essere difettosi. Si configura dunque come l'attività che consiste nell'identificare i difetti in tali dispositivi e mettere in atto strategie di miglioramento. Verranno illustrate le questioni fondamentali a cui una teoria di ingegneria concettuale deve rispondere: in cosa consiste esattamente questa attività? Come possiamo attuarla? Quali meccanismi regolano la formazione dei dispositivi rappresentazionali? Possiamo influire su (...) tali meccanismi? Verrà inoltre presentata un'obiezione all'ingegneria concettuale e varie risposte. -/- Conceptual engineering is a branch of philosophy characterised by a normative approach towards representation. The fundamental assumption of it is that our representational devices can be defective. Conceptual engineering is then the activity consisting of identifying the defects of such devices and putting in place ameliorative strategies. This paper illustrates the fundamental issues for a theory of conceptual engineering: what does this activity consist of? How can we implement it? What mechanisms regulate the formation of representational devices? Can we have an influence over those mechanisms? Moreover, it will be presented an objection to conceptual engineering and various responses to it. (shrink)

Doctors’ strikes are legally permissible in the UK, with the situation differing in other countries. But are they morally permissible? Doug McConnell and Darren Mann have systematically attempted to dismiss the arguments for the moral impermissibility of doctors’ strikes and creatively attempted to provide further moral justification for them. Unfortunately for striking doctors, they fail to achieve this. Meanwhile, junior doctors’ strikes have continued in the UK through 2023 and have now extended into 2024. In this response, which focuses on (...) the UK situation and specifically junior doctors’ strikes in the National Health Service (NHS) in England, I will demonstrate a central problem with their arguments—namely that they underplay the harms caused by prolonged doctors’ strikes by ignoring the harms to patients with cancer. This weakens their conclusion that strikes are morally permissible in terms of the conditions and thresholds they set. I then provide a psychological critique of their justification for strikes in terms of the interests of the public. It follows that invoking the controversial concept of supererogatory action is ungrounded but also absurd when you consider time-critical cancer care. If those representing striking doctors wish to maintain a modicum of moral respectability, they should mitigate for patients with cancer and negotiate reasonably and with urgency. (shrink)