Special issue of the journal Revue philosophique in homage to the centenary of Franz Brentano's death. Contains a substantial introduction and contributions from Alain de Libera, Kevin Mulligan, Barry Dainton, and Uriah Kriegel.

Dialectica, Volume 73, Issue 4, Page 591-597, December 2019.

Le présent ouvrage collectif contient les Actes d'un colloque international bilingue sur l'action, les attitudes et la décision que nous avons organisé en hommage à notre regretté collègue J.-Nicolas Kaufmann à Trois-Rivières du 3 au 5 octobre 2002. L'ouvrage présente et discute d'hypothèses, d'enjeux et de théories contemporaines sur l'action, les attitudes, la rationalité et la décision. La première partie intitulée Pensées, actions et engagements contient des contributions de John Searle, Daniel Vanderveken, Candida Jaci de Sousa Melo et Raimo Tuomela (...) traitant de problèmes généraux de la philosophie de l'esprit et de l'action. Dans la deuxième partie de l'ouvrage intitulée Phénoménologie, ontologie et philosophie de l'esprit, nous avons regroupé, autour d'un texte de Nicolas Kaufmann, quatre études qui traitent diversement de la contribution de la phénoménologie classique, principalement de la phénoménologie de Husserl, à des questions centrales de la philosophie contemporaine dans les domaines de la philosophie de l'esprit, de la théorie de l'action et de l'ontologie formelle. La troisième partie de l'ouvrage, Causalité et naturalisme, réunit trois contributions qui portent sur des questions centrales de la philosophie contemporaine. Daniel Laurier se penche sur la question de savoir si le normativisme sémantique est compatible avec le naturalisme sémantique, alors qu'André Leclerc et Wilson Mendonça s'intéressent à la notion de causalité mentale et examinent différents arguments qui contestent le bien-fondé de cette notion. La dernière partie de l'ouvrage intitulée Rationalité et décision réunit trois contributions logico philosophiques de Storrs McCall, Mathieu Marion et Michel Paquette qui traitent de la rationalité des agents lors de leurs prises de décision et délibérations. (shrink)

Franz Brentano’s impact on the philosophy of his time and on 20th-century philosophy is considerable. The “sharp dialectician” (Freud) and “genial master” (Husserl) influenced philosophers of various allegiances, being acknowledged not only as the “grandfather of phenomenology” (Ryle) but also as an analytic philosopher “in the best sense of this term” (Chisholm). The fourteen new essays gathered together in this volume give an insight in three core issues of Brentano’s philosophy: consciousness (sect.1), intentionality (sect. 2) and ontology and metaphysics (sect. (...) 3). Two further sections of the volume deal with the posterity of his philoso¬phy: in section 4, the legacy of his account of sense perception and feeling is discussed, while the history of Brentano’s unpublished manuscripts is discussed in section 5. This section also presents an edition of a manuscript from 1899 on relations, along with the letters from Brentano to Marty which discuss this manuscript. The last part of section 5 contains the text of a public lecture given by Brentano on the laws of inference. (shrink)

In “An Obscure Rider Obstructing Science,” Sarah Rodriguez, Lisa Campo-Engelstein, Candace Tingen, and Teresa Woodruff (2011) adopt a “developmental view” when contrasting the moral status of embry...

The main experiments concerning the Aharonov–Bohm phase shifts, seen in an electron interference pattern, and their Boyer semiclassical explanations are reviewed. A new experiment is also presented which emphasizes the subtleties involved in the interpretations of the magnetic Aharonov–Bohm phase shift as a result of a non-dispersive or dispersive effect.

There is a new Bayesian, or probabilistic, paradigm in the psychology of reasoning, with new psychological accounts of the indicative conditional of natural language. In psychological experiments in this new paradigm, people judge that the probability of the indicative conditional, P(if A then C), is the conditional probability of C given A, P(C | A). In other experiments, participants respond with what has been called the 'de- fective' truth table: they judge that if A then C is true when A (...) holds and C holds, is false when A holds and C does not, and is neither true nor false when A does not hold. We argue that these responses are not 'defective' in any negative sense, as many psychologists have implied. We point out that a number of normative researchers, including de Finetti, have proposed such a table for various coherent interpretations of the third value. We review the relevant general tables in the normative literature, in which there is a third value for A and C and the logically compound forms of the natural language conditional, negation, conjunction, disjunction, and the material conditional. We describe the results of an experiment on which of these tables best describes ordinary people's judgements when the third value is interpreted as indicating uncertainty. (shrink)

This paper examines conceptual issues that arise in applications of Darwinian natural selection to cultural systems. I argue that many criticisms of cultural selectionist models have been based on an over-detailed reading of the analogy between biological and cultural units of selection. I identify five of the most powerful objections to cultural selection theory and argue that none cuts to its heart. Some objections are based on mistaken assumptions about the simplicity of the mechanisms of biological heredity. Other objections are (...) attributable, rather, to mistaken inferences from observations of biological subject matter to what is essential in natural selection. I argue that such features are idiosyncratic of biological systems, but not essential for natural selection. My arguments throughout are illustrated by examples from biological and cultural evolution, and counter-factual illustrations from the history of theoretical biology. Introduction Cultural Selection Theory First Objection: Lamarckianism Second Objection: Genotype–Phenotype Distinction Third Objection: Common Hereditary Architecture Fourth Objection: Biological Analogue for Cultural Units 6.1 Regarding strict analogues 6.2 Regarding the trait analogue 6.3 Regarding the virus analogue Fifth Objection: Environmental Interaction Conclusion CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

International medical travel occurs when patients cross national borders to purchase medical goods and services. On occasion, physicians in home countries will be the last point of domestic contact for patients seeking healthcare information before they travel abroad for care. When this is the case, physicians have a unique opportunity to inform patients about their options and help guide them towards ethical practices. This opportunity brings to the fore an important question: What role should physicians in more-developed home countries play (...) in promoting or constraining international medical travel towards less-developed destination countries? In our view, critical attention to the decision spaces of patients—defined by the personal circumstances, socio-cultural cues, and legal constraints that inform decision-making—is a useful starting point for evaluating the proper response of physicians to various forms of international medical travel. (shrink)

Although nature of science and nature of scientific inquiry are related to each other, they are differentiated as NOS is being more related to the product of scientific inquiry which is scientific knowledge whereas NOSI is more related to the process of SI. Lederman et al. determined eight NOSI aspects for K-16 context. In this study, a science camp was conducted to teach scientific inquiry and NOSI to 24 6th and 7th graders. The core of the program was guided inquiry (...) in nature. The children working in small groups under guidance of science advisors conducted four guided-inquiries in the nature in morning sessions on nearby plants, animals, water, and soil. NOSI aspects were made explicit during and at the end of each inquiry session. Views about scientific inquiry questionnaire was applied as pre- and post-test. The results of the study showed that children developed in all eight NOSI aspects, but higher developments were observed in “scientific investigations all begin with a question” and “there is no single scientific method,” and “explanations are developed from data and what is already known” aspects. It was concluded that the science camp program was effective in teaching NOSI. (shrink)

The terms complexity, complex adaptive systems, and sciences of complexity are found often in recent scientific literature, reflecting the remarkable growth in collaborative academic research focused on complexity from the origin and dynamics of organisms to the largest social and political organizations. One of the great challenges in this field of research is to discover which features are essential and shared by all of the seemingly disparate systems that are described as complex. Is there sufficient synthesis to suggest the possibility (...) of an overarching science of complexity? This report describes current views on this subject held by various eminent scholars associated with the Santa Fe Institute.The physical sciences have traditionally been concerned with “simple” systems whose dynamics can be described in mathematical terms with precision and certainty. In contrast, the biological and social sciences are inevitably concerned with self-organized or social “complex” systems whose detailed behaviors appear to be unpredictable. The two categories differ greatly in size and diversity, prompting the late mathematician Stanislaus Ulam to remark that research on complex systems might be compared to the study of non-elephants. Nevertheless, certain integrative themes have begun to emerge.Rising activity in this field of research runs completely counter to the trend toward increasing fragmentation and specialization in the sciences. It has stimulated a resurgence of interest in a broad synthesis involving mathematics, computational science, physics, chemistry, biology, neuroscience, and the social sciences. The growth of effort in this very extended field has been greatly stimulated by the development of new computational tools that are capable of dealing with vast, interrelated databases. Many of the participants in complexity research feel that it is now time to reintegrate the fragmented interests of much of the academic community. The reader is encouraged to consider whether such views are sparking a historic renaissance of scholarship or represent a passing scientific diversion. (shrink)

In the US, stem cell research is at a moral impasse—many see this research as ethically mandated due to its potential for ameliorating major diseases, while others see this research as ethically impermissible because it typically involves the destruction of embryos and use of ova from women. Because their creation does not require embryos or ova, induced pluripotent stem cells offer the most promising path for addressing the main ethical objections to stem cell research; however, this technology is still in (...) development. In order for scientists to advance induced pluripotent stem cell research to a point of translational readiness, they must continue to use ova and embryos in the interim. How then are we to ethically move forward with stem cell research? We argue that there is personal integrity and value in adopting a ‘moral compromise’ as a means for moving past the moral impasse in stem cell research. In a moral compromise, each party concedes part of their desired outcome in order to engage in a process that respects the values and desires of all parties equitably. Whereas some contend that moral compromise in stem cell research necessarily involves self-contradiction or loss of personal integrity, we argue that in the US context, stem cell research satisfies many of the key pre-conditions of an effective moral compromise. To illustrate our point, we offer a model solution wherein eggs and embryos are temporarily used until non-egg and non-embryonic sources of pluripotent stem cells are developed to a state of translational readiness. (shrink)

We submit this brief in support of the Nonhuman Rights Project’s efforts to secure habeas corpus relief for the elephant named Happy. We reject arbitrary distinctions that deny adequate protections to other animals who share with protected humans relevantly similar vulnerabilities to harms and relevantly similar interests in avoiding such harms. We strongly urge this Court, in keeping with the best philosophical standards of rational judgment and ethical standards of justice, to recognize that, as a nonhuman person, Happy should be (...) released from her current confinement and transferred to an appropriate elephant sanctuary, pursuant to habeas corpus. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce the methodology and techniques of meta-argumentation to model argumentation. The methodology of meta-argumentation instantiates Dung’s abstract argumentation theory with an extended argumentation theory, and is thus based on a combination of the methodology of instantiating abstract arguments, and the methodology of extending Dung’s basic argumentation frameworks with other relations among abstract arguments. The technique of meta-argumentation applies Dung’s theory of abstract argumentation to itself, by instantiating Dung’s abstract arguments with meta-arguments using a technique called flattening. (...) We characterize the domain of instantiation using a representation technique based on soundness and completeness. Finally, we distinguish among various instantiations using the technique of specification languages. (shrink)

One of the areas of concern raised by cross-border reproductive travel regards the treatment of women who are solicited to provide their ova or surrogacy services to foreign consumers. This is particularly troublesome in the context of developing countries where endemic poverty and low standards for both medical care and informed consent may place these women at risk of exploitation and harm. We explore two contrasting proposals for policy development regarding the industry, both of which seek to promote ethical outcomes (...) and social justice: While one proposal advocates efforts to minimize cross-border demand for female reproductive resources through the pursuit of national self-sufficiency, the other defends cross-border trade as a means for meeting the needs of vulnerable groups. Despite the conflicting objectives of the proposed strategies, the paper identifies common values and points of agreement between the two, including the importance of regulations to safeguard those providing ova or surrogacy services. (shrink)

Background: More and more quantitative information is becoming available about the risks of complications arising from medical treatment. In everyday practice, this raises the question whether each and every risk, however low, should be disclosed to patients. What could be good reasons for doing or not doing so? This will increasingly become a dilemma for practitioners.Objective: To report doctors’ views on whether to disclose or withhold information on low risks of complications.Methods: In a qualitative study design, 37 respondents were included. (...) Focus group interviews were held with 22 respondents and individual in-depth interviews with 15.Results: Doctors have doubts about disclosing or withholding information on complication risk, especially in a risk range of 1 in 200 to 1 in 10 000. Their considerations on whether to disclose or to withhold information depend on a complicated mix of patient and doctor-associated reasons; on medical and personal considerations; and on the kind and purpose of intervention.Discussion: Even though the degree of a risk is important in a doctor’s considerations, the severity of the possible complications and patients’ wishes and competencies have an important role as well. Respondents said that low risks should always be communicated when there are alternatives for the intervention or when the patient may prevent or mitigate the risk. When the appropriateness of disclosing risks is doubtful, doctors should always tell their patients that no intervention is without risk, give them the opportunity to gather all the information they need or want, and enable them to detect a complication at an early stage. (shrink)

Conference proceedings on Mongolian contributions to Buddhist knowledge.

This volume--one of several in a series on contemporary philosophy in Italy and in the U. S.--presents the principal philosophic and cultural currents in Italy through the works of representative writers. The coverage of philosophy is quite complete. Besides the expected articles on Croce, Gentile, existentialism, neo-scholasticism, and the philosophy of history, there are, among others, articles on analytic philosophy, marxism, and the philosophy of science. The appendix supplies information on Italian philosophic centers, organizations, and journals, as well as brief (...) biographies of the contributors.--R. D. G. (shrink)

The age of maturity of children to consent for medical research is under debate, as different authorities regard the capacity of young teenagers as either satisfactory or not to grant consent without parental participation in the process. The present paper contrasts the generally accepted guideline for ethics in paediatric research in Canada with what the same children are allowed and expected to be able to do as babysitters. This comparison reveals deep incongruences in the way the maturity of the same (...) children is appreciated for two different tasks. (shrink)

Background: We were finding volunteers for functional magnetic resonance imaging studies with abnormalities requiring referral surprisingly frequently. The bioethics surrounding the incidental findings are not straightforward and every imaging institution will encounter this situation in their normal volunteers. Yet the implications for the individuals involved may be profound. Should all participants have review of their imaging by an expert and who should be informed? Methods: The normal volunteers that were imaged with magnetic resonance (MR) which were reviewed by a consultant (...) neuroradiologist. All participants completed a volunteer consent form in addition to a standard departmental MR safety screening form. The volunteer screening form requires the general practitioner details to be completed and asks the participant to consider closely the possibility and implications of finding an unexpected but potentially serious abnormality before signing. Results: 525 different individuals were scanned as normal volunteers, the mean age was 35-years and 330 were males. Of these 525, 46 had definite significant abnormalities (8.8%), mean age 50-years. Conclusion: We have found a high rate of incidental abnormalities amongst individuals participating in imaging studies at our institution. It is our current practice to inform the research study participant of the findings, counsel them and inform their primary care physician. We think that it is advisable for researchers utilising MR imaging of the brain to have access to trained neuroradiologists, a protocol in place to deal with this problem and take consent in a way that allows the participant to realise the possibility of an abnormal finding. (shrink)

Each chapter of this beginning textbook is followed by an extensive list of questions, but bibliography and guides for supplementary source readings are absent. Positions other than St. Thomas's--such as those of Suarez, Scotus, and Kant--are briefly considered on specific issues. --R. D. G.

Sont réunies dans cet ouvrage six études des principaux représentants de ce qu’il est convenu d’appeler « l’école de Brentano ». Les « Souvenirs de Franz Brentano » de Carl Stumpf et Edmund Husserl, décrivent sa vie et son activité philosophique de ses débuts à Würzburg jusqu’à son couronnement à Vienne. Les quatre autres études sont des contributions importantes des étudiants de Brentano à la philosophie. L’étude d’Ehrenfels, « Sur les “qualités de forme” », fondatrice de la psychologie de la (...) forme, est aussi une référence incontournable pour Meinong, dont nous traduisons ici « Sur les objets d’ordre supérieur et leur rapport à la perception interne », où il met en place les idées à la base de sa théorie de l’objet. La cinquième étude, « Fonctions et formations » de Twardowski, propose une analyse originale de la relation entre les actes (fonctions) et leurs contenus (formations). Enfin, « Sur le rapport entre la grammaire et la logique » d’Anton Marty, emblématique de la philosophie du langage brentanienne, vient clore cet ouvrage que nous avons introduit par « Le legs de Brentano », une étude présentant les grandes lignes du programme philosophique de Brentano, la généalogie de son « école » ainsi que quelques-uns des débats suscités par les textes reproduits ici. (shrink)

We argue that the ecological research community should develop a plan for improving the ethical consistency and moral robustness of the field. We propose a particular ethics strategy—specifically, an ongoing process of collective ethical reflection that the community of ecological researchers, with the cooperation of applied ethicists and philosophers of biology, can use to address the needs we identify. We suggest a particular set of conceptual and analytic tools that, we argue, collectively have the resources to provide an empirically grounded (...) and conceptually complete foundation for an ethics strategy for ecological research. We illustrate our argument with information gathered from a survey of ecologists conducted at the 2013 meeting of the Canadian Society of Ecology and Evolution. (shrink)

This paper seeks to advance ethical practice in business and integrate ethics with management curricula. It focuses on the ethical dimensions of incompany research conducted by human resource practitioners who are part time students on a postgraduate research degree award (M.Sc. in HRM). These dual roles of academic researcher in HRM and HR practitioner can become blurred and present particular ethical considerations. Beyond ethical perspectives of HRM, the paper investigates the ethics of in-company research in terms of conceptual and operational (...) factors. The main conclusion is that ethical guidelines need to be developed for M.Sc. in HRM students. Draft guidelines are offered as the basis for development. (shrink)

In ‘Why not NIMBY?’, Simon Feldman and Derek Turner mount a compelling case that NIMBY claims are not intrinsically morally unjustified, despite the fact that NIMBY-claimants...

In the current global care regime, care shortages in wealthy nations such as the United States, Canada, Italy, and Hong Kong are being addressed through the global supply of cheap migrant care labor from less wealthy nations. This paper argues that Feminist Care Ethics has a great deal to offer in the analysis of this global care regime. Joan Tronto's own critiques of the migration of care workers have focused on analogies between workers and imported slaves: both are intrinsically exploited, (...) vulnerable, excluded, and stigmatized. She argues that this situation undermines human virtue and the possibility of adequate care, and she advocates instead a model wherein caregiving is seen as a basis for .. (shrink)

Drawing on conceptual tools from philosophical bioethics, economics, and materialist feminism, we advocate viewing transnational commercial surrogacy as labor and consider what it means to compensate women for this work. We find two distinct but interrelated concerns emerge in our discussion of wages for surrogates: how to value and compensate for social reproduction, and how to establish a fair wage for surrogates. We explore limitations of minimum wage policy in addressing the undervaluation of biological and emotional labor in the transnational (...) commercial surrogacy industry. We argue that subsidization is a superior method of addressing at least one cause of undervaluation. (shrink)

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Spatial Information Theory, COSIT 2005, held in Elliottville, NY, USA in September 2005. The 30 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 82 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on vagueness, uncertainty, and gradation; paths and routes; ontologies and semantics; ontologies and spatial relations; spatial reasoning: cognitive maps and spatial reasoning; time, change, and dynamics; landmarks and navigation; geographic information, and spatial behaviour.

Farmers in developed countries have established various tillage practices for crop production. These include plowing, disking, subsoiling, harrowing, field cultivating, rotary hoeing, and row-crop cultivating. But these conventional tillage practices necessitate the use of heavy equipment that often causes soil compaction, impairs soil physical conditions, and creates conditions leading to soil erosion. Many Western countries, studying their conventional tillage systems through the new perspective of sustainable approaches to agriculture, are developing new tillage practices, called conservation tillage, which limit tillage to (...) essential operations and prevent damage to soil. The majority of the small-scale farmers in developing countries use indigenous tillage systems. These are low-cost, locally adapted technologies that reflect considerable knowledge of sustainable agriculture. Ironically, the new conservation tillage systems currently being developed in the West have many characteristics of indigenous tillage systems. This paper compares conventional, conservation, and indigenous tillage practices, using examples from the United States and India, and concludes that, for sustainable food production, indigenous tillage practices in developing countries should continue to be used. (shrink)