This paper introduces coupled clustering—a novel computational framework for detecting corresponding themes in unstructured data. Gaining its inspiration from the structure mapping theory, our framework utilizes unsupervised statistical learning tools for automatic construction of aligned representations reflecting the context of the particular mapping being made. The coupled clustering algorithm is demonstrated and evaluated through detecting conceptual correspondences in textual corpora. In its current phase, the method is primarily oriented towards context-dependent feature-based similarity. However, it is preliminary demonstrated how it could (...) be utilized for identification of relational commonalities, as well. (shrink)

Cytogenetic research has had a major impact on the field of reproductive medicine, providing an insight into the frequency of chromosomal abnormalities that occur during gametogenesis, embryonic development and pregnancy. In humans, aneuploidy has been found to be relatively common during fetal life, necessitating prenatal screening of high‐risk pregnancies. Aneuploidy rates are higher still during the preimplantation stage of development. An increasing number of IVF laboratories have attempted to improve pregnancy rates by using preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to ensure that (...) the embryos transferred to the mother are chromosomally normal. This paper reviews some of the techniques that are key to the detection of aneuploidy in reproductive samples including comparative genomic hybridization (CGH). CGH has provided an unparalleled insight into the nature of chromosome imbalance in human embryos and polar bodies. The clinical application of CGH for the purposes of PGD and the future extensions of the methodology, including DNA microarrays, are discussed. BioEssays 25:289–300, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Previous studies suggested that emotions can be correctly interpreted from facial expressions in the absence of conscious awareness of the face. Our goal was to explore whether subordinate information about a face’s gender and race could also become available without awareness of the face. Participants classified the race or the gender of unfamiliar faces that were ambiguous with regard to these dimensions. The ambiguous faces were preceded by face-images that unequivocally represented gender and race, rendered consciously invisible by simultaneous continuous-flash-suppression. (...) The classification of ambiguous faces was biased away from the category of the adaptor only when it was consciously visible. The duration of subjective visibility correlated with the aftereffect strength. Moreover, face identity was consequential only if consciously perceived. These results suggest that while conscious awareness is not needed for basic level categorization, it is needed for subordinate categorization. Emotional information might be unique in this respect. (shrink)

The article investigates the function and signification of doors in two silent films, Ernst Lubitsch's 1916 When I Was Dead and Charlie Chaplin's 1917 The Adventurer. Taking a theoretical perspective provided by the field of intellectual inquiry known as cultural techniques (Kulturtechniken), the door in these films is studied with respect to its procedural and functional operations. Specifically, the article focuses on the ways in which the employment of doors in each of the films relates to these films' configurations of (...) inside and outside as conceptual realms. The analysis presented shows that Lubitsch and Chaplin engage doors in uniquely different ways. It further reveals that, while the operation of the door in When I Was Dead reinforces an exclusive binary of inside and outside, which itself can be traced back to the film's concern with sexual difference, the operation of the door in The Adventurer essentially deconstructs the inside/outside binary, an act that can be linked to a critique of contemporary notions of industrial management and the treatment of humans as machines. (shrink)

The notion of aesthetic ideas is of great importance to Kant's thinking about art. Despite its importance, he says little about it. He characterizes aesthetic ideas as representations of the imagination and says that the gift of artistic genius is the inscrutable capacity to envision them. Furthermore, they are counterparts of rational ideas. Works of art thus sensibly present rational ideas; the pleasure they occasion is a consequence of the enriching process of reflection upon the wealth of content they sensibly (...) present. The purpose of this article is to ask whether all rational ideas have aesthetic ideas as counterparts, and so can be presented in art, or whether only some do and which. The answer should reveal what, for Kant, is the subject-matter of art. I argue that for Kant art is concerned with the range and variety of human freedom as well as with its highest fulfillment in morality. (shrink)

Kant announces that the Critique of the Power of Judgment will bring his entire critical enterprise to an end. But it is by no means agreed upon that it in fact does so and, if it does, how. In this book, Ido Geiger argues that a principal concern of the third Critique is completing the account of the transcendental conditions of empirical experience and knowledge. This includes both Kant's analysis of natural beauty and his discussion of teleological judgments of organisms (...) and of nature generally. Geiger's original reading of the third Critique shows that it forms a unified whole - and that it does in fact deliver the final part of Kant's transcendental undertaking. His book will be valuable to all who are interested in Kant's theory of the aesthetic and conceptual purposiveness of nature. (shrink)

Kant's conception of moral agency is often charged with attributing no role to feelings. I suggest that respect is the effective force driving moral action. I then argue that four additional types of rational feelings are necessary conditions of moral agency: The affective inner life of moral agents deliberating how to act and reflecting on their deeds is rich and complex . To act morally we must turn our affective moral perception towards the ends of moral action: the welfare of (...) others ; and our own moral being . Feelings shape our particular moral acts . I tentatively suggest that the diversity of moral feelings might be as great as the range of our duties. (shrink)

During the 2020 COVID-19 epidemic a variety of social activities migrated online, including religious ceremonies and rituals. One such instance is the case of Santo Daime, a Brazilian rainforest religion that utilizes the hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca in its rituals. During the pandemic, multiple Santo Daime rituals involving the consumption of ayahuasca took place online, mediated through Zoom and other online platforms. The phenomenon is notable since the effects of hallucinogens are defined by context and Santo Daime rituals are habitually governed (...) by punctilious regulations aimed at directing the experience of participants. The abrupt move to online space thus augurs significant implications in the context of hallucinogenic rituals. This paper looks at this development and its repercussions for entheogenic rituals, as it asks how do psychedelic rituals change when they move online? Building on the author’s previous work on set and setting in the Santo Daime religion, the paper introduces accounts from 12 semi-structured interviews with daimistas participating in online daime rituals, approached through the prism of set and setting, and the study of online religiosity. The analysis points at several key dynamics emerging in the context of virtual rituals. The migration online allowed for the continuation of Santo Daime entheogenic rituals at a time of social distancing, fostered a sense of global brotherhood and opened new possibility for religious participation and learning. Concurrently, online ritual produced an impoverished ritual experience and novel types of challenges including a higher potential for distractions, technical difficulties, and low sensory fidelity. Other novel challenges included social anxiety and an in-built tension between the social and spiritual dimensions of ritual. Finally, some participants were concerned by the cultural context of online rituals: technological mediation, consumerism, commodification, and digital divide. The limitations of digital technology appear amplified by the highly immersive, body oriented, experientially intensified context of the psychedelic experience. This paper contributes to the literature on the extra-pharmacological factors shaping experiences with psychedelics, as well as to the literature on the consequences of the adoption of digital media technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

The mortality salience hypothesis postulates that anxiety elicited by mortality awareness leads people to develop negative emotions toward those who hold values inconsistent with their worldview faith. We explored this hypothesis in a sample of 76 Israeli combat soldiers, who were asked to reflect on either their mortality or dental pain. Subsequently, participants reported their motivation to help a father in need who was either an Arab or a Jewish Israeli, as well as their perceptions of threat by Arab Israelis. (...) Regression analysis indicated that mortality reminders intensified soldiers’ perception of threat by the outgroup, leading to an increased desire to assist a Jewish-Israeli father, and a decreased motivation to help an Arab-Israeli one. The findings demonstrate the pronounced effects of MS on soldiers involved in frequent combat actions in terms of evoking negative emotions leading to reluctance to help unarmed civilian outgroup members. Recommendations for soldiers’ pre-deployment psychoeducation sessions are provided. (shrink)

Ethical dilemmas require evaluation of alternatives in light of conflicting principles. Because of the difficulty of making and defending such complex decisions, we may compromise the quality of our ethical decisions and debates. We need a methodology that combines the weighted effects of multiple ethical guidelines on the issue at hand. This paper describes how the Analytic Hierarchy Process can help us improve ethical decision making.

For private property to be legitimately recognized as a universal human right, its meaning should pass the test of self-imposability by an end. In this Essay, we argue, negatively, that the prevailing understanding of private property cannot plausibly meet this demanding standard; and develop, affirmatively, a liberal conception which has a much better prospect of meeting property’s justificatory challenge. Private property, on our account, is an empowering device, which is crucial both to people’s personal autonomy and to their relational equality. (...) The liberal conception of the human right to property has both vertical and horizontal significance — it implies respect from both the public authority and other individuals — which means that it is thoroughly political but not necessarily statist. Our account generates important implications, both domestic and transnational. Domestically, it implies that whereas some property rights should be subject to strong constitutional protection, state law should facilitate other types of private and non-private property institutions, and these property institutions may well be subject to non-owners’ claims to access and, more broadly, to being treated respectfully. Furthermore, our conception of the human right to property requires that everyone have the unusual authority typical of full-blown private ownership. Transnationally, our analysis highlights a freestanding dimension of relational justice, which is relevant across borders even given that our distributive obligations are statist. This injunction of relational justice in transnational interactions brings into question the adequacy of the current state of the law, according to which these interactions are mainly governed by choice-of-law rules that conceptualize them as wholly subsumed under the capacities of the parties as citizens of their respective polities. (shrink)

According to Korsgaard’s very influential interpretation, moral normativity follows from a commonly accepted conception of rational agency, namely, the capacity to set ends and pursue them or humanity. The paper argues that humanity is not the source of moral normativity. Taking the exercise of your freedom in pursuit of your ends to be justified commits you to acknowledging the equal claim of others to see themselves as justified in the pursuit of their ends. This entails the equal restriction of the (...) freedom of each to ensure maximal freedom for all. But this is precisely what Kant thinks of as the state of right. In contrast, the paper claims that the second formula of the categorical imperative commands making the humanity of rational beings who are assumed to possess the capacity to act morally or personality, into our end, precisely because they are assumed to possess this distinct rational capacity. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article develops a theory of just contractual relationships for a liberal society. As a liberal theory, our account is premised on liberalism's canonical commitments to self-determination and substantive equality. As a theory of contract law, it focuses on the parties’ interpersonal interactions rather than on the justice of the social order as a whole.Normatively, the article claims that the rules governing cases where one party experiences harsh circumstances or vulnerability during the bargaining process or operates under significant informational disadvantage (...) must be guided by the commitment to relational justice, that is, to reciprocal respect for self-determination and substantive equality. Jurisprudentially, the article studies the systemic difficulties hindering the translation of these normative prescriptions into legal language and analyzes how they affect the form assumed by the law of precontractual justice and its institutional pedigree. (shrink)

Many of its students are first drawn to Kant's practical philosophy because it seems to promise a theory of morality both objective and practicable. Moral theory, as Kant conceives of it, must abst...

The article defends three claims regarding the relation between the different formulas of the categorical imperative. On its prevailing reading, FUL gives different moral guidance than FH; left answered, this problem is an argument for adopting a competing perspective on FUL. The prohibitions and commands of the formulas should be taken to be extensionally the same; but FKE adds a dimension missing from the others, gained by uniting their perspectives, namely, bringing the variety of moral laws into systematic unity. The (...) grammatically ambiguous phrase inGMS, 4: 436.9–10 claims that FA alone unites the other formulas in itself. (shrink)

This article advances a censure-based case against sentences of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Our argument justifies a retributive “second look” assessment of long-term priso...

In the Introduction to the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant claims that the Critique of Pure Reason accounted for the necessary conditions of experience and knowledge in general, but that it was not a complete transcendental account of the possibility of a particular empirical experience of objects and knowledge of empirical laws of nature. To fill this gap the third Critique puts forward, as an additional transcendental condition, the regulative principle of the purposiveness of nature. In this paper, (...) I will attempt to show how Kant’s account of pure aesthetic judgment can be read as articulating an aesthetic non-conceptual condition of the search for the conceptual order of nature and so as constituting an essential part of the account of the transcendental conditions of empirical experience and knowledge. (shrink)

This Article examines the implicit assumptions about the state and state-society relations that pervade the literature on legal pluralism. I argue that much of this literature rests on an underlying conception of the state as a monolithic entity which is clearly and objectively differentiated from society. Most notably, John Griffiths’ influential distinction between "weak" legal pluralism, which exists within the boundaries of the state, and "strong" legal pluralism, which involves both state and non-state legal orders, reflects such assumptions. I contend (...) that an alternative conceptualization of the state, which acknowledges the internal diversity and contradictions within the state and the blurred boundaries between state and society, can serve as a more productive basis for the study of legal pluralism. Such an approach draws attention to the socially constructed character of the boundaries between state and non-state legal orders, to the social significance of intra-state legal pluralism, to the points of view of individual litigants who maneuver between different courts of law, and to the institutional level of analysis, namely, the complex interrelations between different courts under conditions of legal pluralism. (shrink)

In ‘The Choice Theory of Contracts’, we advance a claim about the centrality of autonomy to contract. Since publishing Choice Theory, we have engaged dozens of reviews and responses; here, we reply to Robert Stevens, Arthur Ripstein, and Brian Bix. All this rigorous debate confirms for us one core point: contract’s ultimate value must be autonomy, properly understood and refined. Autonomy is the telos of contract and its grounding principle. In Choice Theory, we stressed the proactive facilitation component of autonomy, (...) in particular, the state’s obligation regarding contract types. Here, we highlight two additional, necessary implications of autonomy for contract: regard for future selves and relational justice. These three aspects of autonomy shape the range, limit, and floor, respectively, for the legitimate use of contract. They provide a principled and constrained path for law reform. (shrink)

Summary This article concerns the identity and role of the C. Helvidius Priscus who is named in CIL IX, 2827 as an arbiter ex compromisso in a boundary dispute. After examining the inscription itself, I proceed to examine the implications of the mechanism of arbiter ex compromisso in the Roman judicatory system, and the possibility of a high-ranking Roman serving in such a role. The seemingly discrepancy between a high-ranking Roman and the role of a land surveyor is resolved hereby (...) by juxtaposing it twice: once with the precedent of high-ranking surveyors in the agrarian bill of Rullus; and secondly, by reading it in the context of locatio conductio operis contracts. (shrink)

This article examines forms of arbitration in commercial wine transactions known as ‘sales on delivery’. This category includes transactions by which the price was paid for a product which was delivered in a set future date. They also included a caveat by which the vendor guaranteed the quality of the wine and promised to replace it, if it fails to meet expectations. By juxtaposing papyrological evidence with that of the legal sources, and the identity of potential arbiters with other para-legal (...) authoritative figures, I hope to shed much needed light on the growing emergence of professional prowess in settling commercial disputes and then, assessing the implications of this form of arbitration on Roman judicature in general. (shrink)

TheApologyof Apuleius is a rare example of a complete forensic speech in Latin from the High Roman Empire. The prosecution on the charge ofmagiaof a renownedrhetorin the court of a Roman proconsul, who might himself have been a distinguished Stoic philosopher, offers modern scholars a remarkable opportunity to observe an encounter between scholarship and legal practice. Apuleius arrived in the city of Oea en route to Alexandria as part of a life of learning and travel. While visiting Oea, Apuleius met (...) his old schoolfriend Sicinius Pontianus, who encouraged him to wed his recently widowed mother Aemilia Pudentilla. The reason for this unusual request was Pontianus' wish that his mother would not marry someone unsuitable. Apuleius agreed and the marriage took place. However, it left Sicinius Aemilianus, a brother of Pudentilla's first husband, and Herennius Rufinus, Pontianus' father-in-law, aggrieved and they decided to pursue Apuleius through the courts. TheApology, which Apuleius later published as a record of his defence, has long attracted scholarly interest. Two commentaries have been published, the literary aspects analysed and the authenticity of the speech scrutinized. (shrink)

Many of its students are first drawn to Kant's practical philosophy because it seems to promise a theory of morality both objective and practicable. Moral theory, as Kant conceives of it, must abst...

Between 1886 and 1889, the British scientific and engineering communities witnessed several controversies regarding the principles underlying certain components of electrical circuits. The purpose of this paper is to show that these controversies should be regarded as reflecting a stage in the emergence of basic industrial research as a mediating agency between practical engineering and pure science. It will be suggested that the resolution of these controversies required careful formulation of approximations guided by a practical familiarity with the details of (...) the relevant systems. This underscored an approach to basic engineering problems within which practical experience and scientific theory were regarded as equally fundamental. (shrink)

The geometry of the alternative reconstruction of Eudoxan planetary theory is studied. It is shown that in this framework the hippopede acquires an analytical role, consolidating the theorys geometrical underpinnings. This removes the main point of incompatibility between the alternative reconstruction and Simpliciuss account of Eudoxan planetary astronomy. The analysis also suggests a compass and straight-edge procedure for drawing a point by point outline of the retrograde loop created by any given arrangement of the three inner spheres.

Retributivism is one of the most prevalent theories in contemporary penal theory. However, despite its popularity it is frequently argued that too little attention has been paid to the implications of retributivism for prison management and prison life, including prison visits and furlough. More so, it has been questioned both whether the various forms of retributivism found in the philosophical literature on criminal punishment have anything to say about what prison life ought to be like and whether they are able (...) to criticize deeply contested rules and practices, such as those that deny inmates contact with family-members for the sake of prison discipline. In this paper, we argue that prison visits and furlough have a crucial role in a prison system based on retributivist principles. In particular, we argue that the communicative theory of punishment has important theoretical resources for proving a strong and compelling rationale for both furlough and visitation on retributivist grounds. Besides exploring this rationale, we also discuss the practical implications of this view for the penal policy. (shrink)

Martin Sticker's discussion of the common moral agent contains much that I find insightful, true and significant. As a response to his paper, I focus on two important issues that nevertheless separate us: Sticker claims that knowing our duty can be mere passive awareness and that it indeed is passive as awareness of the special status of humanity. I deny that knowing our duty is ever passive. He further claims that the common universalization test is the paradigmatic way active agents (...) acquire moral knowledge. I argue that Sticker appears to construe universalization as a formal test that presupposes no moral knowledge and that so construed the test cannot serve for acquiring moral knowledge. (shrink)

This commentary extends Hertwig & Ortmann's analysis by asking how stricter model selection conventions can facilitate the accumulation of information from experimental studies. In many cases researchers are currently motivated to summarize their data with ambiguous and/or multi parameter models. A “generality first” convention can help eliminate this problem.

The growing literature on how people learn to make decisions based on experience focuses on two types of paradigms. In one paradigm, people are faced with a choice, and must retrospectively consult past experience of similar choices to decide what to do. In the other paradigm, people are faced with a choice, and then have the opportunity prospectively to gather new experiences that might help them make that choice. The current paper examines the joint impact of both retrospective and prospective (...) experiences. Two experiments reveal strong interactions. In Study 1, repeated experience with new samples appears to reduce sensitivity to the average outcome in the samples and enhances underweighting of rare events. Study 2 shows that repeated experience with pre-choice samples can reverse the impact of the new information. The results suggest that prospectively gathering new samples can have two, potentially contrasting, influences on choice: the first focuses on the sample’s face value and selects the option with the higher value in the new sample; by contrast, the second treats the new sample as a cue to recall similar prior experiences, which in turn drive choice. The paper concludes with a discussion of the possibility that part of the descriptive value of prospect theory reflects the fact that it summarizes the joint impact of similar “face-or-cue” processes. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article begins with an account of an improvised classroom in a refugee camp. From this account, and building on Heidegger's' analysis of spatiality, two fundamental characteristics are identified as: first, that classrooms are 'sanctioned-off' from the world, and secondly, that educational situations involve attention to the world.Arendt's distinction between education and politics is presented not only as a normative call to action, but also, and perhaps primarily, as a phenomenology of education as a basic human activity. The article turns (...) to Mollenhauer's account of the emergence of a pedagogical sphere in early modernity, and particularly to his notion of representation, to understanding the way things of the world appear in classrooms.The article proposes the concept of liminality to describe the classrooms as neither 'inside' nor 'outside' the world, and could therefore offer their inhabitants opportunities for imaginative exploration, as well as ethical encounters. (shrink)