John Searle’s Chinese Room Argument purports to demonstrate that syntax is not sufficient for semantics, and, hence, because computation cannot yield understanding, the computational theory of mind, which equates the mind to an information processing system based on formal computations, fails. In this paper, we use the CRA, and the debate that emerged from it, to develop a philosophical critique of recent advances in robotics and neuroscience. We describe results from a body of work that contributes to blurring the (...) divide between biological and artificial systems; so-called animats, autonomous robots that are controlled by biological neural tissue and what may be described as remote-controlled rodents, living animals endowed with augmented abilities provided by external controllers. We argue that, even though at first sight, these chimeric systems may seem to escape the CRA, on closer analysis, they do not. We conclude by discussing the role of the body–brain dynamics in the processes that give rise to genuine understanding of the world, in line with recent proposals from enactive cognitive science. (shrink)

1 Evidence-based policy requires researchers to provide the answers to ecological questions that are of interest to policy makers. To find out what those questions are in the UK, representatives from 28 organizations involved in policy, together with scientists from 10 academic institutions, were asked to generate a list of questions from their organizations. 2 During a 2-day workshop the initial list of 1003 questions generated from consulting at least 654 policy makers and academics was used as a basis for (...) generating a short list of 100 questions of significant policy relevance. Short-listing was decided on the basis of the preferences of the representatives from the policy-led organizations. 3 The areas covered included most major issues of environmental concern in the UK, including agriculture, marine fisheries, climate change, ecosystem function and land management. 4 The most striking outcome was the preference for general questions rather than narrow ones. The reason is that policy is driven by broad issues rather than specific ones. In contrast, scientists are frequently best equipped to answer specific questions. This means that it may be necessary to extract the underpinning specific question before researchers can proceed. 5 Synthesis and applications. Greater communication between policy makers and scientists is required in order to ensure that applied ecologists are dealing with issues in a way that can feed into policy. It is particularly important that applied ecologists emphasize the generic value of their work wherever possible. (shrink)

Psychologists have long debated the underlying cause of infants' perseverative reaching. Thelen et al. explain the error in terms of general processes that make goal-directed actions to remembered locations. The context- and experience-dependent nature of their model implies that there is no single cause of the A-not-B error, and, more generally, no core essence to cognitive development.

The essays in this book - all of them published here for the first time - provide a long-overdue critical discussion of Jürgen Habermas's cascade of ideas. These are topped off by a freshet of original Habermas: in the final essay, he replies to the criticism developed in the preceding contributions and to other recent assessments of his work, provides an important clarification of his earlier views, and reveals the direction of his current thought.Each essay probes a particular theme in (...) Habermas's work, and each presents both an exposition and a critique. Among the subjects covered are Habermas's theory of knowledge-constitutive interests, his account of language and truth, his "overcoming" of hermeneutics, the concept of universal pragmatics, the orientation of his thought relative to the Marxist tradition, and his project of analyzing the crisis tendencies of capitalism within the context of evolutionary theory.The contributors are philosophers and social theorists of international standing, most of them affiliated with German, English, and American universities. They are Agnes Heller, Rudiger Bubner, Thomas McCarthy, Henning Ottmann, Mary Hesse, Steven Lukes, Anthony Giddens, Michael Schmid, Andrew Arato, and the editors. The editors have also contributed a substantial introduction outlining the central contours of Habermas's work and summarizing the main arguments of the essays.John B. Thompson is a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and David Held is Lecturer in Politics, University of York. (shrink)

Cosmological ideas influenced every aspect of traditional Chinese culture, from science and medicine to art, philosophy, and religion. Although other premodern societies developed similar conceptions, in no other major civilization were such ideas so pervasive or powerful. In The Development and Decline of Chinese Cosmology, John Henderson traces the evolution of Chinese thought on cosmic order from the classical era to the nineteenth century. Unlike many standard studies of premodern cosmologies, this book analyzes the origins, development, and rejection of (...) these models, not just their structure. Moreover, while historians often limit their studies of cosmic order to specialized fields like the history of science, Henderson examines how the cosmological ideas formulated in late classical times permeated various facets of Chinese life, from high philosophy to popular culture. (shrink)

According to QBism, quantum states, unitary evolutions, and measurement operators are all understood as personal judgments of the agent using the formalism. Meanwhile, quantum measurement outcomes are understood as the personal experiences of the same agent. Wigner’s conundrum of the friend, in which two agents ostensibly have different accounts of whether or not there is a measurement outcome, thus poses no paradox for QBism. Indeed the resolution of Wigner’s original thought experiment was central to the development of QBist thinking. The (...) focus of this paper concerns two very instructive modifications to Wigner’s puzzle: One, a recent no-go theorem by Frauchiger and Renner, and the other a thought experiment by Baumann and Brukner. We show that the paradoxical features emphasized in these works disappear once both friend and Wigner are understood as agents on an equal footing with regard to their individual uses of quantum theory. Wigner’s action on his friend then becomes, from the friend’s perspective, an action the friend takes on Wigner. Our analysis rests on a kind of quantum Copernican principle: When two agents take actions on each other, each agent has a dual role as a physical system for the other agent. No user of quantum theory is more privileged than any other. In contrast to the sentiment of Wigner’s original paper, neither agent should be considered as in “suspended animation.” In this light, QBism brings an entirely new perspective to understanding Wigner’s friend thought experiments. (shrink)

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) diseases are a group of neuromuscular diseases that often cause suffering and premature death. New mitochondrial replacement techniques (MRTs) may offer women with mtDNA diseases the opportunity to have healthy offspring to whom they are genetically related. MRTs will likely be ready to license for clinical use in the near future and a discussion of the ethics of the clinical introduction ofMRTs is needed. This paper begins by evaluating three concerns about the safety of MRTs for clinical (...) use on humans: (1) Is it ethical to use MRTs if safe alternatives exist? (2) Would persons with three genetic contributors be at risk of suffering? and (3) Can society trust that MRTs will be made available for humans only once adequate safety testing has taken place, and that MRTs will only be licensed for clinical use in a way that minimises risks? It is then argued that the ethics debate about MRTs should be reoriented towards recommendingways to reduce the possible risks of MRT use on humans. Two recommendations are made: (1) licensed clinical access to MRTs should only be granted to prospective parents if they intend to tell their children about their MRT conception by adulthood; and (2) sex selection should be used in conjunction with the clinical use ofMRTs, in order to reduce transgenerational health risks. (shrink)

Currently in the United Kingdom, anyone donating gametes has the status of an open-identity donor. This means that, at the age of 18, persons conceived with gametes donated since April 1, 2005 have a right to access certain pieces of identifying information about their donor. However, in early 2015, the UK Parliament approved new regulations that make mitochondrial donors anonymous. Both mitochondrial donation and gamete donation are similar in the basic sense that they involve the contribution of gamete materials to (...) create future persons. Given this similarity, this paper presumes that both types of donor should be treated the same and made open-identity under the law, unless there is a convincing argument for treating them differently. I argue that none of the existing arguments that have been made so far in favor of mitochondrial donor anonymity are convincing and mitochondrial donors should therefore be treated as open-identity donors under UK law. (shrink)

Although organizational commitment continues to interest researchers because of its positive effects on organizations, we know relatively little about the effects of the ethical context on organizational commitment. As such, we contribute to the organizational commitment field by assessing the effects of ethical climates (Victor and Cullen, 1987, 1988) on organizational commitment. We hypothesized that an ethical climate of benevolence has a positive relationship with organizational commitment while egoistic climate is negatively related to commitment. Results supported our propositions for both (...) a benevolent climate and an egoistic climate. We also hypothesized that a principled climate is positively related to organizational commitment for professional workers but has no relationships for nonprofessional workers. Results supported this hypothesis. (shrink)

This book examines the different conceptions of the individual that have emerged in recent new approaches in economics, including behavioral economics, experimental economics, social preferences approaches, game theory, neuroeconomics, evolutionary and complexity economics, and the capability approach. These conceptions are classified according to whether they seek to revise the traditional atomist individual conception, put new emphasis on interaction and relations between individuals, account for individuals as evolving and self-organizing, and explain individuals in terms of capabilities. The method of analysis uses (...) two identity criteria for distinguishing and re-identifying individuals to determine whether these different individual conceptions successfully identify individuals. Successful individual conceptions account for sub-personal and supra-personal bounds on single individual explanations. The former concerns the fragmentation of individuals into multiple selves; the latter concerns the dissolution of individuals into the social. The book develops an understanding of bounded individuality, seen as central to the defense of human rights. (shrink)

This book was the first single-authored book that covered ecological ethics and theology. It discusses key philosophical, theological, and ecological issues for Christians and other concerned citizens.

Extending the dialogue on corporate social performance as descriptive stakeholder management, we examine differences in CSP activity between family and nonfamily firms. We argue that CSP activity can be explained by the firm’s identity orientation toward stakeholders. Specifically, individualistic, relational, or collectivistic identity orientations can describe a firm’s level of CSP activity toward certain stakeholders. Family firms, we suggest, adopt a more relational orientation toward their stakeholders than nonfamily firms, and thus engage in higher levels of CSP. Further, we invoke (...) collectivistic identity orientation to argue that the higher the level of family or founder involvement within a family firm, the greater the level of CSP toward specific stakeholders. Using social performance rating data from 1991 to 2005, we find that family and nonfamily firms demonstrate notable differences in terms of social initiatives and social concerns. We also find that the level of family and founder involvement is related to the type and frequency of a family firm’s social initiatives and social concerns. (shrink)

We evaluate the “story grammar” approach to story understanding from three perspectives. We first examine the formal properties of the grammars and find only one to be formally adequate. We next evaluate the grammars empirically by asking whether they generate all simple stories and whether they generate only stories. We find many stories that they do not generate and one major class of nonstory that they do generate. We also evaluate the grammars' potential as comprehension models and find that they (...) would add nothing to semantic models that focus on the story content. Hence we advocate a story content oriented approach to studying story understanding instead of the structural story grammar approach. (shrink)

Journal of Economic Methodology, Volume 19, Issue 2, Page 169-172, June 2012.

Using data from a survey of certified organic or in-transition to organic vegetable and dairy producers in Canada, we seek to understand a farmer’s decision to convert to organic production by exploring the motives, problems and challenges, and benefits of transition to organic. Results suggest that health and safety concerns and environmental issues are the predominant motives for conversion, while economic motives are of lesser importance. In contrast to the extant literature, results suggest that the motives underlying transition have not (...) changed overtime in Canada. Problems experienced during transition relate to lack of governmental and institutional support, negative pressure from other farmers and farm groups, and lack of physical and financial capital. Reduced exposure to chemicals and improved food quality were highly ranked benefits, while economic related benefits were scored among the lowest of the listed benefits. To prosper, the Canadian organic sector must overcome fundamental marketing problems and challenges. Promulgation of the Canada Organic standard may help address some marketing issues by providing more information to consumers. (shrink)

This paper argues that collective intentionality analysis (principally as drawn from the work of Raimo Tuomela) provides a theoretical framework, complementary to traditional instrumental rationality analysis, that allows us to explain economic behavior as ‘complex.’ Economic behavior may be regarded as complex if it cannot be reduced to a single explanatory framework. Contemporary mainstream economics, in its reliance on instrumental rationality as the exclusive basis for explaining economic behavior, does not offer an account of economic behavior as complex. Coupling collective (...) intentionality analysis with instrumental rationality analysis, however, makes such an account possible, since collective intentionality analysis arguably presupposes a distinct form of rationality, here labeled a deontological or principle-based rationality. (shrink)

This paper argues that collective intentionality analysis (principally as drawn from the work of Raimo Tuomela) provides a theoretical framework, complementary to traditional instrumental rationality analysis, that allows us to explain economic behavior as ‘complex.’ Economic behavior may be regarded as complex if it cannot be reduced to a single explanatory framework. Contemporary mainstream economics, in its reliance on instrumental rationality as the exclusive basis for explaining economic behavior, does not offer an account of economic behavior as complex. Coupling collective (...) intentionality analysis with instrumental rationality analysis, however, makes such an account possible, since collective intentionality analysis arguably presupposes a distinct form of rationality, here labeled a deontological or principle-based rationality. (shrink)

A fruitful way to approach The Idea of Phenomenology is through Husserl’s claim that consciousness is not a bag, box, or any other kind of container. The bag conception, which dominated much of modern philosophy, is rooted in the idea that philosophy is restricted to investigating only what is really immanent to consciousness, such as acts and sensory contents. On this view, what Husserl called the riddle of transcendence can never be solved. The phenomenological reduction, as Husserl develops it in (...) The Idea of Phenomenology, opened up a new and broader sense of immanence that embraces the transcendent, making it possible both to solve the riddle and to escape the bag conception once and for all. The essay will discuss ways in which this new conception of immanence is tied to the key Husserlian themes of appearance, phenomenon, essence, seeing or intuiting, and constitution. (shrink)

When the first edition ofA Christian Natural Theologyappeared in 1965, it was a groundbreaking work that incorporated Alfred North Whitehead's metaphysical philosophy as a framework for developing a Christian natural theology. The work was so significant it helped to launch process theology as a leading alternative to neo-orthodox theology and has since become a classic in the literature of process theology. This new edition by one of America's preeminent theologians is an essential work for all those interested in process theology.

A collection of essays by prominent physicists, biologists, geneticists, zoologists, philosophers and other thinkers about the relationship between science and philosophy, particularly the teleological versus the mechanistic explanation of the universe.

The point of departure for husserl's mature account of memory is his rejection of the traditional view that what is immediately and directly experienced in memory is a present image or replica of what is past and not what is past itself. Husserl rejects the image theory on logical and descriptive grounds, Arguing that memory is a direct consciousness of the past. Memory is experienced as a unique mode of consciousness giving its object in a manner irreducible to pictorial or (...) perceptual modes. Husserl's exploration of memory thus understood includes discussion of the differing temporal determinations of memory and its object, Of memory's relation to the absolute time-Constituting flow of consciousness, Of memory as representation of earlier perception, And of the various senses and ways in which empty memorial intentions can be brought to fulfillment. (shrink)

Introduction Few areas of social inquiry are more exciting and important, and yet at the same time more marked by controversy and dispute, than the area ...

The appearance of negative terms in quasiprobability representations of quantum theory is known to be inevitable, and, due to its equivalence with the onset of contextuality, of central interest in quantum computation and information. Until recently, however, nothing has been known about how much negativity is necessary in a quasiprobability representation. Zhu :120404, 2016) proved that the upper and lower bounds with respect to one type of negativity measure are saturated by quasiprobability representations which are in one-to-one correspondence with the (...) elusive symmetric informationally complete quantum measurements. We define a family of negativity measures which includes Zhu’s as a special case and consider another member of the family which we call “sum negativity.” We prove a sufficient condition for local maxima in sum negativity and find exact global maxima in dimensions 3 and 4. Notably, we find that Zhu’s result on the SICs does not generally extend to sum negativity, although the analogous result does hold in dimension 4. Finally, the Hoggar lines in dimension 8 make an appearance in a conjecture on sum negativity. (shrink)

First published in the most ambitious international philosophy project for a generation; the _Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy_. _Logic from A to Z_ is a unique glossary of terms used in formal logic and the philosophy of mathematics. Over 500 entries include key terms found in the study of: * Logic: Argument, Turing Machine, Variable * Set and model theory: Isomorphism, Function * Computability theory: Algorithm, Turing Machine * Plus a table of logical symbols. Extensively cross-referenced to help comprehension and add (...) detail, _Logic from A to Z_ provides an indispensable reference source for students of all branches of logic. (shrink)

George Soros makes an important analytical contribution to understanding the concept of reflexivity in social science by explaining reflexivity in terms of how his cognitive and manipulative causal functions are connected to one another by a pair of feedback loops (Soros, 2013). Fallibility, reflexivity and the human uncertainty principle. Here I put aside the issue of how the natural sciences and social sciences are related, an issue he discusses, and focus on how his thinking applies in economics. I argue that (...) standard economics assumes a ‘classical’ view of the world in which knowledge and action are independent, but that we live in a complex reflexive world in which knowledge and action are interdependent. I argue that Soros's view provides a reflexivity critique of the efficient market hypothesis seen as depending on untenable claims about the nature of random phenomena and the nature of economic agents. Regarding the former, I develop this critique in terms of Cauchy distributions; regarding the latter I develop it in terms of rational expectations and rational addiction reasoning. (shrink)

Time belongs to a handful of categories (like form, symbol, cause) that are genuinely transdisciplinary. Time touches every dimension of our being, every object of our attention - including attention itself. It therefore can belong to no single field of study. Of course, this universalist view of time is not itself universal but rather is a product of the modern age, an age that conceived of itself as the 'new' time. Time has thus gained new importance as a theme of (...) general research with the 'post-modern turn' now manifest in many areas of intellectual endeavor, especially in the humanities and social sciences. 'Chronotypes' are models or patterns through which time assumes practical or conceptual significance. Time is not given but (as the subtitle indicates) fabricated in an ongoing process. Chronotypes are themselves temporal and plural, constantly being made and remade at multiple individual, social, and cultural levels. They interact, they change over time, and they have histories, whose construal is itself an act of temporal construction. This book - an interdisciplinary collaboration of philosophers, historians, literary critics, and anthropologists - examines the ways individuals, societies, and cultures make sense of time by constructing it in diverse patterns. Its title intentionally echoes a concept of narrative theory, Mikhail Bakhtin's 'chronotype', because narrative recurs as a chief form within which we build temporality. The topics treated by these essays range from story-telling to cross-cultural communication, from epistemological debates to concepts of historical periodization, from the construction of life stories to the stratification of social time. (shrink)