The Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI) is an ontology that provides terms with precisely defined meanings to describe all aspects of how investigations in the biological and medical domains are conducted. OBI re-uses ontologies that provide a representation of biomedical knowledge from the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) project and adds the ability to describe how this knowledge was derived. We here describe the state of OBI and several applications that are using it, such as adding semantic expressivity to (...) existing databases, building data entry forms, and enabling interoperability between knowledge resources. OBI covers all phases of the investigation process, such as planning, execution and reporting. It represents information and material entities that participate in these processes, as well as roles and functions. Prior to OBI, it was not possible to use a single internally consistent resource that could be applied to multiple types of experiments for these applications. OBI has made this possible by creating terms for entities involved in biological and medical investigations and by importing parts of other biomedical ontologies such as GO, Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI) and Phenotype Attribute and Trait Ontology (PATO) without altering their meaning. OBI is being used in a wide range of projects covering genomics, multi-omics, immunology, and catalogs of services. OBI has also spawned other ontologies (Information Artifact Ontology) and methods for importing parts of ontologies (Minimum information to reference an external ontology term (MIREOT)). The OBI project is an open cross-disciplinary collaborative effort, encompassing multiple research communities from around the globe. To date, OBI has created 2366 classes and 40 relations along with textual and formal definitions. The OBI Consortium maintains a web resource providing details on the people, policies, and issues being addressed in association with OBI. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with aspects of responsibility in Norwegian public health nursing. Public health nursing is an expansive profession with diffuse boundaries. The Norwegian public health nurse does not perform ‘hands on’ nursing, but focuses on the prevention of illness, injury, or disability, and the promotion of health. What is the essence of ethical responsibility in public health nursing? The aim of this article is to explore the phenomenon based on the ethics of responsibility as reflected upon by the (...) philosopher Emanuel Levinas (1906–1995). From an ethical point of view, responsibility is about our duty towards the Other, a duty we have not always chosen, are prepared for, or can fully explain; but it is nevertheless a demand we have to live with. Interviews with five experienced Norwegian nurses provide the empirical base for reflection and interpretation. The nurses share stories from their practice. In interpreting the nurses’ stories, the following themes emerge: personal responsibility; boundaries; temporality; worry, fear, and uncertainty; and a sense of satisfaction. As the themes are developed further, it becomes apparent that, despite their diversity, they are all interrelated aspects of ethical responsibility. Responsibility for the Other cannot be avoided, ignored, or transferred. The nurses’ responsibility is personal and infinite. Levinasian ethics can help nurses understand the importance of accepting that being a responsive carer can involve not only contentment in the predictable, but also the fear, worry, and uncertainty of the unpredictable. (shrink)

Predictable polarization is everywhere: we can often predict how people’s opinions, including our own, will shift over time. Extant theories either neglect the fact that we can predict our own polarization, or explain it through irrational mechanisms. They needn’t. Empirical studies suggest that polarization is predictable when evidence is ambiguous, that is, when the rational response is not obvious. I show how Bayesians should model such ambiguity and then prove that—assuming rational updates are those which obey the value of evidence—ambiguity (...) is necessary and sufficient for the rationality of predictable polarization. The main theoretical result is that there can be a series of such updates, each of which is individually expected to make you more accurate, but which together will predictably polarize you. Polarization results from asymmetric increases in accuracy. This mechanism is not only theoretically possible, but empirically plausible. I argue that cognitive search—searching a cognitively accessible space for a particular item—often yields asymmetrically ambiguous evidence, I present an experiment supporting its polarizing effects, and I use simulations to show how it can explain two of the core causes of polarization: confirmation bias and the group polarization effect. (shrink)

Primary issues raised by the commentaries on the target article relate to (1) the need to differentiate distinct but overlapping aspects of fluid cognition, and (2) the implications that this differentiation may hold for conceptions of general intelligence. In response, I outline several issues facing researchers concerned with differentiation of human cognitive abilities and suggest that a revised and expanded theory of intelligence is needed to accommodate an increasingly diverse and varied empirical base. (Published Online April 5 2006).

Por que debo hacer el bien? Por que tengo que cumplir el deber? Por que es malo hacer el mal? Por que no puedo sacudirme todo con un que mas da? de indiferencia? Estas preguntas y otras analogas estan en el fondo de esta obra. El autor ha investigado una reinterpretacion de la etica de la recta razon a luz de la filosofia del valor y en dialogo con la filosofia anglo-sajona de las virtudes. La obra se centra en dos (...) autores: Joseph de Finance y Giuseppe Abba. Propone cuatro etapas que debe recorrer una etica tomista que pretenda ser autenticamente filosofica: la presentacion fenomenologica de la experiencia moral, y la fundamentacion critica, metafisica y psicologica de esta experiencia. (shrink)

This paper will analyze the effects advanced industrial societies have on individual and social development through the eyes of Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man and the moral consequences of such artificial stagnation through Adorno’s lectures on The Problems of Moral Philosophy. Because such an investigation necessarily brings us into the realm of social psychology, we will turn to the social psychological tradition at the heart of American pragmatism, a target for critical theorists who are often antagonistic to the entire tradition. We will (...) endeavor to advance two alternate readings of the work of C.S. Peirce, arguing that although one type of pragmatism may be justly attacked by critical theorists, there is another, I argue, more critical manifestation of pragmatic human development, that requires the type of autonomy-infused, open-ended development that Marcuse champions. Moreover, I will argue that Peirce’s seminal essay “The Fixation of Belief” anticipated many of Marcuse’s critiques of advanced industrial societies by nearly ninety years. (shrink)

A definition of emotion common to the affective sciences is an urgent desideratum. Lack of such a definition is a constant source of numerous misunderstandings and a series of mostly fruitless debates. There is little hope that there ever will be agreement on a common definition of emotion, given the sacred traditions of the disciplines involved and the egos of the scholars working in these disciplines. Our aim here is more modest. We propose a list of elements for a working (...) definition of emotion and discuss the justification for the inclusion of elements from our respective perspectives (philosophy and psychology). This working partial definition may at least serve as a litmus test to examine theories of emotion, old and new, across disciplinary boundaries. (shrink)

We present a hierarchical integrated model of self-regulation in which executive function is the cognitive component of the model, together with emotional, behavioral, physiological, and genetic components. These five components in the model are reciprocally and recursively related. The model is supported by empirical evidence, primarily from a single longitudinal study with good measurement at each level of the model. We also find that the model is consistent with current thinking on related topics such as cybernetic theory, the theory of (...) allostasis and allostatic load, and the theory of skill development in harsh and unpredictable environments, referred to as “hidden talents.” Next, we present literature that the integrative processes are susceptible to environmental adversity, poverty-related risk in particular, while positive social interactions with caregivers would promote self-regulatory processes or mitigate the adverse effect of early risk on the processes. A hierarchical integrative model of self-regulation advances our understanding of self-regulatory processes. Future research may consider broader social contexts of the integrative self-regulation system, such as neighborhood/community contexts and structural racism. This can be an integral step to provide children with equitable opportunities to thrive, even among children living in socioeconomically and psychosocially disadvantaged environments. (shrink)

Research in engineering ethics has assessed the ethical reasoning of students in mostly the US. However, it is not clear that ethical judgments are primarily the result of ethical reasoning, or that conclusions based on US samples would be true of global populations. China now graduates and employs more STEM (science technology engineering and mathematics) majors than any other country in the world, but the moral cognition and ethics education of Chinese engineers remains understudied. To address this gap, a study (...) was conducted examining the relations between ethical reasoning, moral intuitions, and ethics education among engineering students in China. Engineering students at a university in Shanghai, China completed measures of ethical reasoning and moral intuitions before and after a course on global engineering ethics. Among engineering students in China, (1) ethical reasoning is positively related to an emphasis on care and fairness and (2) global ethics education results in significantly higher levels of ethical reasoning, as well as a greater concern with fairness and loyalty. Whereas the relation between ethical reasoning and moral intuitions among engineering students in China is similar to that of students in the US, ethics education affects engineering students in China differently from their US counterparts. (shrink)

This article considers how Spatial Big Data is situated and produced through embodied spatial experiences as data processes appear and act in small moments on mobile phone applications and other digital spatial technologies. Locating Spatial Big Data in the historical and geographical contexts of Sydney and Hong Kong, it traces how situated knowledges mediate and moderate the rising potency of discourses of cartographic reason and data logics as colonial cartographic imaginations expressed in land divisions and urban planning continue on, in (...) a world that increasingly values models of calculability, interoperability and authority. It draws on ethnographic material gathered through walking interviews in both cities, and in doing so, it argues that by using ethnographic ‘moments’, it is possible to decentre the focus on data processes to consider the critical potential of a politics of everyday experiences that produce and reflect the structures of data logics. Through these ethnographic moments, this article examines how mobile technologies are complicit in the production of Spatial Big Data, and the impact this has on the increasing regimentation and surveillance of modes of being and expression via mobile media. At the same time, it will argue that while spatial calculability has expanded from cartographic reason into data logics, the epistemological universality of Spatial Big Data is constantly being resisted – in moments of experimentation, failure, intuition, memory and desire, the ghosts of the incalculable epistemes, experiences and people, forgotten by the emphasis on calculation, continue to speak. (shrink)

We argue that explainable artificial intelligence (XAI), specifically reason-giving XAI, often constitutes the most suitable way of ensuring that someone can properly be held responsible for decisions that are based on the outputs of artificial intelligent (AI) systems. We first show that, to close moral responsibility gaps (Matthias 2004), often a human in the loop is needed who is directly responsible for particular AI-supported decisions. Second, we appeal to the epistemic condition on moral responsibility to argue that, in order to (...) be responsible for her decision, the human in the loop has to have an explanation available of the system’s recommendation. Reason explanations are especially well-suited to this end and we examine whether – and how – it might be possible to make such explanations fit with AI systems. We support our claims by focusing on a case of disagreement between human in the loop and AI system. (shrink)

Husserl seems to have devoted roughly equal amounts of energy and pages to the description of perception, judgement, and imagination. By “description,” he meant the analysis of the traits and components of mental states or acts and their objects. As his views changed over the years about the nature of intentionality and philosophy, the descriptive psychology of the Logical Investigations (1900/01) gave way to descriptive programmes in which the objects of perception and of judgement were conceived of in terms of (...) a new, analytic framework; in particular Husserl lost interest in describing the things and processes in the real world that are the objects of perception and judgement and so too in describing their relations to these acts. His new analytic framework, particularly as it applies to perception, has been thoroughly expounded and discussed in the literature. My aim here is to expound Husserl's first descriptions of perception within the framework of the Investigations and to incorporate as far as possible his later descriptive results to the extent that these are separable from his later turn to idealism. (shrink)

There are many things—call them ‘experts’—that you should defer to in forming your opinions. The trouble is, many experts are modest: they’re less than certain that they are worthy of deference. When this happens, the standard theories of deference break down: the most popular (“Reflection”-style) principles collapse to inconsistency, while their most popular (“New-Reflection”-style) variants allow you to defer to someone while regarding them as an anti-expert. We propose a middle way: deferring to someone involves preferring to make any decision (...) using their opinions instead of your own. In a slogan, deferring opinions is deferring decisions. Generalizing the proposal of Dorst (2020a), we first formulate a new principle that shows exactly how your opinions must relate to an expert’s for this to be so. We then build off the results of Levinstein (2019) and Campbell-Moore (2020) to show that this principle is also equivalent to the constraint that you must always expect the expert’s estimates to be more accurate than your own. Finally, we characterize the conditions an expert’s opinions must meet to be worthy of deference in this sense, showing how they sit naturally between the too-strong constraints of Reflection and the too-weak constraints of New Reflection. (shrink)

Phenomenal Conservatism (the view that an appearance that p gives one prima facie justification for believing that p) is a promising, and popular, internalist theory of epistemic justification. Despite its popularity, it faces numerous objections and challenges. For instance, epistemologists have argued that Phenomenal Conservatism is incompatible with Bayesianism, is afflicted by bootstrapping and cognitive penetration problems, does not guarantee that epistemic justification is a stable property, does not provide an account of defeat, and is not a complete theory of (...) epistemic justification. This book shows that Phenomenal Conservatism is actually immune to some of these problems, though not all of them. Accordingly, it explores the prospects of integrating Phenomenal Conservatism with Explanationism (the view that epistemic justification is a matter of explanatory relations between one’s evidence and propositions supported by that evidence). The resulting theory, Phenomenal Explanationism, has advantages over Phenomenal Conservatism and Explanationism taken on their own. Phenomenal Explanationism is a highly unified, comprehensive internalist theory of epistemic justification that delivers on the promises of Phenomenal Conservatism while avoiding its pitfalls. (shrink)

An important and engaging book on a key argument in contemporary debates about free will and moral responsibility.

In 2022, students at North American universities with third-dose COVID-19 vaccine mandates risk disenrolment if unvaccinated. To assess the appropriateness of booster mandates in this age group, we combine empirical risk-benefit assessment and ethical analysis. To prevent one COVID-19 hospitalisation over a 6-month period, we estimate that 31 207–42 836 young adults aged 18–29 years must receive a third mRNA vaccine. Booster mandates in young adults are expected to cause a net harm: per COVID-19 hospitalisation prevented, we anticipate at least (...) 18.5 serious adverse events from mRNA vaccines, including 1.5–4.6 booster-associated myopericarditis cases in males (typically requiring hospitalisation). We also anticipate 1430–4626 cases of grade ≥3 reactogenicity interfering with daily activities (although typically not requiring hospitalisation). University booster mandates are unethical because they: (1) are not based on an updated (Omicron era) stratified risk-benefit assessment for this age group; (2) may result in a net harm to healthy young adults; (3) are not proportionate: expected harms are not outweighed by public health benefits given modest and transient effectiveness of vaccines against transmission; (4) violate the reciprocity principle because serious vaccine-related harms are not reliably compensated due to gaps in vaccine injury schemes; and (5) may result in wider social harms. We consider counterarguments including efforts to increase safety on campus but find these are fraught with limitations and little scientific support. Finally, we discuss the policy relevance of our analysis for primary series COVID-19 vaccine mandates. (shrink)

Introduction -- Organization, society and politics -- An Aristotelian perspective -- The politics -- The public good -- The rhetoric -- Talk and texts -- The Nichomachean ethics -- Decision making and ethics -- The Poetics -- Bolshevism to ballet in three steps -- What is "public interest"?: a case study -- Where do we go from here?

This paper presents the results of two corpus studies investigating the discourse surrounding conspiracy theories and genuine theories. The results of these studies show that conspiracy theories lack the epistemic and scientific standing characteristic of theories more generally. Instead, our findings indicate that conspiracy theories are spread in a manner that resembles the dissemination of rumors and falsehoods. Based on these empirical results, we argue that it is time for both re-engineering conspiracy theory and for relabeling "conspiracy theory". We propose (...) relabelling conspiracy theories as either "conspiracy stories" or "conspiracy narratives" to more accurately convey their true nature. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAndrew Bacon, Matti Eklund, and Patrick Greenough have individually proposed objections to the project in my book, Replacing Truth. Briefly, the book outlines a conceptual engineering project – our defective concept of truth is replaced for certain purposes with a team of concepts that can do some of the jobs we thought truth could do. Here, I respond to their objections and develop the views expressed in Replacing Truth in various ways.

Do people tend to be overconfident? Many think so. They’ve run studies on whether people are calibrated: whether their average confidence in their opinions matches the proportion of those opinions that are true. Under certain conditions, people are systematically ‘over-calibrated’—for example, of the opinions they’re 80% confident in, only 60% are true. From this empirical over-calibration, it’s inferred that people are irrationally overconfident. My question: When and why is this inference warranted? Answering it requires articulating a general connection between being (...) rational and being right—something extant studies have not done. I show how to do so using the notion of deference. This provides a theoretical foundation for calibration research, but also reveals a flaw: the connection between being rational and being right is much weaker than is standardly assumed, since rational people can often be expected to be miscalibrated. Thus we can’t test whether people are overconfident by simply testing whether they are over-calibrated; instead, we must try to predict the rational deviations from calibration, and then compare those predictions to people’s performance. I show how this can be done—and that doing so complicates the interpretation of robust empirical effects. (shrink)

The target article provides a thoughtful review and synthesis of studies examining the neural basis of cognitive abilities associated with intelligence test performance. In its attempt to present a new or generative theory of the neural basis for intelligence, however, the review faces specific limits to its theoretical model that relate to processes of development and the role of automaticity in cognition.

The standard interpretation of quantum mechanics and a standard interpretation of the awareness of pain have a common feature: Both postulate the existence of an irresolvable duality. Whereas many physicists claim that all particles exhibit particle and wave properties, many philosophers working on pain argue that our awareness of pain is paradoxical, exhibiting both perceptual and introspective characteristics. In this chapter, we offer a pessimistic take on the putative paradox of pain. Specifically, we attempt to resolve the supposed paradox by (...) undermining the reasons offered for accepting the introspective side of the dualism. (shrink)

Assertions are the centre of gravity in social epistemology. They are the vehicles we use to exchange information within scientific groups and society as a whole. It is therefore essential to determine under which conditions we are permitted to make an assertion. In this paper we argue and provide empirical evidence for the view that the norm of assertion is justified belief: truth or even knowledge are not required. Our results challenge the knowledge account advocated by, e.g. Williamson (1996), in (...) general, and more specifically, put into question several studies conducted by Turri (2013, 2016) that support a knowledge norm of assertion. Instead, the justified belief account championed by, e.g. Douven (2006), seems to prevail. (shrink)

What is essential to language? Two thinkers active in Vienna in the 1930's, Karl Bühler and Ludwig Wittgenstein, gave apparently incompatible answers to this question. I compare what Wittgenstein says about language and reference at the beginning of his Philosophical Investigations with some aspects of the descriptive analysis of language worked out by Bühler between 1907 and 1934, a systematic development of the philosophies of mind and language of such heirs of Brentano as Martinak, Marty, Meinong, Landgrebe and Husserl. Y (...) a-Uil quelque chose qui est essentiel au langage? Deux penseurs actifs à Vienne dans les années trente, Karl Bühler et Ludwig Wittgenstein, donnent à cette question des réponses qui sont apparemment incompatibles. Je compare ce que Wittgenstein dit du langage et de la référence au début de ses Investigations Philosophiques avec quelques aspects de l'analyse descriptive élaborée par Bühler entre 1907 et 1934, un développement systématique des philosophies de l'esprit et du langage des héritiers de Brentano tels que Martinak, Marty, Meinong, Landgrebe et Husserl. (shrink)

This interview took place through email during October-November, 2019. Michael: It’s a real pleasure to engage you in conversation. You were a foundation member of PESA and someone who in the pre-I...

Suppose that realism about values is true, that there are objects and states of affairs which are intrinsically valuable, that some objects and states of affairs are intrinsically more valuable than others and that some objects and states of affairs are intrinsically valuable for Sam, and others for Maria.

This book aims to develop certain aspects of Gottlob Frege’s theory of meaning, especially those relevant to intensional logic. It offers a new interpretation of the nature of senses, and attempts to devise a logical calculus for the theory of sense and reference that captures as closely as possible the views of the historical Frege. (The approach is contrasted with the less historically-minded Logic of Sense and Denotation of Alonzo Church.) Comparisons of Frege’s theory with those of Russell and others (...) are given. It is in the end shown that developing Frege’s theory in these ways reveals serious problems hitherto largely unnoticed, including those possibly rendering a Fregean intensional logic inconsistent even if his naïve class theory is excluded. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In a series of papers read to the Cambridge Philosophical Society through the 1820s, the Cambridge mathematician George Peacock laid the foundation for a natural history of arithmetic that would tell a story of human progress from counting to modern arithmetic. The trajectory of that history, Peacock argued, established algebraic analysis as a form of universal reasoning that used empirically warranted operations of mind to think with symbols on paper. The science of counting would suggest arithmetic, arithmetic would suggest (...) arithmetical algebra, and, finally, arithmetical algebra would suggest symbolic algebra. This philosophy of suggestion provided the foundation for Peacock's “principle of equivalent forms,” which justified the practice of nineteenth-century English symbolic algebra. Peacock's philosophy of suggestion owed a considerable debt to the early Cambridge Philosophical Society culture of natural history. The aim of this essay is to show how that culture of natural history was constitutively significant to the practice of nineteenth-century English algebra. (shrink)

One reason that many of the philosophical debates about free will might seem intractable is that di erent participants in those debates use various terms in ways that not only don't line up, but might even contradict each other. For instance, it is widely accepted to understand libertarianism as\the conjunction of incompatibilism [the thesis that free will is incompatible with the truth of determinism] and the thesis that we have free will" (van Inwagen (1983), 13f; see also Kane (2001), 17; (...) Pereboom (2006), xiv). However, for van Inwagen's later reservations about the use of the term `libertarianism', see van Inwagen (2008), relevant pages). This makes perplexing a number of views that have the name `libertarian compatibilism' (see Vihvelin (2000) and Arvan (2013)) as on the standard use of the terms involved, the name appears to involve a contradiction. Even the meaning and usage of the term `free will' is itself contested. Manuel Vargas writes that \`free will' is a term of both ordinary and technical discourse" (Vargas (2013), 325). However, it is not clear if the ordinary use of the term always tracks the technical use. But in an in uential paper on \How to Think about About the Problem of Free Will," Peter van Inwagen claims that \the phrase `free will' . . . hardly exists except as a philosophical term of art. Its non- philosophical uses are pretty much con ned to the phrase `of his/her own free will' which means `uncoerced"' (van Inwagen (2008), 320 footnote 1). To many of us, a look at the philosophical and literatures of the past millennium suggest a use that need not be a technical notion, even if it is often used in a technical way. No matter how this debate about the `ordinary use' of the phrase turns out, recognizing that `free will' gets used in di erent ways and being careful in such usage is important in order to avoid what Chalmers has called `merely verbal disputes' (Chalmers (2011)). For this reason, we want to be very clear in how we understand and de ne free will. There seem to be at least two di erent fundamental notions of what free will is in the contemporary literature. The rst of these, which seems to have garnered the most attention in the last century, works under the assumption that for a person to rightly be said to have free will, she must have the ability 1 to do otherwise than what she does, in fact, do. Under this view I could be said to have freely chosen to drive to work only if I also could have freely chosen, for example, to bike to work or to skip work altogether. This approach to free will is referred to as a `leeway-based approach' (cite my book) or an `alternative- possiblities approach' (see Sartorio (2016).) In contrast, a smaller percentage of the extant literature focuses primarily on the issues of `source,' `ultimacy,' and `origination'. This second approach doesn't focus immediately on the presence or absence of alternative possibilities. On this approach, I freely choose to drive to work only if I am the source of my choice and there is nothing outside of me from which the choice is ultimately derived. In what follows, we refer to the rst of these conceptions|the conception that free will is primarily a matter of having alternative possibilities|as the `leeway- based' conception. Similarly, we will refer to the second of these conceptions| that free will is primarily a matter of our being the source of our choices in a particular way|as the `sourcehood' conception. (John Fischer and Carolina Sartorio refers to sourcehood views as `actual sequence' views; see Fischer (2006) and Sartorio (2016)). Both of these notions can be seen in the following passage taken from Robert Kane: We believe we have free will when we view ourselves as agents ca- pable of in uencing the world in various ways. Open alternatives, or alternative possibilities, seem to lie before us. We reason and deliberate among them and choose. We feel (1) it is `up to us' what we choose and how we act; and this means we could have chosen or acted otherwise. As Aristotle noted: when acting is `up to us,' so is not acting. This `up-to-us-ness' also suggests (2) the ultimate control of our actions lies in us and not outside us in factors beyond our control (Kane (2005), 6). In the next two sections, I look in greater detail at each of these two approaches to the nature of free will, and how they each seek to approach what it means for an action to be `up to us'. I also show how the di erences between these two conceptions cut across the debate about what Kane refers to as the Com- patibility Question: \Is free will compatible with determinism?" (Kane (1996), 13). Along the way, I also brie y point out a number of ways how which of these conceptions is at work shapes how one engages various arguments and other issues regarding. (shrink)

‘What is characteristic of every mental activity’, according to Brentano, is ‘the reference to something as an object. In this respect every mental activity seems to be something relational.’ But what sort of a relation, if any, is our cognitive access to the world? This question – which we shall call Brentano’s question – throws a new light on many of the traditional problems of epistemology. The paper defends a view of perceptual acts as real relations of a subject to (...) an object. To make this view coherent, a theory of different types of relations is developed, resting on ideas on formal ontology put forward by Husserl in his Logical Investigations and on the theory of relations sketched in Smith's "Acta cum fundamentis in re". The theory is applied to the notion of a Cambridge change, which proves to have an unforeseen relevance to our understanding of perception. (shrink)

Niche construction is the process whereby organisms, through their activities and choices, modify their own and each other’s niches. By transforming natural-selection pressures, niche construction generates feedback in evolution at various different levels. Niche-constructing species play important ecological roles by creating habitats and resources used by other species and thereby affecting the flow of energy and matter through ecosystems—a process often referred to as “ecosystem engineering.” An important emphasis of niche construction theory (NCT) is that acquired characters play an evolutionary (...) role through transforming selective environments. This is particularly relevant to human evolution, where our species has engaged in extensive environmental modification through cultural practices. Humans can construct developmental environments that feed back to affect how individuals learn and develop and the diseases to which they are exposed. Here we provide an introduction to NCT and illustrate some of its more important implications for the human sciences. (shrink)

Generic statements (‘Tigers have stripes’) are pervasive and early-emerging modes of generalization with a distinctive linguistic profile. Previous experimental work found that generics display a unique asymmetry between their acceptance conditions and the implications that are typically drawn from them. This paper presents evidence against the hypothesis that only generics display an asymmetry. Correcting for limitations of previous designs, we found a generalized asymmetry effect across generics, various kinds of explicitly quantified statements (‘most’, ‘some’, ‘typically’, ‘usually’), and variations in types (...) of predicated properties (striking vs. neutral). We discuss implications of these results for our understanding of the source of asymmetry effects and whether and in which ways these effects might introduce biased beliefs into social networks. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Not Fade Away The Present Time of Things Past Memory as Presently Constructed Constantly being Imbued with New, Present Meanings.

Kevin M. Cahill reclaims one of Ludwig Wittgenstein's most passionately pursued endeavors: to reawaken a sense of wonder around human life and language and its mysterious place in the world. Following the philosopher's spiritual and cultural criticism and tying it more tightly to the overall evolution of his thought, Cahill frames an original interpretation of Wittgenstein's engagement with Western metaphysics and modernity, better contextualizing the force of his work. Cahill synthesizes several approaches to Wittgenstein's life and thought. He stresses (...) the nontheoretical aspirations of the philosopher's early and later writings, combining key elements from the so-called resolute readings of the _Tractatus_ with the "therapeutic" readings of _Philosophical Investigations_. Cahill shows how continuity in Wittgenstein's cultural and spiritual concerns informed if not guided his work between these texts, and in his reading of the _Tractatus_, Cahill identifies surprising affinities with Martin Heidegger's _Being and Time_--a text rarely associated with Wittgenstein's early formulations. In his effort to recapture wonder, Wittgenstein both avoided and undermined traditional philosophy's reliance on theory. As Cahill relates the steps of this bold endeavor, he forms his own innovative, analytical methods, joining historicist and contextualist approaches to text-based, immanent readings. The result is an original, sustained examination of Wittgenstein's thought. (shrink)

Ways into the Logic of Alexander of Aphrodisias is intended to give an overview of the logic of Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. early third century A D). Since ...

Global Engineering Ethics introduces the fundamentals of ethics in a context specific to engineering without privileging any one national or cultural conception of ethics. Numerous case studies from around the world help the reader to see clearly the relevance of design, safety, and professionalism to engineers. Engineering increasingly takes place in global contexts, with industrial and research teams operating across national and cultural borders. This adds a layer of complexity to already challenging ethical issues. This book is essential reading for (...) anyone wanting to understand or communicate the ethics of engineering, including students, academics, and researchers, and is indispensable for those involved in international and cross-cultural environments. (shrink)

Therapy for metaphysics -- Concepts, rules, and the spirit of recognition -- Meaning and meanings -- Reference and presence -- Truth and correspondence -- Emancipating theology.

There is growing interest in understanding and eliciting division of labor within groups of scientists. This paper illustrates the need for this division of labor through a historical example, and a formal model is presented to better analyze situations of this type. Analysis of this model reveals that a division of labor can be maintained in two different ways: by limiting information or by endowing the scientists with extreme beliefs. If both features are present however, cognitive diversity is maintained indefinitely, (...) and as a result agents fail to converge to the truth. Beyond the mechanisms for creating diversity suggested here, this shows that the real epistemic goal is not diversity but transient diversity. (shrink)

In _Marx at the Margins_, Kevin Anderson uncovers a variety of extensive but neglected texts by the well-known political economist which cast what we thought we knew about his work in a startlingly different light. Analyzing a variety of Marx’s writings, including journalistic work written for the _New York Tribune_, Anderson presents us with a Marx quite at odds with our conventional interpretations. Rather than providing us with an account of Marx as an exclusively class-based thinker, Anderson here offers (...) a portrait of Marx for the twenty-first century: a global theorist whose social critique was sensitive to the varieties of human social and historical development, including not just class, but nationalism, race, and ethnicity, as well. _Marx at the Margins _ultimately argues that alongside his overarching critique of capital, Marx created a theory of history that was multi-layered and not easily reduced to a single model of development or revolution. Through highly-informed readings on work ranging from Marx’s unpublished 1879–82 notebooks to his passionate writings about the antislavery cause in the United States, this volume delivers a groundbreaking and canon-changing vision of Karl Marx that is sure to provoke lively debate in Marxist scholarship and beyond. (shrink)

This paper advances the conception of social entrepreneurs as caring entrepreneurs. We argue that the care ethics of social entrepreneurs, implying the pursuit of caring goals through caring processes, can be challenged when they engage in the process of scaling up their ventures. We propose that social entrepreneurs can sustain their care ethics as the essential dimension of their venture only if they are able to build a caring enterprise. Organizational care designates the set of organizing principles that facilitate the (...) embedding of care ethics at an organizational level, beyond the imprinting induced by social entrepreneurs’ personal ethics. (shrink)

Questions concerning free will are intertwined with issues in almost every area of philosophy, from metaphysics to philosophy of mind to moral philosophy, and are also informed by work in different areas of science. Free will is also a perennial concern of serious thinkers in theology and in non-western traditions. Because free will can be approached from so many different perspectives and has implications for so many debates, a comprehensive survey needs to encompass an enormous range of approaches. This book (...) is the first to draw together leading experts on every aspect of free will, from those who are central to the current philosophical debates, to non-western perspectives, to scientific contributions and to those who know the rich history of the subject. Its 61 chapters, commissioned especially for this volume from the world’s leading researchers, are framed by a General Introduction and briefer introductions for each of the six sections. A list of References, an annotated Suggested Reading list, and a short list of Related Topics are included at the end of each chapter. (shrink)

This paper details the content and structure of the folk concept of life, and discusses its relevance for scientific research on life. In four empirical studies, we investigate which features of life are considered salient, universal, central, and necessary. Functionings, such as nutrition and reproduction, but not material composition, turn out to be salient features commonly associated with living beings (Study 1). By contrast, being made of cells is considered a universal feature of living species (Study 2), a central aspect (...) of life (Study 3), and our best candidate for being necessary for life (Study 4). These results are best explained by the hypothesis that people take life to be a natural kind subject to scientific scrutiny. (shrink)