It is widely assumed that selection history accounts of function can support a fully reductive naturalization of functional properties. I argue that this assumption is false. A problem with the alternative causal role account of function in this context is that it invokes the teleological notion of a goal in analysing real function. The selection history account, if it is to have reductive status, must not do the same. But attention to certain cases of selection history in biology, specifically those (...) involving meiotic drive, shows that selection historical explanations are available in the case of items without any plausible function. Making contributions to goals, here fitness, must be introduced as an additional constraint in the analysis, either explicitly, or implicitly by appeal to individual functions or the selection-of/selection-for distinction. (shrink)

Two ideas govern the organisation of this collection. It is suggested that medieval philosophy is best studied as an interactive debate between thinkers of different times, and also the importance of the Ancient Greek philosophers in this field.

This paper argues that Donald Davidson’s infamous denial in “A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs” that there is any such thing as a language, though it may not be fully supported by the arguments given for it in that paper, is nonetheless entailed by his semantic views generally, according to which the literal, linguistic meaning of a speaker’s words on an occasion is determined by how the speaker intended to be understood. In favor of this view, and thus against conventional languages, (...) the paper then argues that this understanding of linguistic meaning promises, in a way the conventional view of meaning does not, to make sense of linguistic normativity. (shrink)

Donald Davidson infamously claims that belief is in its nature veridical, and that skepticism is for this reason fundamentally incoherent. To those who take the issue of external world skepticism seriously, Davidson's arguments may seem to involve a conjuring trick. In particular, his invocation of an ‘omniscient interpreter’, whose intelligibility supposedly ensures that our beliefs must be largely true, has the air of incense and lantern-rubbing about it. Davidson's claim has received considerable critical response in the literature, almost all of (...) it negative. In my view, some commentators have indeed lit on a critical and controversial lemma in Davidson's argument, but this basic result has been obscured by being presented amidst an array of other criticisms that simply make no sense from a Davidsonian point of view. The aim of this paper is to clear away some of the confusion that stands in the way of a more productive evaluation of Davidson's important claim. (shrink)

I examine the arguments Donald Davidson has offered through the years concerning the ontological bona fides of facts. In “Truth and Meaning”, Davidson uses the so-called “slingshot” argument to the effect that if true sentences refer, then they are all coreferential. Through a detailed examination of the assumptions underlying this argument, I show that, while it is effective as part of a reductio of bottom-up, reference based semantics, it has no tendency to establish the truth of its negative conclusion concerning (...) the existence of facts. Davidson also argues against facts by claiming they are of no help in the explication of truth. I claim that his repeated invocation of the slingshot in this context, as well as of arguments from other authors employing assumptions similar to the slingshot's, is inappropriate, especially in light of his own commitment to a top-down semantics — a committment inspired, ironically, by the reductio offered in “Truth and Meaning”. Davidson's other argument against truth as correspondence, namely that our grasp of facts is no better than our grasp of truths, is sound. But this argument does not show that there are no facts; it shows only that no theory of truth in terms of corre- pondence to facts can genuinely illuminate its explanandum. (shrink)

Kant distinguishes “natural ends” as exhibiting a part-whole reciprocal causal structure in virtue of which we can only conceive them as having been caused through a conception, as if by intelligent design. Here, I put pressure on Kant’s position by arguing that his view of what individuates and makes cognizable material bodies of any kind is inadequate and needs supplementation. Drawing on Spinoza, I further urge that the needed supplement is precisely the whole-part reciprocal causal structure that Kant takes to (...) be distinctive of natural ends alone. (shrink)

Donald Davidson argues that his interpretivist approach to meaning shows that accounting for the intentionality and objectivity of thought does not require an appeal, as John McDowell has urged it does, to a specifically rational relation between mind and world. Moreover, Davidson claims that the idea of such a relation is unintelligible. This paper takes issue with these claims. It shows, first, that interpretivism, contra Davidson's express view, does not depend essentially upon an appeal to a causal relation between events (...) in the world and speakers' beliefs. Second, it shows that interpretivism essentially, if implicitly, depends upon interpreters' appealing to facts taken in in perception, and that such facts are suited to provide a rational connection between mind and world. The paper then argues that none of Davidson's legitimate epistemological arguments tell against the idea that experience, in the form of the propositional contents of perception, can play a role in doxastic economy. Finally, it argues that granting experience such a role is consistent with Davidson's coherentist slogan that nothing can count as a reason for holding a belief except another belief. (shrink)

This paper is a result of remarks delivered at the 2014 conference of the Florida Philosophical Association during a book symposium on Elijah Chudnoff's Intuition.

This book presents selections from the political and social thought of the ancient West from the early sixth century BCE up to the early years of the Roman Empire and includes not only the classic philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, but a number of dramatists and historians as well. The range of topics these writings treat run from class conflict, through the perils of democracy and the horrors of tyranny, to the place of women in politics, while the styles range (...) from the deeply dramatic of Sophocles' Antigone and the bawdy satire of Aristophanes' Assemblywomen to Plato's Socratic dialogue Republic and Aristotle's scientific treatise Politics. The translations have been chosen, and sometimes modified, for clarity and readability, and are accompanied by introductions which set forth the historical context and trace the general lines of thought the readings develop. Frequent notes explain references to ancient lore unfamiliar to many readers. Questions for discussion accompany each reading. (shrink)

In this important collection, the editors argue that medieval philosophy is best studied as an interactive discussion between thinkers working on very much the same problems despite being often widely separated in time or place. Each section opens with at least one selection from a classical philosopher, and there are many points at which the readings chosen refer to other works that the reader will also find in this collection. There is a considerable amount of material from central figures such (...) as Augustine, Abelard, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham, as well as extensive texts from thinkers in the medieval Islamic world. Each selection is prefaced by a brief introduction by the editors, providing a philosophical and religious background to help make the material more accessible to the reader. This edition, updated throughout, contains a substantial new chapter on medieval psychology and philosophy of mind, with texts from authors not previously represented such as John Buridan and Peter John Olivi. (shrink)

This is a collection of essays touching on four distinct areas of interest to philosophers, lawyers, and political scientists: the philosophical justification for the adversary system; the problems of truth-finding in an adversarial setting; the issue of justice in relation to social policy-making; the right to privacy.

Argues that the historical concept of agency ultimately fails since such weighing and choosing always require grounds that reach beyond private consciousness. Agency is bound inherently with morality; the modernist understanding of agency removes it from morality. It is suggested that agency is only possible on inherently moral, rather than metaphysical, grounds. An alternative conceptualization of agency as living truthfully is proposed that does not posit the existence of Cartesian ego and does not surrender to moral relativism. This concept of (...) agency is exemplified and distinguished from volition, which is much closer to the more traditional view of agency as the capacity to choose from among alternatives. A grounding for agency in ethics is offered, suggesting that neither traditional notions, which are grounded in traditional metaphysics, nor postmodern notions, which accept ethical relativity, can render satisfactory accounts of human agency. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

From the neurophysiological perspective, thinking in dreaming and the quality of dream thought have been considered hallucinatory, bizarre, illogical, improbable, or even impossible. This empirical phenomenological research concentrates on testing whether dream thought can be defined as rational in the sense of an intervening mental process between sensory perception and the creation of meaning, leading to a conclusion or to taking action. From 10 individual dream journals of male participants aged 22–59 years and female participants aged 25–49 years, we delimited (...) four dreams per journal and randomly selected five thought units from each dream for scoring. The units provided a base for testing a hypothesis that the thought processes of dream construction are rational. The results support the hypothesis and demonstrate that eight fundamental rational thought processes can be applied to the dreaming process. (shrink)

The discovery and engineering of novel fluorescent proteins (FPs) from diverse organisms is yielding fluorophores with exceptional characteristics for live‐cell imaging. In particular, the development of FPs for fluorescence (or Förster) resonance energy transfer (FRET) microscopy is providing important tools for monitoring dynamic protein interactions inside living cells. The increased interest in FRET microscopy has driven the development of many different methods to measure FRET. However, the interpretation of FRET measurements is complicated by several factors including the high fluorescence background, (...) the potential for photoconversion artifacts and the relatively low dynamic range afforded by this technique. Here, we describe the advantages and disadvantages of four methods commonly used in FRET microscopy. We then discuss the selection of FPs for the different FRET methods, identifying the most useful FP candidates for FRET microscopy. The recent success in expanding the FP color palette offers the opportunity to explore new FRET pairs. (shrink)

1. Marxism and totalitarian democracy, 1818-1850.--v. 2. Classical Marxism, 1850-1895.

The paper argues that Israel Kirzner’s theory of entrepreneurship has been influential on a number of related “dynamic” theories of organization. Kirzner’s theory is animated by a dual concern – the process of rentseeking behavior and the fundamental incompletness of knowledge. Placed in a technological and institutional context, this theory points to the importance of dynamic transaction costs: the coordination costs of acting upon an innovative rent-seeking opportunity. In some contexts, this kind of cost can explain vertical integration; in other (...) contexts, it can explain the reverse phenomenon: vertical disintegration.Cet article soutient que la théorie de l’entrepreneur d’Israel Kirzner a influencé un grand nombre de théories dynamiques de l’organisation. La théorie kirznerienne est animée par un objectif double : – le processus de comportement de recherche de rente et l’incomplétude fondamentale de la connaissance. Replacée dans un contexte technologique et institutionnel, cette théorie souligne l’importance des coûts de transaction dynamiques : les coûts de transaction liés à une opportunité dans la recherche de rente innovante. Dans certaines situations, cette catégorie de coûts peut expliquer l’intégration verticale ; dans d’autres, elle peut expliquer le phénomène inverse : la désintégration verticale. (shrink)

Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. is a worthy successor to Joseph Schumpeter as analyst of the large corporation and its role in economic growth. His new book, Scale and Scope, a comparative history of corporate capitalism in the U. S., Britain, and Germany, is animated by a vision of the large corporation as the leading force in economic growth, outdistancing older owner?managed forms of organization with a superior ability to invest entrepreneurially in large?scale production, mass distribution, and professional management. Chandler's account (...) implicitly relies on a dynamic?capabilities? theory of competition that reveals the fundamental irrelevance of neoclassical theory and policy, including antitrust policy. In some ways, however, Chandler's vision is too narrow, underplaying the role of markets in economic growth. One needs to know how economic systems build capabilities, not merely how the corporate institution does so. Moreover, there is reason to think that the last few decades have seen an organizational revolution with a dynamic rather different from the one that animates Chandler's account. As a result, Chandler's work is important for understanding the present?day issues of industrial competitiveness, but is only one piece of the puzzle. (shrink)

All that we see, all that we touch, all that we perceive, are naught but ideas. There are trees and rivers, to be sure, but these are simply collections of ideas. Is everything, then, in this world an idea or made up of ideas? No. I, for one, am not an idea. Besides ideas there are spirits. I know that I, an active being, exist. It would seem that to know this and to know God exists, nay even for there (...) to be any meaning in what I say when I use the words “I,” “God,” and “spirit,” I would have to have an idea of myself, an idea of God, and an idea of spirit. But this cannot be. Ideas are essentially passive and inert. Spriits are essentially active. How, then, could an idea represent or be an image of a spirit? And what sense is there to something being an idea if it does not represent its object? How, then, can my discourse about spirits have any meaning at all? I have a notion of spirit. (shrink)