© 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.Genetic studies have identified single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with the risk of prostate cancer. It remains unclear whether such genetic variants are associated with disease aggressiveness. The NCI-SPORE Genetics Working Group retrospectively collected clinicopathologic information and genotype data for 36 SNPs which at the time had been validated to be associated with PC risk from 25,674 cases with PC. Cases were grouped according to race, Gleason score and aggressiveness. Statistical analyses were used to compare the frequency (...) of the SNPs between different disease cohorts. After adjusting for multiple testing, only PC-risk SNP rs2735839 was significantly and inversely associated with aggressive and high-grade disease in European men. Similar associations with aggressive and high-grade disease were documented in African-American subjects. The G allele of rs2735839 was associated with disease aggressiveness even at low PSA levels in both European and African-American men. Our results provide further support that a PC-risk SNP rs2735839 near the KLK3 gene on chromosome 19q13 may be associated with aggressive and high-grade PC. Future prospectively designed, case-case GWAS are needed to identify additional SNPs associated with PC aggressiveness. (shrink)

This paper examines the conceptual development of the philosophical justifications for tyrannicide. It posits that the political philosophy of tyrannicide can be categorised into three distinct periods or models, the classical, medieval, and liberal, respectively. It argues that each model contained unique themes and principles that justified tyrannicide in that period; the classical, through the importance attached to public life and the functional role of leadership; the medieval, through natural law doctrine; and the liberal, through the postulates of social contract (...) theory. Subsequent analysis of these different models however, reveals that these historical models are unable to provide a sufficient philosophical basis for a contemporary justification of tyrannicide. In Part II, it will be contended that a reinvigorated conception of self-defence, a theme common to all three models, when coupled with the modern notion of universal human rights, may provide the foundation for a contemporary theory of tyrannicide. (shrink)

This is the final part of a series of two papers that have examined the conceptual development of the philosophical justifications for tyrannicide. While Part I focused on the classical, medieval, and liberal justifications for tyrannicide, Part II aims to provide the tentative outlines of a contemporary model of tyrannicide in world politics. It is contended that a reinvigorated conception of self-defence, when coupled with the modern understanding of universal human rights, may provide the foundation for the normative validity of (...) tyrannicide in contemporary world politics. (shrink)

ObjectiveParenting sensitivity and mutual parent-child attunement are key features of environments that support children’s learning and development. To-date, observational measures of these constructs have focused on children aged 2–6 years and are less relevant to the more sophisticated developmental skills of children aged 7–8 years, despite parenting being equally important at these ages. We undertook a rigorous process to adapt an existing observational measure for 7–8-year-old children and their parents. This paper aimed to: describe a protocol for adapting an existing (...) framework for rating parent-child interactions, determine variations in parents’ sensitive responding and parent-child mutual attunement by family demographics, and evaluate the psychometric properties of the newly developed measure.MethodParent-child dyads completed one home visit, including a free-play observation and parent questionnaire. Dyads were provided with three toy sets: LEGO® Classic Box, Classic Jenga®, and animal cards. The Coding of Attachment-Related Parenting was adapted for use with 7–8-year-old children, and rating procedures were streamlined for reliable use by non-clinician/student raters, producing the SCARP:7–8 Years. Trained staff rated video-recorded observations on 11 behaviors across two domains.ResultsData were available for 596 dyads. Consistently strong inter-rater agreement on the 11 observed behaviors was achieved across the 10-week rating period. Average ICCs were 0.77 for sensitive responding and 0.84 for positive mutuality. These domains were found to be related but distinct constructs. For both domains, average ratings were strongly associated with the main toy used during the observation. Adjusted multivariate linear regression models revealed that less sensitive responding was associated with younger parent, male parent, non-English speaking background, and greater neighborhood disadvantage. Construct validity was demonstrated using six parent-reported psychosocial and parenting measures.ConclusionThe SCARP: 7–8 Years shows promise as a reliable and valid measure of parent-child interaction in the early school years. Toy selection for direct observation should be considered carefully in research and practice settings. (shrink)

As the internet becomes increasingly important in establishing identities and social networks, it becomes a mechanism for social control. We apply the components of Foucault’s means of corrective training—hierarchical observation, normalizing judgment, and examination—to the comments section of a popular couponing blog to analyze tactics participants use to discipline each other’s couponing behaviors. We find Foucault’s framework applicable with some modification. Participants use discursive techniques to establish hierarchical surveillance however hierarchies are not upheld throughout the interactions, making lateral surveillance more (...) applicable. Participants engage in normalizing judgment by critiquing and correcting “deviant” behavior and positively reinforcing “good” behavior. The blog itself mirrors the examination; as the blog master describes activities, participants try them, and return to the site to report their results, which can then be compared to others. These findings illustrate online interactions as a mechanism of informal social surveillance and control. (shrink)

In this article, we examine the ways gendered frames shift to make room for societal changes while maintaining existing pillars of systemic gender inequality. Utilizing the case of U.S. media representations of transgender people who reproduce, we analyze how media outlets make room for increasing societal recognition of transgender people and maintain cisnormative and repronormative traditions and beliefs in the process. Specifically, we outline how these media outlets accomplish both outcomes in two ways. First, they reinforce cisgender-based repronormativity via conceptualizations (...) of transgender reproduction as new and occurring in contrast to normative, cisgender reproduction. Second, they create a transnormative reproductive subject, which establishes a new socially sanctioned script for what it means to be transgender and what types of transgender experience may be recognized or accepted in mainstream society. In conclusion, we draw out implications for understanding how social authorities may shift existing gender frames to make room for changes in society while at the same time maintaining normative beliefs. These normative beliefs continue to facilitate societal patterns of gender inequality within such new frames. (shrink)

Symbolic arithmetic is fundamental to science, technology and economics, but its acquisition by children typically requires years of effort, instruction and drill1,2. When adults perform mental arithmetic, they activate nonsymbolic, approximate number representations3,4, and their performance suffers if this nonsymbolic system is impaired5. Nonsymbolic number representations also allow adults, children, and even infants to add or subtract pairs of dot arrays and to compare the resulting sum or difference to a third array, provided that only approximate accuracy is required6–10. Here (...) we report that young children, who have mastered verbal counting and are on the threshold of arithmetic instruction, can build on their nonsymbolic number system to perform symbolic addition and subtraction11–15. Children across a broad socio-economic spectrum solved symbolic problems involving approximate addition or subtraction of large numbers, both in a laboratory test and in a school setting. Aspects of symbolic arithmetic therefore lie within the reach of children who have learned no algorithms for manipulating numerical symbols. Our findings help to delimit the sources of children’s difficulties learning symbolic arithmetic, and they suggest ways to enhance children’s engagement with formal mathematics. We presented children with approximate symbolic arithmetic problems in a format that parallels previous tests of non-symbolic arithmetic in preschool children8,9. In the first experiment, five- to six-year-old children were given problems such as ‘‘If you had twenty-four stickers and I gave you twenty-seven more, would you have more or less than thirty-five stickers?’’. Children performed well above chance (65.0%, t1952.77, P 5 0.012) without resorting to guessing or comparison strategies that could serve as alternatives to arithmetic. Children who have been taught no symbolic arithmetic therefore have some ability to perform symbolic addition problems. The children’s performance nevertheless fell short of performance on non-symbolic arithmetic tasks using equivalent addition problems with numbers presented as arrays of dots and with the addition operation conveyed by successive motions of the dots into a box (71.3% correct, F1,345 4.26, P 5 0.047)8.. (shrink)

Le procédé de la détermination du Canon des Ecritures a été celui de l'identification par elle-même de la koinonia, même si le but immédiat était celui de la préservation de l'évangile. La koinonia, mode de participation à l'échange et la réciprocité de vie entre le Père, le Fils et le Saint-Esprit, de même que la relationalité ecclésiale entre les églises, bâties sur cette vie trinitaire rendue visible en Jésus-Christ par le pouvoir de l'Esprit, s'exprime dans la détermination du canon. Cette (...) expression historique se voit dans la perichoresis organique dans le vie de l'Eglise entre les critères pour inclusion dans le canon ; l'extension de l'apostolicité ecclésiale par une sorte de communicatio idiomatum des églises apostoliques aux églises non-apostoliques; la réciprocité et la mutualité entre canon et Eglise ; la participation et la relationalité des communions locales dans la communion des communions, à la fois par extension historique en arrière et extension géographique dans l'espace présent; l'exercice de la koinonia par l'activité synodale; le Saint-Esprit comme mémoire de l'Eglise. Comme la détermination du canon concerne toute la vie historique de l'Eglise, elle ne peut être ni défaite, ni refaite. (shrink)

Humans, animals, and the environment face a universal crisis: antimicrobial resistance. Addressing AR and its multi-disciplinary causes across many sectors including in human and veterinary medicine remains underdeveloped. One barrier to AR efforts is an inconsistent process to incorporate the plenitude of stakeholders about what AR is and how to stifle its development and spread—especially stakeholders from the animal agriculture sector, one of the largest purchasers of antimicrobial drugs. In 2019, The Wellcome Trust released Reframing Resistance: How to communicate about (...) antimicrobial resistance effectively, which proposed the need to establish a consistent and harmonized messaging effort that describes the AR crisis and its global implications for health and wellbeing across all stakeholders. Yet, Reframing Resistance does not specifically engage the animal agriculture community. This study investigates the gap between two principles recommended by Reframing Resistance and animal agriculture stakeholders. For this analysis, the research group conducted 31 semi-structured interviews with a diverse group of United States animal agriculture stakeholders. Participants reported attitudes, beliefs, and practices about a variety of issues, including how they defined AR and what entities the AR crisis impacts most. Exploration of Reframing Resistance’s Principle 2, “explain the fundamentals succinctly” and Principle 3, “emphasis that this is universal issue; it can affect anyone, including you” reveals disagreement in both the fundamentals of AR and consensus of “who” the AR crisis impacts. Principle 2 may do better to acknowledge that animal agriculture stakeholders espouse a complex array of perspectives that cannot be summed up in a single perspective or principle. As a primary tool to combat AR, behavior change must be accomplished first through outreach to stakeholder groups and understanding their perspectives. (shrink)

With this issue we initiate the policy of expanding the scope of Tulane Studies in Philosophy to include, in addition to the work of members of the department, contributions from philosophers who have earned advanced degrees from Tulane and who are now teaching in other colleges and universities. The Editor THE LOGIC OF OUR LANGUAGE ROBERT L. ARRINGTON Wittgenstein wrote in the Tractatus that "logic is not a body of doctrine, but a mirror-image of the world. " 1 In line (...) with his suggestion that a proposition is a 'picture', Wittgenstein argued that propositions 'show' the logical structure of the real. He was insistent, however, that "the apparent logical form of a proposition need not be its real one. " 2 As a result of this we can misunderstand the structure of fact. Philosophical problems arise just when "the logic of our language is mis understood. " 3 It is common knowledge that much of this view of logic was rejected by Wittgenstein himself in the Philosophical Investi gations. There we are told that language has no ideal or sublime 4 logic which mirrors the structure of the extra-linguistic world. Consequently, inferences from the structure of language to the structure of that extra-linguistic world are invalid. Reality can be 'cut up' in any of a number of ways by language. Wittgenstein adopted a view of philosophy which would render that discipline a non-explanatory, non-critical study of the multiple ways in which language can be used. (shrink)

A discussion of W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. I, The Earlier Presocratics and the Pythagoreans (xv/538 pp.); Vol. 11, The Presocratic Tradition from Parmenides to Democritus (xvii/553 pp.) Cambridge University PresF. M. Cleve, The Giants of PreSophistic Greek Philosophy, An Attempt to Reconstruct Their Thoughts, Martinus NijhoffD. E. Gershenson and D. A. Greenberg, Anaxagoras and the Birth of Physics, Blaisdell Publishing CompanyG. E. R. Lloyd, Polarity and Analogy, Cambridge University Press, 1966 (v/503 pp.).

A discussion of W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. I, The Earlier Presocratics and the Pythagoreans (xv/538 pp.); Vol. 11, The Presocratic Tradition from Parmenides to Democritus (xvii/553 pp.) Cambridge University Pres F. M. Cleve, The Giants of PreSophistic Greek Philosophy, An Attempt to Reconstruct Their Thoughts, Martinus Nijhoff D. E. Gershenson and D. A. Greenberg, Anaxagoras and the Birth of Physics, Blaisdell Publishing Company G. E. R. Lloyd, Polarity and Analogy, Cambridge University Press, 1966 (v/503 (...) pp.). (shrink)

In the article, the problem of speech understanding/misunderstanding between non-native speakers using English as lingua franca is discussed. It is argued that the mechanism of EFL discourse comprehensibility and interpretability can be explained basing on Shannon’s model of information exchange, which is constructed of sender and receiver, message, two channels, coding and decoding of information, mutual feedback, noise and context. A malfunction of one or more of these components may result in ‘language noise‘ or interruption of intelligibility of speech. (...) In ELF communication malfunction of these components provokes deviations from language norms in pronunciation, grammar structure and semantics. Recurrent deviations in EFL speech production can increase or reduce noise in the coding and/or decoding channel and, correspondingly, in the information processing. Following Jenkins’ classification of kernel and non-kernel phonological deviations in EFL speech, the author maintains that the kernel deviations increase noise only if they are present in one channel and absent in the other one. If they are inherent to both speakers’ production they don’t hinder intelligibility. Non-kernel deviations affect intelligibility by the same pattern though in a weaker mode. It is claimed that comfortable intelligibility in transnational communication does not necessarily require standardization of norms and high ELF proficiency of speakers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Josiah Royce on RaceIssues in ContextJacquelyn Ann K. KegleyAll philosophy, whether or not we want to admit it, is done in a context, filtered through lenses that are personal, intellectual, historical, cultural, social, and political. Thus to fairly treat and fully understand Royce's views on race, we must set a situational framework. First, Royce's 1906 article entitled "Race Questions and Prejudices" is the lead piece in a collection that (...) implements his philosophy of loyalty. It applies his principle of loyalty to what he considers one of the most significant social/political issues of his time—the race question. As we discuss Royce and race issues, the philosophy of loyalty must be in the background as a point of reference. Indeed, Royce tells us that he will address the various questions in his article "Race Questions and Prejudices" by calling attention to "a few principles which seem to me to be serviceable to any one who wants to look at race questions fairly and humanely" (6).Secondly, except for W. E. B. DuBois and Jane Addams, no other major figure associated with pragmatic philosophy substantially addressed issues of race and racism in their written work, nor did anyone so early in the twentieth century as did Royce. DuBois's The Souls of Black Folk, which came out in 1903, immediately preceded Royce's article. Jane Addams briefly touched on race issues in her 1915 Democracy and Social Ethics. Alain Locke, who sought to study with Royce at Harvard but could not because of Royce's premature death, gave his "Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Race" in 1915, but they were published posthumously. John Dewey's "Race Prejudice and Friction" appeared in 1922. There is an absence of treatment of race issues in George Herbert Mead, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Alfred North Whitehead. Thus Shannon Sullivan and I agree that Royce stands out in the history of classical American philosophy in taking an antiracist focus on race questions when very few philosophers—especially white male philosophers—took scholarly time to think about these issues.1 [End Page 1]Another important context for Royce's article is the political climate of the time. Royce identifies the era as one in which there were "more ways and places in which men find themselves in the presence of alien races with whom they have to live in the same social order" (4). It was a time of "white anxiety." In 1905, Theodore Roosevelt gave his famous "On American Motherhood" speech in which he warned of white "race suicide" if white families continued to reproduce at a slower rate than other races. Thus, Royce was speaking and writing against racism in a time of anti-immigration and proimperialism sentiment due to white anxiety in the United States about the possible decline of global white supremacy. It is in this setting that Royce highlights the color line as a significant problem.Royce states the problem as follows:This is the problem of dealing with the men who seem to us somehow very widely different from ourselves in physical constitution, in temperament, in all their deeper nature, so that we are temped to think of them as natural strangers to our souls, while nevertheless we find that they are stubbornly there in our world and that they are men as much determined to live as we are, and are men who, in turn, find us as incomprehensible as we find them.(5)With increased contact among different populations, the age-old problem of how to deal with people who seem different from one's own group intensifies. There will be, says Royce, numerous questions including those of superiority-inferiority, power and sovereignty, and a new assessment of the ways in which these "different" people might be helpful or perilous to one's own group interests. Royce notes that one cannot assume an automatic answer. He asks, "Is it a ‘yellow peril,' or a ‘black peril,' or perhaps after all, is it not rather some form of ‘white peril' which threatens the future of humanity in this day of great struggles and of complex issues?" (6). With the question posed in this... (shrink)

Whether “information” exists in biology, and in what sense, has been a topic of much recent discussion. I explore Shannon, Dretskean, and teleosemantic theories, and analyze whether or not they are able to give a successful naturalistic account of information—specifically accounts of meaning and error—in biological systems. I argue that the Shannon and Dretskean theories are unable to account for either, but that the teleosemantic theory is able to account for meaning. However, I argue that it is unable (...) to account for error. Thus I conclude that while talk of informational meaning is justifiable within a naturalistic framework, talk of informational error is not, and must be used in a metaphorical sense only. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Narrative Symposium:Living Organ DonationLaura Altobelli, Sherri Bauman, Janice Flynn, Andy Heath, Joseph Jacobs, Tim Joos, Amy K. Lewensten, Donna L. Luebke, Sarah A. McDaniel, Donald Olenick, Laurie E Post, Vicky Young, Blake Adams, Anonymous One, Michael Sauls, Christine Wright, Shannon D. Wyatt, and Cara Yesawich• An Altruistic Living Donor’s Story• Surgery for the Soul• Kidney Donation Story• The Essence of Giving—A Transplant Story• Love—the Risk Worth Taking• My (...) Donation Journey• A Life For A Life: My Gift To My Dad• Lessons Learned: The Realities of Living Organ Donation• Sarah’s List Exchange Experience• Accelerated Living Donation• Liver Donor Nightmare• Adrift After Donation• Getting Our Child Off Dialysis• A Living Donor’s Journey• The Spare Kidney• Living Donors are People Too• The Gift of Life—Walking by Faith• Journey of an Altruistic, Non–designated Living DonorCopyright © 2012 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

Here is a fine semipopular book about the ideas which have motivated the much-talked-about revolution in the theories of information, control and communication. Jagjit Singh is one of those rare science writers who knows how to present intricate technical concepts to the less-than-expert reader without compromising the original sense or significance. The book begins, appropriately enough, with a discussion of the concept of information, culminating in the technical definition which enables us to assign numerical values to its quantity. The following (...) chapters present the conceptual heart of the Shannon-Weaver theory, the theories of automatic computing machines and the intriguing neurological theories of Warren McCulloch and John Von Neumann. The chapter on Turing Machines does not pay enough attention to the purely mathematical applications of these devices for the present reviewer's taste. The closing chapters deal with mathematical theories of intelligence and the brain. The text is accompanied by many good drawings and appropriate mathematical demonstrations. A book of this quality could have been produced only by an author with absolute command of his topic.—H. P. K. (shrink)

New technologies from artificial intelligence to drones, and biomedical enhancement make the future of the human family increasingly hard to predict and protect. This book explores how the philosophical tradition of virtue ethics can help us to cultivate the moral wisdom we need to live wisely and well with emerging technologies.

Just over a decade on from a spike of interest in Jacques Rancière’s writing within educational philosophy and theory, I revisit his interventions on democracy and education to make the case for (re)engaging with Rancière’s writing now to address important questions about contemporary education policy, the role of schools in democratic societies and public debate over the curriculum. Specifically, I argue that Rancière’s interventions on the Platonism that characterises both ‘progressive’ and ‘traditional’ arguments about school curricula in such contexts offer (...) a vital tool for understanding the shifts in education policy and educational debate that animate our current political moment. Building on work that has applied Rancière’s writing to analyse neoliberal education policy, I argue that Rancière’s writing provides a distinctive analytical lens for interpreting a recent shift towards neo-conservative education policy agendas, and the imbrication of schools within the ‘culture-wars’ that characterise the contemporary political landscape in several national settings. Taking recent policies concerned with the teaching of values in England as an example, I argue that a Rancierian perspective on such policy is helpful for revitalising research concerned with education and the role of public schooling in societies that wish to maintain some claim to democracy. (shrink)

In this paper I evaluate embodied social cognition, embodied cognition’s account of how we understand others. I identify and evaluate three claims that motivate embodied social cognition. These claims are not specific to social cognition; they are general hypotheses about cognition. As such, they may be used in more general arguments for embodied cognition. I argue that we have good reasons to reject these claims. Thus, the case for embodied social cognition fails. Moreover, to the extent that general arguments for (...) embodied cognition rest on these premises, they are correspondingly uncompelling. (shrink)

This paper explores Simone de Beauvoir’s response to G. W. F. Hegel’s formulation of freedom. In The Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel describes freedom as a twofold, negative movement of dissolution and construction. Beauvoir takes up this distinction in terms of revolution and creative transformation, additionally describing two empty articulations of freedom found in “complaint” and “resignation.” In complaint, the existent is unable to transform the situation in a positive sense and simply reacts against it; in resignation, the existent merely submits (...) to the given. Through this analysis, Beauvoir moves beyond Hegelian optimism by naming modalities of ineffectual freedom requiring attention before the realization of social transformation and revolution. (shrink)

A recent article has claimed that one of the significant benefits which people in the UK derive from the existence of the National Health Service must be lost if the Service adopts the QALY maximisation principle to allocate medical resources. The argument fails, partly because its author conflates two distinct benefits. The first is almost certainly important, but there is no reason to believe that it would be lost if the principle were introduced (while there is some reason to believe (...) that the benefit would actually be greater). The second, once it is isolated from others with which it may be confused, is much less obviously important; and in any case there is again no reason to believe that it would be lost. Moreover, to argue against the principle on the ground that the second benefit would disappear is really to beg the question against the principle. We could not justify our rejection of the principle on the ground that the principle's adoption would mean that we lost the second benefit. (shrink)

"I found this a fascinating book: wide-ranging, readable." —Alison Jaggar Bell shows how the flesh-and-blood female body engaged in sexual interaction for payment has no inherent meaning and is signified differently in different cultures ...

This thesis examines the key moral principles that should govern decision-making by police and military when using lethal force. To this end, it provides an ethical analysis of the following question: Under what circumstances, if any, is it morally justified for the agents of state-sanctioned security institutions to use lethal force, in particular the police and the military? Recent literature in this area suggests that modern conflicts involve new and unique features that render conventional ways of thinking about the ethics (...) of armed conflict, and the use of lethal force, as inadequate or redundant. In particular, there is an increased concern with the moral difficulties created by “non-standard” cases. This is where the police or military are obliged to operate outside their conventional contexts. In such non-standard cases, on what moral basis can (or should) state actors – especially the police and military – use lethal force? One approach argues that there is nothing morally exceptional about the use of lethal force by police or military. This says the only available moral justification for using lethal force is killing in self-defence or defence of others. In contrast, I use an institutional approach to develop a moral framework for the state’s morally exceptional use of lethal force. The institutional approach is concerned with the ends (telos) or purpose of a social institution. It says that the moral purpose of a social institution alters the moral responsibilities of its agents; what is referred to as role morality. My analysis demonstrates that there is an important moral distinction between justified killing in self-defence and state-sanctioned uses of lethal force. My claim is that police and military uses of lethal force are not morally justified in the same way as the average person’s use of lethal force (i.e. self-defence or defence of others). Instead, I argue that the state-sanctioned institutional role of police and military give these state actors special moral duties, and therefore exceptional moral justification, for using lethal force. I argue that the institutional end of the police is the preservation of public safety. This includes using lethal force where it is necessary to protect life and prevent serious injury to jurisdictional inhabitants. In contrast, a morally responsible state uses military force to defend the “common good.” That is, when it is necessary to defend the peaceful functioning of a state from armed threats or other forms of political violence. I then conclude that non-standard cases require the addition of jus ad vim (or the just use of military force short-of-war) as a hybrid element to the moral framework for the state-sanctioned use of lethal force. This provides a better way of applying ethics to the use of military force when defending the common good against serious threats in non-standard cases. This is because jus ad vim complements the conventional military paradigm by permitting the use of military capabilities to defend the common good. But, at the same time, it inhibits the move towards the more destructive levels of violence characteristic of conventional warfighting. (shrink)

How can you steal something that doesn’t exist? This question confronts those of us who take an irrealist view of virtual objects and agree with the Supreme Court of the Netherlands that robbery took place when two boys used non-virtual violence to coerce a third boy into relinquishing his virtual amulet and mask. Here we outline this Puzzle of Virtual Theft, along with the closely related Puzzle of Virtual Value. After demonstrating how these puzzles are deeply problematic for the irrealist, (...) we go on to sketch a solution that not only circumscribes the puzzles but also offers a framework by which legal scholars can make sense within existing legal codes of the new phenomenon of virtual theft. (shrink)

The 2017 codetection of electromagnetic radiation and gravitational waves was the first of its kind and marked the beginning of multimessenger astronomy. But this event has been treated within recent literature as something of an end as well. The 2017 detection is often regarded as an instance of falsification for all theories of modified gravity which postulate gravitational waves propagate along separate geodesics from electromagnetic radiation, perhaps most notably Jacob Bekenstein’s Tensor-Vector-Scalar gravity. I critically examine this explicit endorsement of falsification (...) by astronomers and astrophysicists. While the current state of multimetric modified gravity theories is dim, recent developments in multimessenger observation do not offer a deductive falsification. Rather such evidence should be regarded as a corroboration of the null hypothesis, following Deborah Mayo's error-statistical account. (shrink)