Although sensorimotor contingencies may explain visual perception, it is difficult to extend this concept to speech perception. However, the basic concept of perception as active hypothesis testing using attention does extend well to speech perception. We propose that the concept of sensorimotor contingencies can be broadened to sensory-attentional contingencies, thereby accounting for speech perception as well as vision.

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a chronic illness that requires intensive lifelong management of blood glucose concentrations by means of external insulin administration. There have been substantial developments in the ways of measuring glucose levels, which is crucial to T1D self-management. Recently, continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) has allowed people with T1D to keep track of their blood glucose levels in near real-time. These devices have alarms that warn users about potentially dangerous blood glucose trends, which can often be shared with (...) ther people. CGM is consistently associated with improved glycemic control and reduced hypoglycemia and is currently recommended by doctors. However, due to the costs of CGM, only those who qualify for hospital provision or those who can personally afford it are able to use it, which excludes many people. In this paper, I argue that unequal access to CGM results in: (1) unjust health inequalities, (2) relational injustice, (3) injustice with regard to agency and autonomy, and (4) epistemic injustice. These considerations provide prima facie moral reasons why all people with T1D should have access to CGM technology. I discuss the specific case of CGM policy in the Netherlands, which currently only provides coverage for a small group of people with T1D, and argue that, especially with additional considerations of cost-effectiveness, the Dutch government ought to include CGM in basic health care insurance for all people with T1D. (shrink)

Using a nationwide survey of provincial institutional quality and a sample of private manufacturing small and medium scale enterprises, this paper contributes to the literature by considering for the first time the effects of corruption on the financial performance of Vietnamese private SMEs. Interestingly, contrary to previous findings, we find that corruption when measured by a dummy variable, does not affect firms’ financial performance after controlling for heterogeneity, simultaneity and dynamic endogeneity. However, the intensity of bribery and the majority (...) of the forms of corruption were found to have negative impacts on firms’ financial performance. Hence, a typical approach using only a dummy variable for bribery might not adequately evaluate the impact of bribe intensity or even ignores the negative impacts of some types of bribes on firms’ financial performance. The findings suggest that anti-corruption measures are vital for the development of the Vietnamese private SMEs. (shrink)

The literature on the politics of science and on science policy is dominated by information about large and highly industrialized countries. For example, models of the different forms of science policy administration and management tend to derive from French, U.S., and British exemplars. Yet in the mid-1990s there is a growing number of small nations, all of which are seeking to harness research communities to the cause of socioeconomic development, while still extracting "value for money" from science budgets. This (...) article uses the case study approach—focusing on the political economy of the politics of science in the Irish Republic, chiefly since the 1950s-to analyze the problems faced by science policy agencies and the scientific community in small nations. The study offers analogies and possible insights into the politics of research policy in other small nations ; it also aims to throw light on emerging research policy trends even in bigger countries as the "bargain" between the funders and the performers of research becomes more and more explicit and increasingly subject to economic justifications. (shrink)

My grandparents were immigrants from Eastern Europe who owned a small necktie factory on the outskirts of Montreal. While visiting them one weekend, I found my grandfather on the factory floor, cutting shapes out of irregular stacks of cloth with a fabric saw. He explained that by carving up the remnants that were left over when the neckties had been cut out and stitching them together in places that didn't show, he could get a few extra ties out of (...) each sheet of cloth. I asked him why he was doing this himself rather than leaving it to his employees. He shrugged, tapped his forehead, and said, "Goyishe kop," a term of condescension that literally means "gentile head.". (shrink)

This paper presents an academic project that addresses the issue of international corruption in the engineering and construction industry, in a manner that effectively incorporates several learning experiences. The major objectives of the project are to provide the students a learning activity that will 1) make a meaningful contribution within the disciplines being studied; 2) teach by experience a significant principle that can be valuable in numerous situations during an individual’s career, and 3) engage the minds, experiences, and enthusiasm of (...) the participants in a real ethical challenge that is prevalent in all of their chosen professional fields. The paper describes the full details of the project, the actual implementation of it during Winter Semester 2005, the experiences gained during the initial trial, and the modifications and improvements incorporated for future implementation. (shrink)

In the not too distant past, it was common to treat Hume's skeptical doubts regarding the justification of our beliefs in causal connections—understood as necessary connections between objects or events—as having appeared per conceptionem immaculatam in his post-Cartesian mind. Thanks to recent efforts by scholars in early modern philosophy, however, we are now more informed about the roots of Hume's conclusions in Cartesian thought itself, especially the influence of Malebranche and his arguments for occasionalism. And by the research of historians (...) of Medieval philosophy we are reminded that many aspects of seventeenth-century occasionalism, in turn, have their ancestry in Latin and Arabic thought of the Middle Ages. In this paper I offer a small contribution to the overall project of illuminating the precedents in Medieval philosophy for the theses and arguments in Malebranche that so clearly influenced the most important and influential philosophical analysis of causation ever. There is a tradition here, where the goal is to undermine claims to discover real causal relations or powers in nature. I will concentrate on one particular aspect or tool of that tradition: the negative argument that we can never perceive a sufficiently necessary connection between any two natural objects or events. (shrink)

This study revisits the debate on trade reform in Latin America, focusing specifically on what combinations of conditions were necessary and sufficient for very rapid trade liberalization. It departs significantly from two types of studies that have been previously used to examine Latin American trade reform: those using large samples and linear statistics to test the mean effects of variables on levels of trade protection and those isolating necessary conditions for rapid reform but using a small number of case (...) studies. Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis and short case studies, the study considers trade policy in sixty-one administrations. It finds that a key motivating factor for rapid trade opening is potential resistance from protected industry; it further identifies several other important enabling conditions, such as hyperinflation, devaluation, and an unconstrained executive. In combination, these enabling conditions are sufficient to account for a high percentage of rapid reform episodes. (shrink)

The main result is Vaught's conjecture for weakly minimal, locally modular and non-ω-stable theories. The more general results yielding this are the following. THEOREM A. Suppose that T is a small unidimensional theory and D is a weakly minimal set, definable over the finite set B. Then for all finite $A \subset D$ there are only finitely many nonalgebraic strong types over B realized in $\operatorname{acl}(A) \cap D$ . THEOREM B. Suppose that T is a small, unidimensional, non-ω-stable (...) theory such that the universe is weakly minimal and locally modular. Then for all finite A there is a finite $B \subset \mathrm{cl}(A)$ such that a ∈ cl(A) iff a ∈ cl(b) for some b ∈ B. Recall the property (S) defined in the abstract of [B1]. THEOREM C. Let T be as in Theorem B. Then, if T does not satisfy (S), T has 2 ℵ 0 many countable models. Combining Theorem C and the results in [B1] we obtain Vaught's conjecture for such theories. (shrink)

Despite its long history, there is no agreed-upon conception of emergence. One might claim that a common idea of emergence seems to be that something termed a "system" gives rise to, or possesses, characteristics termed "properties," which latter are absent or unmanifested in whatever individual components the system consists and are thus "emergent" from the system itself. However, types of systems discussed run a gamut from purely mental entities to simple tools . "Properties" is similarly unconstrained . The so-called special (...) sciences, such as biology, psychology, sociology, and even chemistry have all claimed some properties as emergent. However, the enormous literature dealing with various types of systems characterized as emergent can be divided, roughly speaking, into two classes of descriptions of emergence. One might be termed "structural" and the other "functional." The first characterizes emergent systems in terms of their components and their interrelationships , while the second characterizes them in terms of their effects on other systems or elements . There is generally no mention of possible internal structures of the system in the latter, and if there is, it is in vague and/or abstract terms, while the former emphasizes internal structures over clear characterizations of the effects of emergence. Thus, a conception of emergence like Kim's is functional, while explicit descriptions of small-world networks, chaotic systems, or other types of complex internal organizations in mathematics, physics, and computer science are structural. The structuralfunctional distinction will play a part in the analysis of emergence later in this paper. (shrink)

Theorem A. Let M be a left R-module such that Th(M) is small and weakly minimal, but does not have Morley rank 1. Let $A = \mathrm{acl}(\varnothing) \cap M$ and $I = \{r \in R: rM \subset A\}$ . Notice that I is an ideal. (i) F = R/I is a finite field. (ii) Suppose that a, b 0 ,...,b n ∈ M and a b̄. Then there are s, r i ∈ R, i ≤ n, such that sa (...) + ∑ i ≤ n r ib i ∈ A and $s \not\in I$ . It follows from Theorem A that algebraic closure in M is modular. Using this and results in [B1] and [B2], we obtain Theorem B. Let M be as in Theorem A. Then Vaught's conjecture holds for Th(M). (shrink)

Certain basic concepts of geometrical stability theory are generalized to a class of closure operators containing algebraic closure. A specific case of a generalized closure operator is developed which is relevant to Vaught's conjecture. As an application of the methods, we prove THEOREM A. Let G be a superstable group of U-rank ω such that the generics of G are locally modular and Th(G) has few countable models. Let G - be the group of nongeneric elements of G, G + (...) = G o + G - . Let Π= {q ∈ S( $\emptyset$ ): U(q) $A \subset M$ such that M is almost atomic over A ∪ (G + ∩ M) $\cup \bigcup_{p\in \Pi}$ p(M). (shrink)

Touching on issues of power, authority, and domination, Manhunts takes an in-depth look at the hunting of humans in the West, from ancient Sparta, through the Middle Ages, to the modern practices of chasing undocumented migrants. Incorporating historical events and philosophical reflection, Grégoire Chamayou examines the systematic and organized search for individuals and small groups on the run because they have defied authority, committed crimes, seemed dangerous simply for existing, or been categorized as subhuman or dispensable. Chamayou begins in (...) ancient Greece, where young Spartans hunted and killed Helots as an initiation rite, and where Aristotle and other philosophers helped to justify raids to capture and enslave foreigners by creating the concept of natural slaves. He discusses the hunt for heretics in the Middle Ages; New World natives in the early modern period; vagrants, Jews, criminals, and runaway slaves in other eras; and illegal immigrants today. Exploring evolving ideas about the human and the subhuman, what we owe to enemies and people on the margins of society, and the supposed legitimacy of domination, Chamayou shows that the hunting of humans should not be treated ahistorically, and that manhunting has varied as widely in its justifications and aims as in its practices. He investigates the psychology of manhunting, noting that many people, from bounty hunters to Balzac, have written about the thrill of hunting when the prey is equally intelligent and cunning. An unconventional history on an unconventional subject, Manhunts is an in-depth consideration of the dynamics of an age-old form of violence. (shrink)

In numerous essays over the years, and most recently in his Meaning, Paul Horwich has worked to articulate and defend a version of the use theory of meaning. At the heart of his project is the idea that the meaning of a word is constituted by a regularity in speakers’ use of it — i.e., by a regularity in speakers’ dispositions to accept as true, to reject as false, or neither to accept nor to reject sentences containing it. A ‘use (...) regularity,’ thus construed, is a dispositional acceptance property distinctive of a particular word and, derivatively, of sentences containing the word. For example, the use regularity constituting the meaning of ‘red’ can be very roughly characterized as speakers’ disposition to accept the application of ‘red’ to observed surfaces if and only if they are clearly red. Of course, the use regularity constituting the meaning of a word can be described in different ways; in particular, in describing a use regularity we might merely mention, and not use, the corresponding word. Furthermore, not every regularity in the use of a word is meaning-constituting. The use regularity that constitutes the meaning of the word ‘tall,’ for example, does so in virtue of the fact that, taken together with general psychological laws and the use regularities governing other words, it is basic to the explanation of speakers’ overall pattern of use of ‘tall.’ Hence, a central claim of Horwich’s use theory is that linguistic use is in general to be ‘unified and explained in terms of a relatively small and simple body of factors and principles including, for each word, a basic use regularity’. (shrink)

Given Hume's theory of belief and belief production it is no small task to explain how it is possible for a belief in a miracle to be produced. I argue that belief in a miracle cannot be produced through Hume's standard causal mechanisms and that although education, passion, and testimony initially seem to be promising mechanisms for producing belief in a miracle, none of these is able to produce the belief in a miracle. I conclude by explaining how this (...) poses a problem for Hume's theory of belief and I briefly investigate the alternatives available for solving this problem. (shrink)

This book is a lively intellectual history of a small circle of thinkers, especially, but not solely, Harry Jaffa and Walter Berns, who challenged the "mainstream" liberal consensus of political science and history about how the American Founding should be understood. Along the way they changed the course of the conservative movement and had a significant impact on shaping contemporary political debates from constitutional interpretation, civil rights, to the corruption of government today. Most importantly, these thinkers explain the deep (...) reasons for patriotism--why we should love America not just because it is our country, but because it is a free and just country. (shrink)

Humans possess great capacity for behavioral and cultural change, but our ability to manage change is still limited. This article has two major objectives: first, to sketch a basic science of intentional change centered on evolution; second, to provide examples of intentional behavioral and cultural change from the applied behavioral sciences, which are largely unknown to the basic sciences community.All species have evolved mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity that enable them to respond adaptively to their environments. Some mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity (...) count as evolutionary processes in their own right. The human capacity for symbolic thought provides an inheritance system having the same kind of combinatorial diversity as does genetic recombination and antibody formation. Taking these propositions seriously allows an integration of major traditions within the basic behavioral sciences, such as behaviorism, social constructivism, social psychology, cognitive psychology, and evolutionary psychology, which are often isolated and even conceptualized as opposed to one another.The applied behavioral sciences include well-validated examples of successfully managing behavioral and cultural change at scales ranging from individuals to small groups to large populations. However, these examples are largely unknown beyond their disciplinary boundaries, for lack of a unifying theoretical framework. Viewed from an evolutionary perspective, they are examples of managing evolved mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity, including open-ended processes of variation and selection.Once the many branches of the basic and applied behavioral sciences become conceptually unified, we are closer to a science of intentional change than one might think. (shrink)

We report the results of an experimental test of whether preaching the normative appeal of the sure-thing principle leads decision-makers to make choices that satisfy it. We use Allais-type decision problems to observe the incentive-compatible choices of 147 subjects, which either violate the sure-thing principle or adhere to it. Subjects are presented with normative arguments that support the counterfactual behaviour and then repeat their decisions. We observe violations of the sure-thing principle are robust to its normative justification. This result replicates (...) a famous small-sample observation using hypothetical tasks that was published by Paul Slovic and Amos Tversky almost half a century ago. We argue that this finding is as relevant now as it was then and that their design can be usefully applied to address contemporary issues in behavioural economics. (shrink)

Given Hume’s theory of belief and belief production it is no small task to explain how it is possible for a belief in a miracle to be produced. I argue that belief in a miracle cannot be produced through Hume’s standard causal mechanisms and that although education, passion, and testimony initially seem to be promising mechanisms for producing belief in a miracle, none of these is able to produce the belief in amiracle. I conclude by explaining how this poses (...) a problem for Hume’s theory of belief and I briefly investigate the alternatives available for solving this problem. (shrink)

Embryonic stem cells are derived from the preimplantation embryo and can differentiate into virtually any other cell type, which is governed by lineage specific transcriptions factors binding to cis regulatory elements to mediate changes in gene expression. The reliance on transcriptional regulation to maintain pluripotency makes ESCs a valuable model to study the role of distal CREs such as enhancers in modulating gene expression to affect cell fate decisions. This review will highlight recent advance on transcriptional enhancers, focusing on studies (...) performed in ESCs. In addition, we argue that the Nanog locus, which encodes for an ESC-critical TF, is particularly informative because it contains multiple co-regulated genes and enhancers in close proximity to one another. The unique landscape at Nanog permits the study of ongoing questions including whether multiple enhancers function additively versus synergistically, determinants of gene specificity, and cell-to-cell variability in gene expression. Nanog encodes a transcription factor required to maintain ESC pluripotency. The Nanog locus is an ideal model to study enhancers because it contains multiple highly potent super-enhancers within a small region. Nanog and three super-enhancers are in close physical proximity but only two SEs are required for Nanog expression. (shrink)

This article focuses on efforts by indigenous activists to oppose a mega-development in the middle of the Two Rivers Urban Park (TRUP) at the River Club site in Observatory, Cape Town. In the article we argue that, even though the mega-development ultimately went ahead, intense contestation surrounding Khoi cultural heritage contributed towards opening up the ‘black box’ of urban development in Cape Town, as well as pressuring the developers to accommodate some of the demands of indigenous activists and environmentalists. We (...) also examine why and on what terms it was even possible for a small group of indigenous activists to temporarily halt a mega-development driven by powerful actors, including Amazon, the City of Cape Town and private developers. Drawing inspiration from Bruno Latour's notion of the black box, we show how these anti-development activists were able to interrupt the construction process and create the conditions for opening up to public and legal scrutiny opaque urban development processes. (shrink)

Theorem A. Let T be a small superstable theory, A a finite set, and ψ a weakly minimal formula over A which is contained in some nontrivial type which does not have Morley rank. Then ψ is contained in some nonalgebraic isolated type over A. As an application we prove Theorem B. Suppose that T is small and superstable, A is finite, and there is a nontrivial weakly minimal type p ∈ S(A) which does not have Morley rank. (...) Then the prime model over A is not minimal over A. (shrink)

The rule of rescue describes the moral impulse to save identifiable lives in immediate danger at any expense. Think of the extremes taken to rescue a small child who has fallen down a well, a woman pinned beneath the rubble of an earthquake, or a submarine crew trapped on the ocean floor. No effort is deemed too great. Yet should this same moral instinct to rescue, regardless of cost, be applied in the emergency room, the hospital, or the community (...) clinic? -/- In health care, the desire to save lives at any cost must be reconciled with the reality of resource scarcity. As one example, the estimated cost for prophylactic Factor VIII to treat one patient with hemophilia for one year is $300,000. Costs of this magnitude have been accepted by public and private insurers in the developed world, even though, in principle, these sums could provide greater overall health benefit if allocated to pay for the unmet health care needs of many other patients. Looking forward, however, broad application of the rule of rescue will be increasingly untenable. But the moral instinct will remain: the desire to help those weakest among us, especially when their small numbers allow us to see them as unique individuals. What, then, is the ethical framework that can guide coverage and reimbursement decisions for orphan drugs into the future? (shrink)

This is a short book on a small topic with big ramifications. I call it a small topic because Descartes's account of perception occupies only a corner of his overall philosophical project, which is dominated by his concern to provide a solid metaphysical and epistemological grounding for his science. At the same time, Ott's discussion of sense perception in Descartes comes part and parcel with an account of the theory of ideas in Descartes and later Cartesians, a theory (...) of how to read the Meditations, and an interpretation of Descartes's mind-body dualism, including the similarities and differences... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Vatican Manuscript of Spinoza’s EthicaSteven NadlerLeen Spruit and Pina Totaro. The Vatican Manuscript of Spinoza’s Ethica. Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History, 205. Brill’s Texts and Sources in Intellectual History, 11. Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2011. Pp. vi + 318. Cloth, $136.00.By any measure, it is a remarkable find. There was a small codex in the Vatican Library, marked Vat. Lat. 12838. It originally belonged to the Congregation of (...) the Holy Office, which in 1917 inherited the role of keeper of the Index of Prohibited Books. The codex had been transferred to the Library with other materials in 1922. The manuscript, originally acquired in 1677, bore no author’s name. According to the card catalogue it is a Tractatus theologiae, a five-part “Theological Treatise.” Its contents are described as follows: Pars prima de Deo: Definitiones. / 1. Per causam. / Des. Tam difficilia quam rara sunt.Sound familiar?We possess no autograph manuscripts of Spinoza’s philosophical writings (there are a couple of autographs of his letters). And the only philosophical manuscripts we do have are the two Dutch manuscripts of the Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being, both discovered in the nineteenth century but one of which almost certainly was composed in Spinoza’s lifetime from a Latin original. Thus, to discover a seventeenth-century Latin manuscript copy of the Ethics, even if it is not an autograph, is exciting news indeed. Since it was in the Vatican’s possession by September 1677, we know that it was written out while Spinoza (who had died only a few months earlier) was still alive; it may also be that, while the manuscript is not by Spinoza’s hand, he did look it over.What makes this last possibility even more likely is the fact that, as Leen Spruit and Pina Totaro—the discoverers of the manuscript—argue in their introduction to this volume, the manuscript may originally have belonged to a member of Spinoza’s circle of friends in Amsterdam, Walter Ehrefried von Tschirnhaus. Tschirnhaus was in Paris by 1676, and had in his possession a copy of the Ethics (which a suspicious Spinoza famously told him not to show to Leibniz, who was also in Paris at the time and wanted to have a look at the work). Tschirnhaus was in Rome within a year, where, Spruit and Totaro suggest, he may have made the acquaintance of Niels Stensen, erstwhile Lutheran scientist and friend of Spinoza, now a fervent Catholic convert and anti-Spinozist soon to be appointed Vicar Apostolic of Nordic Missions. Tschirnhaus, or possibly some other “Lutheran foreigner” (in Stensen’s words) to whom he, eager to spread the good word of Spinozism, had given the manuscript, passed it on to Stensen, who in turn handed it over to the Roman Inquisition, along with a denunciation of its author. Stensen’s intention was to have Spinoza condemned by the Church and his works placed on the Index. Spruit and Totaro also claim—on the basis of the handwriting—that the copyist of this manuscript is Pieter van Gent, a member of Spinoza’s circle who played a role in the posthumous publication of his works.While Spruit and Totaro wisely admit that this story behind the manuscript “cannot be established with certainty,” they also say that it is “rather likely.” Their plausible hypothetical reconstruction of the history of the manuscript and of its relationship to the publication history of the Ethics, as well as their account of other important contextual elements, is based on careful and informed scholarship, and makes for fascinating reading.As for the manuscript itself, it is not a revolutionary discovery (as, say, the discovery of the Short Treatise manuscripts were). It will not affect the reading of the Ethics in any major way. There are a variety of discrepancies between the Vatican manuscript and the text of the Ethics in the Opera Posthuma (OP) of 1678: differences in spelling, “rather insignificant” omissions and additions of words and phrases, probable scribal errors, changes in word order, and some noticeable differences in expression. To take just one nonetheless interesting example, the final clause of the... (shrink)

Richard Arthur and I proposed that the present in Minkowski spacetime should be thought of as a small causal diamond. That is, given two timelike separated events p and q, with p earlier than q, they suggested that the present is the set I+ ∩ I-. Mauro Dorato presents three criticisms of this proposal. I rebut all three and then offer two more plausible criticisms of the Arthur/Savitt proposal. I argue that these criticisms also fail.

Statements that share an explanation tend to lend inductive support to one another. For example, being told that Many furniture movers have a hard time financing a house increases the judged probability that Secretaries have a hard time financing a house. In contrast, statements with different explanations reduce one another s judged probability. Being told that Many furniture movers have bad backs decreases the judged probability that Secretaries have bad backs. I pose two questions concerning such discounting effects. First, does (...) the reduction depend on explanations being mutually incompatible or does it occur when explanations are deemed irrelevant to one another? I found that a small discounting effect occurred with statements that were blatantly unrelated. However, the discounting effect also depended on a factor external to the argument being judged; the composition of the argument set. Second, are explanation effects attributable to changes in the belief afforded statements or to response-specific changes resulting from misunderstanding of the probability rating task or response bias? The results implicate changes in belief. Prior belief influenced conditional probability more than argument strength judgements, as it would if participants understood the tasks in the same way as the experimenter. Also, conditional probability true and false judgements were complementary, suggesting no response bias. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:New Essays on the RationalistsSteven NadlerRocco J. Gennaro and Charles Huenemann, editors. New Essays on the Rationalists. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. xvii + 391. Cloth, $60.00.Here is yet another collection of essays on early modern philosophy. The focus this time is on the Seventeenth century, in particular "the rationalists." What this apparently involves is, as the old-fashioned classification has it, Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. But there (...) is no overall theme to the essays, nothing uniting them besides the fact that almost all are devoted to those three thinkers and the fact that the volume was inspired by a summer seminar run by Jonathan Bennett.What the editors mean by "the rationalists" (besides the extensional definition) is [End Page 437] thinkers "united in the belief that the intellect and human reason are powerful tools in our ability to know about the ultimate nature of mind and matter." What is supposed to separate "the rationalists" from "the empiricists" is "a belief in the power of human reason" (xv). This is a fairly weak claim; and I, for one, am skeptical that such categories are truly useful (or even valid—one would be hard-pressed to find a single issue on which Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz all agree and on which those who are usually called "empiricists" unanimously dissent). In the light of so much important and creative work done over the last twenty years in seventeenth-century philosophy, it would have been nice to see a volume devoted to "the rationalists" include at least one sophisticated discussion of the legitimacy and grounds of such a label.The essays in this book are divided into three categories: Matter and Substance; Freedom and Necessity; and Mind and Consciousness. The contributors are a broad mix of scholars: some established and accomplished, others new and up-and-coming. The quality of the work is consistently high. There is a lot of detailed and careful work here, both in the attention to the historical texts and in philosophical analyses. However, not all of the essays are of great scope or interest; in fact, most are not. There is a definite tendency toward the small-scale (but not brevity): a concern with micro-problems (for example, the chapter by Clarence Bonnen and Daniel Flage, "Distinctness," is devoted to the question of what the "distinctness" of an idea is for Descartes) and an emphasis on theses and arguments (such as Geoffrey Gorham's examination of the "similarity condition" for causation in Descartes, "Causation and Similarity in Descartes,"). If there is indeed an "analytical" way of doing history of philosophy, that school is well represented here.And then there are a couple of essays that stand out by transcending this narrowness of focus. The chapters by Catherine Wilson ("The Illusory Nature of Leibniz's System") and Don Garrett ("Teleology in Spinoza and Early Modern Rationalism") are, without question, the boldest and most interesting of the collection. Wilson argues that, in the light of Leibniz's changing and inconsistent views on substance, there really is no metaphysical "system" in his philosophy. Garrett, in what is, to my mind, the best essay in the book (although I think I disagree with him), defends an account of teleology in Spinoza's metaphysics, and then compares Spinoza's views on teleology with those of Aristotle, Descartes, and Leibniz; he concludes that Spinoza not only accepted teleological explanations of particular phenomena, but did so more strongly than anyone else in the modern period. Experts will, of course, disagree with the claims made by Wilson and Garrett; that is what this game is all about. But it is truly refreshing to see scholars such as these taking on large-scale issues.It is worth noting that there is also a nice, indirect dialogue between two of the essays: Charles Huenemann's interesting account of a consistent necessitarianism in Spinoza ("The Necessity of Finite Modes and Geometrical Containment in Spinoza's Metaphysics,") and Edwin Curley and Gregory Walski's argument (in "Spinoza's Necessitarianism Reconsidered,") that, when it comes to the finite modes, Spinoza is not a strong or absolute necessitarian. What is truly unfortunate about the collection, however... (shrink)

The term “exploitation” has gained wide currency in recent discussions of biomedical and research ethics. This is due in no small measure to the influence of Alan Wertheimer’s path-breaking work on the topic (Wertheimer 1999, 2011). Wertheimer presented a clear and compelling non-Marxist account of the concept of exploitation—one that stressed the connection between exploitation and unfair distributive outcomes. On this account, when one party exploits another, she takes advantage of the other to gain unfairly. A number of contemporary (...) bioethicists have accepted Wertheimer’s account of exploitation and have proceeded to apply it to a range of issues in research ethics (Hawkins and Emanuel 2008; Miller and Brody .. (shrink)

Physicians often struggle with ethical issues surrounding intervention in their relatives’ health care. Many editorials, letters, and surveys have been written on this topic, but there is no systematic review of its prevalence. An Ovid Medline search was conducted for articles in English, written between January 1950 and December 2010, using the key words family member, relatives, treatment, prescribing, physician, and ethics. The search identified 41 articles (editorials, letters, and surveys). Surveys were reviewed to explore demographics of these treating physicians (...) and reasons for and against intervention. Physicians often intervene directly or indirectly in the health care of relatives. The most common reasons were convenience, cost savings, and the perception of having greater knowledge or concern than colleagues. Lost objectivity, fear of misdiagnosis, and inability to provide complete care were the main considerations against intervention. The characteristics of treating doctors were nonspecific. Most surveys recommend against this practice except for emergencies or minor ailments. This review included only a few surveys with small sample size and only assessed scientific literature written in English after 1950. Survey data may be biased by physicians’ self-reporting. In conclusion, most doctors occasionally intervene in their relatives’ care. The decision to do so is determined by multiple factors. Physicians should treat only short-term or minor illnesses within their scope of practice. Future research should evaluate doctors’ attitudes toward their relatives, medical student feelings about treating family, and intervention frequencies of medical and nonmedical professionals. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Humanist History of Mathematics?Regiomontanus's Padua Oration in ContextJames Steven ByrneIn the spring of 1464, the German astronomer, astrologer, and mathematician Johannes Müller (1436–76), known as Regiomontanus (a Latinization of the name of his hometown, Königsberg in Franconia), offered a course of lectures on the Arabic astronomer al-Farghani at the University of Padua. The only one of these to survive is his inaugural oration on the history and (...) utility of the mathematical arts.1 Regiomontanus tells his audience that the purpose of the oration is torelate first the origin of our arts, and among which nations they first began to be cultivated, in what way they were at last translated from various foreign tongues into Latin, which of our ancestors were famed in these disciplines, and to whom in our lifetimes recognition should be granted.2To this end, he offers a history of the quadrivial arts (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy) and other important mathematical disciplines from [End Page 41] antiquity to his own time, praises their utility, and exhorts his audience to revive the languishing study of mathematics at Padua. Astrology, a discipline with which Regiomontanus himself was closely associated, is singled out for particular praise.Traditionally, Regiomontanus's Padua oration has been seen through the lens of its rather obvious humanism. In particular, the Padua oration has come to be understood as the rhetorical embodiment of the fifteenth-and-sixteenth-century revival of ancient (Greek) mathematics. Just as this revival is inextricable from the rise of humanism, so Regiomontanus has come to be seen as an exemplar of humanist mathematics.3 It is the aim of this paper to examine the Padua oration in the context both of contemporary humanist rhetoric and of Regiomontanus's own intellectual background in order to argue that, while the oration is stylistically consistent with humanist norms, the vision of mathematics presented in it is also deeply grounded in the university mathematical curriculum and in Regiomontanus's own reading of mathematical texts.Regiomontanus was educated primarily at the University of Vienna (he was also briefly at the University of Leipzig), where he enrolled in 1450, completed his baccalaureate in 1452 and became a master in 1457.4 He remained at Vienna until 1461, when the death of his friend and teacher Georg Peurbach prompted him to travel to Italy with his patron, Cardinal Bessarion.5 In Regiomontanus's day Vienna was probably the most important of the German universities, rivaled only by Prague, whose prestige had declined after it was stripped of its theology faculty in the aftermath of the Hussite Wars.6 The curriculum at the University of Vienna was modeled [End Page 42] after that of Paris, and Parisian scholars played a major role both in its founding in 1365 and in its re-establishment (this time with a theology faculty) in 1384.7Most importantly for the purposes of this paper, the Viennese mathematical curriculum of Regiomontanus's day included all of the traditional authorities taught at Paris in the fourteenth century. For arithmetic and algebra, various "algorisms" (prose or poetry instructions for carrying out arithmetical operations that often also included a small amount of number theory) were the basic texts, supplemented in the fourteenth century by the Quadripartitum numerorum of Jean de Murs. Jordanus de Nemorare's De numeris datis and al-Khwarizmi's Algebra were common sources for those engaged in more advanced studies (i.e., they were not normally the subject of ordinary lectures, but were readily available to interested students, and would perhaps have been the subject of occasional extraordinary lectures). Euclid's Elements, supplemented by the commentaries of Pappus and Campanus, was the central text for geometry, and a number of medieval texts on practical and speculative geometry were in circulation as well. For astronomy, the Sphere of Sacrobosco and the Theorica planetarum were the most commonly used teaching texts, sometimes supplemented by al-Farghani's Elements of Astronomy (the subject of Regiomontanus's Padua lectures). Advanced students could read numerous more specific treatises by Arabic and Latin authors. For optics, the Perspectiva communis of John Peckham was the most common basic text, with texts... (shrink)

The ability to understand the mental states of others has sometimes been attributed to a domain‐specific mechanism which privileges the processing of these states over similar but nonmental representations. If correct, then others’ beliefs should be processed more efficiently than similar information contained within nonmental states. We tested this by examining whether adults would be faster to process others’ false beliefs than equivalent “false” photos. Additionally, we tested whether they would be faster to process others’ true beliefs about something than (...) their own (matched) personal knowledge about the same event. Across four experiments, we found a small but reliable effect in favor of the first prediction, but no evidence for the second. Results are consistent with accounts positing specialized processes for (false) mental states. The size of the effect does, however, suggest that alternative explanations such as practice effects cannot be ruled out. (shrink)

The first act ofThyestesis a challenge to the theory that the same Seneca wrote both thephilosophicaand the tragedies. We are compelled by the evil genius of Atreus and not by the common virtue of hisSatelles. Atreus not only feels no compunction at his words, but seems to hone his evil from the prodding. It is the death of philosophy, the anti-mirror of the prince: the tyrant is not reformed, but becomes more himself—more perfectly tyrannical. It is a performance of Socrates’ (...) monster inRepublic9—the soul composed of a hydra of desires with its ring of heads constantly changing, a lion of anger and a small man, who is to domesticate the hydra like a farmer and befriend the lion (588c–589b). The ineffectualSatellesportrays the hopeless plight of Plato's ‘little man reason’ before a lion with monstrous desires like Atreus. There is a place left for philosophy to win over the tyrant only if theSatellesdoes not represent all that reason can do, and stands instead only for gentlemanly virtue or common sense, which lacks the kind oflogosneeded to control the beast. (shrink)

By Jerome Rothenberg. Contributions by Steven Clay, Rodney Phillips.

The wuzzle-puzzle exercisé requires small groups of individuals to initially explore their diversity, explicate this diversity to the class, solve a wuzzle-puzzle series of anagrams on their own, and then solve a similar series in a diversified group. The improvement concomitant with a diverse group of individuals in the second, wuzzle-puzzle condition demonstrates that diversity may indeed improve decision-making. This demonstration may be of special interest to business educators and ethicists as they encourage group work. Further, business practitioners may (...) find the exercise useful for encouraging diversity in the workplace while improving teamwork, communication and cooperation among team members. (shrink)

Les quatre textes qui suivent tentent d'analyser dans la littérature québécoise et française récente les manifestations d'une société en mutation, désireuse ou non de rompre avec les stéréotypes de sexes, de revisiter et réconcilier féminin et masculin. Les écrivaines, avec quelques belles longueurs d'avance, continuent de vouloir à la fois le corps et l'esprit, la vie et la fiction, de jongler avec l'altérité et les identités plurielles et de travailler des textes ûctionnels, théoriques et incamés, qui prennent en compte le (...) réel Leur travail de réflexion et de création ne cesse, en fait, d'interroger les artifices de l'art, les mensonges de la petite et de la grande histoire, et de prouver qu'on ne peut impunément dissocier éthique et esthétique ! Le thème de l'autobiographie foetale qui hante la littérature masculine récente est très représentatif de la masculinité en crise; il cristallise ses angoisses, ses résistances ou sa nouvelle quête émotive, affective et corporelle.The following four-part paper try to analyse in recent quebecer and french littérature the manifestations of a changing society, wether it be willing or not to break with gender stereotypes and reconcile the masculine/feminine dichotomy. Female writers still show leadership in wanting both body and mind, life and fiction; in thinking ofalterity and multiple identities; and in working at fictionnal, theoretical and incarnate texts wich take reality into considerations. Their reflexion and creation in effect never stops questionning the artistic device, the lies of both small and big history to prove that we cannot inconsiderately dissociate Ethics from Esthetics ! The foetal autobiography team now haunting recent male littérature is very representative of the masculinity crisis; it cristallizes his anguish resistances or his new emotive, affective and corporeal quest. (shrink)

Many important social and political goals are at least partially funded by charitable donations (e.g. environmental, public health, and educational). Recently a number of laboratory experiments have shown that a potential donor’s incidental emotions—those felt at the time of the decision but unrelated to the decision itself—are important factors. We extend these findings by examining the effect of incidental emotions on charitable giving using a natural field experiment, where the potential donors are unaware of the intervention. In partnership with a (...) pledge drive at a small national liberal arts college, we demonstrate that participants who were asked to recall a person or event that has benefited them since graduating, pledged larger amounts (an increase of 92%) compared to the control group, although the probability of making a pledge was statistically no different. (shrink)

Jon Shields's finding—that certain evangelical pro‐life activist groups are more interested in deliberative discussions about abortion than are pro‐choice activists—is wrong on methodological, normative, and philosophical grounds. He generalizes about pro‐life civility from a small, trained sample group, and ignores possibly important variables that would explain pro‐choicers' incivility. Further, politeness is not necessarily a requirement of democratic deliberation—which entails not forcing one's own beliefs on the public, as pro‐lifers manifestly are trying to do, despite their calm demeanor. Conversely, some (...) pro‐choicers' refusal to engage in debates is not a deliberative failure, as Shields suggests, as deliberation includes such things as campaigning and canvassing. Lastly, Shields, and the pro‐lifers he has observed, use the weakest of the pro‐choice arguments, instead of focusing on the best academic work in the field. (shrink)

Using a nationwide survey of provincial institutional quality and a sample of private manufacturing small and medium scale enterprises, this paper contributes to the literature by considering for the first time the effects of corruption on the financial performance of Vietnamese private SMEs. Interestingly, contrary to previous findings, we find that corruption when measured by a dummy variable, does not affect firms’ financial performance after controlling for heterogeneity, simultaneity and dynamic endogeneity. However, the intensity of bribery and the majority (...) of the forms of corruption were found to have negative impacts on firms’ financial performance. Hence, a typical approach using only a dummy variable for bribery might not adequately evaluate the impact of bribe intensity or even ignores the negative impacts of some types of bribes on firms’ financial performance. The findings suggest that anti-corruption measures are vital for the development of the Vietnamese private SMEs. (shrink)