claims that constructive mathematics is inadequate for spacetime physics and hence that constructive mathematics cannot be considered as an alternative to classical mathematics. He also argues that the contructivist must be guilty of a form of a priorism unless she adopts a strong form of anti-realism for science. Here I want to dispute both claims. First, even if there are non-constructive results in physics this does not show that adequate constructive alternatives could not be formulated. Secondly, the constructivist adopts a (...) 'philosophy first' approach that Hellman rejects. This deep difference means that the viability of constructive mathematics cannot yet be decided by determining whether current scientific theories require classical mathematics. We need to decide which approach is most appropriate before we can even determine how we should go about deciding whether we should be constructive or classical mathematicians. (shrink)

In this paper I wish to show that we can give a statement of a restricted form of Gleason's Theorem that is classically equivalent to the standard formulation, but that avoids the counterexample that Hellman gives in "Gleason's Theorem is not Constructively Provable".

When Bishop published Foundations of Constructive Analysis he showed that it was possible to do ordinary analysis within a constructive framework. Bishop's reasons for doing his mathematics constructively are explicitly philosophical. In this paper, I will expound, examine, and amplify his philosophical arguments for constructivism in mathematics. In the end, however, I argue that Bishop's philosophical comments cannot be rounded out into an adequate philosophy of constructive mathematics.

In this paper we describe in some detail a formal computer model of inferential discourse based on a belief system. The key issue is that a logical model in a computer, based on rational sets, can usefully model a human situation based on irrational sets. The background of this work is explained elsewhere, as is the issue of rational and irrational sets (Billinge and Addis, in: Magnani and Dossena (eds.), Computing, philosophy and cognition, 2004; Stepney et al., Journey: Non-classical (...) philosophy—socially sensitive computing in journeys non-classical computation: A grand challenge for computing research, 2004). The model is based on the Belief System (Addis and Gooding, Proceedings of the AISB’99 Symposium on Scientific Creativity, 1999) and it provides a mechanism for choosing queries based on a range of belief. We explain how it provides a way to update the belief based on query results, thus modelling others’ experience by inference. We also demonstrate that for the same internal experience, different models can be built for different actors. (shrink)

This article aims to read feminist new materialisms (Barad), together with ‘postulated’ linguistic or cultural primacy of Queer Theory (Butler), to show how both are engaged in similar critical-ethical endeavours. The central argument is that the criticism of Barad and new materialisms misses Butler’s materialistic insights due to a narrow interpretation of Butler's alleged social-constructivist position. There is, therefore, a specific focus on where they both make similar ethical appeals. Moreover, the article relies on Adorno's negative dialectic to highlight an (...) interpretation of Barad and Butler as being part of the same dialectical movement, in which materialism and idealism fluctuate in their mutual criticisms, thus continuing the procession towards 'new knowledge' and emancipation, or freedom, through their motions back and forth. (shrink)

Terence Irwin's edition of the Nicomachean Ethics offers more aids to the reader than are found in any modern English translation. It includes an Introduction, headings to help the reader follow the argument, explanatory notes on difficult or important passages, and a full glossary explaining Aristotle's technical terms. The Third Edition offers additional revisions of the translation as well as revised and expanded versions of the notes, glossary, and Introduction. Also new is an appendix featuring translated selections from related texts (...) of Aristotle. (shrink)

The development of transplantation technology increasingly places before society a multitude of diverse, complex ethical and legal problems. The subject is the more complex because of the various divergent interests involved. There are the interests of the donor of organs, who has a right to protection of his legal position, and those of the patient in need of an often lifesaving organ. There are also the interests of the donor’s relatives, after his death, and those of the transplantation surgeons. The (...) international dimension of transplantation technology makes the picture even more complicated. Though this article is devoted to the European situation, the problems are similar all over the world. (shrink)

The development of transplantation technology increasingly places before society a multitude of diverse, complex ethical and legal problems. The subject is the more complex because of the various divergent interests involved. There are the interests of the donor of organs, who has a right to protection of his legal position, and those of the patient in need of an often lifesaving organ. There are also the interests of the donor’s relatives, after his death, and those of the transplantation surgeons. The (...) international dimension of transplantation technology makes the picture even more complicated. Though this article is devoted to the European situation, the problems are similar all over the world. (shrink)

This study described the relationships between academic class and student moral sensitivity and reasoning and between curriculum design components for ethics education and student moral sensitivity and reasoning. The data were collected from freshman (n = 506) and senior students (n = 440) in eight baccalaureate nursing programs in South Korea by survey; the survey consisted of the Korean Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire and the Korean Defining Issues Test. The results showed that moral sensitivity scores in patient-oriented care and conflict were (...) higher in senior students than in freshman students. Furthermore, more hours of ethics content were associated with higher principled thinking scores of senior students. Nursing education in South Korea may have an impact on developing student moral sensitivity. Planned ethics content in nursing curricula is necessary to improve moral sensitivity and moral reasoning of students. (shrink)

We argue that abduction does not work in isolation from other inference mechanisms and illustrate this through an inference scheme designed to evaluate multiple hypotheses. We use game theory to relate the abductive system to actions that produce new information. To enable evaluation of the implications of this approach we have implemented the procedures used to calculate the impact of new information in a computer model. Experiments with this model display a number of features of collective belief-revision leading to consensus-formation, (...) such as the influence of bias and prejudice. The scheme of inferential calculations invokes a Peircian concept of ‘belief’ as the propensity to choose a particular course of action. (shrink)

Is the procreation asymmetry intuitively supported? According to a recent article in this journal, an experimental study suggests the opposite. Dean Spears (2020) claims that nearly three-quarters of participants report that there is a reason to create a person just because that person’s life would be happy. In reply, I argue that various confounding factors render the study internally invalid. More generally, I show how one might come to adopt the procreation asymmetry for the wrong reasons by misinterpreting one’s intuitions.

Philosophers ask just whose expression, if anyone’s, we hear in lyric poetry. Walton provides a novel possibility: it’s the reader who “uses” the poem (just as a speech giver uses a speech) who makes the language expressive. But worries arise once we consider poems in particular social or political settings, those which require a strong self-other distinction, or those with expressions that should not be disassociated from the subjects whose experience they draw from. One way to meet this challenge is (...) to consider the poem expressive of a plural subject, which frees us from looking for a particular individual whose voice we hear in the work, whether she be fictional or actual. Some lyrics give voice to a group whose experience is attended to in the work. This may be done through a posited fictional speaker, but the ontology of the speaker is shown to be less important. Attending to a group whose concerns are voiced allows us to explain how poems can manage to address our-worldly concerns even when lacking actual persons whose expressions we encounter in the poems. (shrink)

Chance Neutrality is the thesis that, conditional on some proposition being true, its chance of being true should be a matter of practical indifference. The aim of this article is to examine whether Chance Neutrality is a requirement of rationality. We prove that given Chance Neutrality, the Principal Principle entails a thesis called Linearity; the centerpiece of von Neumann and Morgenstern’s expected utility theory. With this in mind, we argue that the Principal Principle is a requirement of practical rationality but (...) that Linearity is not and, hence, that Chance Neutrality is not rationally required. (shrink)

An English language translation accompanies the original Greek text of Aristotle's book about the nature of the state, constitutions, revolutions, democracy, and oligarchy.

The Shape of Thought: How Mental Adaptations Evolve presents a road map for an evolutionary psychology of the twenty-first century. It brings together theory from biology and cognitive science to show how the brain can be composed of specialized adaptations, and yet also an organ of plasticity. Although mental adaptations have typically been seen as monolithic, hard-wired components frozen in the evolutionary past, The Shape of Thought presents a new view of mental adaptations as diverse and variable, with distinct functions (...) and evolutionary histories that shape how they develop, what information they use, and what they do with that information. The book describes how advances in evolutionary developmental biology can be applied to the brain by focusing on the design of the developmental systems that build it. Crucially, developmental systems can be plastic, designed by the process of natural selection to build adaptive phenotypes using the rich information available in our social and physical environments. This approach bridges the long-standing divide between "nativist" approaches to development, based on innateness, and "empiricist" approaches, based on learning. It shows how a view of humans as a flexible, culturally-dependent species is compatible with a complexly specialized brain, and how the nature of our flexibility can be better understood by confronting the evolved design of the organ on which that flexibility depends. (shrink)

ḥeleḳ rishon. Sheʼelot u-teshuvot be-ʻinyanim shonim mi-toratenu ha-ḳedoshah shebi-khetav ṿeshe-be-ʻal peh -- ḥeleḳ sheni. Leḳet mikhtavim u-maʼamarim le-ḥizuḳ ṿe-hitʻorerut ba-ʻavodat ha-Shem yitbarakh -- ḥeleḳ shelishi. Leḳet mikhtavim me-a.m. ṿe-r. ha-Rav Ḥayim Shaʼul z. l.l. h.h. Grainiman baʻal ha-ḥidushim u-veʼurim".

In this book, developed by a group of collaborating scholars in bioethics from different European countries, an overview is given of the most salient themes in present-day bioethics. The themes are discussed in order to enable the reader to have an in-depth overview of the state of the art in bioethics. Introductory chapters will guide the reader through the relevant dimensions of a particular area, while subsequent case discussions will help the reader to apply the ethical theories to specific clinical (...) problems and health policy queries. The book focuses on perspectives typical for the European context. This highlights not only particular bioethical themes such as social justice, choices in health care, and health policy (e.g., in post-communist countries), it also emphasizes specific approaches in ethical theory, in relation to Continental philosophies such as phenomenology and hermeneutics. Because of its articulation of what is typical for the European health care setting as well as for bioethical debate, this book is unique in comparison to existing textbooks in bioethics. The book is an introductory textbook acquainting the reader with the major issues in present-day health care as well as the various theoretical and practical approaches to clarify these issues. (shrink)

This paper offers a unified explanation for the procreation asymmetry and the non-identity thesis – two of the most intractable puzzles in population ethics. According to the procreation asymmetry, there are moral reasons not to create lives that are not worth living but no moral reasons to create lives that are worth living. I explain the procreation asymmetry by arguing that there are moral reasons to prevent the bad, but no moral reasons to promote the good. Various explanations for the (...) procreation asymmetry have failed to explain the non-identity thesis: if one could create a person with a good life or a different person with a better life, one has a moral reason to create the better life. I argue that reflections on the misfortune of unfulfilled potential allow us to circumvent the non-identity problem. (shrink)

The book called 'The Consolation of Philosophy' was throughout the Middle Ages, and down to the beginnings of the modern epoch in the sixteenth century, the scholar's familiar companion. Few books have exercised a wider influence in their time. It has been translated into every European tongue, and into English nearly a dozen times, from King Alfred's paraphrase to the translations of Lord Preston, Causton, Ridpath, and Duncan, in the eighteenth century.