Debates over vaccine mandates raise intense emotions, as reflected in the current controversy over whether to mandate the vaccine against human papilloma virus (HPV), the virus that can cause cervical cancer. Public health ethics so far has failed to facilitate meaningful dialogue between the opposing sides. When stripped of its emotional charge, the debate can be framed as a contest between competing ethical values. This framework can be conceptualized graphically as a conflict between autonomy on the one hand, which militates (...) against government intrusion, and beneficence, utilitarianism, justice, and nonmaleficence on the other, which may lend support to intervention. When applied to the HPV vaccine, this framework would support a mandate based on utilitarianism, if certain conditions are met and if herd immunity is a realistic objective. (shrink)

In developing a framework for assessing privacy risks, Dupras and Bunnik’s “Toward a framework for assessing privacy risks in multi-omic research and databases” considers the question of whe...

Through qualitative surveys, a team of law students, law professors, physicians, and residents explored the perceptions of neurology residents towards referral to appropriate legal resources in an academic training program. Respondents reported feeling uncomfortable screening their patients for health-harming legal needs, which many attributed to a lack of training in this area. These findings indicate that neurology residents would benefit from training on screening for social factors that may be impacting their patients’ health.

We present an overview of the topics in the title and of some of the key results pertaining to them. These have historically been topics of interest in computability theory and continue to be a rich source of problems and ideas. In particular, we draw attention to the links and connections between these topics and explore their significance to modern research in the field.

The relationship between philosophy and research on artificial intelligence (AI) has been difficult since its beginning, with mutual misunderstanding and sometimes even hostility. By contrast, we show how an approach informed by both philosophy and AI can be productive. After reviewing some popular frameworks for computation and learning, we apply the AI methodology of “build it and see” to tackle the philosophical and psychological problem of characterizing perception as distinct from sensation. Our model comprises a network of very simple, but (...) interacting agents which have binary experiences of the “yes/no”-type and communicate their experiences with each other. When does such a network refer to a single agent instead of a distributed network of entities? We apply machine learning techniques to address the following related questions: i) how can the model explain stability of compound entities, and ii) how could the model implement a single task such as perceptual inference? We thereby find consistency with previous work on “interface” strategies from perception research. While this reflects some necessary conditions for the ascription of agency, we suggest that it is not sufficient. Here, AI research, if it is intended to contribute to conceptual understanding, would benefit from issues previously raised by philosophy. We thus conclude the article with a discussion of action-selection, the role of embodiment, and consciousness to make this more explicit. We conjecture that a combination of AI research and philosophy allows general principles of mind and being to emerge from a “quasi-empirical” investigation. (shrink)

Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences contains a series of explorations of the different ways in which the social sciences have interacted with the natural sciences. Usually, such interactions are considered to go only `one way': from the natural to the social sciences. But there are several important essays in this volume which show how developments in the social sciences have affected the natural sciences - even the `hard' science of physics. Other essays deal with various types of interaction since (...) the Scientific Revolution. In his general introductory chapter, Cohen sets some general themes concerning analogies and homologies and the use of metaphors, drawing specific examples from the use of concepts of physics by marginalist economists and of developments in the life sciences by organismic sociologists. The remaining chapters, which explore the different ways in which the social sciences and the natural sciences have actually interacted, are written by leaders in the field of history of science, drawn from a wide range of countries and disciplines. The book will be of great interest to all historians of science, philosophers interested in questions of methodology, economists and sociologists, and all social scientists concerned with the history of their subject and its foundations. (shrink)

_The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Chinese Philosophy Methodologies_ offers rich, productive discussion of methodological best practices in Chinese philosophy. The participants to this exchange are largely representative of the diverse methodologies currently undertaken in Chinese philosophy, and their contributions illuminate key dimensions of the nature of comparative work and its possibilities. The volume serves as a valuable introduction to the methodological perspectives of established figures in the field, rehearsing influential views and offering diverse insights. The return to shared themes (...) serves well to connect the essays and draw the reader into a rich conversation over how to approach comparative philosophy. Its diversity of methodological views is complemented by variety in the methods of discussing and understanding those methodological views. (shrink)

BIOS and BIFS are two California-based, small-scale alternative agricultural demonstration programs that define an applied Agriculture Partnership Model of extension. This model operates through a structure of local project leadership, a process of responsive farmer outreach and a primary goal of voluntary pesticide reduction. It reaches back to a Land Grant approach to extension of personal relationship, equal partnership, and collaborative learning. Overall findings from a systematic assessment of BIOS and BIFS imply that the operation and impacts of these two (...) Agriculture Partnership Projects owe more to the model, approach, and values of the projects than to any specific farming or extension techniques. A model of local partnership and responsive, learner-centered outreach, operational values such as flexibility and relationship, and a balanced systems approach to farm management and project operation combine to create a promising organizational response to the rapidly changing regulatory, environmental, and political circumstances confronting conventional farmers in California. Though some farm advisors and field research specialists within the University of California Cooperative Extension have successfully used the projects to leverage decreasing Extension resources, increase their one-on-one contact with farmers, and learn new outreach and agricultural skills, others within that system are highly critical of the two projects. Organizational tension between Cooperative Extension and the quasi-university Partnership Projects largely reflects differences in fundamental beliefs and values about legitimate knowledge, learning processes, and effective teaching as well as primary goals for agricultural outreach. (shrink)

In her article, Pascale Hess raises the issue of whether her proposed model may be extrapolated and applied to clinical research fields other than stem cell-based interventions in the brain (SCBI-B) (Hess 2012). Broadly summarized, Hess’s model suggests prioritizing efficacy over safety in phase 1 trials involving irreversible interventions in the brain, when clinical criteria meet the appropriate population suffering from “degenerative brain diseases” (Hess 2012). Although there is a need to reconsider the traditional phase 1 model, especially with respect (...) to first-in-human clinical trials involving novel technologies, the question arises as to whether it is appropriate to advocate for a new model that prioritizes efficacy over safety across all phase 1 clinical research trials involving irreversible interventions in the brain. -/- . (shrink)

Moral arguments were the type of theistic argument most characteristic of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. More recently they have become one of philosophy’s abandoned farms. The fields are still fertile, but they have not been cultivated systematically since the latest methods came in. The rambling Victorian farmhouse has not been kept up as well as similar structures, and people have not been stripping the sentimental gingerbread off the porches to reveal the clean lines of argument. This paper is (...) intended to contribute to the remedy of this neglect. It will deal with quite a number of arguments, because I think we can understand them better if we place them in relation to each other. This will not leave time to be as subtle, historically or philosophically, as I would like to be, but I hope I will be able to prove something more than my own taste for Victoriana. (shrink)

In this essay I sketch some vices of virtue ethics, draw on inference about the philosophical source of the vices, and conclude with a recommendation concerning future efforts in moral theory construction. The source of the vices, I argue, lies in a mononomic or single-principle strategy within normative theory construction, a reductionist conceptual scheme which distorts certain integral aspects of our moral experience. My recommendation is that this strategy be abandoned, for the moral field is not unitary -- mononomic (...) methods are not the best tools for moral theorists. (shrink)

arratives, fictional and factual, commonly raise in their audience suspense. A narrative lays out over time a sequence of events; and because the events of the narrative are not completely told all at once, questions arise for the audience which will be answered only later in the narrative’s telling. Will the transfigured panther-woman pounce on her rival as she walks home alone at night, hearing strange noises around her? Will Sam and Annie ever make their date at the top of (...) the Empire State Building? And the most classic question of all, Who dunnit?, or as it appears in its post-modern form, Who will do it? ‘This is the story of a murder. It hasn’t happened yet. But it will,’ Martin Amis writes at the beginning of London Fields. ‘I know the murderer, I know the murderee,’ and we’re soon told that the murderee is to be Nicola Six.1 But who will kill her? And why? (shrink)

Aristotle's observation that all human beings by nature desire to know aptly captures the spirit of "intellectualist" research in psychology and anthropology. Intellectualists in these fields agree that humans' have fundamental explanatory interests (which reflect their rationality) and that the idioms in which their explanations are couched can differ considerably across places and times (both historical and developmental). Intellectualists in developmental psychology (e.g., Gopnik and Meltzoff, 1997) maintain that young children's conceptual structures, like those of scientists, are theories and that (...) their conceptual development--like the development of science--is a process of theory formation and change. They speculate that our explanatory preoccupations result, at least in part, from a natural drive to develop theories. Intellectualists in the anthropology of religion (e.g., Horton, 1970 and 1993) hold that, although it may do many other things as well, religion is primarily concerned with providing explanatory theories. They maintain that religion and science have the same explanatory goals; only the idioms of their explanations differ. The connections between the concern for explanation, the pursuit of science, the persistence of religion, and the cognitive processes underlying each clearly merit further examination. By considering both their cultural manifestations and their cognitive foundations, I hope to clarify not only how science and religion are related but some of the ways their explanatory projects differ. I shall argue that, despite their centuries' old antagonisms, no development in science will ever seriously threaten the persistence of religion or the forms of explanation religion employs or the emergence of new religions. (I strongly suspect that science will never seriously threaten the persistence of particular religions either, but I only aim to defend the weaker, collective claim here.) In this paper's fourth section I shall show that religion and its characteristic forms of explanation 1 are a natural outgrowth of the character and content of human association and cognition.. (shrink)

Originally published in 1967. An introduction to the literature of nonstandard logic, in particular to those nonstandard logics known as many-valued logics. Part I expounds and discusses implicational calculi, modal logics and many-valued logics and their associated calculi. Part II considers the detailed development of various many-valued calculi, and some of the important metathereoms which have been proved for them. Applications of the calculi to problems in the philosophy are also surveyed. This work combines criticism with exposition to form a (...) comprehensive but concise survey of the field. (shrink)

Originally published in 1967. An introduction to the literature of nonstandard logic, in particular to those nonstandard logics known as many-valued logics. Part I expounds and discusses implicational calculi, modal logics and many-valued logics and their associated calculi. Part II considers the detailed development of various many-valued calculi, and some of the important metathereoms which have been proved for them. Applications of the calculi to problems in the philosophy are also surveyed. This work combines criticism with exposition to form a (...) comprehensive but concise survey of the field. (shrink)

There is a certain view abroad in the land concerning the philosophical problems raised by Tarskian semantics. This view has it that a Tarskian theory of truth in a language accomplishes nothing of interest beyond the definition of truth in terms of satisfaction, and, further, that what is missing — the only thing that would yield a solution to the philosophical problem of truth when added to Tarskian semantics — is a reduction of satisfaction to a non-semantic relation. It seems (...) to me that this view either misidentifies the philosophical problem altogether, or encourages a seriously misleading picture of the nature of the problem.The view I have in mind is nowhere more persuasively at work than in a recent paper by Hartry Field.1 In this paper Field argues that a Tarskian theory of truth for a natural language is impossible if we insist on Tarski's case-by-case elimination of ‘satisfies'. More fundamentally, however, he argues that a Tarskian theory could provide nothing of philosophical interest beyond the admittedly interesting reduction of truth to satisfaction, and his ground for this claim is, roughly, that a Tarskian theory does not reduce its primitive semantic relation — satisfaction — to a non-semantic relation. (shrink)

Can purely predictive models be useful in investigating causal systems? I argue ‘yes’. Moreover, in many cases not only are they useful, they are essential. The alternative is to stick to models or mechanisms drawn from well-understood theory. But a necessary condition for explanation is empirical success, and in many cases in social and field sciences such success can only be achieved by purely predictive models, not by ones drawn from theory. Alas, the attempt to use theory to achieve (...) explanation or insight without empirical success therefore fails, leaving us with the worst of both worlds – neither prediction nor explanation. Best go with empirical success by any means necessary. I support these methodological claims via case studies of two impressive feats of predictive modelling: opinion polling of political elections, and weather forecasting. (shrink)

One of the most exciting aspects of this journal, of which I am proud to be an executive editor, is that it has become a venue in which so many distinct fields can interact on a single question, that of consciousness. I know of no other question, or journal, which has brought together so many voices, from so many fields, to swirl around a single topic. It is exciting both to provide a forum and to be a part of this (...) debate. In this article I would like to bring the findings of my somewhat unusual but increasingly accepted field -- mysticism-- to the discussion, for I think they may offer some helpful insights about consciousness. Why? When a biologist seeks to understand a complex phenomenon, one key strategy is to look to at it in its simplest form. Probably the most famous is the humble bacterium E. coli. Its simple gene structure has allowed us to understand much of the gene functioning of complex species. Similarly many biologists have turned to the `memory' of the simple sea slug to understand our own more kaleidoscopic memory. Freud and Durkheim both used totemism, which they construed as the simplest form of religion, to understand the complexities of religious life. The methodological principle is: to understand something complex turn to its simple forms. (shrink)

What general conclusions can be drawn about the reception of zymase, its relation to the larger shift from a protoplasm to an enzyme theory of life, and its status as a social phenomenon?The most striking and to me unexpected pattern is the close correlation between attitude toward zymase and professional background. The disbelief of the fermentation technologists, Will, Delbrück, Wehmer, and even Stavenhagen, was as sharp and unanimous as the enthusiasm of the immunologists and enzymologists, Duclaux, Roux, Fernback, and Bertrand, (...) and of Pfeffer, the experimental plant physiologist. Other skeptics—Voit, Kupffer, and Fischer—were conservatives in traditional fields. In all these cases it seems clear that professional commitments and outlook profoundly influenced the reception of zymase.In some cases there is a correlation with a specific earlier statement favoring the protoplasm theory or predicting a fermentation enzyme. Reynolds Green is a striking case of both. In 1893 he stated his belief that life processes in higher plants and fungi were identical, both being mediated by protoplasm.109 Thus he claimed that digestion was not carried out by enzymes, as in higher animals, but by the whole protoplasm, and so too fermentation in yeast: “All the metabolic processes must be carried out in the unicellular organism in the same mass of protoplasm.”110 But Green also insisted that there was no essential difference between “organized” and “unorganized ferments”; enzymes were simply more highly differentiated and specialized forms of primitive protoplasm. He spoke of “the alcoholic ferment” (that is, enzyme), and of intracellular enzymes—very advanced beliefs for 1893. Thus it is understandable why Green saw no reason to doubt his first negative results with yeast juice, and rushed into print. But it is also understandable that he persisted and soon became an outspoken advocate of Buchner's view; like Wroblewski and Pfeffer, he had already accepted the idea of an intracellular fermentation enzyme.The physiological chemists also fit the pattern in a special way. Physiological chemistry is generally regarded as the source of biochemistry; indeed, many early biochemists were trained in physiological chemistry, and imbibed there a progressive interest in enzymes and metabolism. It is not surprising, therefore, that on the whole Neumeister, Madfadyen, Wroblewski, and Loew accepted cell-free fermentation. But what is surprising, and significant, is the diversity of opinion in this group, from Abeles' living protoplasm to Wroblewski's organized array of active proteins. The feelings of the physiological chemists were mixed, and there was enough of the old protoplasm view in Macfadyen's and even Wroblewski's views to allow Buchner to see them as attacks on zymase. The ideas of physiological chemistry were also changing; the idea of protoplasm was already adjusting to the new interest in enzymes in the early 1890's. But in contrast to immunochemistry, the change in physiological chemistry was gradual, uneven, undramatic, and relatively invisible. For the new biochemistry, the tradition of physiological chemistry was the source of traditional conservatism as well as of new ideas of enzymes.In general, then, I claim that it was not experimental facts that determined attitudes toward zymase so much as previous commitments, experience, and expectations. Initially, at least, zymase was less a determinant of opinion than a touchstone of pre-existing opinion. Like a prism, it revealed the spectrum of existing attitudes toward vital phenomena.Also relevant here is the fact that the experimental evidence was entirely ambiguous; the interpretation of Buchner's experiments with antiseptics or dried yeast depended entirely on how far one was willing to stretch the scope of the terms “protoplasm” and “enzyme”. Likewise, how important one judged the instability of zymase to be, or the low level of in vitro activity, depended largely on one's point of view. There was no crucial experiment, no certain proof. Logically zymase could be regarded as protoplasm. A. Fischer did so in 1900;111 Macfadyen was still wavering in 1907;112 and Beijerinck was holding out as late as 1916.113 There were undoubtedly others. Besides the special case of Reynolds Green and the technologists, there are no recorded cases of conversion.But if there was no evidence to convert a dedicated protoplasmist, there was plenty to encourage a dedicated belief in the enzyme theory, and that, I believe, is precisely what happened. The arguments of Buchner et al in support of zymase had the greatest effect not on the protoplasmists but on those who were already predisposed toward the biochemical view. The zymase debate enabled the emerging group of biochemists to recognizethemselves as a group with a community of out-look and objectives; it brought the issue of protoplasm vs. enzyme into the open and gave it a specific and concrete issue on which to turn. The debate sharpened the biochemists' awareness that their point of view was becoming the new mainstream of biochemical thought.All this of course had an important secondary effect on those who opposed the new view, or who were not immediately concerned with it. After the zymase debate, it would have been almost impossible to ignore the new ideas; the dramatic and wide publicity the debate enjoyed would have made it difficult not to take sides. Buchner's successful defense of zymase itself became an important influence on opinion; the new movement had to be looked at with respect. But the primary effect of the debate, I assert, was on those who were already inclined to the new view. The outcome was not a mass conversion of individuals, nor the ejection of one idea by another. The sides probably did not change much; the real change was in the way each side regarded itself and its place in history. The zymase debate may perhaps best be regarded as a process of selection. Buchner's party became aware of itself as the new progressive point of view, while those holding the traditional view could no longer expound it publicly without appearing obstinate or old-fashioned. Thus the way was clear for the gradually wider establishment of the new ideas, especially among the new generation of biochemists. In this specific sense, the acceptance of zymase was a social phenomenon.This way of looking at the zymase debate also illuminates its coincidence with the emergence of biochemistry as a profession. The new professional trappings and organizations were the social manifestation of the new self-awareness gained from the zymase controversy. One of the most important effects on those disposed toward the new view was the awareness of an intellectual community and of the need to give that community social forms. The almost mythical importance of Buchner's “victory” over the old protoplasm theory that later became current is readily understandable. It was a useful ideology for a group anxious to assert the novelty of their approach, a novelty which they in fact felt quite keenly.But if the primary effect of the zymase controversy was on those predisposed to accept zymase, then obviously the success of zymase depended on the fact that change had already begun to occur. Indeed, one of the most striking, and again unexpected, results of this study is the extent to which the importance of enzymes was already recognized in the early 1890's. The new immunology clearly pointed the way. Macfadyen and Hans Buchner were looking for active proteins inside the cell in 1893. Reynolds Green, Wroblewski, and Pfeffer had all anticipated the discovery of a fermentation enzyme. Other discoveries in enzymology in the 1890's pointed the same way.114 Moreover, it is clear from this study that the old protoplams theory was adapting to the new discoveries concerning the importance of enzymes. The sidechains of the old protoplasm molecule were simply reinterpreted as enzymes, as in Wroblewski's theory, for example, or in Paul Ehrlich's extremely influential “sidechain theory” of antibody formation (1897). Despite the later views of Hopkins et al., the old protoplasm and the new enzyme theories were not irreconcilable; a continuity of development had already begun when zymase came so dramatically on the scene. Buchner himself observed that the difference between the two views had become largely verbal; in retrospect we might say, not verbal, but social and historical. The gap between the continuous change in ideas and the contemporary feeling of sharply discontnuous change is a measure of the elusive but real social and historical implications of the zymase debate, of the demise of an old establishment, and the emergence of a new.In retrospect, then, it is clear that a trend was already under way in various quarters when zymase appeared. But it was still a collection of isolated and dispersed events. The zymase controversy made the trend visible and gave it a dramatic unity. The debate influenced those who had already begun to change. It was so effective because things had begun to change and because it coincided with the direction of that trend. (shrink)

I show how mathematical platonism combined with belief in the God of classical theism can respond to Field's epistemological objection. I defend an account of divine mathematical knowledge by showing that it falls out of an independently motivated general account of divine knowledge. I use this to explain the accuracy of God's mathematical beliefs, which in turn explains the accuracy of our own. My arguments provide good news for theistic platonists, while also shedding new light on Field's influential (...) objection. (shrink)

In the first systems of deontic logic obligatoriness, prohibitiveness and permissibility were features of actions. It was a very natural choice, corresponding to the way in which these concepts were used not only in natural language but also in Law and Ethics. It's well known that contemporary systems of deontic logics do not deal with actions any more. They are simply deontic logics of propositions providing for deontic qualification of states of affairs. Such an approach, although might be useful for (...) instance in Computer Science (especially in security applications, where there is a need of expressing that a certain state of machine is, say, permitted and the other is forbidden), is inadequate for modeling norms of Law and Ethics (and possibly norms of many other fields). In this paper the Simple Theory of Norms and Actions (in short: Setna) is proposed. It is inspired by the first deontic logics, i.e. it's deontic operators take names of actions as their arguments. Additionally this theory has as its part a theory of actions which has not been taken into account in deontic logic until now. Enriching deontic theory with a theory of action gives an account for expressing dependencies which hold between the deontic properties and some other properties of actions. For instance Setna states that two actions that cannot be carried out simultaneously in the same situation should not be both regulated as obligatory-an agent would not be able to follow such a law. (shrink)

In the article some philosophical issues regarding the emergence of the modern cosmology are discussed. The mathematical field equations enabled for the first time in the history to set a cosmological problem as a physical one. The “power” of mathematics was not easy to be read by the pioneers of cosmology. Also the philosophical perspective on the Universe changed in front of this “power” expressed by Einstein and de Sitter in their models. In the paper we propose also some (...) new ideas related to the mathematics of cosmology as a physical science. (shrink)

There is much discussion in the media and some of the scientific literature of how many of the conclusions from scientific research should be doubted. These critiques often focus on studies – typically in non‐experimental spheres of biomedical and social sciences – that search large datasets for novel correlations, with a risk that inappropriate statistical evaluations might yield dubious conclusions. By contrast, results from experimental biological research can often be interpreted largely without statistical analysis. Typically: novel observation(s) are reported, and (...) an explanatory hypothesis is offered; multiple labs undertake experiments to test the hypothesis; interpretation of the results may refute the hypothesis, support it or provoke its modification; the test/revise sequence is reiterated many times; and the field moves forward. I illustrate this experimental/non‐experimental dichotomy by examining the contrasting recent histories of: (a) our remarkable and growing understanding of how several inositol‐containing phospholipids contribute to the lives of eukaryote cells; and (b) the difficulty of achieving any agreed mechanistic understanding of why consuming dietary supplements of inositol is clinically beneficial in some metabolic diseases. (shrink)

Cognitive approaches to religious phenomena have attracted considerable interdisciplinary attention since their emergence a couple of decades ago. Proponents offer explanatory accounts of the content and transmission of religious thought and behavior in terms of underlying cognition. A central claim is that the cross‐cultural recurrence and historical persistence of religion is attributable to the cognitive naturalness of religious ideas, i.e., attributable to the readiness, the ease, and the speed with which human minds acquire and process popular religious representations. In this (...) article, we primarily provide an introductory summary of foundational questions, assumptions, and hypotheses in this field, including some discussion of features distinguishing cognitive science approaches to religion from established psychological approaches. Relevant ethnographic and experimental evidence illustrate and substantiate core claims. Finally, we briefly consider the broader implications of these cognitive approaches for the appropriateness of ‘religion’ as an explanatorily useful category in the social sciences. (shrink)

In this paper I first describe some simple, but interesting string theory. Then I discuss string field theory and suggest that even though we do not have a complete mathematical formulation, we can get an idea of some of its ontological implications. Next, the significance of supersymmetry and superspace in string theory is briefly considered. Lastly, I consider the question of whether there is, in fact, (good) reason to think string theory may (or will) emerge to replace quantum (...) class='Hi'>field theory. (shrink)

Toward a Genealogy of 'Deontology' ROBERT B. LOUDEN [A]ny choice of a conceptual scheme presupposes values. Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth, and History tN Va'HICS AS ELS~.WHEI~, the basic categories used by writers to mark the conceptual terrain of their field profoundly affect readers' understanding of what is important within the field. And in ethics , most writers who habitually employ the currently accepted categories of their discipline have no knowledge of the particular history of these categories -- (...) of who first coined them, of the purposes for which they were originally intended, of how their meanings have shifted over the years, of how ascending categories have displaced descending ones, of who is primarily responsible for their current meanings, etc. As an illustration of this claim, I propose to examine the history of'deontology' in ethics, with an aim to making the recent topographical shifts within the field less "unknown to ourselves. ''~ Who was the first author to employ "the general, ugly, and familiar head- 1Cf. Nietzsche's opening remark in The Genealogy of Morals: "We are unknown to ourselves, we seekers after knowledge [w/r Erkennendon]" . It is perhaps worth noting at the outset that the following exercise in moral genealogy is not terribly Nietzschean -- I myself accept very little of the specifics of his attack on morality. However, I do concur with Nietzsche's general conviction that moral philosophers.. (shrink)

This essay attends to the specificity of indigenous peoples’ political critique of state power and territorialized sovereignty in the North American context as an indispensible resource for realizing the decolonizing potential latent within the field of critical prison studies. I argue that although the incarceration of indigenous peoples is closely related to the experience of other racialized populations with regard to its causes, it is importantly distinct with respect to the normative foundation of its critique. Indigenous sovereignty calls forth (...) an alternative normativity that challenges the very existence of the carceral system, let alone its racialized organization and operation. (shrink)

This monograph is designed to provide an introduction to the principal areas of tense logic. Many of the developments in this ever-growing field have been intentionally excluded to fulfill this aim. Length also dictated a choice between the alternative notations of A. N. Prior and Nicholas Rescher - two pioneers of the subject. I choose Prior's because of the syntactical parallels with the language it symbolizes and its close ties with other branches of logi cal theory, especially modal logic. (...) The first chapter presents a wider view of the material than later chapters. Several lines of development are consequently not followed through the remainder of the book, most notably metric systems. Although it is import ant to recognize that the unadorned Prior-symbolism can be enriched in vari ous ways it is an advanced subject as to how to actually carry off these enrichments. Readers desiring more information are referred to the appropri ate literature. Specialists will notice that only the first of several quantifi cational versions of tense logic is proven complete in the final chapter. Again constraints of space are partly to blame. The proof for the 'star' systems is wildly complex and at the time of this writing is not yet ready for publi cation. (shrink)

This paper presents a critical survey of the use and interpretation of the work of Michel Foucault in the field of postcolonial studies. The paper uses debates about Foucault’s legacy and his contributions (or lack thereof) to postcolonialism as a means of parsing out the main lines of contestation within the field—that is, as a means of tracing the contours of the space of questioning or field of problematization, in part to foreground what has been at stake (...) and, more to the point, what has not been at stake. Part I provides a general survey of what “Postcolonial Studies” is: what its major questions and debates have been. Part II examines the ways in which Foucault has been taken up, interpreted and used within the field, and Part III comments on what aspects of Foucault’s work have not been taken up, suggesting that this is most revealing about the state of postcolonial studies today. (shrink)

This essay has three interrelated goals: first, to sketch the basic contours of Georg Helm's energetic theory; second, to describe his attempt in his Grundzüge der mathematischen Chemie. Energetik der chemischen Erscheinungen (1894) to apply that theory to the (then) burgeoning new field of physical chemistry. This is of some interest historically, since Helm's work is the most sophisticated attempt to develop the whole of physical chemistry mathematically from an energetic point of view. Nevertheless, it is seriously flawed technically. (...) Moreover, that development is inconsistent with Helm's considered way of thinking about energy and energetic change. So a third goal of the essay is to explain his mature conception of the goal of energetics. I begin with a brief introduction to Helm and energetics, and end with some general conclusions about the success of Helm's mathematische Chemie. (shrink)

A potential explanation of a fact is a hypothesis such that, if it were true, it would explain the fact in question. Let’s suppose that we become aware of a fact and some potential explanations thereof. Let’s also suppose that we would like to believe the truth. Given this aim, we can ask two questions. First, is it likely that one of these hypotheses is true? Second, given an affirmative answer to the first question, which one is it likely to (...) be? Inference to the best explanation (IBE) offers answers to both questions. To the first, it says ‘Yes’—assuming that at least one of the hypotheses would, if true, provide a satisfactory explanation of the fact under consideration. To the second, it says that the hypothesis most likely to be true is the one that scores best on the explanatory virtues: conservatism, modesty, simplicity, generality, and predictive power. Many philosophers have argued against IBE’s answer to the first question. I am interested in an objection to its answer to the second. Many philosophers seem to think that it is unsustainable: they seem to think that even if we assume that one of the competing hypotheses is true, we should not think that IBE will help us to identify it. Or, more carefully, if these philosophers are doing what they appear to be doing—namely, offering critiques of IBE that don’t depend on assumptions about the field of competing hypotheses—then their claim is that IBE will not help us to identify the truth. I believe that this is mistaken: the argument for believing it assumes a model of IBE that we have no reason to accept. (shrink)

In the field of machine consciousness, it has been argued that in order to build human-like conscious machines, we must first have a computational model of qualia. To this end, some have proposed a framework that supports qualia in machines by implementing a model with three computational areas (i.e., the subconceptual, conceptual, and linguistic areas). These abstract mechanisms purportedly enable the assessment of artificial qualia. However, several critics of the machine consciousness project dispute this possibility. For instance, Searle, in (...) his Chinese room objection, argues that however sophisticated a computational system is, it can never exhibit intentionality; thus, would also fail to exhibit consciousness or any of its varieties. This paper argues that the proposed architecture mentioned above answers the problem posed by Searle, at least in part. Specifically, it argues that we could reformulate Searle’s worries in the Chinese room in terms of the three-stage artificial qualia model. And by doing so, we could see that the person doing all the translations in the room could realize the three areas in the proposed framework. Consequently, this demonstrates the actualization of self-consciousness in machines. (shrink)

I consider the direct product algebra formed from two isomorphic Clifford algebras. More specifically, for an element x in each of the two component algebras I consider elements in the direct product space with the form x ⊗ x. I show how this construction can be used to model the algebraic structure of particular vector spaces with metric, to describe the relationship between wavefunction and observable in examples from quantum mechanics, and to express the relationship between the electromagnetic field (...) tensor and the stress-energy tensor in electromagnetism. To enable this analysis I introduce a particular decomposition of the direct product algebra. (shrink)

I hope to show that mental disorders are not analogous to physiological diseases. I hope to show that a mental disorder like bipolar disorder cannot be located in the brain in the way a physiological disease like cirrhosis can be located in the liver. Mental disorders, unlike physiological diseases, lack a locatable corporeal basis to serve as a visible fulcrum on which to be based. However, I hope to also demonstrate that it is a mistake to infer the inexistence of (...) disorders from such an absence of a locatable corporeal basis. There are countless phenomena including the force fields pointed out by physics that lack such a basis but whose reality isn’t doubted; by the fact of such absence alone, we have no reason to doubt the existence of mental disorders, nor, for that matter, the existence of the minds thatexperience them. (shrink)

Anthropology was a new field of study when Kant first began lecturing on it in 1772, and Kant himself was the first academic to teach regular courses in this area. As is well known, his own approach to anthropology is self-described as ‘pragmatic’, and Kant’s pragmatic anthropology differs markedly from the anthropologies that other early contributors to the new discipline were advocating. In this essay I focus on a fundamental feature of Kant’s anthropology that has been under-appreciated in previous (...) discussions; namely, the particular conception of human nature that he believes anthropology, when pursued properly, leads to. I call this conception a cosmopolitan conception of human nature. In addition to establishing the central importance of this idea for Kant’s project in anthropology, I also try in this essay to unravel some of its ambiguities and tensions as well as to highlight its underlying moral motives. The cosmopolitan conception of human nature that is central to Kant’s anthropology is a further indication of the significance of his anthropology for ethics.Keywords: Immanuel; Kant; Anthropology; Pragmatic; Cosmopolitan; Human nature. (shrink)

Medical history has so far paid hardly any attention to the longue durée, a history in which, according to Braudel, 'all change is slow'. It is therefore one of the challenges of the emerging field of the social history of medicine to work audaciously across time as well as across space. An interesting subject, for example, is the history of contraception. Throughout history, there has been almost nothing people have worried about more than having sex without fear of consequence. (...) At first sight, the story of contraception seems to be one of progress, from the Ancient Egyptian crocodile-dung pessary to the modern-day condom and contraceptive pill. A closer look, however, shows a pattern of remarkable continuities in the reproductive behaviour of men and women over the last two thousand years. In this paper, I shall attempt to show why traditional male-dominated contraceptive methods still linger on despite the sexual revolution brought about by the invention of the 'pill' in the late 1950s. (shrink)

From Einstein’s quest for a unified field theory to Stephen Hawking’s belief that we “would know the mind of God” through such a theory, contemporary science—and physics in particular—has claimed that it alone possesses absolute knowledge of the universe. In a sweeping work of philosophical inquiry, originally published in French in seven volumes, Isabelle Stengers builds on her previous intellectual accomplishments to explore the role and authority of science in modern societies and to challenge its pretensions to objectivity, rationality, (...) and truth. For Stengers, science is a constructive enterprise, a diverse, interdependent, and highly contingent system that does not simply discover preexisting truths but, through specific practices and processes, helps shape them. She addresses conceptual themes crucial for modern science, such as the formation of physical-mathematical intelligibility, from Galilean mechanics and the origin of dynamics to quantum theory, the question of biological reductionism, and the power relations at work in the social and behavioral sciences. Focusing on the polemical and creative aspects of such themes, she argues for an ecology of practices that takes into account how scientific knowledge evolves, the constraints and obligations such practices impose, and the impact they have on the sciences and beyond. This perspective, which demands that competing practices and interests be taken seriously rather than merely tolerated, poses a profound political and ethical challenge. In place of both absolutism and tolerance, she proposes a cosmopolitics—modeled on the ideal scientific method that considers all assumptions and facts as being open to question—that reintegrates the natural and the social, the modern and the archaic, the scientific and the irrational. _Cosmopolitics I_ includes the first three volumes of the original work. _Cosmopolitics II_ will be published by the University of Minnesota Press in Spring 2011. (shrink)

The gist of Edward Said’s attack on Israel is that Zionism is racism. The very appearance of his essay in a special issue devoted to racism is an interesting fact in itself. But the fact that the editors up until now received no responses to Said carries special significance. It signals, or can be read as signaling, that the literary-critical establishment has reached a consensus and that liberal supporters of Israel in our discipline have retreated from the field.I may (...) be wrong about this, of course, for other explanations are possible, but Houston A. Baker, Jr.’s observations a year later on that special issue would seem to reinforce my view. Baker describes Said’s method as aiming “to prove that ‘A’ is as good as ‘B’ and to induce shame in defenders of ‘B’ who have made other axiological choices.” Baker protests against this method, however, since it gives too much play to “B,” so that “it is difficult to hear a Palestinian voice separate from the world of Jewish discourse.” Then he adds in parentheses: “”2 In Baker’s language, only Jews are likely to disagree, and these “Jews,” conceived as a unitary group, are a client state and are compared by means of allusion to the corrupt, libidinous king who executed the true prophet , the herald of Jesus. These comments are remarkable in any context, but especially so in a forum on racism. Robert J. Griffin is a lecturer in English at Tel Aviv University. He is currently working on two books, one on Samuel Johnson and one on literary historiography. (shrink)

Colin Allen prescribes cognitive modeling as “the right kind of theory” to use in comparative animal cognition and predicts that unless researchers shift from using conceptual framework hypotheses (“the wrong kind of theory”) to cognitive models, the field will fail to be sustained or develop further. I argue, on the contrary, that the robust development of the field over the past 35 years actually belies Allen's dire prediction. What is more, there is reason to be concerned that if (...) Allen's prescription were wholeheartedly adopted by researchers, it would undermine one of the principal aims of the field: the discovery of the reasons for which animals act. Although cognitive modeling may be a useful tool to use to verify predictions made by conceptual framework hypotheses, I see no reason to think that comparative animal cognition would be, or needs to be, saved by researchers coming to taking cognitive modeling as the right kind of theory to use in the field. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Zen and the Art of Postmodern Philosophy: Two Paths of Liberation from the Representational Mode of ThinkingRobert MagliolaZen and the Art of Postmodern Philosophy: Two Paths of Liberation from the Representational Mode of Thinking. By Carl Olson. New York: State University of New York Press, 2000. 309 pp.Carl Olson's Zen and the Art of Postmodern Philosophy compares two paths of liberation from the representational mode of thinking, namely, (...) Zen Buddhism and postmodern philosophy. Olson is to be commended for encouraging this dialogue, especially since professors of religious studies usually marginalize Gallic postmodern thought. He is also to be appreciated for the enormous effort that must have been required to describe so much material. Olson treats Bataille, Baudrillard, Deleuze, Derrida, Guattari, Foucault, Kristeva, Lacan, Levinas, and Lyotard on the postmodern side; and Dogen, Hakuin, Nishitani, many Chinese Ch'anists, and some Indian Buddhists on the Buddhist side. His method is to arrange the chapters according to topoi such as "Language, Disruption, and Play," "Ways of Thinking," "The Body," and so on, and to treat the pertaining ideas of the individual Buddhist and postmodern authors insofar as applicable.Because Olson's book assembles between two covers the names, selected works, and—at least in a general sense—the "key" ideas of the postmodern movement and their grosso modo similarities/dissimilarities via-à-vis Zen Buddhism, I think it serves an undergraduate readership well enough. The problem is that the book too often performs like a crib sheet in the CliffsNotes manner, reducing so-called "key" ideas to misleading clichés. The book is at its best when it gives an author some length of attention, as it does with Dogen. Rather than reduce my review to a series of sound bites (print bites?) corresponding to Olson's, I shall resort to what hermeneuts call an Auerbachian decoupage, that is, a close analysis of several passages that can be taken as indicative of an author's mode in general. I'll address three interpretations from Olson's book, one of Derrida, one of a Chinese kung-an (koan), and one of Lacan.Within his comparison of Derrida/language/Buddhism, Olson cites (p. 46) a sentence from Derrida's Writing and Difference: "Speech is stolen: since it is stolen [End Page 295] from language it is, thus, stolen from itself, that is, from the thief who has always already lost speech as property and initiative." Olson glosses as follows: "Derrida claims that a speaking subject, representing an irreducible secondary status, is no longer the person who speaks because his/her origin is elusive in an already established field of speech." Because of glosses like this, Derrida is all too often subjected to the ridicule of nonspecialists, who exclaim, "Derrida denies that a person can use speech instrumentally? Aren't his lectures the instruments of his own ideas?" Actually in the section Olson quotes, Derrida is appropriating Lacanian thought and mutating it for Derridean purposes. For Derrida, all life is stretched out in time and diced-out in space in such a way that phenomenological self-identity is an illusion. Physical writing is the best metaphor for this, in that written words (even Chinese ideograms) cannot, in the scientific sense, be perceived in one absolute moment: it "takes time" and it "takes space" to recognize a word, that is, "build" a word-meaning. Derrida calls life a "text" or "writing" because life is like writing: life on the phenomenological level appears holistic (much as a word-meaning appears self-identical, i.e., arising all at once), but life is actually a time/space "drift."1In the sentence Olson quotes, what Derrida means has the following gist: Speech (spoken words) is stolen from language in that it belongs to language as writing and is really writing; and insofar as it is really writing, it is stolen from itself; speech has "always already" been lost to language in that the instrumentality of speech is always undercut by language's nature as writing. Speech is always undercut by an inevitable drift that subverts intentionality and foils our attempts to make speech our absolute "property." This does not mean most of the intention... (shrink)

In this essay I propose to facilitate a dialogue between the thoughts of conceptual artist and philosopher, Daya Krishna, and the work of literary artist, Vikas Swarup. The central concept that will be “interrogated” in this dialogue is that of knowledge. I will apply my understanding of Daya Krishna’s conceptualization of the knowledge enterprise on to Vikas Swarup’s attitude toward knowledge as embodied in his 2005 novel, Q & A. This exercise serves to create a context in which conceptions of (...) knowledge from diverse fields (hardcore philosophy and popular culture) can be in dialogue with one another, and thereby enhance meaning. Daya Krishna observes that the loss of certainty and proof in our postmodern age erodes the concept of knowledge. He alternately suggests new indicators with which to define knowledge, indicators which factor in chance and probability, and take into account inherent moral qualities of knowledge. I argue that this alternative model of knowledge finds an expression in Swarup’s novel. (shrink)

Modernity has imposed on many of us, and perhaps especially on academics, a habit of silence with regard to what John Rawls called deeply held ‘comprehensive’ moral beliefs. According to Rawls and his many disciples, the survival of liberalism depends upon the bracketing of comprehensive beliefs whenever we step into the public sphere. And in the field of higher education, that would have to include the classroom, the lab, the library carrel, the hotel conference suites where we confer and (...) exchange ideas, as well as the vast academic publishing apparatus. I would like to call attention to the way that the supposed requirement of the Rawlsian silence is being challenged, not just by conservative critics but even by such a staunch defender of conventional liberalism as Jürgen Habermas. Second, if Habermas and the other critics are right, then a fortiori, the public university—perhaps the most representative and exemplary of all the institutions of civil society—ought to welcome the infusion of relevant but closely held beliefs, including religious ones, in carrying out its research and teaching responsibilities. (shrink)

If pragmatism, hitherto, has been content with elaborating theories of meaning and of truth, but has neglected epistemology, there are good reasons for that neglect. For one thing, much of the accepted vocabulary of epistemological discussion begs the questions under discussion. Again, much epistemology is simply an oblique metaphysics, and not an empirical investigation of knowledge, and hence throws no light on knowing as we practice it. But another reason for this neglect lies in the very simplicity of an experimental (...) theory of knowing. Its charms are not enhanced by undulating draperies of dialectic,' nor warded by the numerological incantations of a symbolic logic, nor made elusive by recondite reference to relativity physics. Nevertheless, it is to the exposition of this elementary doctrine that I mean now to proceed. And I shall do so simply, and with seeming dogmatism, by taking the categories of field, focus, and perspective, and working them for all they are worth in an experimental epistemology... (shrink)

Most recent writing linking science and literature has concerned itself with challenges to the epistemological status of scientific knowledge in an attempt to demonstrate its contingency, arguing in the more radical efforts that the structures of science are no more than useful fictions. This essay also includes an epistemological comparison between science and literature, but instead of making grand or meta–statements about the nature of knowing generally in the two fields, mine is a much narrower aim. My exploration entails two (...) tasks. First, I provide a close–up look at a particular type of experiment, called the delayed–choice experiment, which clearly reveals the strangeness of the quantum world. In connection with this experiment, I discuss wave functions—mathematical expressions used by physicists to describe quantum behavior and predict the outcome of experiments involving quanta. Second, I look at Walt Whitman's “Song of Myself” focusing on the meaning of the “self” in the poem. My aim is to treat the object of study in each field as a “text” and to assert and demonstrate a parallel in the strategies of thought and response between physicists (“readers”) pondering the meaning and status of a wave function and poem readers pondering the meaning and status of the poem's self. In Whitman's “Song” we find an attempt to understand complex aspects of human experience that are said to transcend ordinary reality, an effort for which I believe there are parallels in the attempts of modern physicists to understand complex, nonintuitive aspects of the subatomic world. While not making the kind of broad claims eschewed above, I do suggest that this focused study has interesting implications since both the wave function and the poem's self force their respective sets of “readers” to confront questions of ultimacy—to consider, that is, epistemological and ontological issues of more than passing interest to students of science as well as those of metaphysics and theology. (shrink)

There are explicit claims to Darwinian thinking in numerous fields of study. A common temptation associated with this method across disciplines is to call some attributes “natural” and others “cultural” in origin. But this distinction can be dangerous—particularly when applied to ethics. When employing the Darwinian method, ideas should be evaluated in the same way whether the characteristics are described as natural or as cultural. We should ascertain the moral usefulness of a trait irrespective of its genetic basis or lack (...) thereof. The nature/culture distinction is irrelevant to ethics. If Darwinian thinking connotes or implies an important difference, it is a dangerous idea to moral theory. I don’t believe the method denotes such a distinction, and in fact helps ethicists ask and answer many interesting questions that would not have arisen without it. But great care should be taken. (shrink)

There are explicit claims to Darwinian thinking in numerous fields of study. A common temptation associated with this method across disciplines is to call some attributes “natural” and others “cultural” in origin. But this distinction can be dangerous—particularly when applied to ethics. When employing the Darwinian method, ideas should be evaluated in the same way whether the characteristics are described as natural or as cultural. We should ascertain the moral usefulness of a trait irrespective of its genetic basis or lack (...) thereof. The nature/culture distinction is irrelevant to ethics. If Darwinian thinking connotes or implies an important difference, it is a dangerous idea to moral theory. I don’t believe the method denotes such a distinction, and in fact helps ethicists ask and answer many interesting questions that would not have arisen without it. But great care should be taken. (shrink)