We give a review of some works where it is shown that certain quantum-like features are exhibited by classical systems. Two kinds of problems are considered. The first one concerns the specific heat of crystals (the so called Fermi–Pasta–Ulam problem), where a glassy behavior is observed, and the energy distribution is found to be of Planck-like type. The second kind of problems concerns the self-interaction of a charged particle with the electromagnetic field, where an analog of the tunnel effect is (...) proven to exist, and moreover some nonlocal effects are exhibited, leading to a natural hidden variable theory which violates Bell's inequalities. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. The value of species; 3. The conservation biology dilemma; 4. Assisted colonization; 5. Shifting goals and changing strategies; 6. The (in)significance of species boundaries; 7. Homo sapiens in particular; 8. Artifactual species; 9. Conclusion.

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.

Little is known about the consequences of moral distress. The purpose of this study was to identify clinical situations that caused nurses to experience moral distress, to understand the consequences of those situations, and to determine whether nurses would change their practice based on their experiences. The investigation used a descriptive approach. Open-ended surveys were distributed to a convenience sample of 204 critical care nurses employed at a university medical center. The analysis of participants’ responses used an inductive approach and (...) a thematic analysis. Each line of the data was reviewed and coded, and the codes were collapsed into themes. Methodological rigor was established. Forty-nine nurses responded to the survey. The majority of nurses had experienced moral distress, and the majority of situations that caused nurses to experience moral distress were related to end of life. The nurses described negative consequences for themselves, patients, and families. (shrink)

Concerns about the risks of unmitigated greenhouse gas emissions are growing. At the same time, confidence that international policy agreements will succeed in considerably lowering anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is declining. Perhaps as a result, various geoengineering solutions are gaining attention and credibility as a way to manage climate change. Serious consideration is currently being given to proposals to cool the planet through solar-radiation management. Here we analyze how the unique and nontrivial risks of geoengineering strategies pose fundamental questions at (...) the interface between science and ethics. To illustrate the importance of integrated ethical and scientific analysis, we define key open questions and outline a coupled scientific-ethical research agenda to analyze solar-radiation management geoengineering proposals. We identify nine key fields of coupled research including whether solar-radiation management can be tested, how quickly learning could occur, normative decisions embedded in how different climate trajectories are valued, and justice issues regarding distribution of the harms and benefits of geoengineering. To ensure that ethical analyses are coupled with scientific analyses of this form of geoengineering, we advocate that funding agencies recognize the essential nature of this coupled research by establishing an Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications program for solar-radiation management. (shrink)

Bayesian probability has recently been proposed as a normative theory of argumentation. In this article, we provide a Bayesian formalisation of the ad Hitlerum argument, as a special case of the ad hominem argument. Across three experiments, we demonstrate that people's evaluation of the argument is sensitive to probabilistic factors deemed relevant on a Bayesian formalisation. Moreover, we provide the first parameter-free quantitative evidence in favour of the Bayesian approach to argumentation. Quantitative Bayesian prescriptions were derived from participants' stated subjective (...) probabilities (Experiments 1 and 2), as well as from frequency information explicitly provided in the experiment (Experiment 3). Participants' stated evaluations of the convincingness of the argument were well matched to these prescriptions. (shrink)

Inhibition, an executive function, is critical for achieving goals that require suppressing unwanted behaviours, thoughts, or distractions. One hypothesis of the emotion and goal compatibility theory is that emotions of sadness and fear enhance inhibitory control. Across Experiments 1–4, we tested this hypothesis by inducing a happy, sad, fearful, and neutral emotional state prior to completing an inhibition task that indexed a specific facet of inhibition (oculomotor, resisting interference, behavioural, and cognitive). In Experiment 4, we included an anger induction to (...) examine whether valence or motivational-orientation best-predicted performance. We found support that fear and sadness enhanced inhibition except when inhibition required resisting interference. We argue that sadness and fear enhance inhibitory control aiding the detection and analysis of problems (i.e. sadness) or threats (i.e. fear) within one’s environment. In sum, this work highlights the importance of identifying how negative emotions can be beneficial for and interact with specific executive functions influencing down-stream processing including attention, cognition, and memory. (shrink)

We explore the developmental paradox of false belief understanding. This paradox follows from the claim that young infants already have an understanding of false belief, despite the fact that they consistently fail the elicited-response false belief task. First, we argue that recent proposals to solve this paradox are unsatisfactory because they (i) try to give a full explanation of false belief understanding in terms of a single system, (ii) fail to provide psychological concepts that are sufficiently fine-grained to capture the (...) cognitive requirements for the various manifestations of false belief understanding, and (iii) ignore questions about system interaction. Second, we present a dual-system solution to the developmental paradox of false belief understanding that combines a layered model of perspective taking with an inhibition-selection-representation mechanism that operates on different levels. We discuss recent experimental findings that shed light on the interaction between these two systems, and suggest a number of directions for future research. (shrink)

This book publishes, for the first time in decades, and in many cases, for the first time in a readily accessible edition, English language philosophical literature written in India during the period of British rule.

In 1952, two well-known characters called ‘A’ and ‘B’ met for the first time to argue about the Identity of Indiscernibles (Black, 1952). A argued that the principle is true, and B that it is false. By all accounts A took a bit of a beating and came out worst-off. Forty-three years later John O’Leary-Hawthorne offered a response on behalf of A that looked as if it would work so long as A was willing to accept the universal-bundle theory of (...) substance (Hawthorne, 1995). In 1997, A and B met again (Zimmerman, 1997). A took Hawthorne’s advice and revealed himself as a universal-bundle theorist. But B was well-prepared, and once more A took a beating. Since then Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (2004) has put the boot in, offering further criticism of A’s position. In recent years A has been rather quiet, leaving B to reign as the undisputed champion. However, it turns out that A is down, but not out. And now it’s time for A’s revenge. (shrink)

In Miletus, about 550 B.C., together with our world-picture cosmology was born. This book tells the story. In Part One the reader is introduced in the archaic world-picture of a flat earth with the cupola of the celestial vault onto which the celestial bodies are attached. One of the subjects treated in that context is the riddle of the tilted celestial axis. This part also contains an extensive chapter on archaic astronomical instruments. Part Two shows how Anaximander (610-547 B.C.) blew (...) up this archaic world-picture and replaced it by a new one that is essentially still ours. He taught that the celestial bodies orbit at different distances and that the earth floats unsupported in space. This makes him the founding father of cosmology. Part Three discusses topics that completed the new picture described by Anaximander. Special attention is paid to the confrontation between Anaxagoras and Aristotle on the question whether the earth is flat or spherical, and on the battle between Aristotle and Heraclides Ponticus on the question whether the universe is finite or infinite. (shrink)

Health, Disease, and Illness brings together a sterling list of classic and contemporary thinkers to examine the history, state, and future of ever-changing "concepts" in medicine.

The status of population genetics has become hotly debated among biologists and philosophers of biology. Many seem to view population genetics as relatively unchanged since the Modern Synthesis and have argued that subjects such as development were left out of the Synthesis. Some have called for an extended evolutionary synthesis or for recognizing the insignificance of population genetics. Yet others such as Michael Lynch have defended population genetics, declaring "nothing in evolution makes sense except in the light of population genetics" (...) (a twist on Dobzhansky's famous slogan that "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution"). Missing from this discussion is the use of population genetics to shed light on ecology and vice versa, beginning in the 1940s and continuing until the present day. I highlight some of that history through an overview of traditions such as ecological genetics and population biology, followed by a slightly more in-depth look at a contemporary study of the endangered California Tiger Salamander. I argue that population genetics is a powerful and useful tool that continues to be used and modified, even if it isn't required for all evolutionary explanations or doesn't incorporate all the causal factors of evolution. (shrink)

In the 1960s, without realizing it, AI researchers were hard at work finding the features, rules, and representations needed for turning rationalist philosophy into a research program, and by so doing AI researchers condemned their enterprise to failure. About the same time, a logician, Yehoshua Bar-Hillel, pointed out that AI optimism was based on what he called the “first step fallacy”. First step thinking has the idea of a successful last step built in. Limited early success, however, is not a (...) valid basis for predicting the ultimate success of one’s project. Climbing a hill should not give one any assurance that if he keeps going he will reach the sky. Perhaps one may have overlooked some serious problem lying ahead. There is, in fact, no reason to think that we are making progress towards AI or, indeed, that AI is even possible, in which case claiming incremental progress towards it would make no sense. In current excited waiting for the singularity, religion and technology converge. Hard headed materialists desperately yearn for a world where our bodies no longer have to grow old and die. They will be transformed into information, like Google digitizes old books, and we will achieve the promise of eternal life. As an existential philosopher, however, I suggest that we may have to overcome the desperate desire to digitalize our bodies so as to achieve immortality, and, instead, face up to and maybe even enjoy our embodied finitude. (Paper from PT-AI 2011 conference. Volume ed. Vincent C. Müller). (shrink)

A popular defense of physicalist theories of consciousness against anti-physicalist arguments invokes the existence of ‘phenomenal concepts’. These are concepts that designate conscious experiences from a first person perspective, and hence differ from physicalistic concepts; but not in a way that precludes co-referentiality with them. On one version of this strategy phenomenal concepts are seen as (1) type demonstratives that have (2) no mode of presentation. However, 2 is possible without 1-call this the ‘bare recognitional concept’ view-and I will argue (...) that this avoids certain recent criticisms while retaining the virtue of finessing the ‘mode of presentation’ problem for phenomenal concepts. But construing phenomenal concepts this way seems to not do justice to the phenomenology of conscious experience. In this paper I examine whether or not this impression can be borne out by a good argument. As it turns out, it is harder to do so than one might think. It can be done, but it involves somewhat more convoluted reasoning than one might have supposed necessary. Having shown that, I will end with a few brief remarks on what my argument means for attempts to preserve a physicalist account of consciousness. (shrink)

This book reclaims Hegel's notion of the "end of art"-or, more precisely, of "art's past character"-not just as a piece of the history of philosophy but as a living critical and interpretive methodology. It addresses the presence of the past character of art both in Hegel and contemporary philosophy and aesthetics. The book's innovative contribution lies in unifying the Hegelian thesis with discussions of contemporary art and philosophy. The author not only offers a Hegelian exegesis but applies the idea of (...) the past character of art to themes that are both related to Hegel's philosophy, such as the French Revolution and the modern state, Kantian aesthetics, and religion and the sacred space disclosed for art, and going beyond Hegel, such as Celan's poetry, Gramsci's criticism of Croce, human rights, and even the grunge rock band Pearl Jam. Conversely, such non-Hegelian explorations will help enlighten what may look like a specific thread of Hegel's aesthetics, but can be used to shed light on some core motives of his philosophy. The author's interpretation of art's past character reclaims the full value, attractiveness, and philosophical soundness of Hegel's thesis, while rejecting its interpretation in terms of a complete dissolution of the aesthetic element into the philosophical one. Hegel and the Present of Art's Past Character will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working on Hegel, philosophy of art and aesthetics, history of philosophy, political philosophy, and art theory. (shrink)

O livro almeja ser representativo nos principais debates contemporâneos, oferecendo uma visão panorâmica sobre o campo na atualidade e permitindo-se aprofundar em algumas discussões selecionadas.O ambiente não pode ser reduzido ao “meio ambiente”, à natureza não humana. Ele não é meramente algo que “nos envolve”, um envoltório: o ambiente somos também nós, seres humanos, histórica e culturalmente situados. Quanto aos territórios, eles se estabelecem em íntima conexão com os ambientes em suas dimensões paisagística e material, quer sejam os processos geoecológicos, (...) quer sejam as formas e as dinâmicas socialmente produzidas. Analisar os territórios significa examinar como, a cada momento, os ambientes, seus recursos e significados são disputados e viram objeto de conflitos.O público-alvo principal são os estudantes dos últimos anos da graduação, além daqueles em nível de pós-graduação, de todas as áreas que lidam com problemas e conflitos ambientais. Afora os pesquisadores iniciantes e os jovens universitários em geral, porém, podemos presumir que profissionais experientes também poderão tirar proveito do material de diversos capítulos. É razoável, por fim, nutrir a expectativa de que muito do que este livro contém possa (retro)alimentar o ativismo ambiental crítico e a prática de combater as iniquidades e as distorções que se acumulam em nossas sociedades, principalmente as muitas situações de flagrante injustiça ambiental. (shrink)

As genetic testing for the presence of potentially health-affecting mutations becomes available for more genetic conditions, many people will soon be faced with the decision of whether or not to have a genetic test. Making an informed decision requires an understanding and evaluation of the arguments for and against having the test. As a case in point, this paper considers argumentation involving the decision of whether to have a BRCA gene test, one of the first commercially available genetic tests. First, (...) argumentation in a five-page patient brochure from a for-profit company that provides BRCA gene testing, is analyzed. Next, for comparison, argumentation on BRCA testing in materials for healthcare consumers written by a not-for-profit health plan and a government organization, is analyzed. In view of the challenges identified by considering these examples, this article discusses how argumentation-oriented computer systems may be able to help the healthcare consumer to make informed decisions about genetic testing. (shrink)

Berkeley's main aim in his well-known early works was to identify and refute "the grounds of Scepticism, Atheism, and irreligion." This appears to place Berkeley within a well-established tradition of religious critics of Locke's epistemology, including, most famously, Stillingfleet. I argue that these appearances are deceiving. Berkeley is, in fact, in important respects an opponent of this tradition. According to Berkeley, Locke's earlier critics, including Stillingfleet, had misidentified the grounds of irreligion in Locke's philosophy while all the while endorsing the (...) true grounds of irreligion themselves. Locke's epistemology is innocent; matter and abstraction are to blame. (shrink)

Most discussion of Sellars’ deployment of the distinct images of “man-in-the-world” in "Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man" focus entirely on the manifest and the scientific images. But the original image is important as well. In this essay I explore the importance of the original image to the Sellarsian project of naturalizing epistemology, connecting Sellars’ insights regarding this image to recent work in cognitive development.

We report the results of two studies that evaluated the perceptions of supervisor and top leader ethics. In our first study, we re-analyzed data from Pelletier and Bligh (J Bus Ethics 67:359–374, 2006) and found that the Perceptions of Ethical Leadership Scale from that study could be used to differentiate perceptions of supervisor and top leader ethics. In a second study with a different sample, we examined the relationships between (1) individual employees’ perceptions of top managers’ and immediate supervisors’ ethical (...) tendencies, and (2) organizational climate, confidence in top leadership direction, commitment, and citizenship behavior. Results indicated that employee perceptions of top managers’ and supervisors’ ethics were significantly related to climate, top leadership direction, organizational commitment and the OCB dimension, civic virtue. (shrink)

The aim of the study was to determine the acceptance and perception of Nigerian patients to medical photography. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed among Nigerian patients attending oral and maxillofacial surgery and plastic surgery clinics of 3 tertiary health institutions. Information requested included patients' opinion about consent process, capturing equipment, distribution and accessibility of medical photographs. The use of non-identifiable medical photographs was more acceptable than identifiable to respondents for all purposes (P = 0.003). Most respondents were favourably disposed to (...) photographs being taken for inclusion in the case note, but opposed to identifiable photographs being used for other purposes most especially in medical websites and medical journals. Female respondents preferred non-identifiable medical photographs to identifiable ones (P = 0.001). Most respondents (78%) indicated that their consent be sought for each of the outline needs for medical photography. Half of the respondents indicated that identifiable photographs may have a negative effect on their persons; and the most commonly mentioned effects were social stigmatization, bad publicity and emotional/psychological effects. Most of the respondents preferred the use of hospital-owned camera to personal camera/personal camera-phone for their medical photographs. Most respondents (67.8%) indicated that they would like to be informed about the use of their photographs on every occasion, and 74% indicated that they would like to be informed of the specific journal in which their medical photographs are to be published. In conclusion, non-identifiable rather than identifiable medical photography is acceptable to most patients in the studied Nigerian environment. The use of personal camera/personal camera-phone should be discouraged as its acceptance by respondents is very low. Judicious use of medical photography is therefore advocated to avoid breach of principle of privacy and confidentiality in medical practice. (shrink)

We formulate a sort of "generic" cosmological argument, i.e., a cosmological argument that shares premises (e.g., "contingent, concretely existing entities have a cause") with numerous versions of the argument. We then defend each of the premises by offering pragmatic arguments for them. We show that an endorsement of each premise will lead to an increase in expected utility; so in the absence of strong evidence that the premises are false, it is rational to endorse them. Therefore, it is rational to (...) endorse the cosmological argument, and so rational to endorse theism. We then consider possible objections. (shrink)

Driven by recent accreditation mandates, a changing legal environment, and multiple high-visibility corporate ethics scandals, many business schools are responding to the growing movement within higher education to integrate ethics into the curricula. The literature suggests that the amount of attention given to ethics varies widely among institutions, and has not been coherently developed. Moreover, institutions have struggled to tie related projects and instruction to the overall concept of assurance of student learning. The purpose of this paper is to provide (...) a framework for institutions interested in creating an interdisciplinary business ethics program that combines critical success factors, assurance of student learning and continuous quality improvement. Using a nationally recognized business school’s ethics program, we provide an example of how our model can be applied at other institutions based on their own unique vision, mission and goals. (shrink)

Mary Gentile’s Giving Voice to Values presents an approach to ethics training based on the idea that most people would like to provide input in times of ethical conflict using their own values. She maintains that people recognize the lapses in organizational ethical judgment and behavior, but they do not have the courage to step up and voice their values to prevent the misconduct. Gentile has developed a successful initiative and following based on encouraging students and employees to learn how (...) to engage in communication or action to express their values within an organization’s formal and informal value system. The purpose of this analysis is to examine the Giving Voice to Values approach to empowering the individual to take action to deal with lapses in organizational ethics. We examine the role of Giving Voice to Values in business ethics education, considerations for implementing GVV, and recommendations for business educators and corporate ethics officers. We conclude that while GVV is an effective tool, it is not a comprehensive or holistic approach to ethics education and organizational ethics programs. (shrink)

Design arguments make a case for the existence of God based on examples of apparent design or purposiveness in the natural world. Current versions of the argument proceed, not in terms of analogies between the universe and human artifacts, but as inductive arguments to the best explanation of the data. Theism is offered as the simplest hypothesis that can explain facts such as the mathematical elegance and intelligibility of the laws of the nature. The design argument has recently received new (...) life from discoveries regarding the fine-tuning required for any universe capable of sustaining life. (shrink)

The familiar Cartesian sceptical arguments all involve an explanation of our experiences. An account of the persuasive power of the sceptical arguments should explain why this is so. This supports a diagnosis of the error in Cartesian sceptical arguments according to which they mislead us into regarding our perceptual beliefs as if they were justified as inferences to the best explanation. I argue that they have instead a perceptual justification that does not involve inference to the best explanation and that (...) should not be put in doubt by the sceptical hypotheses. (shrink)

In the attempt of defending an interpretation of David Hume's moral and political philosophy connected to classical utilitarianism, intervenes in a key way the so called problem of the " Sensitive Knave " raised by this author at the end of his more utilitarian work, the Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. According to the classic interpretation of this fragment, the utilitarian rationality in politics would clash with morality turning useless the latter. Therefore, in the political area the defense of (...) a moral utilitarianism would be an auto contradictory task. In order to show that, first, Hume does not say anything similar to this and second, that even indicates the way of overcoming this apparent contradiction between morality and rationality, we analyze briefly the arguments from which there comes basically this "anti-utilitarian" standard interpretation, and we defend an interpretation of the humean discussion on the problem of the supposed conflict between morality and rationality, or of rational incentives for immoral behavior, which allows to explain better Hume's position on this problem. Finally, we propose an instance of overcoming the contradiction morality/ rationality by a rule adjusted utilitarianism centered on the idea of the "progressive development of artificial institutions of reinforcement of morality", that Hume himself would suggest in other places in which he approaches the topic of the apparent contradiction between "morality" and "knavery". We propose also possible lines of future development of this idea, between them its use to clarify the relation of David Hume's thought with certain forms of contemporary liberalism. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 7, Page 21-23, July 2012.