Modes-of-being figure centrally in Heidegger's masterwork Being and Time. Testimony to this is Heidegger's characterisation of two of his most celebrated enquiries—the Existential analytic and the Zeug analysis—as investigations into the respective modes-of-being of the entities concerned. Yet despite the importance of this concept, commentators disagree widely about what a mode-of-being is. In this paper, I systematically outline and defend a novel and exegetically grounded interpretation of this concept. Strongly opposed to Kantian readings, such as those advocated by Taylor Carman (...) and Cristina Lafont, I interpret a mode-of-being as a universal that defines a district —that is, a natural class of entities that ought to be conceptualised in a special way. As such, every mode-of-being plays an important metaphysical and epistemic role: serving both to unify a natural class of a high degree of generality and as the interpretandum of an act yielding the basic-concepts pertaining to the entities therein. In explicating and arguing for this interpretation, I attribute a characteristically Aristotelian philosophical position to the early Heidegger, encompassing both metaphysical and epistemological realism and a conceptualist theory of universals. (shrink)

Video games are a $20-billion-a-year industry, but it is still treated as a niche market. The video game corporations hold considerable power over the articles that journalists write. Through in-de...

The eukaryotic cell is partitioned by membranes into spatially and functionally discrete subcellular organelles. In addition, the cytoplasm itself is partitioned into discrete subregions that carry out specific functions. Such compartmentation can be achieved by localizing proteins and RNAs to different subcellular regions. This review will focus on localized RNAs, with a particular emphasis on RNA localization mechanisms and on the possible biological functions of localization of these RNAs. In recent years, an increasing number of localized RNAs have been identified (...) in a variety of cell types among many animal species. Emphasis here will be on localized RNAs in the most intensively studied systems – Drosophila and Xenopus eggs and early embryos. (shrink)

This paper argues that many ethical issues in neuroeducational research cannot be appropriately addressed using the principles and guidance available in one of these areas alone, or by applying these in simple combination. Instead, interdisciplinary and public dialogue will be required to develop appropriate normative principles. In developing this argument, it examines neuroscientific and educational perspectives within three broad categories of ethical issue arising at the interface of cognitive neuroscience and education: issues regarding the carrying out of interdisciplinary research, the (...) scrutiny and communication of findings and concepts, and the application of research and associated issues of policy likely to arise in the future. To help highlight the need for interdisciplinary and public discussion, we also report the opinions of a group of educators (comprising trainee teachers, teachers and head teachers) on the neuroeducational ethics of cognitive enhancing drugs, infant screening, genetic profiling and animal research. (shrink)

‘Treatment’ from which the patient cannot benefit is sometimes administered to a patient so that the comfort of the patient's family or caregivers may be increased. Is this permissible? To answer that question we will explore the interests of the permanently unconscious patient and the potential for such a patient's interests to conflict with those of her family and healthcare providers. We will conclude that in the likely absence of a specific advance directive from the patient providing for such circumstances, (...) treatment for the benefit of the family may be given so long as it is not abusive. However, treatment solely for the comfort of caregivers may not be given without consent of the patient's surrogate decisionmakers. (shrink)

We argue that a turn toward virtue ethics as a way of understanding medical professionalism represents both a valuable corrective and a missed opportunity. We look at three ways in which a closer appeal to virtue ethics could help address current problems or issues in professionalism education—first, balancing professionalism training with demands for professional virtues as a prerequisite; second, preventing demands for the demonstrable achievement of competencies from working against ideal professionalism education as lifelong learning; and third, avoiding temptations to (...) dismiss moral distress as a mere “hidden curriculum” problem. As a further demonstration of how best to approach a lifelong practice of medical virtue, we will examine altruism as a mean between the extremes of self-sacrifice and selfishness. (shrink)

A class of states obtained by extremizing the energy of a system under certain conditions is introduced and their properties are compared with those of the coherent states. Conditions under which these states move without change of shape and follow the classical path are investigated.

William James’s pluralism, when combined with his pragmatism and radical empiricism, is a complete and coherent philosophy of life. James provides an antidote to the excesses of both the extreme realist/objectivist and the extreme constructivist/relativist camps. In this paper, we demonstrate how this is so in a discussion of epistemology and ontology including several extended examples. These examples demonstrate the inescapability of context and background assumptions and the advantages of a pluralist worldview.