Lars Lih has contributed to our knowledge of Russian Social Democracy lately. However, serious methodological flaws bedevil this advance in knowledge. Lih’s overall approach displays a very static understanding of political ideas in relation to political movements. In the first section, ‘Lenin, the St Petersburg Bolshevik Leadership, and the 1905 Soviet’, I challenge Lih’s position that Lenin never changed his mind about bringing socialist consciousness into the working class ‘from without’. In the second section, ‘Lenin, “Old Bolshevism” and Permanent Revolution: (...) The Soviets in 1917’, I challenge Lih’s revisionist view that Old Bolshevism’s pre-1917 goal of ‘democratic revolution to the end’ drove Lenin’s partisans to make a working-class, socialist revolution in 1917. On this singular account, Lenin’s April Theses, which called for the overthrow of the Provisional Government and the transfer of all power to the soviets, was merely a further expression of Old Bolshevik politics, not a break with it, as has almost universally been held. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Spring Fishing Song, Prehistoric Paros JOHN ERIC HAMEL Come, tuna, iridescent whorl, Spin color through our rain-locked sea. Come, scatter winter’s smoke and spitting hail, The brazier’s headache, days of coiling clay, The endless shuttle. Let the restless needle be. Come, return the sea to life. The days of winter card our limbs to rope. Restore the muscle with your flesh, unfurl The cold’s crushing boredom into (...) the sun. We’ve burnished long enough our winter soul. The heat begins to double back. The stars That mark the Oar re-stroke at last the salt. All turns. By island and straight you loop and belt, In time with star and turning tide. Shake sail, Bring oar and rope. The barley weaves new fleece. Come, bless our boats, wake us from the hours Of dropping lines over bleached gunnel, The nights of damp and cold breathing sea. Raw mackerel for days to eat, until A line is bumped like a lover’s finger touch, And fins cut water fast as breakers flash. The circled sea within our fleet erupts With flailing fins as sharp as swords. We gaff the bleeding gills into our boats. arion 28.3 winter 2021 44 spring fishing song, prehistoric paros Come, strong fish with gemstone scale, Blow on the coals of our blood, renew our strength. The deep obsidian light of winter clouds Begins to pour molten copper thick as oil All down the sea. We’re born for sails and shrouds, We’re born in waters of a mother’s wave, And return our marble souls into the grave. 2017... (shrink)

An outline of the material covered in courses on Formal and Informal Logic. The outline includes chapters on mathematical approaches to logic as well as on fallacies, deduction and induction, probability, and other major topics. Logic is traditionally taught by means of problem solving exercises, so the subject is well suited to a Schaum's Outline approach.

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted immense work on the investigation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Rapid, accurate, and consistent interpretation of generated data is thereby of fundamental concern. Ontologies––structured, controlled, vocabularies––are designed to support consistency of interpretation, and thereby to prevent the development of data silos. This paper describes how ontologies are serving this purpose in the COVID-19 research domain, by following principles of the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontology (OBO) Foundry and by reusing existing ontologies such as the Infectious Disease Ontology (...) (IDO) Core, which provides terminological content common to investigations of all infectious diseases. We report here on the development of an IDO extension, the Virus Infectious Disease Ontology (VIDO), a reference ontology covering viral infectious diseases. We motivate term and definition choices, showcase reuse of terms from existing OBO ontologies, illustrate how ontological decisions were motivated by relevant life science research, and connect VIDO to the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO). We next use terms from these ontologies to annotate selections from life science research on SARS-CoV-2, highlighting how ontologies employing a common upper-level vocabulary may be seamlessly interwoven. Finally, we outline future work, including bacteria and fungus infectious disease reference ontologies currently under development, then cite uses of VIDO and CIDO in host-pathogen data analytics, electronic health record annotation, and ontology conflict-resolution projects. (shrink)

Standard microbial evolutionary ontology is organized according to a nested hierarchy of entities at various levels of biological organization. It typically detects and defines these entities in relation to the most stable aspects of evolutionary processes, by identifying lineages evolving by a process of vertical inheritance from an ancestral entity. However, recent advances in microbiology indicate that such an ontology has important limitations. The various dynamics detected within microbiological systems reveal that a focus on the most stable entities (or features (...) of entities) over time inevitably underestimates the extent and nature of microbial diversity. These dynamics are not the outcome of the process of vertical descent alone. Other processes, often involving causal interactions between entities from distinct levels of biological organisation, or operating at different time scales, are responsible not only for the destabilisation of pre-existing entities, but also for the emergence and stabilisation of novel entities in the microbial world. In this article we consider microbial entities as more or less stabilised functional wholes, and sketch a network-based ontology that can represent a diverse set of processes including, for example, as well as phylogenetic relations, interactions that stabilise or destabilise the interacting entities, spatial relations, ecological connections, and genetic exchanges. We use this pluralistic framework for evaluating (i) the existing ontological assumptions in evolution (e.g. whether currently recognized entities are adequate for understanding the causes of change and stabilisation in the microbial world), and (ii) for identifying hidden ontological kinds, essentially invisible from within a more limited perspective. We propose to recognize additional classes of entities that provide new insights into the structure of the microbial world, namely “processually equivalent” entities, “processually versatile” entities, and “stabilized” entities. (shrink)

This paper analyses the activities of five organizations shaping the debate over the global governance of genome editing in order to assess current approaches to public engagement (PE). We compare the recommendations of each group with its own practices. All recommend broad engagement with the general public, but their practices vary from expert-driven models dominated by scientists, experts, and civil society groups to citizen deliberation-driven models that feature bidirectional consultation with local citizens, as well as hybrid models that combine elements (...) of both approaches. Only one group practices PE that seeks community perspectives to advance equity. In most cases, PE does little more than record already well-known views held by the most vocal groups, and thus is unlikely to produce more just or equitable processes or policy outcomes. Our exploration of the strengths, weaknesses, and possibilities of current forms of PE suggests a need to rethink both “public” and “engagement.”. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 10, October 2020, Page 77-79.

Written in debate format, this book covers developing fields such as social cognition, as well as classic areas such as memory, learning, perception and categorization. The links between emotion and memory, learning, perception, categorization, social judgements, and behavior are addressed.

The debate about the relative epistemic weights carried in favour of a theory by predictions of new phenomena as opposed to accommodations of already known phenomena has a long history. We readdress the issue through a detailed re-examination of a particular historical case that has often been discussed in connection with it—that of Mendeleev and the prediction by his periodic law of the three ‘new’ elements, gallium, scandium and germanium. We find little support for the standard story that these predictive (...) successes were outstandingly important in the success of Mendeleev's scheme. Accommodations played an equal role—notably that of argon, the first of the ‘noble gases’ to be discovered; and the methodological situation in this chemical example turns out to be in interesting ways different from that in other cases—invariably from physics—that have been discussed in this connection. The historical episode when accurately analysed provides support for a different account of the relative weight of prediction and accommodation—one that is further articulated here. (shrink)

COVID-19 often manifests with different outcomes in different patients, highlighting the complexity of the host-pathogen interactions involved in manifestations of the disease at the molecular and cellular levels. In this paper, we propose a set of postulates and a framework for systematically understanding complex molecular host-pathogen interaction networks. Specifically, we first propose four host-pathogen interaction (HPI) postulates as the basis for understanding molecular and cellular host-pathogen interactions and their relations to disease outcomes. These four postulates cover the evolutionary dispositions involved (...) in HPIs, the dynamic nature of HPI outcomes, roles that HPI components may occupy leading to such outcomes, and HPI checkpoints that are critical for specific disease outcomes. Based on these postulates, an HPI Postulate and Ontology (HPIPO) framework is proposed to apply interoperable ontologies to systematically model and represent various granular details and knowledge within the scope of the HPI postulates, in a way that will support AI-ready data standardization, sharing, integration, and analysis. As a demonstration, the HPI postulates and the HPIPO framework were applied to study COVID-19 with the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO), leading to a novel approach to rational design of drug/vaccine cocktails aimed at interrupting processes occurring at critical host-coronavirus interaction checkpoints. Furthermore, the host-coronavirus protein-protein interactions (PPIs) relevant to COVID-19 were predicted and evaluated based on prior knowledge of curated PPIs and domain-domain interactions, and how such studies can be further explored with the HPI postulates and the HPIPO framework is discussed. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted immense work on the investigation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Ontologies – structured, controlled, vocabularies – are designed to support consistency of interpretation, and thereby to prevent the development of data silos. This paper describes how ontologies are serving this purpose in the virus research domain, following the principles of the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontology (OBO) Foundry and drawing on the resources of the Infectious Disease Ontology (IDO) Core. We report the development of the Virus Infectious (...) Disease Ontology (VIDO), a reference ontology extending IDO Core covering viral infectious diseases. We examine newly minted terms, showcase ontology term reuse, and illustrate the use of VIDO by annotating selections from recent life science research on SAR-CoV-2, in the interest of supporting machine learning projects. (shrink)

We argue that honesty in assertion requires non-empirical knowledge that what one asserts is what one believes. Our argument proceeds from the thought that to assert honestly, one must follow and not merely conform to the norm ‘Assert that p only if you believe that p’. Furthermore, careful consideration of cases shows that the sort of doxastic self-knowledge required for following this norm cannot be acquired on the basis of observation, inference, or any other form of detection of one’s own (...) doxastic states. It is, as we put it, transparent rather than empirical self-knowledge. (shrink)

Western philosophy’s relationship with prisons stretches from Plato’s own incarceration to the modern era of mass incarceration. Philosophy Imprisoned: The Love of Wisdom in the Age of Mass Incarceration draws together a broad range of philosophical thinkers, from both inside and outside prison walls, in the United States and beyond, who draw on a variety of critical perspectives (including phenomenology, deconstruction, and feminist theory) and historical and contemporary figures in philosophy (including Kant, Hegel, Foucault, and Angela Davis) to think about (...) prisons in this new historical era. All of these contributors have experiences within prison walls: some are or have been incarcerated, some have taught or are teaching in prisons, and all have been students of both philosophy and the carceral system. The powerful testimonials and theoretical arguments are appropriate reading not only for philosophers and prison theorists generally, but also for prison reformers and abolitionists. (shrink)

In this article, we discuss the ethical dimensions for the prescribing behaviours of opioids for a chronic pain patient, a scenario commonly witnessed by many physicians. The opioid epidemic in the USA and Canada is well known, existing since the late 1990s, and individuals are suffering and dying as a result of the easy availability of prescription opioids. More recently, this problem has been seen outside of North America affecting individuals at similar rates in Australia and Europe. We argue that (...) physicians are also confronted with an ethical crisis where a capitalist-consumerist society is contributing to this opioid crisis in which societal, legal and business interests push physicians to overprescribe opioids. Individual physicians often find themselves unequipped and unsupported in attempts to curb the prescribing of opioid medications and balance competing goals of alleviating pain against the judicious use of pain medications. Physicians, individually and as a community, must reclaim the ethical mantle of our profession, through a more nuanced understanding of autonomy and beneficence. Furthermore, physicians and the medical community at large have a fiduciary duty to patients and society to play a more active role in curbing the widespread distribution of opioids in our communities. (shrink)

In “Spandrels,” Gould and Lewontin criticized what they took to be an all-too-common conviction, namely, that adaptation to current environments determines organic form. They stressed instead the importance of history. In this paper, we elaborate upon their concerns by appealing to other writings in which those issues are treated in greater detail. Gould and Lewontin’s combined emphasis on history was three-fold. First, evolution by natural selection does not start from scratch, but always refashions preexisting forms. Second, preexisting forms are refashioned (...) by the selection of whatever mutational variations happen to arise: the historical order of mutations needs to be taken into account. Third, the order of environments and selection pressures also needs to be taken into account. (shrink)

This chapter presents a series of experiments that elicit causal judgments using statements that do not include the verb "to cause". In particular, our interest is in exploring the extent to which previously observed effects of normative considerations on agreement with what we call "cause"-statements, i.e. those of the form "X caused ..." extend as well to those of the form "X V-ed Y", where V is a lexical causative. Our principal finding is that in many cases the effects do (...) not extend in this way, and moreover that the cases where we do find the same pattern are those where the causal verb used has a negative valence of its own. We draw two main conclusions from this finding. First, it reveals how the almost exclusive focus on "cause"-statements in the experimental study of causal judgment has led to findings that are unrepresentative of the full range of ordinary causal thinking, and provides a proof of concept as to how this thinking can be studied in its full variety. Second, the results of our experiments provide significant indirect support for the contention that the effect of moral considerations on agreement with "cause"-statements reflect the fact that these statements are most often used to assign responsibility for an event, and not just to describe the causal structure of what happened. It is not causal judgments in general that result from a process in which normative considerations play a role, but perhaps only those judgments that express a determination of moral responsibility. (shrink)

For most of the history of prejudice research, negativity has been treated as its emotional and cognitive signature, a conception that continues to dominate work on the topic. By this definition, prejudice occurs when we dislike or derogate members of other groups. Recent research, however, has highlighted the need for a more nuanced and “inclusive” (Eagly 2004) perspective on the role of intergroup emotions and beliefs in sustaining discrimination. On the one hand, several independent lines of research have shown that (...) unequal intergroup relations are often marked by attitudinal complexity, with positive responses such as affection and admiration mingling with negative responses such as contempt and resentment. Simple antipathy is the exception rather than the rule. On the other hand, there is mounting evidence that nurturing bonds of affection between the advantaged and the disadvantaged sometimes entrenches rather than disrupts wider patterns of discrimination. Notably, prejudice reduction interventions may have ironic effects on the political attitudes of the historically disadvantaged, decreasing their perceptions of injustice and willingness to engage in collective action to transform social inequalities.These developments raise a number of important questions. Has the time come to challenge the assumption that negative evaluations are inevitably the cognitive and affective hallmarks of discrimination? Is the orthodox concept of prejudice in danger of side-tracking, if not obstructing, progress towards social justice in a fuller sense? What are the prospects for reconciling a prejudice reduction model of change, designed to get people to like one another more, with a collective action model of change, designed to ignite struggles to achieve intergroup equality? (shrink)

The Beauty That Saves, a collection of essays by many of the most prominent American and European scholars on Weil, begins with a foreword by well-known writer ...

Background: Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), a complex diagnosis that includes a wide range of neurodevelopmental disabilities, results from exposure to alcohol in the womb. FASD remains poorly understood by Canadians, which could contribute to reported stigma faced by both people with FASD and women who drink alcohol while pregnant. Methods: To better understand how information about FASD is presented in the public sphere, we conducted content analysis of 286 articles from ten major English-language Canadian newspapers (2002-2015). We used inductive (...) coding to derive a coding guide from the data, and then iteratively applied identified codes back onto the sample, checking inter-coder reliability. Results: We identified six major themes related to clinical and scientific media content: 1) prevalence of FASD and of women’s alcohol consumption; 2) research related to FASD; 3) diagnosis of FASD; 4) treatment of FASD and maternal substance abuse; 5) primary disabilities associated with FASD; and 6) effects of alcohol exposure during pregnancy. Discussion: Across these six themes, we discuss three instances of ethically consequential exaggeration and misrepresentation: 1) exaggeration about FASD rates in Indigenous communities; 2) contradiction between articles about the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure; and 3) scientifically accurate information that neglects the social context of alcohol use and abuse by women. Respectively, these representations could lead to harmful stereotyped beliefs about Indigenous peoples, might generate confusion about healthy choices during pregnancy, and may unhelpfully inflame debates about sensitive issues surrounding women’s choices. (shrink)

In “Generalizing Generalizability in Information Systems Research,” Lee and Baskerville try to clarify generalization and classify it into four types. Unfortunately, their account is problematic. We propose repairs. Central among these is our balance-of-evidence argument that we should adopt the view that Hume’s problem of induction has a solution, even if we do not know what it is. We build upon this by proposing an alternative classification of induction. There are five types of generalization: theoretical, within-population, cross-population, contextual, and temporal, (...) with theoretical generalization being across the empirical and theoretical levels and the rest within the empirical level. Our classification also includes two kinds of inductive reasoning that do not belong to the domain of generalization. We then discuss the implications of our classification for information systems research. (shrink)

During the campaign of may 1940 and the following month, King Leopold III had as principal political counsellor Henri De Man. He played a primordial role during that period, which was rich with extremely important events for the future of Belgium, such as the surrender of the army and the problem of the King reassuming or not his constitutionalprerogative during the occupation. The former socialist minister did not accidentally hold the situation of confident of the King. Indeed, both men became (...) friends before the war.They shared similar conceptions about interior and foreign policyproblems.In fact, Leopold III supported De Man in his attempt, during the winter 1938-1939, to convoke a peace conference. On the other end early 1939 they both expressed rather similar conceptions on the functioning of the Belgian institutions and especially on the lack of authority of the executive power. The projects of manifestoes by De Man concerning the political future of Belgium were grounded on a reinforcement of the executive power. So the manifesto of june 1940, a consequence of De Man's contacts with the King, reveals the role which the King should or could have assumed if Hitler had permitted it. (shrink)

Concerns about the possibility of a sharp rise in the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease in Western nations have led to both the significant deployment of resources and the development of national research and healthcare plans. Although often focused on treatment, substantial efforts have also been dedicated toward preventing or delaying AD onset. As a result, recent technological and biomedical advances have greatly improved the understanding of AD pathophysiology. While some new tests can assess only risk ), some tests for certain (...) biomarkers (e.g., amyloid beta accumulation in the brain detected via positron... (shrink)

This book surveys and examines the most famous philosophical arguments against building a machine with human-level intelligence. From claims and counter-claims about the ability to implement consciousness, rationality, and meaning, to arguments about cognitive architecture, the book presents a vivid history of the clash between the philosophy and AI. Tellingly, the AI Wars are mostly quiet now. Explaining this crucial fact opens new paths to understanding the current resurgence AI (especially, deep learning AI and robotics), what happens when philosophy meets (...) science, and the role of philosophy in the culture in which it is embedded. -/- Organising the arguments into four core topics - 'Is AI possible', 'Architectures of the Mind', 'Mental Semantics and Mental Symbols' and 'Rationality and Creativity' - this book shows the debate that played out between the philosophers on both sides of the question, and, as well, the debate between philosophers and AI scientists and engineers building AI systems. Up-to-date and forward-looking, the book is packed with fresh insights and supporting material, including: -/- - Accessible introductions to each war, explaining the background behind the main arguments against AI - Each chapter details what happened in the AI wars, the legacy of the attacks, and what new controversies are on the horizon. - Extensive bibliography of key readings. (shrink)

We naturally tend to think of our own opinions as akin to the coins we carry around in our pockets, transferable and yet inalienable. We may share or alter them, yet in form they remain fundamentally our own, sacrosanct as registers of our very sense of self. Hegel was aware of this relationship between opinion and subjectivity, and regarded such a bond as one of the great accomplishments of modernity itself. Yet for Hegel, excessive estimation of inwardness comes at a (...) dangerous price. Truth reducible to subjective and arbitrary will, to caprice and without philosophical reflection, sets, in his view, a corrosive standard for ethics, politics and thinking itself. This essay will excavate from Hegel's corpus the conceptual groundwork for a critical theory of opinion relevant for the twenty-first century. The overall aim is to offer a holistic reading of Hegel's critique of opinion by drawing on both his early and late writings, tracking its appearance as an initial critique of subjectivism but subsequently developed in his political philosophy. We begin with Hegel's polemics during the Jena years and unearth opinion as an index for self-certitude. Second, we proceed to a focused analysis of Elements of the Philosophy of Right, paying particular attention to what Hegel describes as the contradiction of public opinion. Thirdly, Hegel's epistemological critique of opinion will be synthesized with his political critique of public opinion by returning to the category of certainty, not as a certainty found in an individual opinion, but a certainty in one's own subjective standpoint, while employing elements from Adorno's critique of epistemology. We will conclude by examining the contradiction of public opinion specifically in accordance with the historical conditions of civil society and therewith begin to situate the socio-epistemological problem of opinion as historically specific to capitalist society. (shrink)

As the international genomic research community moves from the tool-making efforts of the Human Genome Project into biomedical applications of those tools, new metaphors are being suggested as useful to understanding how our genes work – and for understanding who we are as biological organisms. In this essay we focus on the Human Microbiome Project as one such translational initiative. The HMP is a new ‘metagenomic’ research effort to sequence the genomes of human microbiological flora, in order to pursue the (...) interesting hypothesis that our ‘microbiome’ plays a vital and interactive role with our human genome in normal human physiology. Rather than describing the human genome as the ‘blueprint’ for human nature, the promoters of the HMP stress the ways in which our primate lineage DNA is interdependent with the genomes of our microbiological flora. They argue that the human body should be understood as an ecosystem with multiple ecological niches and habitats in which a variety of cellular species collaborate and compete, and that human beings should be understood as ‘superorganisms’ that incorporate multiple symbiotic cell species into a single individual with very blurry boundaries. These metaphors carry interesting philosophical messages, but their inspiration is not entirely ideological. Instead, part of their cachet within genome science stems from the ways in which they are rooted in genomic research techniques, in what philosophers of science have called a ‘tools-to-theory’ heuristic. Their emergence within genome science illustrates the complexity of conceptual change in translational research, by showing how it reflects both aspirational and methodological influences. (shrink)

As the international genomic research community moves from the tool-making efforts of the Human Genome Project into biomedical applications of those tools, new metaphors are being suggested as useful to understanding how our genes work - and for understanding who we are as biological organisms. In this essay we focus on the Human Microbiome Project as one such translational initiative. The HMP is a new 'metagenomic' research effort to sequence the genomes of human microbiological flora, in order to pursue the (...) interesting hypothesis that our 'microbiome' plays a vital and interactive role with our human genome in normal human physiology. Rather than describing the human genome as the 'blueprint' for human nature, the promoters of the HMP stress the ways in which our primate lineage DNA is interdependent with the genomes of our microbiological flora. They argue that the human body should be understood as an ecosystem with multiple ecological niches and habitats in which a variety of cellular species collaborate and compete, and that human beings should be understood as 'superorganisms' that incorporate multiple symbiotic cell species into a single individual with very blurry boundaries. These metaphors carry interesting philosophical messages, but their inspiration is not entirely ideological. Instead, part of their cachet within genome science stems from the ways in which they are rooted in genomic research techniques, in what philosophers of science have called a 'tools-to-theory' heuristic. Their emergence within genome science illustrates the complexity of conceptual change in translational research, by showing how it reflects both aspirational and methodological influences. (shrink)

Scientific modelling is a value-laden process: the decisions involved can seldom be made using 'scientific' criteria alone, but rather draw on social and ethical values. In this paper, we draw on a body of philosophical literature to analyze a COVID-19 vaccination model, presenting a case study of social and ethical value judgments in health-oriented modelling. This case study urges us to make value judgments in health-oriented models explicit and interpretable by non-experts and to invite public involvement in making them.

Clarke and Beck import certain assumptions about the nature of numbers. Although these are widespread within research on number cognition, they are highly contentious among philosophers of mathematics. In this commentary, we isolate and critically evaluate one core assumption: the identity thesis.

Aims: The Research Diagnostic Criteria for Temporomandi¬bular Disorders (RDC/TMD) Axis I diagnostic algorithms were demonstrated to be reliable but below target sensitivity and specificity. Empirical data supported Axis I algorithm revisions that were valid. Axis II instruments were shown to be both reliable and valid. An international consensus workshop was convened to obtain recommendations and finalization of new Axis I diagnostic algorithms and new Axis II instruments. Methods: A comprehensive search of published TMD diagnostic literature was followed by review and (...) consensus via a formal structured process by a panel of experts for revision of the RDC/TMD. Results: The recommended Diagnostic Criteria for TMD (DC/TMD) Axis I protocol includes both a valid screener for pain diagnoses and valid criteria for the most common pain-related TMDs and for one intra-articular disorder. The Axis II protocol retains selected RDC/TMD screening instruments augmented with new instruments to better assess the interactions between pain and psychosocial functioning. A comprehensive classification system is also presented. Conclusion: The recommended evidence-based DC/TMD protocol is appropriate for use in both the clinical and research settings. Simple Axis I and II screening tests augmented by validated Axis I and Axis II instruments allow for identification of simple to complex TMD patients. (shrink)

Different views of life documented for discussion. For 14-16 year-olds.