Elephants show a rich social organization and display a number of unusual traits. In this paper, we analyse reports collected over a thirty-five year period, describing behaviour that has the potential to reveal signs of empathic understanding. These include coalition formation, the offering of protection and comfort to others, retrieving and 'babysitting' calves, aiding individuals that would otherwise have difficulty in moving, and removing foreign objects attached to others. These records demonstrate that an elephant is capable of diagnosing animacy and (...) goal directedness, and is able to understand the physical competence, emotional state and intentions of others, when they differ from its own. We argue that an empathic understanding of others is the simplest explanation of these abilities, and discuss reasons why elephants appear to show empathy more than other non-primate species. (shrink)

Elephants show a rich social organization and display a number of unusual traits. In this paper, we analyse reports collected over a thirty-five year period, describing behaviour that has the potential to reveal signs of empathic understanding. These include coalition formation, the offering of protection and comfort to others, retrieving and 'babysitting' calves, aiding individuals that would otherwise have difficulty in moving, and removing foreign objects attached to others. These records demonstrate that an elephant is capable of diagnosing animacy and (...) goal directedness, and is able to understand the physical competence, emotional state and intentions of others, when they differ from its own. We argue that an empathic understanding of others is the simplest explanation of these abilities, and discuss reasons why elephants appear to show empathy more than other non-primate species. (shrink)

We study logical systems for reasoning about equations involving recursive definitions. In particular, we are interested in "propositional" fragments of the functional language of recursion FLR [18, 17], i.e., without the value passing or abstraction allowed in FLR. The "pure," propositional fragment FLR$_0$ turns out to coincide with the iteration theories of [1]. Our main focus here concerns the sharp contrast between the simple class of valid identities and the very complex consequence relation over several natural classes of models.

We study logical systems for reasoning about equations involving recursive definitions. In particular, we are interested in "propositional" fragments of the functional language of recursion FLR [18, 17], i.e., without the value passing or abstraction allowed in FLR. The "pure," propositional fragment FLR 0 turns out to coincide with the iteration theories of [1]. Our main focus here concerns the sharp contrast between the simple class of valid identities and the very complex consequence relation over several natural classes of models.

ABSTRACT:This manuscript develops the concept of organizational virtue orientation (OVO) and examines differences between family and non-family firms on the six organizational virtue dimensions of Integrity, Empathy, Warmth, Courage, Conscientiousness, and Zeal. Using content analysis of shareholder letters fromS&P 500companies, our analyses find that there are significant differences between family and non-family firms in their espoused OVO, with family firms generally being higher. Specifically, family firms were significantly higher on the dimensions of Empathy, Warmth, and Zeal, but lower on Courage. (...) Based on these findings we further develop the OVO concept through the discussion of implications and areas for future research. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This manuscript develops the concept of organizational virtue orientation (OVO) and examines differences between family and non-family firms on the six organizational virtue dimensions of Integrity, Empathy, Warmth, Courage, Conscientiousness, and Zeal. Using content analysis of shareholder letters fromS&P 500companies, our analyses find that there are significant differences between family and non-family firms in their espoused OVO, with family firms generally being higher. Specifically, family firms were significantly higher on the dimensions of Empathy, Warmth, and Zeal, but lower on Courage. (...) Based on these findings we further develop the OVO concept through the discussion of implications and areas for future research. (shrink)

L’article porte sur le rapport entre la phronèsis (prudence ou sagesse pratique) et la vertu éthique dans la conception aristotélicienne de l’action et du bonheur. La question principale est la suivante : faut-il penser, selon une conception « humienne », que, chez Aristote, les buts sont fixés par notre désir, tandis que la raison servirait de simple instrument pour déterminer les moyens de les atteindre? La thèse défendue est que la vertu de caractère donne bien le contenu des fins, mais (...) cela ne conduit pas à reléguer la phronèsis au rang de simple instrument. En effet, la phronèsis est l’excellence de la délibération sur les choses en vue d’une fin. Elle nous permet de comprendre ce que signifie avoir une fin. Pour le démontrer, l’auteur examine conjointement le fonctionnement des syllogismes délibératif et démonstratif, qui sont tous deux des arguments explicatifs. Cette comparaison permet à l’auteur d’établir que la vertu éthique donne le « que » (« quoi faire »), alors que la phronèsis permet de comprendre le « pourquoi », c’est-à-dire en vue de quelle fin l’action doit être accomplie. La vertu complète suppose de saisir le « pourquoi » ; c’est pourquoi la phronèsis a une importance éthique et est nécessaire au bonheur. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Notes.

In this paper, we explore Peirce's work for insights into a theory of learning and cognition for education. Our focus for this exploration is Peirce's paper The Fixation of Belief (FOB), originally published in 1877 in Popular Science Monthly. We begin by examining Peirce's assertion that the study of logic is essential for understanding thought and reasoning. We explicate Peirce's view of the nature of reasoning itself—the characteristic guiding principles or ‘habits of mind’ that underlie acts of inference, the dimensions (...) of and interaction between doubt and belief, and his four methods of resolving or ‘fixing’ belief (i.e., tenacity, authority, a priori, and experimentation). The four methods are then juxtaposed against current models of teaching and learning such as constructivism, schema theory, situated cognition, and inquiry learning. Finally, we discuss Peirce's modes of inference as they relate educationally to the resolution of doubt and beliefs and offer an example of belief resolution from an experienced teacher in a professional development environment. (shrink)

I have learned a lot from Evan Thompson’s book–his scholarship is formidable, and his taste for relatively overlooked thinkers is admirable–but I keep stumbling over the strain induced by his self-assigned task of demonstrating that his heroes–Varela and Maturana, Merleau-Ponty and (now) Husserl, Oyama and Moss and others–have shattered the comfortable assumptions of orthodoxy, and outlined radical new approaches to the puzzles of life and mind. The irony is that Thompson is such a clear and conscientious expositor that he makes (...) it much easier for me to see that the ideas he expounds, while often truly excellent, are not really all that revolutionary, but, at best, valuable correctives to the sorts of oversimplifications that tend to get turned into mantras by sheer repetition, in the textbooks and popular accounts of these topics in the media. (shrink)

Book review of Lenny Moss, What Genes Can’t Do. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press , 256 pp. -/- Many philosophers of science will have encountered the core distinction between two different gene concepts found in What Genes Can’t Do. Moss argues that contemporary uses of the term ‘gene’ that denote an information bearing entity result from the conflation of two concepts (‘Gene-P’ and ‘Gene-D’).

I have learned a lot from Evan Thompson’s book — his scholarship is formidable, and his taste for relatively overlooked thinkers is admirable — but I keep stumbling over the strain induced by his selfassigned task of demonstrating that his heroes — Varela and Maturana, Merleau-Ponty and (now) Husserl, Oyama and Moss and others — have shattered the comfortable assumptions of orthodoxy, and outlined radical new approaches to the puzzles of life and mind. The irony is that Thompson is such (...) a clear and conscientious expositor that he makes it much easier for me to see that the ideas he expounds, while often truly excellent, are not really all that revolutionary, but, at best, valuable correctives to the sorts of oversimplifications that tend to get turned into mantras by sheer repetition in the textbooks and popular accounts of these topics in the media. Philosophers have a delicate task: squeezing the tacit assumptions and unnoticed implications out of every ill-considered dogma without lapsing into nitpicking or caricature. Thompson does better than most; he is not a gotcha!-monger or sea lawyer, but he does set up a few strawmen (strawpersons?) which I will duly expose as such, while showing that his revolutionaries are not really so revolutionary after all. Reformers are the bane of would-be rebels, of course, taking the wind out of their sails just as they get started, and in the cases I will discuss, reform-minded critics — myself among them — have already pointed out the caveats that pre-empt these assaults on orthodoxy. Might these caveats and concessions be mere lip service? Have the reformers underestimated the seriousness of the challenges, papering over the cracks that will in due course bring down their edifice? (shrink)

Philosophy of Science, 73 (April 2006) pp. 247–257. 0031-8248/2006/7302-0007$10.00 Copyright 2006 by the Philosophy of Science Association. All rights reserved. 247 BOOK REVIEWS Lenny Moss, What Genes Can’t Do . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (2004), 256 pp., $21.00 (paper). Many philosophers of science will have encountered the core distinction between two different gene concepts found in What Genes Can’t Do . Moss argues that contemporary uses of the term ‘gene’ that denote an infor- mation bearing entity result from the conflation (...) of two concepts (‘Gene- P’ and ‘Gene-D’). These concepts arise out of distinct trajectories in the history of biology (preformation and epigenesis, respectively) but are glued together by the rhetoric of linguistic and textual metaphors (e.g., blueprints and programs). Gene-P picks out an instrumentalist use of ‘gene’ as phenotypic indicator or predictor, whereas Gene-D refers to DNA sequences as developmental template resources for RNA and pro- tein products that play variegated cellular roles in the production of many, distinct phenotypes. A number of critical responses to the distinction are now extant in the literature, but my aim is to answer a different question. Why should philosophers of science who have not read the book be interested in it (besides the fact that it is now available in paperback)? The answer is found at the level of methodology and is relevant to crit- icisms of Moss’s distinction. (shrink)

: In his book Free Will Sam Harris tries to persuade us to abandon the morally pernicious idea of free will. The following contribution articulates and defends a more sophisticated model of free will that is not only consistent with neuroscience and introspection but also grounds a variety of responsibility that justifies both praise and blame, reward and punishment. This begins with the long lasting parting of opinion between compatibilists and incompatibilists. While Harris dismisses compatibilism as a form of theology, (...) this article aims at showing that Harris has underestimated and misinterpreted compatibilism and at defending a more sophisticated version of compatibilism that is imprevious to Harris’ criticism. Keywords : Sam Harris; Free Will; Compatibilism; Incompatibilism; Neuroscience Riflessioni su "Free Will" di Sam Harris Riassunto : Nel suo libro Free Will Sam Harris cerca di persuaderci ad abbandonare l’idea, a suo avviso moralmente perniciosa, del libero arbitrio. Il contributo seguente articola e difende un modello di libero arbitrio che non solo è coerente con le neuroscienze e con l’introspezione, ma che dà anche fondamento a varie responsabilità giustificando encomi e biasimo, premi e punizioni. Questo prende le mosse dalla discussione della disputa di lunga data fra compatibilisti e incompatibilisti. Mentre Harris respinge il compatibilismo alla stregua di una forma di teologia, questo articolo ambisce a mostrare come Harris abbia sottostimato e mal interpretato il compatibilismo e come invece sia possibile enucleare una forma di compatibilismo più sofisticata, insensibile alle sue critiche. Parole chiave : Sam Harris; Libero arbitrio; Compatibilismo; Incompatibilismo; Neuroscienza. (shrink)

Book Review: What Genes Can’t Do By Lenny Moss .

Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where (...) they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.Cormac McCarthy, The Road. (shrink)

Traditional procedures for rational updating fail when it comes to self-locating opinions, such as your credences about where you are and what time it is. This paper develops an updating procedure for rational agents with self-locating beliefs. In short, I argue that rational updating can be factored into two steps. The first step uses information you recall from your previous self to form a hypothetical credence distribution, and the second step changes this hypothetical distribution to reflect information you have genuinely (...) learned as time has passed. While the second step resembles traditional procedures of updating by conditionalization, the first is best understood by analogy to traditional models of how agents transmit self-locating opinions through ordinary interpersonal communication. (shrink)

De Interpretatione is among Aristotle's most influential and widely read writings; C. W. A. Whitaker presents the first systematic study of this work, and offers a radical new view of its aims, its structure, and its place in Aristotle's system. He shows that De Interpretatione is not a disjointed essay on ill-connected subjects, as traditionally thought, but a highly organized and systematic treatise on logic, argument, and dialectic.

The ethical and political dilemmas raised byInformation and Communication Technology (ICT)have only just begun to be understood. Theimpact of centralised data collection, masscommunication technologies or the centrality ofcomputer technology as a means of accessingimportant social institutions, all poseimportant ethical and political questions. As away of capturing some of these effects I willcharacterise them in terms of the type of powerand, more particularly, the ‘Power-over’ peoplethat they exercise. My choice of thisparticular nomenclature is that it allows us todescribe, firstly, how specific (...) technologiesoperate and second, exactly what sorts ofconstraints they impose on people. The reasonfor this focus has to do with a further aim ofthe essay, which is to intervene in aparticular type of debate that is often hadaround the appropriate use and scope oftheories of power that are employed in thinkingabout ICT, especially those theories associatedwith the work of Michel Foucault. There isconsiderable use of his work in computerethics, but my claim will be that despite theproductive uses of his work in the areas ofsurveillance, for instance, it does not exhaustthe larger potential of his work on power and,in part, `government.' I will argue that inorder to properly understand the politicalimpact of some aspects of ICT, especially thedigital divide, one needs an account of howpower operates that includes more traditionaltypes of power-over. To the extent that I willdeal with these concerns, the paper is both acontribution to debates about the nature andscope of Foucault's theory of power and to theissue of the effects of the digital divide. (shrink)

This article provides an analysis of bioprinting personalised medical device technology and its ethical challenges to regulation and research ethics. I argue the inclusion of bioprinting applications within existing regulatory frameworks does not adequately address the technologies disruption to the traditionally siloed activities of research and treatment. Using the conceptual framework of liminality, I offer a meaningful way to engage with this technology and address some identified concerns with how it will be categorised and the appropriate recognition of its evidentiary (...) thresholds. I demonstrate these concerns through the exploration of limited conventional research methodologies tasked with the production of generalisable knowledge, specifically population-based evidence that is derived from Randomised Clinical Trials. I use Australian regulatory amendments introduced in 2021 as an example of current regulatory trajectories and highlight why I believe this approach to be insufficient. The significance of this argument will be to demonstrate the disruption of bioprinting applications to current approaches in medical policy, and how various jurisdictions are enacting regulation that is not fit for purpose. (shrink)

The problematique addressed by the article is the growth of a dominant discourse in early childhood education and care, which has a strong effect on policy and practice, paralleled by an increasing number of other discourses which problematise most of the values, assumptions and understandings of the former. Yet there is very little engagement between these discourses, in large part because they are situated within different paradigms—modernity in the former case, postfoundationalism in the latter. The author argues that the absence (...) of dialogue and debate impoverishes early childhood and weakens democratic practice. The article considers whether and in what conditions the concept of agonistic pluralism might provide a framework for political engagement among at least some on either side of the paradigmatic divide, and takes evaluation as one example of a subject for an agonistic politics of early childhood. (shrink)

We sought to expand on the concept of the moral self to include not just the duty to develop the moral self but the moral duty to develop the self in both moral and non-moral ways. To do this, we focused on how leaders can promote a climate in which individuals feel a sense of duty to develop themselves for the betterment of the team and organization. In our theoretical model, duty orientation plays a key role in determining whether followers (...) will seek performance feedback to develop their work selves. We hypothesized that followers with ethical leaders would experience a greater sense of duty to improve themselves and would therefore be more likely to seek and less likely to avoid leader feedback. Drawing on social learning theory, we hypothesized that duty orientation would mediate the relationship between ethical leadership and feedback-seeking/feedback-avoiding behavior, expert power would moderate the relationship between ethical leadership and duty orientation such that duty orientation would be higher when followers perceived their leader to be both highly ethical and competent, and expert power would moderate the indirect effect of ethical leadership on feedback-seeking/feedback-avoiding behavior through duty orientation. We tested our hypotheses using a sample of 249 followers across two waves of data collection. Results suggest that ethical leadership and leader competence interact to drive followers’ duty orientation, thereby reducing followers’ feedback-avoiding behaviors. Further, ethical leadership had a direct positive relationship with followers’ feedback-seeking behaviors. (shrink)