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The selection of wanted from unwanted messages requires discriminatory mechanisms of as great a complexity as those in normal perception, as is indicated by behavioral evidence. The results of neurophysiology experiments on selective attention are compatible with this supposition. This presents a difficulty for Filter theory. Another mechanism is proposed, which assumes the existence of a shifting reference standard, which takes up the level of the most important arriving signal. The way such importance is determined in the system is further (...) described. Neurophysiological evidence relative to this postulation is discussed. (shrink)

At least since the seminal work of the (US) National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research in the 1970s, a fundamental distinction between research and practice has underwritten both conceptual work in research ethics and regulations governing research involving human subjects. Notwithstanding its undoubted historical importance, I believe the distinction is problematic because it misrepresents clinical inquiry. In this essay, I aim to clarify the character of clinical inquiry by identifying crucial contextual constraints on (...) justification constitutive of clinical science. This analysis shows that, from an epistemological point of view, clinical research and clinical practice are not sharply distinct but intimately intertwined. This result is important in its own right—an enriched understanding of the epistemology of clinical research is valuable in and of itself. But this result is also important because it has profound implications for the ethics of human subjects research. (shrink)

In 'Vague Identity: Evans Misunderstood' David Lewis defends Gareth Evans against a widespread misunderstanding of an argument that appeared in his article 'Can There be Vague Objects?'. Lewis takes himself to be 'defending Evans' and not just correcting a mistake; witness his remark that, 'As misunderstood, Evans is a pitiful figure: a "technical philosopher" out of control of his technicalities, taken in by a fallacious proof of an absurd conclusion'. Let me say at the outset that I take Lewis to (...) be exactly right in regarding as a misunderstanding the interpretation of Evans which he exposes as such. On Lewis's account, everything Evans says 'falls into place', and he quotes from a letter that 'settles the matter'. (shrink)

This paper identifies the ethical issues involved with women's advertising , and argues that ads can be successful in generating sales without portraying women as things or as mere sex objects, and without perpetuating various weakness stereotypes. A paradigm shift in ... \n.

Rorty saw the course of philosophy in the twentieth century as an effort to part from two major philosophical trends, namely historicism and naturalism, only to inevitably return at the end of a tortuous path to these very same tendencies. If we can concede without major objections Rorty’s diagnosis of the trends in contemporary continental and analytical philosophy, which seem to reveal the exhaustion of modern philosophy, based as it has been on epistemology, we must, on the other hand, examine (...) carefully the three main questions that this diagnosis leaves open: How does Rorty reconcile continental idealist subjectivism with materialistic behaviorism? Is it really inevitable that philosophy blinded by Geist are unable to question prevalent beliefs? Finally, is the acceptance of a liberalism that is not able to give reasons for itself the most effective and pragmatic liberalism? In answering these questions, it may not be possible to avoid a non-dogmatic, but pragmatic, metaphysics: a vocabulary of vocabularies that allows Rorty to speak of the problems of justice in Plato and Rawls, of the soul in Aristotle and Descartes, of the dystopias in Moro and Orwell. On pragmatic terms, perhaps a modest version of a metaphysic’s “vocabulary” turns out to be as legitimate and practical as any other vocabulary. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Pragmatism as Anti-Authoritarianism by Richard RortyJ. A. ColenRORTY, Richard. Pragmatism as Anti-Authoritarianism. Edited by Eduardo Mendieta. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2021. xxxv + 236 pp. Cloth, $27.95This book reproduces Richard Rorty's manuscript of the Ferrater Mora Lectures held in Spain in 1996, about ten years before his death. The preface is signed "Bellagio, July 22, 1997." Robert Brandom's foreword for the book states (...) that its publication is an "epoch-making event" since it was "long-lost" in the abysses of Catalan and Spanish languages.We could think that this should be taken with a grain of salt, considering that large sections of the book were previously published even in English. Chapter 1, "Pragmatism and Religion," was printed in the Revue Internationale de Philosophie in 1999; chapter 2, "Pragmatism as Romantic Polytheism," was collected in The Revival of Pragmatism (ed. Morris Dickstein) in 1998; and lectures 3 and 4 appear in a 2000 book edited by Robert Brandom. Chapter 7 was printed in Rorty's Philosophy and Social Hope, and 8, 9, and 10 were published in his Philosophical Papers.So truly, only chapters 5 and 6 were entirely ignored by the Anglophone reader. Rhetoric aside, it is nonetheless a very important book, and perhaps even an epoch-making one, although the Rortian scholar will never find himself in unchartered territory. It is indeed epoch-making for at least three different kinds of reasons.Firstly, the complete book with Rorty's own preface and all the lectures set together, carefully edited by Eduardo Mendieta, with notes and an insightful epilogue, presents Rorty's "mature version and vision of his path-breaking pragmatism." The oral nature of the delivery adds some charm to the text, and the recovery of the whole book-length text is epochal since, in spite of being a prolific writer of distinctive and provocative texts, Rorty's books are scarce: He wrote just four important books, in comparison with hundreds of shorter pieces. (It could even be argued that even his four main books are "fragments" that in some instances lack cogency.)Secondly, the political landscape has largely changed. People used to fight for the Truth. It may very well be that the combat of ideas by resorting to words with capital letters, interesting as it often is, doesn't make for the best arguments. When the flag of Truth (uppercase) is raised in politics, reason easily becomes the prey of the passions of the soul. Mendieta aptly titled his interviews with Rorty with the motto "take care of freedom and Truth will take care of itself." The notion that the highest [End Page 363] degree of freedom and tolerance and the lowest degree of dogmatism arise when no truth is believed was not Rorty's own invention, and in fact it has a long ancestry. But Rorty is surely among its most vocal advocates and a remarkable thinker. Right now, the situation looks entirely different. Rorty's indefatigable struggle against the idea of truth in politics was all too successful. Could it happen that the owl of Minerva rises again at dusk, and the book emerges when people are no longer fighting about truth but against fake news? In fact, a new post-truth era was just inaugurated. Thus, the book makes an amazing read for those who are interested in the genealogy of an old idea: the death of Truth—an irony that Rorty would have appreciated.Thirdly, Rorty is an unavoidable figure in contemporary political philosophy, but his pragmatism has always been somewhat mysterious. Despite his praise of the early pragmatists and his dismissive attitude towards "depth," very few doubt that his arguments are deeper and go further than, say, John Dewey's. Nor was he exactly one of the so-called new pragmatists such as Putnam, Huw Price, or Robert Brandom. Nevertheless, his bold and iconoclastic attacks on "representationalism," the naïve idea that language and thought merely mirror the world, really were influential, or even gave birth to a new pragmatism. But he was not one of them. (Etienne Gilson used to quote a saying according to which God... (shrink)

‘Law’ said Mr Justice Windeyer of the High Court of Australia, ‘marches with science, but to the rear, and limping a little’. Nowhere is this limping more apparent than in respect of the attempts to keep up with medical science. The media is full of reports of the use of fetal ova to create new life, of the transplant of animal parts into human bodies, of tests involving the consumption of radioactive materials by human subjects. The law's response to these (...) problems has been notable most often by its absence. To some extent, the failure of the law to come to grips with developments is not entirely its own fault. Sometimes the advances made possible by science can only be forseen by those with a scientific background. At other times, however, the law fails by not being flexible enough to be able to create new categories of legal obligations. It tries instead to pigeon-hole radically new ideas within centuries-old categorisations. As anyone who has had experience with packing a large number of outsized objects into a too small suitcase will tell you, squeezing things into inappropriately shaped containers takes time. This is one of the problems apparent in the doctrine of consent; the area of law which attempts to regulate the provision of medical services by a practitioner to a patient. (shrink)

As is well known, this poem, which stood in the Anthologia Latina, is preserved in two MSS. only, the Salmasian and the Pithoean , Nos. 10318 and 8071 in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris; ‘the handwriting dates’ the former ‘as written at the end of the seventh or the beginning of the eighth century; the other…is about two hundred years later in date. Modern scholars regard both MSS. as traceable to a common archetype, probably of the sixth century’ . At (...) first sight these MSS. seem quite untrust-worthy, for they differ from each other in more than one hundred words, while the scribe of S copied the refrain incorrectly twice, the scribe of T twice as often. Strangely enough, however, these variations are comparatively unimportant, for most of them disappear when the spelling of the two clerks is assimilated to some recognized usage. Each manuscript in turn corrects the other in many of these passages, and conjecture has successfully emended nearly all of the remainder—the variation S peruiclanda, T peruigila in v. 47 is perhaps the only passage of this kind which still causes anxiety. The grave corruptions of the text are found in passages in which the MSS. are in agreement; they agree exactly in five lacunae, T having an additional one; in two or more misplaced passages; in the placing of the refrain, with all of which matters I deal below; they agree exactly in an error in the title ‘Peruirgilium’ for ‘Peruigilium,’ and in about twelve lines, of which vv. 51 and 79 have almost certainly been preserved in an incorrect form. (shrink)

The parodos of the Frogs is one of the most controversial passages in Aristophanes. Was it intended to parody the Eleusinian Mystery procession—or some other ritual? A writer wishing to discuss any part of the parodos must first outline his position with regard to this basic problem. I shall therefore as simply and briefly as possible state my own view and the reasons for it before dealing with the specific question posed by the title of the article.

The expression used in the Periplus M.E. has attracted a certain amount of attention. It is generally held to mean ‘a legal mart where foreign trade was officially allowed and taxed’ : and this translation has sometimes been made the ground of comparison with the treaty ports of China or the échelles of the Levant. On closer examination of the usage of the Periplus M.E. it seems difficult to accept this meaning, and possible to suggest another.

Kinetic models using enzyme kinetics are developed for the three ways that Louie proved that Rosen’s minimal (M-R)-System can be closed to efficient cause; i.e., how the “replication” component can itself be entailed from within the system. The kinetic models are developed using the techniques of network thermodynamics. As a demonstration, each model is simulated using a SPICE circuit simulator using arbitrarily chosen rate constants. The models are built from SPICE sub-circuits representing the key terms in the chemical rate equations. (...) The models include the addition of an ad hoc semi-permeable membrane so the system can achieve steady state fluxes and also to illustrate the need for all the efficient cause agents to be continually replaced. Comments are made about exactly what is being simulated. (shrink)

Taking the well known and much disputed question of miracles as an example, Mr. Gasson of Westom, Massachusetts, suggests as the proper way of seeking a rapprochment with our adversaries in any of the disputed points of philosophy the uncovering of their fundamental suppositions.