Between 1787, and the end of his life in 1832, Bentham turned his attention to the development and application of economic ideas and principles within the general structure of his legislative project. For seventeen years this interest was manifested through a number of books and pamphlets, most of which remained in manuscript form, that develop a distinctive approach to economic questions. Although Bentham was influenced by Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, (...) he neither adopted a Smithian vocabulary for addressing questions of economic principle and policy, nor did he accept many of the distinctive features of Smith's economic theory. One consequence of this was that Bentham played almost no part in the development of the emerging science of political economy in the early nineteenth century. The standard histories of economics all emphasize how little he contributed to the mainstream of late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century debate by concentrating attention on his utilitarianism and the psychology of hedonism on which it is premised. Others have argued that the calculating nature of his theory of practical reason reduced the whole legislative project to a crude attempt to apply economics to all aspects of social and political life. Put at its simplest this argument amounts to the erroneous claim that Bentham's science of legislation is reducible to the science of political economy. A different but equally dangerous error would be to argue that because Bentham's conception of the science of legislation comprehends all the basic forms of social relationships, there can be no science of political economy as there is no autonomous sphere of activity governed by the principles of economics. This approach is no doubt attractive from an historical point of view given that the major premise of this argument is true, and that many of Bentham's ‘economic’ arguments are couched in terms of his theory of legislation. Yet it fails to account for the undoubted importance of political economy within Bentham's writings, not just on finance, economic policy, colonies and preventive police, but also in other aspects of his utilitarian public policy such as prison reform, pauper management, and even constitutional reform. All of these works reflect a conception of political economy in its broadest terms. However, this conception of political economy differs in many respects from that of Bentham's contemporaries, and for this reason Bentham's distinctive approach to problems of economics and political economy has largely been misunderstood. (shrink)

(Report assembled for the Workshop of the AMIA Working Group on Formal Biomedical Knowledge Representation in connection with AMIA Symposium, Washington DC, 2005.) Best practices in ontology building for biomedicine have been frequently discussed in recent years. However there is a range of seemingly disparate views represented by experts in the field. These views not only reflect the different uses to which ontologies are put, but also the experiences and disciplinary background of these experts themselves. We asked six questions related (...) to biomedical ontologies to what we believe is a representative sample of ontologists in the biomedical field and came to a number conclusions which we believe can help provide an insight into the practical problems which ontology builders face today. (shrink)

This article is part of a For-Discussion-Section of Methods of Information in Medicine about the paper "Biomedical Informatics: We Are What We Publish", written by Peter L. Elkin, Steven H. Brown, and Graham Wright. It is introduced by an editorial. This article contains the combined commentaries invited to independently comment on the Elkin et al. paper. In subsequent issues the discussion can continue through letters to the editor.

Du sommaire: Ambiguite et comprehension du langage (Paul Bogaards, Johan Rooryck). - Why pluralities don't mean a thing (Crit Cremers). - Aspects of interlingual ambiguity: polyglot punning (Dirk Delabastita). - Les feux de Saint-Antoine (Sjef Houppermans). - The semantics of Dutch moeten 'must, should, have to' from a typological and a relevance-theoretical perspective (Theo Janssen). - L'ambiguite en langue et en discours (Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni).".

In this paper we present a paradigmatic example of the use in knowledge management of techniques from other fields, namely mathematical analysis. We also highlight that the Jacobi method presented here takes precedence over the better known Hungarian method. Finally, we signify that the Jacobi method represents the first known or recognized case of serendipity in both knowledge management and operational research. This paper thus demonstrates the intersection between knowledge management, mathematical analysis and operational research and how taking historical perspectives (...) are important for recognising future applications of knowledge management. This results in a better understanding of knowledge management and how it can be applied in the future. It has been shown how knowledge management relates to historical mathematical principles. (shrink)

The concept of joint action is at the core of numerous diverse research topics, including philosophical explorations of social action, studies of human dialogue, human-computer interaction, computer-supported collaborative work, multiagent systems, distributed artificial intelligence, distributed simulation, and contract law. It is therefore remarkable that so central a concept has received so little detailed analysis, in comparison with studies of individuals. However, in recent years, the study of joint action has begun to undergo more intense scrutiny, primarily from philosophers and researchers (...) in artificial intelligence. These two disciplines often address similar topics but with different motivations, methodologies, tools, and criteria for success. Although this paper is inspired by philosophical work, it is squarely motivated by the concerns of building intelligent systems that are capable of collaborative behavior, either with a user, or with other such systems. Still, we hope that the paper sheds light on philosophical issues, and treats the subject of joint action at a sufficiently precise level to be illuminating of problems that any philosophical account needs to confront. (shrink)

I want to deal in this essay with the group of philosophers that G.E.M. Anscombe includes under the term ‘modern moral philosophy’ in her essay by that name. The stars of this group are Hobbes, Hume, Adam Smith, Mill, Sidgwick, Moore. I mean to include as well generally the last hundred years of emotivists, utilitarians, and those theorists who have emphasized universalizability in its various versions. For reasons which I hope will soon become clear, I will refer to this (...) broad group as the ‘atomistic tradition.’ I will be assuming, though not often saying, that the most forthright and thorough spokesman of the tradition is David Hume who, in his purely skeptical moments, was so atomistic and extensionalist that he even denied personal identity over time. Anything less than that is not purely atomistic. (shrink)

This chapter discusses various conceptions of moral judgment during the eighteenth century in Britain. It begins with a characterization of moral rationalism that centres on Samuel Clarke and John Locke. It then discusses moral sentimentalism or moral sense theory, which is associated with Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and Hume, portraying it partly as a reaction to moral rationalism but also as a response to the perceived positions of Hobbes and Mandeville. The chapter then discusses the position of Joseph Butler, Adam Smith’s (...) sophisticated version of sympathy and sentimentalism, and the theories of Richard Price and Thomas Reid, both of which rejected sentimentalism. (shrink)

Multiple measures of decision-making under uncertainty (e.g. jumping to conclusions (JTC), bias against disconfirmatory evidence (BADE), win-switch behavior, random exploration) have been associated with delusional thinking in independent studies. Yet, it is unknown whether these variables explain shared or unique variance in delusional thinking, and whether these relationships are specific to paranoia or delusional ideation more broadly. Additionally, the underlying computational mechanisms require further investigation. To investigate these questions, task and self-report data were collected in 88 individuals (46 healthy controls, (...) 42 schizophrenia-spectrum) and included measures of cognitive biases and behavior on probabilistic reversal learning and explore/exploit tasks. Of those, only win-switch rate significantly differed between groups. In regression, reversal learning performance, random exploration, and poor evidence integration during BADE showed significant, independent associations with paranoia. Only self-reported JTC was associated with delusional ideation, controlling for paranoia. Computational parameters increased the proportion of variance explained in paranoia. Overall, decision-making influenced by strong volatility and variability is specifically associated with paranoia, whereas self-reported hasty decision-making is specifically associated with other themes of delusional ideation. These aspects of decision-making under uncertainty may therefore represent distinct cognitive processes that, together, have the potential to worsen delusional thinking across the psychosis spectrum. (shrink)

This paper examines the characteristics of infectious diseases that raise special medical and social ethical issues, and explores ways of integrating both current bioethical and classical public health ethics concerns. Many of the ethical issues raised by infectious diseases are related to these diseases’ powerful ability to engender fear in individuals and panic in populations. We address the association of some infectious diseases with high morbidity and mortality rates, the sense that infectious diseases are caused by invasion or attack on (...) humans by foreign micro‐organisms, the acute onset and rapid course of many infectious diseases, and, in particular, the communicability of infectious diseases. The individual fear and community panic associated with infectious diseases often leads to rapid, emotionally driven decision making about public health policies needed to protect the community that may be in conflict with current bioethical principles regarding the care of individual patients. The discussion includes recent examples where dialogue between public health practitioners and medical‐ethicists has helped resolve ethical issues that require us to consider the infected patient as both a victim with individual needs and rights and as a potential vector of disease that is of concern to the community. (shrink)

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REMARKS ON EVOLUTION AND TIME-SCALES, Graham Cairns-Smith; HODGSON'S BLACK BOX, Thomas Clark; DO HODGSON'S PROPOSITIONS UNIQUELY CHARACTERIZE FREE WILL?, Ravi Gomatam; WHAT SHOULD WE RETAIN FROM A PLAIN PERSON'S CONCEPT OF FREE WILL?, Gilberto Gomes; ISOLATING DISPARATE CHALLENGES TO HODGSON'S ACCOUNT OF FREE WILL, Liberty Jaswal; FREE AGENCY AND LAWS OF NATURE, Robert Kane; SCIENCE VERSUS REALIZATION OF VALUE, NOT DETERMINISM VERSUS CHOICE, Nicholas Maxwell; COMMENTS ON HODGSON, J.J.C. Smart; THE VIEW FROM WITHIN, Sean Spence; COMMENTARY ON HODGSON, Henry (...) Stapp. (shrink)

Achieving space situational awareness requires, at a minimum, the identification, characterization, and tracking of space objects. Leveraging the resultant space object data for purposes such as hostile threat assessment, object identification, and conjunction assessment presents major challenges. This is in part because in characterizing space objects we reference a variety of identifiers, components, subsystems, capabilities, vulnerabilities, origins, missions, orbital elements, patterns of life, operational processes, operational statuses, and so forth, which tend to be defined in highly heterogeneous and sometimes inconsistent (...) ways. The Space Domain Ontologies are designed to provide a consensus-based realist framework for formulating such characterizations in a way that is both consistent and computable. Space object data are aligned with classes and relations in a suite of ontologies built around the existing Space Object Ontology. They are stored in a dynamically updated Resource Description Framework triple store, which can be queried to support space situational awareness and the needs of spacecraft operators and analysts. This paper provides an overview of the Space Domain Ontologies and their development and use. It presents the motivation for and advantages of the Space Domain Ontologies, including the benefits they provide for enhancing and maintaining long-term space situational awareness. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 5, May 2022.

In the recent past, several papers have pointed to the possibility that tumour removal generates a permissive environment in which tumour growth is potentiated. This phenomenon has been coined “perioperative tumour growth” and whilst it represents a departure in terms of our attitude to the surgical process, this concept was first hinted at by Paget1Sir James Paget (1814–1899) was a surgeon and physiologist who is widely held (along with Rudolph Virchow) to be the father of the science of pathology. Paget (...) described Paget's disease of the nipple as well as Paget's disease of bone. himself. Despite this, the time interval immediately before and after cancer surgery (i.e. the perioperative period) remains an underutilised interval during which chemotherapeutic regimens are rarely implemented. Herein, we present a summarised review of the literature that supports the concept that tumour removal may potentiate the growth of residual neoplastic disease. We also outline current knowledge regarding underlying mechanisms and in this manner highlight potential therapeutic entry points. Finally, we emphasise the urgent need for trials of agents that could protect patients against the harmful host–tumour interactions that may occur during the perioperative period. BioEssays 28: 433–437, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This book gathers the contribution of Brazilian and Argentine philosophers around themes of contemporary analytical philosophy.