Deep Brain Stimulation is currently being investigated as an experimental treatment for patients suffering from treatment-refractory AN, with an increasing number of case reports and small-scale trials published. Although still at an exploratory and experimental stage, initial results have been promising. Despite the risks associated with an invasive neurosurgical procedure and the long-term implantation of a foreign body, DBS has a number of advantageous features for patients with SE-AN. Stimulation can be fine-tuned to the specific needs of the particular patient, (...) is relatively reversible, and the technique also allows for the crucial issue of investigating and comparing the effects of different neural targets. However, at a time when DBS is emerging as a promising investigational treatment modality for AN, lesioning procedures in psychiatry are having a renaissance. Of concern it has been argued that the two kinds of interventions should instead be understood as rivaling, yet “mutually enriching paradigms” despite the fact that lesioning the brain is irreversible and there is no evidence base for an effective target in AN. We argue that lesioning procedures in AN are unethical at this stage of knowledge and seriously problematic for this patient group, for whom self-control is particularly central to wellbeing. They pose a greater risk of major harms that cannot justify ethical equipoise, despite the apparent superiority in reduced short term surgical harms and lower cost. (shrink)

Some researchers have attributed deviations from selfish behavior to fairness. Violations of fairness theories, however, are observed in experimental dictator games with transfer rates greater than 1 (a transfer of x from the dictator yields an income of tx for the beneficiary, where x < tx): the dictator’s final income is less than the beneficiary’s. We theoretically propose that dictator giving also involves altruism, further supporting our claim with empirical evidence from four separate samples of dictator game experiments. Our nonlinear (...) specification allows the relative measurement of the independent motives in dictator behavior. (shrink)

We propose and test a model of loyalty in games. Players can mutually maintain loyalty by working towards a common goal that is pareto-superior to any Nash equilibrium without it. Loyalty imposes a psychological cost on defecting in an ongoing cooperation, which is thus sustained. We distinguish loyalty from reciprocity and explain how it complements guilt aversion with two dynamic games from a field experiment conducted in a Pakistani factory. The evidence supports the validity of loyalty, which has a stronger (...) effect within than between groups. (shrink)

This article examines, experimentally, whether inequality affects the social capital of trust in non-market and market settings. We consider three experimental treatments, one with equality, one with inequality but no knowledge of the income of other agents, and one with inequality and knowledge. Inequality, particularly when it is known, has a corrosive effect on trusting behaviours in this experiment. Agents appear to be less sensitive to known relative income differentials in markets than they are in the non-market settings, but trust (...) in markets appears generally more vulnerable to the introduction of inequality than in the non-market setting. (shrink)

This article examines, experimentally, whether inequality affects the social capital of trust in non-market and market settings. We consider three experimental treatments, one with equality, one with inequality but no knowledge of the income of other agents, and one with inequality and knowledge. Inequality, particularly when it is known, has a corrosive effect on trusting behaviours in this experiment. Agents appear to be less sensitive to known relative income differentials in markets than they are in the non-market settings, but trust (...) in markets appears generally more vulnerable to the introduction of inequality than in the non-market setting. (shrink)

In this article, we propose the Fair Priority Model for COVID-19 vaccine distribution, and emphasize three fundamental values we believe should be considered when distributing a COVID-19 vaccine among countries: Benefiting people and limiting harm, prioritizing the disadvantaged, and equal moral concern for all individuals. The Priority Model addresses these values by focusing on mitigating three types of harms caused by COVID-19: death and permanent organ damage, indirect health consequences, such as health care system strain and stress, as well as (...) economic destruction. It proposes proceeding in three phases: the first addresses premature death, the second long-term health issues and economic harms, and the third aims to contain viral transmission fully and restore pre-pandemic activity. -/- To those who may deem an ethical framework irrelevant because of the belief that many countries will pursue "vaccine nationalism," we argue such a framework still has broad relevance. Reasonable national partiality would permit countries to focus on vaccine distribution within their borders up until the rate of transmission is below 1, at which point there would not be sufficient vaccine-preventable harm to justify retaining a vaccine. When a government reaches the limit of national partiality, it should release vaccines for other countries. -/- We also argue against two other recent proposals. Distributing a vaccine proportional to a country's population mistakenly assumes that equality requires treating differently situated countries identically. Prioritizing countries according to the number of front-line health care workers, the proportion of the population over 65, and the number of people with comorbidities within each country may exacerbate disadvantage and end up giving the vaccine in large part to wealthy nations. (shrink)

All parties involved in researching, developing, manufacturing, and distributing COVID-19 vaccines need guidance on their ethical obligations. We focus on pharmaceutical companies' obligations because their capacities to research, develop, manufacture, and distribute vaccines make them uniquely placed for stemming the pandemic. We argue that an ethical approach to COVID-19 vaccine production and distribution should satisfy four uncontroversial principles: optimising vaccine production, including development, testing, and manufacturing; fair distribution; sustainability; and accountability. All parties' obligations should be coordinated and mutually consistent. For (...) instance, companies should not be obligated to provide host countries with additional booster shots at the expense of fulfilling bilateral contracts with countries in which there are surges. Finally, any satisfactory approach should include mechanisms for assurance that all parties are honouring their obligations. This assurance enables countries, pharmaceutical companies, global organisations, and others to verify compliance with the chosen approach and protect ethically compliant stakeholders from being unfairly exploited by unethical behaviour of others. (shrink)

Bone marrow is the main site for hematopoiesis in adults. It acts as a niche for hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and contains non‐hematopoietic cells that contribute to stem cell dormancy, quiescence, self‐renewal, and differentiation. HSC also exist in resting spleen of several species, although their contribution to hematopoiesis under steady‐state conditions is unknown. The spleen can however undergo extramedullary hematopoiesis (EMH) triggered by physiological stress or disease. With the loss of bone marrow niches in aging and disease, the spleen as (...) an alternative tissue site for hematopoiesis is an important consideration for future therapy, particularly during HSC transplantation. In terms of harnessing the spleen as a site for hematopoiesis, here the remarkable regenerative capacity of the spleen is considered with a view to forming additional or ectopic spleen tissue through cell engraftment. Studies in mice indicate the potential for such grafts to support the influx of hematopoietic cells leading to the development of normal spleen architecture. An important goal will be the formation of functional ectopic spleen tissue as an aid to hematopoietic recovery following clinical treatments that impact bone marrow. For example, expansion or replacement of niches could be considered where myeloablation ahead of HSC transplantation compromises treatment outcomes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE UNITY OF THE VICES JONATHAN JACOBS Oolgate University, Hamilton, New York JOHN ZEIS Oanisius Ooilege, Buffalo, New York W:E SOMETIMES describe someone 1rus "just plain,, ' ' • • 0 " ' ' • • mean, or Just plam d1shonesit, orr JUSt pJam unw." Or we say" thaJt wrus ·a just plain ·stupid thing rto do.," G~a:liizing from tlhese and lik!e descriiptions, we can ask, are there (...) any "just plain" vices? By this I mean, are :amy vices pure, 1e.g., can rthere he Cl'lllelty hut nort injustice or in!t:Jempertance, intemperance hut no!t a £ailill'e orf pmctical wisdom, cowardice but not intemperance or injustice, and so on? Is therie perhaps a unity of the vices? Is each ;a col'l'IU!ption thrat involves the coITUpiting ctontriburtion of the othe'l'IS? If there is,a, run:iity of the vicies, then 1be:inig ra vicious individual is Il!Ort siinply 1a ma!bter o:f failing :across the dimensioill of one or rrunothe.r 1 Cihaa:iae1becisltic. ]t ms tan extensi,ve diaiilure, 1a unified (:if l[JIOrt toit.al) failure, even if it is most evident 1and preVialent in one or another •specific respecit. 'f1his iis not to isay thrut.theiie is just one vice,.any moil'!e 1than '!Jo.endorse the unity of it.he virtues is to reduce tth:em to Ollle. There.are many woes OOlld many virrbues, eaiCh respeotively h!ruving to do with dillemnt 1and variously!l'le1aibed crupacirties, motives, emotions, and tiiaiits. Yet, rut least with respect to the virtues a good caise can be mrude :that they.are unified, aind thrut ·AnisbotLe was oorrreot in concluding that practical wisdom :and viWtues of cha;riacter mum occur st quite 1 s1tably, even if '1llolt happily. In any case, we ail"e in 1 to:tal ag.rteemelllt with Geach when he 1sayis 1that ithaJt "If 1a man's ha1bit of sound moml judgme1J11t is virtiiafod anyiwhere, then :it is at risk eVierywhere; but not all dangel"s issue in disa1sit1e'f!s." 3 But 1thes1e dis1as!ters arie aV1eTted r.not because of,any moml str1ength of characil:er 1 th:ait the agent 1truly ihas bUJt heca:us1 e of a me11e inc1ilJJaition tues. 'Ilhe former may he very :firm ox srtable. Mo11eover the n:aituil'ally vi11tuous rindividual may giener1a1ly no1t he oornfused or.impeded maction by "b.ar:d easies" or nnvelty. Alt times he rmay, 1and lthien me may find his re1sourroes iinoompe1be!I1t O'I.' unoel 'l:Ja1in in 1bhreir direetives. Hut the main rpo:inlt of co111iCT'last is thait mo11al virtues 11eflieot 1a 1evel of 1agency wh1oh involves undersitanding 1and self-determin1ation engiaged 1 to t:hat undersltanding, 1a 1leviel tihJait tis 1ruhsen1t foom iinc1ination-grounded action. Na,tu11a1l vri:r1tues 1a1rie ll101t to he despised, 1 and 1aclts :thait fLorw 1f110m 1tJhem 1are not w:iithout moml Wiortlh. But, using the fangiuiage of Fr1a:nk£u:rt, mom1l virtues are oha1racter]s,tios thait refiecrt second order volitions.5 The aiotis: thait flow fil1om them •are not H11e reis:ult of ways one just hrupens to be. And the undeil'-,starnding involvred in moml vrntues makes mo'ral misdireotion 1 1es;s li1"ely. Again, mnswder suoh t.lrings rus mis1applied oomprussfon, or paiti:errce, whioh can involve u1mairness 1and imprudence. P1 errharpis it.is heoausie rbhe mo:rial V1mtueis rare unified that it is 1so hard to rbe 1good. They invo1vie a complex reperrto:We of judgmenits, d1sposi!tiorrs, and moti¥es. No one of them can he oomp1ete on its own, and wie c1an't oome to have 1 tJhem simply 1hy decis1on. One oan til.'y rbo he move coumgeous bU1t caill't ibring it rubout meriely hy init1emal eommanid. Self-imposrutiion in5 In " Freedom of the Will and 'The Concept of a Person," H. Frankfurt writes, "Someone has a desire of the second order when he wants simply to have a certain desire or when he wants a certain desire to be his will. In situations of the latter kind, I shall call his second-order desires "secondorder volitions" or " volitions of the second order." Now it is having... (shrink)

David Ripley ha argumentado extensamente a favor de una teoría no-transitiva de la verdad que abandona la regla de Corte para así evitar las pruebas de trivialidad causadas por paradojas como la del mentiroso. Sin embargo, es problemático comparar su teoría con varias teorías clásicas que se han ofrecido en la bibliografía. La tarea de formular esta teoría sobre la aritmética de Peano no es trivial, ya que Corte no es eliminable en la aritmética de Peano. En este artículo intento (...) cerrar esta brecha proponiendo una restricción adecuada para la regla de Corte. La restricción nos permite formular una teoría no-transitiva de la verdad sobre la aritmética de Peano que es, desde el punto de vista de la teoría de la prueba, tan fuerte como la teoría clásica de la verdad más fuerte conocida hasta el momento. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary work is a collection of major essays on reasoning: deductive, inductive, abductive, belief revision, defeasible, cross cultural, conversational, and argumentative. They are each oriented toward contemporary empirical studies. The book focuses on foundational issues, including paradoxes, fallacies, and debates about the nature of rationality, the traditional modes of reasoning, as well as counterfactual and causal reasoning. It also includes chapters on the interface between reasoning and other forms of thought. In general, this last set of essays represents growth (...) points in reasoning research, drawing connections to pragmatics, cross-cultural studies, emotion and evolution. (shrink)

Research on theory of mind has primarily focused on demonstrating and understanding the ability to represent others' non‐factive mental states, for example, others' beliefs in the false‐belief task. This requirement confuses the ability to represent a particular kind of non‐factive content (e.g., a false belief) with the more general capacity to represent others' understanding of the world even when it differs from one's own. We provide a way of correcting this. We first offer a simple and theoretically motivated account on (...) which tracking another agent's understanding of the world and keeping that representation separate from one's own are the essential features of a capacity for theory of mind. We then show how these criteria can be operationalized in a new experimental paradigm: the “diverse‐knowledge task.”. (shrink)

Jonathan Walkan challenges cognitive science's dominant model of mental representation and proposes a novel, well-devised alternative. The traditional view in the cognitive sciences uses a linguistic model of mental representation. That logic-based model of cognition informs and constrains both the classical tradition of artificial intelligence and modeling in the connectionist tradition. It falls short, however, when confronted by the frame problem---the lack of a principled way to determine which features of a representation must be updated when new information becomes (...) available. So far, proposed alternatives, including the imagistic model, have not resolved the problem. Waskan proposes the Intrinsic Cognitive Models hypothesis, according to which representational states can be concpetualized as the cognitive equivalent of scale models.Waskan argues further that the proposal that humans harbor and manipulate cognitive counterparts to scale models offers the only viable explanation for what most clearly differentiates humans from other creatures: the capacity to engage in truth-preserving manipulation of representations. The ICM hypothesis, he claims, can be distinguished from sentence-based accounts of truth preservation in a way that is fully compatible with what is known about the brain. (shrink)

An anthropocentric scope for clinical medical ethics (CME) has largely separated this area of bioethics from environmental concerns. In this article, we first identify and reconcile the ethical issues imposed on CME by climate change including the dispersion of related causes and effects, the transdisciplinary and transhuman nature of climate change, and the historic divorce of CME from the environment. We then establish how several moral theories undergirding modern CME, such as virtue ethics, feminist ethics, and several theories of justice, (...) promote both a flourishing of human medical practice and the environment. We conclude by defining an expanded the scope of CME as inclusive of not only patients, families, physicians, and other health professionals but other humans, non-humans, and their shared environment. We then apply this scope and theory to a widely used framework for applying CME, the Four Topics model, to construct a climate conscious approach to CME. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo fue analizar cuantitativamente los métodos y técnicas de la investigación teológica en países latinoamericanos de habla hispana, entre 2018 y 2020, para el fomento de herramientas que favorezcan estudios en el área. El estudio fue cuantitativo, positivista y descriptivo, examinando el Scimago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) 2018, revisando, además, artículos publicados entre 2018 y 2020, nueve publicaciones de universidades que ofrecen el programa Teología, trabajos de grado y tesis en repositorios digitales. Para un total (...) de 402 investigaciones sistematizadas, usando el análisis de contenido para discriminar métodos y técnicas utilizados. La información se registró en una matriz para su análisis porcentual por criterios. Se concluye que una quinta parte de las investigaciones usaron exclusivamente métodos sociales, en su mayoría de enfoque cuantitativo y nivel descriptivo. Entre los sociales cualitativos destacaron la fenomenología, IAP, método comparativo y biográfico. Se usaron mayoritariamente métodos teológicos tradicionales: hermenéutico, exegético, praxeológico latinoamericano e histórico-crítico, pero el primero sigue siendo preferido. Las técnicas fueron variadas, mezclando enfoques y métodos, especialmente reflexión, análisis semántico, análisis histórico-gramatical y narración. De las técnicas sociales, la favorita fue encuesta-cuestionario. El país con más publicaciones fue Colombia (45,7 %) y el año con mayor número de estas fue el 2018 (55 %). El enfoque predilecto fue cualitativo (87,1 %), usado mayoritariamente en universidades católicas (78,6 %). El resto (21,4 %) corresponde a universidades adventistas, con más igualdad en los enfoques. (shrink)

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a critical role in the green economy due to their significant environmental footprint. Because more than 84% of the world’s population identifies with a religion, most SME top-executives are likely to identify with a religion that would influence their decision-making. Despite these recent advances, prior studies have focused on SMEs’ external drivers and did not consider the role of internal drivers, such as the characteristics of SMEs’ top-executives, in influencing green marketing strategy. We aim (...) to address this gap by focusing on religious identification as a key driver of green marketing by SMEs. Specifically, we examine the effects of top-executives’ religious identification on strategic green marketing orientation (SGMO), and how such effects are moderated by political ideology. Using respondents comprised of CEO and/or owner-managers of SMEs in the US, the results show empirical evidence supporting the importance of religious identification in influencing green marketing decisions. Moreover, we found that the effects of religious identification on SGMO are more pronounced among top-executives with Conservative ideology. (shrink)

The chapter takes structuralism to be the thesis that if F and G are alike causally, then F and G are the same property. It follows that our beliefs about the world can be true in various brain-in-a-vat scenarios, giving us refuge from skeptical arguments. The trouble is that structuralism doesn’t do justice to certain metaphysical aspects of property identity having to do with fundamentality, intrinsicality, and the unity of the world. A closely related point is that the relation…lies-at-some-spatial-distance-from…obeys necessary (...) truths that need not apply to other relations with the same causal profile. This observation is especially important if, as David Lewis argued, the only alternatives to skepticism are structuralism and an anti-Humean stance toward modality. Some pertinent views of David Chalmers’s are discussed, and parallels are drawn between the structuralist response to skepticism and functionalism in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The twentieth-century Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd left behind an impressive canon of philosophical works and has continued to influence a scholarly community in Europe and North America, which has extended, critiqued, and applied his thought in many academic fields. Jonathan Chaplin introduces Dooyeweerd for the first time to many English readers by critically expounding Dooyeweerd's social and political thought and by exhibiting its pertinence to contemporary civil society debates. Chaplin begins by contextualizing Dooyeweerd's thought, first in relation to present-day (...) debates and then in relation to the work of the Dutch philosopher Abraham Kuyper. Chaplin outlines the distinctive theory of historical and cultural development that serves as an essential backdrop to Dooyeweerd's substantive social philosophy; examines Dooyeweerd's notion of societal structural principles; and sets forth his complex classification of particular types of social structure and their various interrelationships. Chaplin provides a detailed examination of Dooyeweerd's theory of the state, its definitive nature, and its proper role vis-a-vis other elements of society. Dooyeweerd's contributions, Chaplin concludes, assist us in mapping the ways in which state and civil society should be related to achieve justice and the public good. "This superb study simultaneously introduces and critically engages the work of one of the most important and neglected Christian thinkers of the twentieth century, while showing its connection to the pluralist tradition and bringing it to bear on the contemporary debate about civil society. More than just providing an overview of Dooyeweerd's thought, it seeks to advance his intellectual project and show its contemporary relevance. It is essential reading not only for those interested in the neo-Calvinist tradition, but for anyone interested in Christian social thought, structural pluralism, or the nature and fate of civil society." --_Kenneth L. Grasso, Texas State University _ "The subtlety, scope, and insightfulness of Dooyeweerd's social philosophy were unparalleled among Protestant thinkers in the past century. Yet his contributions are not well known. Jonathan Chaplin promises to remedy this neglect. His lucid and masterful study brings a new and transformative voice to contemporary debates about the future of a democratic society." --_Lambert Zuidervaart, Institute for Christian Studies and University of Toronto_ "Finally, an authoritative book that brings to brilliant light and life Herman Dooyeweerd's Christian philosophy of law, politics, and society. For the past half century, the profound and original teachings of this prolific Dutch sage have been lost on most readers. Jonathan Chaplin has rescued Dooyeweerd from his own obscure prose, poor translations, and cultic mystique to reveal his astonishing and engaging insights into our lives as persons and peoples, rulers and citizens, preachers and parishioners, parents and children. This will be the go-to book on Dooyeweerd for many years to come." --_John Witte, Jr., Emory University_ "Herman Dooyeweerd was both deep and original. Much of his writing is an articulation of rather undeveloped lines of thought in his Dutch predecessor, Abraham Kuyper. In the course of his exposition, Chaplin effectively highlights Dooyeweerd's significance for a theory of civil society and for present-day social theory in general." --_Nicholas Wolterstorff, Yale University and the Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Virginia_. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with intransitivity in normative rational choice. It focuses on a class of intransitivities which have received little attention, those involving vague preferences. “Vague preferences” are defined in terms of vague predicates such as “red” or “bald.” Such preferences appear common, and intransitive indifference is argued to be an unavoidable feature of them. Such preferences are argued to undermine intransitive strict preference also. Various formal theories of vagueness are applied to an example of vague preferences, but none (...) of them provide a justification for the transitivity axiom. (shrink)

Nosology is the science of defining and classifying diseases. Meta‐nosology is the study of how we do this, on what principles nosological practices are based, the quality of the resulting medical taxonomy, and primarily whether/how diseases can be defined better than they are now. In modern Western medicine, there are a wide variety of ways in which diseases are defined and categorized. Examples include by the symptoms they present with (syndromic), their underlying causes (etiological), the biological mechanisms involved (pathogenetic), available (...) treatments, historical precedent, and through diagnostic exclusion. Here, I explore the hypothesis that how we define diseases has an impact on how (and how effectively) we research and treat them. I explore the philosophical implications of this thesis and suggest a direction that the underlying metaphysics of disease definition might follow. I conclude that further research is warranted into whether our current disease definitions could be improved upon. (shrink)

This Element is on new developments in the psychology of reasoning that raise or address philosophical questions. In traditional studies in the psychology of reasoning, the focus was on inference from arbitrary assumptions and not at all from beliefs, and classical binary logic was presupposed as the only standard for human reasoning. But recently a new Bayesian paradigm has emerged in the discipline. This views ordinary human reasoning as mostly inferring probabilistic conclusions from degrees of beliefs, or from hypothetical premises (...) relevant to a purpose at hand, and as often about revising or updating degrees of belief. This Element also covers new formulations of dual-process theories of the mind, stating that there are two types of mental processing, one rapid and intuitive and shared with other animals, and the other slow and reflective and more characteristic of human beings. The final topic covered is the new developments and rationality. (shrink)

In this paper we introduce a computational control framework that can keep AI-driven military autonomous devices operating within the boundaries set by applicable rules of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) related to targeting. We discuss the necessary legal tests and variables, and introduce the structure of a hypothetical IHL-compliant targeting system.

IntroductionDuring the COVID-19 outbreak, many citizens were asked to stay at home in self-quarantine, which can pose a significant challenge with respect to remaining physically active and maintaining mental health. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of inadequate physical activity, anxiety, and depression and to explore the relationship of physical activity with anxiety and depression symptoms among Chinese college students during quarantine.MethodUsing a web-based cross-sectional survey, we collected data from 1,396 Chinese college students. Anxiety and depression were assessed with (...) the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale and the Self-Rating Depression Scale, respectively. The data on physical activity were collected by types of physical activity and the International Physical Activity Questionnaire.ResultsDuring the COVID-19 outbreak, about 52.3% of Chinese college students had inadequate physical activity. The rates of anxiety and depression symptoms were 31.0 and 41.8%, respectively. A high level of physical activity was significantly closely associated with low anxiety, while a moderate, or high level of physical activity was significantly closely associated with reduced depression after adjusting confounding demographic factors. Moreover, specific types of physical activity, such as stretching and resistance training, were negatively correlated with both anxiety and depression; doing household chores was negatively correlated with depression.ConclusionOur findings highlight specific levels and types of home-based physical activities that need to be taken into consideration to protect the mental health of college students during the COVID-19 epidemic. (shrink)

This paper deals with the problem of determining Phaedrus’ age in the eponymous dialogue. The vocatives ὦ νεανία and ὦ παῖ, in Pl. Phdr. 257c8 and 267c6, could suggest that Plato depicts him as a teenager. However, most scholars believe that Phaedrus is an adult and that the vocatives point at his passive and childish character. I will first summarize the evidence given for supporting the latter thesis. Then, I offer complementary evidence, showing that those vocatives mockingly compare his passiveness (...) with that of a young beloved in a homoerotic context. (shrink)

Libro colectivo que aborda desde diferentes perspectivas la original cuestión de los usos del humor presentes en los diálogos platónicos. -/- La seriedad que ha dominado la lectura de la obra de Platón está estrechamente unida al temprano protagonismo que adquirió la interpretación neoplatónica de la obra del filósofo. El olvido de los aspectos dramáticos de su obra condicionó con frecuencia la recta comprensión de los diálogos. Sin embargo, en la obra de Platón, además de la ironía socrática, encontramos bromas, (...) juegos de palabras, imitaciones paródicas, chascarrillos, burlas y comedia de situaciones, es decir, un extenso y variado repertorio de recursos cómicos puestos al servicio de la eficaz transmisión de contenidos serios. Con la intención de comprender mejor el uso de los recursos humorísticos en la obra de Platón, presentamos este volumen en el que veintiséis autores abordan numerosos aspectos de la cuestión. (shrink)

A recurring question about cost - benefit analysis concerns its scope. CBA is a decision-making method frequently employed in environmental policy-making, in which things which have no market price are treated as if they were commodities. They are given a monetary value, a form of price. But it is widely held that some things cannot be meaningfully priced, thus substantially limiting the scope of CBA. The aim of this paper is to test some aspects of this broad claim, focusing on (...) problems of incomparability and incommensurability. In particular, the role of rough equality as a putative form of comparison is investigated. I argue that while an assessment of the full significance of rough equality for practical decision-making awaits resolution of a number of important technical questions, it does not provide a strong enough form of comparison to support CBA. (shrink)

To model behavioral and neural correlates of language comprehension in naturalistic environments, researchers have turned to broad‐coverage tools from natural‐language processing and machine learning. Where syntactic structure is explicitly modeled, prior work has relied predominantly on context‐free grammars (CFGs), yet such formalisms are not sufficiently expressive for human languages. Combinatory categorial grammars (CCGs) are sufficiently expressive directly compositional models of grammar with flexible constituency that affords incremental interpretation. In this work, we evaluate whether a more expressive CCG provides a better (...) model than a CFG for human neural signals collected with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while participants listen to an audiobook story. We further test between variants of CCG that differ in how they handle optional adjuncts. These evaluations are carried out against a baseline that includes estimates of next‐word predictability from a transformer neural network language model. Such a comparison reveals unique contributions of CCG structure‐building predominantly in the left posterior temporal lobe: CCG‐derived measures offer a superior fit to neural signals compared to those derived from a CFG. These effects are spatially distinct from bilateral superior temporal effects that are unique to predictability. Neural effects for structure‐building are thus separable from predictability during naturalistic listening, and those effects are best characterized by a grammar whose expressive power is motivated on independent linguistic grounds. (shrink)

If rising seas render small islands uninhabitable, will displaced islanders become stateless? The modern intellectual and legal tradition tells us that states must have defined, habitable territory. If so, small islands will cease to be states, and their inhabitants will accordingly become stateless. Against this, leading scholars have recently argued that the principle of presumption of continuity of state existence implies that island states continue to be states even after becoming uninhabitable. We argue to the contrary: the principle of presumption (...) of continuity of state existence implies no such thing. If nothing is done to prevent the loss of their territory, small islands will lose their statehood, making displaced islanders stateless. (shrink)

In a recent article in this journal, Schaefer et al. argue that it might be possible to enhance autonomy through the use of cognitive enhancements. In this article, I highlight an example that Schaefer et al. do not acknowledge of a way in which we already seem to be using pharmacological agents in a manner that can be understood as enhancing an agent’s autonomy. To make this argument, I begin by following other theorists in the philosophical literature in claiming that (...) impulsivity can serve to undermine an agent’s autonomy. I then explain that we are already able to reduce impulsivity through the use of pharmacological interventions, as is evidenced by the use of Methylphenidate in the treatment of ADHD. (shrink)

This essay compares the poetic and political theories of contemporary philosopher Giorgio Agamben with the poetry of Wallace Stevens in order to outline a dynamic of ‘inoperativity’ that foregrounds the intimate relationship between language, form and an existential expression of possibility. Through a reading of Stevens’s prose essays and poetry, I demonstrate how Agamben’s reconceptualization of potentiality as a power kept in a non-relational relationship towards its formal realization can be mapped onto the self-conscious articulations of Stevens’s poetic speakers who (...) employ poetic tropes and forms only to question and expose their claims to truth and foundationality. Rather than follow a tradition of poststructuralist readings of Stevens’s destabilizations, I argue for a framework of ‘inoperativity’ that preserves Stevens’s poetic attitude towards life, while showing how his emphasis on potentiality delineates an imaginative vigour that brings the poetic self into renewed attunement with his or her environment. (shrink)

The authors respond to a letter by Mitchell Berger in the March‐April 2024 issue of the Hastings Center Report concerning their essay “Securing the Trustworthiness of the FDA to Build Public Trust in Vaccines.”.