Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2014 Heft: 202 Seiten: 207-240.

Recent works have suggested an analytical complementarity in mixing big and thick data sources. These works have, however, remained as programmatic suggestions, leaving us with limited methodological inputs on how to archive such complementary integration. This article responds to this limitation by proposing a method for ‘blending’ big and thick analytical insights. The paper first develops a methodological framework based on the cognitivist linguistics terminology of ‘blending’. Two cases are then explored in which blended spaces are crafted from engaging big (...) and thick analytical insights with each other. Through these examples, we learn how blending processes should be conducted as a rapid, iterative and collaborative effort with respect for individual expertise. Further, we demonstrate how the unique, but often overlooked, granularity of big data plays a key role in affording the blending with thick data. We conclude by suggesting four commonly appearing blending strategies that can be applied when relying upon big and thick data sources. (shrink)

Face-to-face interaction is a primordial site for human activity and intersubjectivity. Empirical studies have shown how people reflexively exhibit a face orientation and work to establish a formation in which everyone is facing each other in local participation frameworks. The Face has also been described by, e.g., Levinas as the basis for a first ethical philosophy. Humans have established these Face-formations when interacting since time immemorial, but what happens when one of the participants is present through a telepresence robot? Based (...) on ethnomethodology, Peircean/goodwinian semiotics, multimodal conversation analysis and video data from a Danish residential rehabilitation center, the article shows the ways in which participants manage to interactively, cooperatively, and moment by moment achieve an F-formation in situ. The article contributes a detailed analysis and discussion of the kind of participant a telepresence robot is, in and through situated interactions: I propose that we term this participant the RoboDoc, given that it is an assemblage of a doctor who controls a robot. By focusing on the affordances of mobility, the article contributes to a renewed understanding of the importance and relevance of establishing Face-orientations in an increasingly technofied telepresence world. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

In this paper, we study the interactional organization of an instructed object exploration among sighted and visually impaired people (VIPs) in order to contribute to studies of instructional activities and the observable accomplishment of haptic perception. We do this by showing the situated, interactional, and co-operative organization of achieving object understanding. We focus on the dynamics of haptic perception as being reliant on instructions, while at the same time being an observable production that furnishes further instructions. We show the organization (...) of visual and verbal instructions versus the touching of objects for haptic perception. Based on ethnomethodological conversation analysis of video data, we study a VIP’s haptic actions in interaction with a professional, sighted ICT consultant who provides instructions on what an object is and what it can do. We show how the instructions are sequentially adjusted to make them relevant for a simultaneous, emerging exploration in which the VIP uses their hands and fingers to perceive very specific details of the object. We argue that achieving object understanding is accomplished in and through the fine-tuned coordination of haptic exploration, both as a response to verbal instructions and also as a means of conveying perception-related actions, which the ICT uses to build new actions. The paper thus makes a case for instructed and distributed haptic perception as observable in social interaction and as a resource for building object understanding within phenomenal fields. (shrink)

The paper contributes to previous studies of identity as locally and interactionally produced by pointing to some of the multimodal resources employed by participants to achieving, challenge and manage the professional identity of ‘leader’ in different workplace settings. We examine professional identity work in sequential environments where it provides a resource for handling the resistance to improvement displayed by another participant. We show how leader identity work gets embedded within a four-part structure of: identifying a problem, proposing improvements, misaligning with (...) others’ proposals, and managing the misalignment. The paper is based on video ethnographic fieldwork and recordings of face-to-face institutional interaction at two different institutional settings in Denmark. The study provides insight about the role of identity work in the interactional achievement of institutional procedures. (shrink)

It is argued that propositions cannot be the compositional semantic values of sentences (in context) simply due to issues stemming from the compositional semantics of modal operators (or modal quantifiers). In particular, the fact that the arguments for double indexing generalize to multiple indexing exposes a fundamental tension in the default philosophical conception of semantic theory. This provides further motivation for making a distinction between two sentential semantic contents—what (Dummett 1973) called “ingredient sense” and “assertoric content”.

There is a growing interest among scientists and the lay public alike in using the South American psychedelic brew, ayahuasca, to treat psychiatric disorders like depression and anxiety. Such a practice is controversial due to a style of reasoning within conventional psychiatry that sees psychedelic-induced modified states of consciousness as pathological. This article analyzes the academic literature on ayahuasca's psychological effects to determine how this style of reasoning is shaping formal scientific discourse on ayahuasca's therapeutic potential as a treatment for (...) depression and anxiety. Findings from these publications suggest that different kinds of experiments are differentially affected by this style of reasoning but can nonetheless indicate some potential therapeutic utility of the ayahuasca-induced modified state of consciousness. The article concludes by suggesting ways in which conventional psychiatry's dominant style of reasoning about psychedelic modified states of consciousness could be reconsidered. (shrink)

In this paper, we defend the representationalist theory of phenomenal consciousness against a recent objection due to Hilla Jacobson, who charges representationalism with a failure to explain the role of pain in rationalizing certain forms of behavior. In rough outline, her objection is that the representationalist is unable to account for the rationality of certain acts, such as the act of taking pain killers, which are aimed at getting rid of the experience of pain rather than its intentional object. If (...) representationalism were true, she claims, then the act of taking pain killers would be just as irrational as the act of a ruler who responds to bad tidings by killing the messenger. This paper aims to show that these charges are mistaken. (shrink)

We generalize the Kolmogorov axioms for probability calculus to obtain conditions defining, for any given logic, a class of probability functions relative to that logic, coinciding with the standard probability functions in the special case of classical logic but allowing consideration of other classes of "essentially Kolmogorovian" probability functions relative to other logics. We take a broad view of the Bayesian approach as dictating inter alia that from the perspective of a given logic, rational degrees of belief are those representable (...) by probability functions from the class appropriate to that logic. Classical Bayesianism, which fixes the logic as classical logic, is only one version of this general approach. Another, which we call Intuitionistic Bayesianism, selects intuitionistic logic as the preferred logic and the associated class of probability functions as the right class of candidate representions of epistemic states (rational allocations of degrees of belief). Various objections to classical Bayesianism are, we argue, best met by passing to intuitionistic Bayesianism—in which the probability functions are taken relative to intuitionistic logic—rather than by adopting a radically non-Kolmogorovian, for example, nonadditive, conception of (or substitute for) probability functions, in spite of the popularity of the latter response among those who have raised these objections. The interest of intuitionistic Bayesianism is further enhanced by the availability of a Dutch Book argument justifying the selection of intuitionistic probability functions as guides to rational betting behavior when due consideration is paid to the fact that bets are settled only when/if the outcome bet on becomes known. (shrink)

Can war ever be just? By what right do we charge people with war crimes? Can war itself be a crime? What is a good peace treaty? Since the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, many wars have erupted, inflaming such areas as the Persian Gulf, Central Africa and Central Europe. Brutalities committed during these conflicts have sparked new interest in the ethics of war and peace. Brian Orend explores the ethics of war and peace from a Kantian (...) perspective, emphasizing human rights protection, the rule of international law and a fully global concept of justice. Contending that Kant’s just war doctrine has not been given its due, Orend displays Kant’s theory to its fullest, impressive effect. He then completely and clearly updates Kant’s perspective for application to our time. Along the way, he criticizes pacifism and realism, explores the nature of human rights protection during wartime, and defends a theory of just war. He also looks ahead to future developments in global institutional reform using cases from the Persian Gulf War, Somalia, Bosnia, and Rwanda to illustrate his argument. Controversial and timely, perhaps the most important contribution War and International Justice: A Kantian Perspective makes is with regard to the question of justice after war. Orend offers a principled theory of war termination, making an urgent plea to reform current international law. (shrink)

Brian Goodwin, author of How the Leopard Changed Its Spots, argues for a view of nature as complex, interrelated networks of relationships. He proposes that, in order for us to once again work with nature to achieve true sustainability on our planet, we need to adopt a new science, new art, new design, new economies and new patterns of responsibility. We must be willing to pay nature its due: to recognize what we owe to the natural world and resist (...) exploiting it solely for our own ends. (shrink)

Multidimensional concepts are everywhere, and they are important. Examples include moral value, welfare, scientific confirmation, democracy, and biodiversity. How, if at all, can we aggregate the underlying dimensions of a multidimensional concept F to yield verdicts about which things are Fer than which overall? Social choice theory can be used to model and investigate this aggregation problem. Here, we focus on a particularly thorny problem made salient by this social choice-theoretic framework: the underlying dimensions of a given concept might be (...) measurable on different types of scales—e.g., some ordinal and some cardinal. An underappreciated impossibility theorem due to Anna Khmelnitskaya shows that seemingly plausible constraints on aggregation across scale types are inconsistent. This impossibility threatens to render the notion of overall Fness incoherent. We attempt to defuse this threat, arguing that the impossibility depends on an overly restrictive conception of measurement and of how measurement constrains aggregation. Adopting a more flexible—and, we think, more perspicuous—conception of measurement opens an array of possibilities for aggregation across disparate scale types. (shrink)

This paper re-evaluates W.K. Clifford on the ethics of belief in light of criticism due to William James and replies to James from David A. Hollinger.

It is a commonplace in the philosophy of physics that any local physical theory can be represented using arbitrary coordinates, simply by using tensor calculus. On the other hand, the physics literature often claims that spinors \emph{as such} cannot be represented in coordinates in a curved space-time. These commonplaces are inconsistent. What general covariance means for theories with fermions, such as electrons, is thus unclear. In fact both commonplaces are wrong. Though it is not widely known, Ogievetsky and Polubarinov constructed (...) spinors in coordinates in 1965, enhancing the unity of physics and helping to spawn particle physicists' concept of nonlinear group representations. Roughly and locally, these spinors resemble the orthonormal basis or "tetrad" formalism in the symmetric gauge, but they are conceptually self-sufficient and more economical. The typical tetrad formalism is de-Ockhamized, with six extra field components and six compensating gauge symmetries to cancel them out. The Ogievetsky-Polubarinov formalism, by contrast, is Ockhamized, with most of the fluff removed. As developed nonperturbatively by Bilyalov, it admits any coordinates at a point, but "time" must be listed first. Here "time" is defined in terms of an eigenvalue problem involving the metric components and the matrix $diag$, the product of which must have no negative eigenvalues in order to yield a real symmetric square root that is a function of the metric. Thus even formal general covariance requires reconsideration; the atlas of admissible coordinate charts should be sensitive to the types and \emph{values} of the fields involved. Apart from coordinate order and the usual spinorial two-valuedness, Ogievetsky-Polubarinov spinors form, with the metric, a nonlinear geometric object, for which important results on Lie and covariant differentiation are recalled. Such spinors avoid a spurious absolute object in the Anderson-Friedman analysis of substantive general covariance. They also permit the gauge-invariant localization of the infinite-component gravitational energy in General Relativity. Density-weighted spinors exploit the conformal invariance of the massless Dirac equation to show that the volume element is absent. Thus instead of an arbitrary nonsingular matrix with 16 components, 6 of which are gauged away by a new local $O$ gauge group and one of which is irrelevant due to conformal covariance, one can, and presumably should, use density-weighted Ogievetsky-Polubarinov spinors coupled to the 9-component symmetric square root of the part of the metric that fixes null cones. Thus $\frac{7}{16}$ of the orthonormal basis is eliminated as surplus structure. Greater unity between spinors and tensors and the like is achieved, such as regarding conservation laws. Regarding the conventionality of simultaneity, an unusually wide range of $\epsilon$ values is admissible, but some extreme values are inadmissible. Standard simultaneity uniquely makes the spinor transformation law linear and independent of the metric, because transformations among the standard Cartesian coordinate systems fall within the conformal group, for which the spinor transformation law is linear. The surprising mildness of the restrictions on coordinate order as applied to the Schwarzschild solution is exhibited. (shrink)

Liberty and Law examines a previously underappreciated theme in legal history―the idea of permissive natural law. The idea is mentioned only peripherally, if at all, in modern histories of natural law. Yet it engaged the attention of jurists, philosophers, and theologians over a long period and formed an integral part of their teachings. This ensured that natural law was not conceived of as merely a set of commands and prohibitions that restricted human conduct, but also as affirming a realm of (...) human freedom, understood as both freedom from subjection and freedom of choice. Freedom can be used in many ways, and throughout the whole period from 1100 to 1800 the idea of permissive natural law was deployed for various purposes in response to different problems that arose. It was frequently invoked to explain the origin of private property and the beginnings of civil government. Several kinds of permissive natural law were identified. Permission could be positive or negative, depending on whether it was specifically conceded by a legislator or only tacitly allowed. It could free from sin or merely remit some temporal punishment that was due. It could commend some conduct without commanding it or permit some evil without condoning it. Medieval canonists used the concept of permissive natural law to harmonize the discordant texts that they found in their sources; William of Ockham found it a powerful tool in his defense of Franciscan poverty against papal criticisms; for Richard Hooker it justified both the constitutional structure and the ritual practices of the Anglican church; John Selden used it to uphold the inviolability of contracts, most importantly the contract of government; Hugo Grotius made it a central theme in his treatment of the conduct permissible in waging war; in the eighteenth century Jean Barbeyrac and Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui associated the idea with the emerging doctrine of natural rights. In Liberty and Law, Tierney has presented us with a magisterial and provocative way of interpreting legal history. (shrink)

It is a commonplace in the philosophy of physics that any local physical theory can be represented using arbitrary coordinates, simply by using tensor calculus. On the other hand, the physics literature often claims that spinors \emph{as such} cannot be represented in coordinates in a curved space-time. These commonplaces are inconsistent. What general covariance means for theories with fermions, such as electrons, is thus unclear. In fact both commonplaces are wrong. Though it is not widely known, Ogievetsky and Polubarinov constructed (...) spinors in coordinates in 1965, enhancing the unity of physics and helping to spawn particle physicists' concept of nonlinear group representations. Roughly and locally, these spinors resemble the orthonormal basis or "tetrad" formalism in the symmetric gauge, but they are conceptually self-sufficient and more economical. The typical tetrad formalism is de-Ockhamized, with six extra field components and six compensating gauge symmetries to cancel them out. The Ogievetsky-Polubarinov formalism, by contrast, is Ockhamized, with most of the fluff removed. As developed nonperturbatively by Bilyalov, it admits any coordinates at a point, but "time" must be listed first. Here "time" is defined in terms of an eigenvalue problem involving the metric components and the matrix $diag$, the product of which must have no negative eigenvalues in order to yield a real symmetric square root that is a function of the metric. Thus even formal general covariance requires reconsideration; the atlas of admissible coordinate charts should be sensitive to the types and \emph{values} of the fields involved. Apart from coordinate order and the usual spinorial two-valuedness, Ogievetsky-Polubarinov spinors form, with the metric, a nonlinear geometric object, for which important results on Lie and covariant differentiation are recalled. Such spinors avoid a spurious absolute object in the Anderson-Friedman analysis of substantive general covariance. They also permit the gauge-invariant localization of the infinite-component gravitational energy in General Relativity. Density-weighted spinors exploit the conformal invariance of the massless Dirac equation to show that the volume element is absent. Thus instead of an arbitrary nonsingular matrix with 16 components, 6 of which are gauged away by a new local $O$ gauge group and one of which is irrelevant due to conformal covariance, one can, and presumably should, use density-weighted Ogievetsky-Polubarinov spinors coupled to the 9-component symmetric square root of the part of the metric that fixes null cones. Thus $\frac{7}{16}$ of the orthonormal basis is eliminated as surplus structure. Greater unity between spinors and tensors and the like is achieved, such as regarding conservation laws. Regarding the conventionality of simultaneity, an unusually wide range of $\epsilon$ values is admissible, but some extreme values are inadmissible. Standard simultaneity uniquely makes the spinor transformation law linear and independent of the metric, because transformations among the standard Cartesian coordinate systems fall within the conformal group, for which the spinor transformation law is linear. The surprising mildness of the restrictions on coordinate order as applied to the Schwarzschild solution is exhibited. (shrink)

How shall we decide for others who cannot decide for themselves? And who—or what, in the case of artificial intelligence — should make the decision? The present issue of the journal tackles several interrelated topics, many of them having to do with surrogate decision making. For example, the feature article by Jardas et al 1 explores the potential use of artificial intelligence to predict incapacitated patients’ likely treatment preferences based on their sociodemographic characteristics, raising questions about the means by which (...) we come to decide for others. And a clinical ethics round table led by Wilkinson and Pillay2 examines the case of a premature baby on life support whose primary surrogate is herself incapacitated. Together, these examples force us to think more deeply about the meaning and significance of taken-for-granted concepts: respect for autonomy, substituted judgement, best interests. We’ll consider the baby first and then turn to AI. “Baby T” is a critically ill newborn delivered prematurely by emergency caesarean section. The mother had entered into a surrogacy arrangement with a same-sex male couple, the intended parents, who were to take over the baby’s care after birth—just as soon as a formal parental order could be obtained through the court. Until then, the birth mother, who had used her own eggs to conceive Baby T along with sperm from an unidentified donor, would have legal and ethical responsibility to decide about the baby’s care. Unfortunately, she too was in critical condition, having fallen unconscious prior to delivery due to a sudden brain haemorrhage. She remained unconscious, and thus incapacitated, during a crucial period in which time-sensitive decisions about Baby T’s care needed to be made, including whether to continue life support. Given the mother’s incapacity, who should …. (shrink)

As I head home from work, I’m not sure whether my daughter’s new bike is green, and I’m also not sure whether I’m on drugs that distort my color perception. One thing that I am sure about is that my attitudes towards those possibilities are evidentially independent of one another, in the sense that changing my confidence in one shouldn’t affect my confidence in the other. When I get home and see the bike it looks green, so I increase my (...) confidence that it is green. But something else has changed: now an increase in my confidence that I’m on color-drugs would undermine my confidence that the bike is green. Jonathan Weisberg and Jim Pryor argue that the preceding story is problematic for standard Bayesian accounts of perceptual learning. Due to the ‘rigidity’ of Conditionalization, a negative probabilistic correlation between two propositions cannot be introduced by updating on one of them. Hence if my beliefs about my own color-sobriety start out independent of my beliefs about the color of the bike, then they must remain independent after I have my perceptual experience and update accordingly. Weisberg takes this to be a reason to reject Conditionalization. I argue that this conclusion is too pessimistic: Conditionalization is only part of the Bayesian story of perceptual learning, and the other part needn’t preserve independence. Hence Bayesian accounts of perceptual learning are perfectly consistent with potential underminers for perceptual beliefs. (shrink)

The proper treatment of correlation in evolutionary game theory has unexpected connections with recent philosophical discussions of the theory of rational decision. The Logic of Decision (Jeffrey 1983) provides the correct framework for correlated evolutionary game theory and a variant of "ratifiability" is the appropriate generalization of "evolutionarily stable strategy". The resulting theory unifies the treatment of correlation due to kin, population viscosity, detection, signaling, reciprocal altruism, and behavior-dependent contexts. It is shown that (1) a strictly dominated strategy may be (...) selected, and (2) under conditions of perfect correlation a strictly efficient strategy must be selected. (shrink)

Karl Rahner’s theory of fundamental option has been criticized in recent years due to a perceived discontinuity between categorical actions in history and their transcendental implications. Jean Porter, for example, argues that such a discontinuity undermines any usefulness of the theory for the moral life because it is unable to generate a substantive account of the life of virtue. This essay disputes such claims, arguing that Rahner’s reluctance to definitively connect particular actions with a positive or negative fundamental option is (...) simply in keeping with the Roman Catholic tradition of being tentative with regard to subjective judgments about the relationship between particular actions and the state of one’s soul. Further, it is argued that an examination of Rahner’s understanding of the unity of love of God and love of neighbor will serve to generate paradigmatic behaviors which are potential “sites” for a fundamental option. In this regard, the essay focuses on Rahner’s discussions of conscience and Ignatian discernment as well as on the relationship of fundamental option to “dying with Christ” or Christian witness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Montaigne on Witches and the Authority of Religion in the Public SphereBrian RibeiroThe pleasure in reading Michel de Montaigne, the French Counter-Reformer and fideistic skeptic, is due in no small part to the ways in which he so frequently defeats our expectations. The surprises occur at several levels, beginning with the very titles of his essays, which frequently have little to do with the topics he actually discusses. Who, (...) for example, would expect an essay titled "Of Three Good Women" (II.35) to praise the three women for their variously successful attempts at committing suicide—and little else? Or who would expect an essay with the innocent title "On Some Verses of Virgil" (II.5) to be richly confessional, as well as very explicitly sexual? Or, as one final example, who would expect an essay "Of Cripples" (II.11) to either (a) discuss the witch trials or (b) discuss cripples principally in terms of whether the lame make better sexual partners?The surprises are not confined to the formal features of Montaigne's text, but also appear in the views he articulates. We would not expect an early modern Frenchman to write so sympathetically and even admiringly about the cannibals of the New World (I.31). Nor would we expect an early modern French Catholic to write in opposition to the witch trials. Montaigne does both—with incredible finesse. But despite the attractively progressive attitude seemingly manifested in these two stances, Montaigne's overall view is in fact far more conservative and quietistic than we might expect, were we judging based only on these few cases. And so he surprises us yet again: We are surprised to find him opposing the witch trials, and we are surprised a second time to find that his opposition does not signal any deeper tendency toward progressive or politically liberal views. In short, there is good reason [End Page 235] to see Montaigne's general stance as firmly traditional. While he sometimes expresses apparently progressive views, he does so in a way that has no stable basis in his overall conceptual scheme, as I will argue. Of course, merely observing this tension in Montaigne's work is nothing new. Hugo Friedrich, writing in 1949, and discussing II.11, claimed that "Montaigne bravely takes a position against the delusion of the masses and against clerical fanaticism."1 But in the same passage (and elsewhere) Friedrich shows himself to be well-aware that this apparent radicalism is balanced by Montaigne's conservatism.2 That tension—in a nutshell—encapsulates the debate.3 However, "Of Cripples" presents this tension in its most perplexing form, making a detailed analysis of II.11 our best hope of making progress on the debate.4To support these claims I propose to offer a careful textual analysis of Montaigne's discussion of the witch trials in "Of Cripples."5 After considering several philosophical interpretations of his key Augustinian principle, I will argue that Montaigne's critique of the witch trials is primarily driven by problems internal to the religious perspective, and so does not represent an attempt to circumscribe the authority of religion in the public sphere more generally.6 Such a position, then, is both traditional and quietistic—another of Montaigne's surprises for his readers. If this is correct, then one of the principal texts used for promoting a "liberal" Montaigne—namely, II.11—can be be reappropriated by the defenders of a "quietistic" Montaigne. Nonetheless, even on my reading, there remain some incompletely resolved tensions. That, perhaps, is no less than we should expect from history's only self-proclaimed "accidental philosopher."7IMontaigne opens "Of Cripples" by discussing the Gregorian reform of the calendar, which had been adopted in France in 1582. Yet as odd as this opening is, it serves to quickly introduce a familiar theme in the Essays: Even so basic a matter as the calendar is subject to "[s] o much uncertainty"—just like everything else—that "we are every day in doubt" about how to "keep a record of past events" (F, pp. 784–85). These thoughts are then quickly transformed into a skeptical reflection on human reason itself... (shrink)

The Protagoras is the touchstone of Socrates’ moral intellectualist stance. The position in a nutshell stipulates that the proper reevaluation of a desire is enough to neutralize it.[1] The implication of this position is that akrasia or weakness of will is not the result of desire (or fear for that matter) overpowering reason but is due to ignorance. -/- Socrates’ eliminativist position on weakness of will, however, flies in the face of the common-sense experience regarding akratic action and thus Aristotle (...) was at pains to render Socrates’ account of moral incontinence intelligible. The key improvement Aristotle makes to Socrates’s model is to underscore that the conditioning of the akratic’s body plays a critical role in determining the power of one’s appetites and, accordingly, the capacity of one to resist the temptations these appetites present for rational evaluation. As Aristotle puts it, “For the incontinent man is like the people who get drunk quickly and on little wine, i.e., on less than most people.” (1151a 3-4). Aristotle presents what I shall call a somatic paradigm (i.e. the drunkard analogy) in order to tackle the problem of akrasia and it is this somatic solution that marks a significant improvement over Socrates’s intellectualist or informational model or so the tradition tells us. -/- In this paper, I wish to push back on the above Aristotelian explanation. I argue that when one fully examines Socrates’ account of weakness of will that Aristotle’s solution is less effective than is traditionally thought. In fact, Socrates can bring Aristotle’s model into his own; just as Aristotle absorbs what is right about Socrates’s model, namely, that akratic action utilizes reason but to a limited degree, Socrates in Meno (77C-78A) develops his own somatic model of weakness of will that connects to the intellectualist paradigm of the Protagoras. To achieve this rapprochement between the two models, I zero in on the description provided by Socrates of those individuals who desire bad things knowing they are bad as “ill-starred” or “bad spirited” (κακοδαίμων ). The “bad-spirited” is the coward and, in contrast to Aristotle’s drunkard, becomes fearful quickly from little danger. This additional somatic component, when connected to Socrates’s position on akrasia in Protagoras adds a new twist to Socrates’s model in the following way: while no one wishes to be ill-starred such that more harm than good will befall one, one may become so as a result of the bad choices one knowingly makes. -/- -/- [1] “After him came Socrates, who spoke better and further about this subject, but even he was not successful. For he used to make the virtues into sciences, and this is impossible. For the sciences all involve reason, and reason is to be found in the intellectual part of the soul. So that all the virtues, according to him arise in the rational part of the soul. The result is that in making the virtues into sciences he is doing away with the nonrational part of the soul and is thereby doing away with passion and character…” (Aristotle, Magna Moralia 1.1. 1182 a15-26). (shrink)

Physical realism is the thesis that the world is more or less as present‐day physical theory says it is, i.e. a mind‐independent reality, that consists fundamentally of physical objects that have causal powers, are located in space and time, belong to natural kinds, and interact causally with each other in various natural kinds of ways. It is thus a modern form of physicalism that takes due account of the natural kinds structure of the world. It is a thesis that many (...) present‐day scientific realists would surely accept. Indeed, some might say that physical realism just is scientific realism, but under another name. However, the argument that is presented for physical realism is not the standard one for scientific realism. It is not a two‐stage argument from the success of science to the truth of scientific theories to the reality of the entities postulated in these theories. It is more powerful than this, because it is more direct, and its premisses are more secure. It is more direct, because it develops what is basically a physicalist ontology as the only plausible metaphysical explanation of the new scientific image of the world. It is more secure, in that it does not depend, as the standard argument does, on any doubtful generalisations about the nature or role of scientific theory. (shrink)

In earlier work, I argued that examples supposed to substantiate consequential moral luck can lose their anomalous appearance if due account is taken of the moral obligation to discharge epistemic responsibilities, and of the different scope and focus of this obligation for the agent as contrasted with the observer. In his recent JMP article, Mark Silcox argues that my explanatory strategy is dependent on an unacceptable commitment to an ‘ineliminable epistemic gulf’ between first-person and third-person perspectives. Here I attempt a (...) defence against Silcox’s criticism, and tentatively suggest some wider implications of the debate. (shrink)

The paper examines three aspects of the debate over the introduction of victim impact statements (VIS) in criminal cases. The first is the challenge VIS presents to the wholly public conception of criminal justice, in which the offender is prosecuted, tried and punished in the name of the state and not the individual victim. The second is the claim by supporters of VIS that the enhancement of victim input contributes to repairing an imbalance between offender and victim, created by the (...) crime itself and exacerbated by existing criminal justice processes. The third is the claim that victim impact evidence is necessary to ensure that punishment is properly calibrated to the blameworthiness of the offender. In respect of each question, a key role is played in supporting VIS by two presuppositions: that criminal justice should be thought of as a field of conflict among individuals seeking their due, and that the courts suffer an institutional deficiency of human understanding that requires a special remedy. The paper argues that the case for VIS is seriously weakened if these presuppositions are not accepted, and draws attention to their derivation from a wider political culture characterised by the dominance of neo-liberalism or market individualism. (shrink)

Physical realism is the thesis that the world is more or less as present‐day physical theory says it is, i.e. a mind‐independent reality, that consists fundamentally of physical objects that have causal powers, are located in space and time, belong to natural kinds, and interact causally with each other in various natural kinds of ways. It is thus a modern form of physicalism that takes due account of the natural kinds structure of the world. It is a thesis that many (...) present‐day scientific realists would surely accept. Indeed, some might say that physical realism just is scientific realism, but under another name. However, the argument that is presented for physical realism is not the standard one for scientific realism. It is not a two‐stage argument from the success of science to the truth of scientific theories to the reality of the entities postulated in these theories. It is more powerful than this, because it is more direct, and its premisses are more secure. It is more direct, because it develops what is basically a physicalist ontology as the only plausible metaphysical explanation of the new scientific image of the world. It is more secure, in that it does not depend, as the standard argument does, on any doubtful generalisations about the nature or role of scientific theory. (shrink)

Many critics have pointed to the failures of modernist urban design, which include its obliteration of thriving neighborhoods, isolation of functions and production of alienating spaces hostile to the human form. Less focus has been placed on defining the source of the modernists’ errors. This essay argues that these errors were in part due to neglect of the nature of fully embodied experience, a neglect manifested in an overwhelmingly visual disposition in embodiment. The author argues that a visual disposition is (...) implicated in the occlusion of place by the modern concept of abstract space. This concept of space and the visual disposition that is implicated in it undergird the utopianism and veneration for abstract forms that characterized the project of modernist urban design. The author concludes by suggesting that the basis for a humanizing urbanism should be the solicitation of all the senses in synesthetic interaction. This phenomenological critique can help us to see precisely where modernist urban design went wrong; it can also help lead us out of the false dichotomy between alienating modernism and orthodox traditionalism by establishing a basis for successful urban environments in embodiment rather than in any rigidly determined formula for urban design. (shrink)

"Nietzsche is infuriatingly difficult to comprehend as he sets to tearing down every scaffold left from the old world. Beyond Good and Evil represents Nietzsche in his maturity, being written later in life. It is also some of his clearest writing since it is intentionally polemical. None of his writing is known particularly for its moderation, but Beyond Good and Evil is written as an assault on half-hearted philosophers who are still playing about with the old world. But he is (...) a particularly infuriating read for those who see the world as made and ruled by God. He is difficult to understand since he seeks to remove everything that makes such a world comprehensible. But to say this is simply to describe our age, and for this reason Nietzsche is valuable. But be warned, he will not be trifled with. Sit with him and listen as he seeks to remove every vestige of God from the world." The Worldview Guides from the Canon Classics Literature Series provide an aesthetic and thematic Christian perspective on the most definitive and daunting works of Western Literature. Each Worldview Guide presents the big picture (both the good and the bad) without neglecting the details. Each Worldview Guide is a friendly literary coach--and a treasure map, and a compass, and a key--to help teachers, parents, and students appreciate, critique, and begin to master the classics. The bite-size WGs are divided into these ten sections (with some variation due to genre): Introduction, The World Around, About the Author, What Other Notables Said, Structure and Audience, Worldview Analysis, Quotables, 21 Significant Questions & Answers, and Further Discussion & Review. (shrink)

Among the many codices carried by Cassiodorus when he returned to Italy from Constantinople in the early 550s was a copy of the chronicle of Marcellinus, an Illyrian who had lived for many years in Constantinople before writing his chronicle in A.D. 518/519. The chronicle covered events from 379 to the death of Anastasius and was later continued by Marcellinus to 534.1 That the chronicle is preserved at all is due partly to the fact that Cassiodorus recommended it in his (...) reading guide for monks, the Institutiones, where it is included under the heading ‘Christian Historians’. If you want to know which chroniclers to read, says Cassiodorus, then begin with Jerome's translation of Eusebius and his own continuation of Eusebius to 378. Of all the continuators of Jerome Cassiodorus recommends Marcellinus and Prosper, but in mentioning Marcellinus he digresses slightly to include some valuable and unique information which he had picked up while in Constantinople on Marcellinus' public career. (shrink)

The author attends to pedagogical dilemmas educators face in introductory philosophy courses in large universities. Large bureaucratic structures often produce poor student attendance and produce large classroom settings with brief classes, which blocks instructors from cultivating productive class room experience and philosophical engagement. Students are unable to engage in courses either because of lack of interest or because they are unable to speak due to the short duration of the class. The author suggests an online community structured after the Socratic (...) agora to allow students to engage with philosophical issues outside the classroom setting and enable them to initiate dialogue amongst other students. (shrink)

The author attends to pedagogical dilemmas educators face in introductory philosophy courses in large universities. Large bureaucratic structures often produce poor student attendance and produce large classroom settings with brief classes, which blocks instructors from cultivating productive class room experience and philosophical engagement. Students are unable to engage in courses either because of lack of interest or because they are unable to speak due to the short duration of the class. The author suggests an online community structured after the Socratic (...) agora to allow students to engage with philosophical issues outside the classroom setting and enable them to initiate dialogue amongst other students. (shrink)

This article explores the importance of environmental perception in the context of alternative agrarian social relations. Because environmental perception is socially constructed, the article is concerned with how those with an alternative agenda for agrarian practice attempt change, and the likely difficulties faced due to the structural requirements and effects of the dominant paradigm of development. It explores the need for a clear model of change, both in its outcomes and its change strategies, and the difficulties that may be faced. (...) The article draws on a case study of a rural landsharing collective in Australia to contextualize these broader issues, and considers some of the implications of the findings for instigating the broader concern of an ecologically sustainable agrarian practice based on permacultural design. (shrink)

A debate over whether God predestines to make some people reprobate broke out in the ninth century. No one taught this view, but it was presumed by several churchmen at the time to be the position of those who called themselves double predestinarians. In part, this article explains why two double predestinarians, Gottschalk of Orbais and Ratramnus of Corbie, were mistaken for proponents of this view. They had been trying to explain Augustine’s phrase, “those predestined to punishment”, which they found (...) in no fewer than ten of Augustine’s texts. Gottschalk points out Augustine used the phrase interchangeably with the term reprobate. Thus, to Gottschalk, it is not a statement about what God predestines; rather, it is a statement about the effect of predestination on certain people. Likewise, to Ratramnus, the phrase referred to the effect of God’s ordering of both the good and evil acts of persons. That Gottschalk and Ratramnus identified Augustine’s use of the phrase with a belief in double predestination was due to their reading Augustine through the lens of Isidore of Seville’s Sententiae II.6. (shrink)

In September 2015 a well-publicised Campaign Against Sex Robots (CASR) was launched. Modelled on the longer-standing Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, the CASR opposes the development of sex robots on the grounds that the technology is being developed with a particular model of female-male relations (the prostitute-john model) in mind, and that this will prove harmful in various ways. In this chapter, we consider carefully the merits of campaigning against such a technology. We make three main arguments. First, we argue (...) that the particular claims advanced by the CASR are unpersuasive, partly due to a lack of clarity about the campaign’s aims and partly due to substantive defects in the main ethical objections put forward by campaign’s founder(s). Second, broadening our inquiry beyond the arguments proferred by the campaign itself, we argue that it would be very difficult to endorse a general campaign against sex robots unless one embraced a highly conservative attitude towards the ethics of sex, which is likely to be unpalatable to those who are active in the campaign. In making this argument we draw upon lessons from the campaign against killer robots. Finally, we conclude by suggesting that although a generalised campaign against sex robots is unwarranted, there are legitimate concerns that one can raise about the development of sex robots. (shrink)

In both popular and technical discussion we often find the pairs of opposed terms ‘innate/acquired,’ ‘due to genes/due to environment,’ ‘nature/nurture,’ and so forth. They appear to be used as if they all captured a genuine distinction, and the same distinction at that. A related family of opposed pairs is held to describe the difference between those who attribute a certain trait to ‘nature’ and those who attribute it to ‘nurture’: ‘nativists’ versus ‘constructivists’ is one such pair. Chomsky and his (...) followers are often described as ‘nativists’ regarding certain features of language. On a cursory examination, many of the claims of Evolutionary Psychology bear the appearance of ‘nativism.’ That is, it looks as though Evolutionary Psychologists are making claims to the effect that many features of the mind which are often thought to be due to ‘nurture’ are in fact due to ‘nature.’ However, two of the genre's leading practitioners, John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, vigorously deny that this is their position. (shrink)

Attribution of the magneto-electric machine to Michael Faraday derives from the fact that it was he who proposed and named such a machine following his discovery of electromagnetic induction. Faraday did not, however, build such a machine although he did contrive to generate electricity with a revolving disc device. The technological origins of the first viable magneto-electric machines stem rather from a different concept in design although, of course, wholly dependent upon the newly discovered electromagnetic principle. Thus, although Faraday's position (...) remains without question, it is, nevertheless, largely due to other practitioners, such as the instrument makers Pixii, Saxton, and Clarke, that practical development took place in the 1830s. The present paper considers the early development of the magneto-electric machine and pays particular attention to the communication of ideas among the community of philosopher-mechanics. (shrink)

Our current planetary emergency is one in which we are facing significant global warming as a result of human-driven climate change. This is having and will continue to have catastrophic results for the earth’s ecosystems and for life as we know it. The Christian tradition often works actively against the seriousness of these challenges due to its eschatological outlook. Process theology, as one stream within the Christian tradition, embraces a different vision of the future that fosters engagement in current concerns (...) rather than an escapist approach. A process theological proposal is therefore offered that calls for an embodied ethic that embraces the acronym SHE. SHE stands for Sustainability, Health, and Ethics. It provides a dietary grid as a way to embody ethics to bring about societal change in light of environmental challenges. SHE is proposed against a background that argues for Christian engagement in our current global crisis. The idea of “small turnings” as a conceptual idea is adopted to help frame how the SHE grid might be understood. (shrink)

[From the publisher] "Augustine and Roman Virtue" seeks to correct what the author sees as a fundamental misapprehension in medieval thought, a misapprehension that fuels further problems and misunderstandings in the historiography of philosophy. This misapprehension is the assumption that the development of certain themes associated with medieval philosophy is due, primarily if not exclusively, to extra-philosophical religious commitments rather than philosophical argumentation, referred to here as the ‘sacralization thesis'. Brian Harding explores this problem through a detailed reading of (...) Augustine's City of God as understood in a Latin context, that is, in dialogue with Latin writers such as Cicero, Livy, Sallust and Seneca. The book seeks to revise a common reading of Augustine's critique of ancient virtue by focusing on that dialogue, while showing that his attitude towards those authors is more sympathetic, and more critical, than one might expect. Harding argues that the criticisms rest on sympathy and that Augustine's critique of ancient virtue thinks through and develops certain trends noticeable in the major figures of Latin philosophy. (shrink)

SummaryLiberalism arose alongside Romanticism but the two were qualitatively different. Romantic Liberalism in Italy and Spain, with roots in the Enlightenment, looked for the reasons why supposed past liberties had been lost and for methods to regain them. The constitutional issue, however, exposed the differences between the two countries, due principally to continued foreign rule in Italy, lack of political unity and the absence of an accepted common language. In both countries, however, the conjunction of Liberalism and Romanticism assisted the (...) elaboration of national myths. Literature in both countries responded to the overriding issues but with different emphases. Spain Romanticism produced no writer of Alessandro Manzoni's stature. (shrink)

Many traditional theists have said that God is propositionally omniscient, i.e. knows all truths. Many traditional theists also hold that God is timeless. That is, these theists hold that though God exists, there is no time at which He exists, and He does not exist earlier or later than anything. Some recent philosophers, among them Arthor Prior, Robert Coburn, Norman Kretz mann, Nicholas Wolterstorfl Richard Gale and Patrick Grim, have argued that There are truths to whose expression ‘now’ is essential, (...) and that – compose an inconsistent set of propositions. These writers argue that due to the semantics of ‘now’, a timeless God cannot know truths to whose expression ‘now’ is essential. To know a truth, it is claimed, one must be able to mentally token a proposition expressing what one knows. To token a truth to whose expression ‘now’ is essential, one must token ‘now’. ‘Now’ and relevantly similar terms inter alia locate those who use them in time: if one says truly that it is now 3 p.m., it follows that one exists at 3 p.m. So a timeless being cannot use ‘now’ and relevantly similar terms, and so cannot know truths for whose expression ‘now’ and its ilk are required. (shrink)

If you believe in the existence of an infinitely good, all-knowing, and all-powerful deity (‘God’), how do you explain the reality of evil – including the inexpressible suffering and death of innocents? Wouldn't God be forced to vanquish such suffering due to God's very nature? Alvin Plantinga has argued, convincingly, that if the possibility of ultimate goodness somehow necessarily required that evil be allowed to exist, God, being omnibenevolent, would have to allow it. But as John Hick has noted, the (...) mere logical possibility of such a situation might not be enough to console the doubting theist. We need a positive reason to believe that evil as we know it is compatible with God's existence. So, Hick offers a ‘soul-making’ theodicy – or vindication – of God, suggesting that the human soul cannot fully progress to spiritual maturity (a kind of ultimate good on his account) without grappling with evil. In this short piece I argue that, if we accept Hick's premises about souls and soul-making, we can indeed make sense of evil to some extent. But, I suggest, his account cannot justify the type or amount of evil we see in the world, so his theodicy does not succeed. (shrink)

Foundherentism is a new and promising theory of epistemic justification that has not received its due in the secondary literature. Accordingly, in this paper, I will examine foundherentism with three principal concerns in mind. First, I explain the epistemic components of foundherentism. Second, I defend foundherentism against the charge of reliabilism. While third and finally, I argue that foundherentism needs to be supplemented with a virtuous component.

Foundherentism is a new and promising theory of epistemic justification that has not received its due in the secondary literature. Accordingly, in this paper, I will examine foundherentism with three principal concerns in mind. First, I explain the epistemic components of foundherentism. Second, I defend foundherentism against the charge of reliabilism. While third and finally, I argue that foundherentism needs to be supplemented with a virtuous component.

In General Relativity in Hamiltonian form, change has seemed to be missing, defined only asymptotically, or otherwise obscured at best, because the Hamiltonian is a sum of first-class constraints and a boundary term and thus supposedly generates gauge transformations. Attention to the gauge generator G of Rosenfeld, Anderson, Bergmann, Castellani et al., a specially _tuned sum_ of first-class constraints, facilitates seeing that a solitary first-class constraint in fact generates not a gauge transformation, but a bad physical change in electromagnetism or (...) General Relativity. The change spoils the Lagrangian constraints, Gauss's law or the Gauss-Codazzi relations describing embedding of space into space-time, in terms of the physically relevant velocities rather than auxiliary canonical momenta. But the resemblance between the gauge generator G and the Hamiltonian H leaves still unclear where objective change is in GR. Insistence on Hamiltonian-Lagrangian equivalence, a theme emphasized by Castellani, Sugano, Pons, Salisbury, Shepley and Sundermeyer among others, holds the key. Taking objective change to be ineliminable time dependence, one recalls that there is change in vacuum GR just in case there is no time-like vector field xi^a satisfying Killing's equation L_xi g_mn=0, because then there exists no coordinate system such that everything is independent of time. Throwing away the spatial dependence of GR for convenience, one finds explicitly that the time evolution from Hamilton's equations is real change just when there is no time-like Killing vector. The inclusion of a massive scalar field is simple. No obstruction is expected in including spatial dependence and coupling more general matter fields. Hence change is real and local even in the Hamiltonian formalism. The considerations here resolve the Earman-Maudlin standoff over change in Hamiltonian General Relativity: the Hamiltonian formalism is helpful, and, suitably reformed, it does not have absurd consequences for change and observables. Hence the classical problem of time is resolved. The Lagrangian-equivalent Hamiltonian analysis of change in General Relativity is compared to Belot and Earman's treatment. The more serious quantum problem of time, however, is not automatically resolved due to issues of quantum constraint imposition. (shrink)

Since Leibniz's time, Cartesian mental causation has been criticized for violating the conservation of energy and momentum. Many dualist responses clearly fail. But conservation laws have important neglected features generally undermining the objection. Conservation is _local_, holding first not for the universe, but for everywhere separately. The energy in any volume changes only due to what flows through the boundaries. Constant total energy holds if the global summing-up of local conservation laws converges; it probably doesn't in reality. Energy conservation holds (...) if there is symmetry, the sameness of the laws over time. Thus, if there are time-places where symmetries fail due to nonphysical influence, conservation laws fail there and then, while holding elsewhere, such as refrigerators and stars. Noether's converse first theorem shows that conservation laws imply symmetries. Thus conservation trivially nearly entails the causal closure of the physical. But expecting conservation to hold in the brain simply assumes the falsehood of Cartesianism. Hence Leibniz's objection begs the question. Empirical neuroscience is another matter. So is Einstein's General Relativity: far from providing a loophole, General Relativity makes mental causation _harder_. (shrink)

BackgroundCodes of conduct mainly focus on research misconduct that takes the form of fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism. However, at the aggregate level, lesser forms of research misbehavior may be more important due to their much higher prevalence. Little is known about what the most frequent research misbehaviors are and what their impact is if they occur.MethodsA survey was conducted among 1353 attendees of international research integrity conferences. They were asked to score 60 research misbehaviors according to their views on and (...) perceptions of the frequency of occurrence, preventability, impact on truth (validity), and impact on trust between scientists on 5-point scales. We expressed the aggregate level impact as the product of frequency scores and truth, trust and preventability scores, respectively. We ranked misbehaviors based on mean scores. Additionally, relevant demographic and professional background information was collected from participants.ResultsResponse was 17% of those who were sent the invitational email and 33% of those who opened it. The rankings suggest that selective reporting, selective citing, and flaws in quality assurance and mentoring are viewed as the major problems of modern research. The “deadly sins” of fabrication and falsification ranked highest on the impact on truth but low to moderate on aggregate level impact on truth, due to their low estimated frequency. Plagiarism is thought to be common but to have little impact on truth although it ranked high on aggregate level impact on trust.ConclusionsWe designed a comprehensive list of 60 major and minor research misbehaviors. Our respondents were much more concerned over sloppy science than about scientific fraud (FFP). In the fostering of responsible conduct of research, we recommend to develop interventions that actively discourage the high ranking misbehaviors from our study. (shrink)

I show how an almost exclusive focus on the simplest case - the case of a single particle - along with the commonplace conception of the single-particle wave function as a scalar field on spacetime contributed to the perception, first brought to light by I. Bloch, that there existed a contradiction between quantum theory with instantaneous state collapses and special relativity. The incompatibility is merely apparent since treating wave-function values as hypersurface dependent avoids the contradiction. After clarifying confusions which fueled (...) the perception of a paradox, I elaborate on an analysis of the wave function due to Wayne Myrvold to show that nothing special, or ad hoc, is required in treating wave-function values, even in the single-particle case, as hypersurface-dependent; rather, the hypersurface dependence of these values is the natural development of nonlocal entanglement in the context of the relativity of simultaneity. Properly understood, what Bloch's paradox reveals is that the combination of nonlocal entanglement together with a hypersurface-dependent process of state collapse conflicts with the thesis of spatiotemporal separability and, in particular, with the idea that chances are local matters of fact. (shrink)

What if gravity satisfied the Klein-Gordon equation? Both particle physics from the 1920s-30s and the 1890s Neumann-Seeliger modification of Newtonian gravity with exponential decay suggest considering a "graviton mass term" for gravity, which is _algebraic_ in the potential. Unlike Nordström's "massless" theory, massive scalar gravity is strictly special relativistic in the sense of being invariant under the Poincaré group but not the 15-parameter Bateman-Cunningham conformal group. It therefore exhibits the whole of Minkowski space-time structure, albeit only indirectly concerning volumes. Massive (...) scalar gravity is plausible in terms of relativistic field theory, while violating most interesting versions of Einstein's principles of general covariance, general relativity, equivalence, and Mach. Geometry is a poor guide to understanding massive scalar gravity: matter sees a conformally flat metric due to universal coupling, but gravity also sees the rest of the flat metric in the mass term. What is the 'true' geometry, one might wonder, in line with Poincaré's modal conventionality argument? Infinitely many theories exhibit this bimetric 'geometry,' all with the total stress-energy's trace as source; thus geometry does not explain the field equations. The irrelevance of the Ehlers-Pirani-Schild construction to a critique of conventionalism becomes evident when multi-geometry theories are contemplated. Much as Seeliger envisaged, the smooth massless limit indicates underdetermination of theories by data between massless and massive scalar gravities---indeed an unconceived alternative. At least one version easily could have been developed before General Relativity; it then would have motivated thinking of Einstein's equations along the lines of Einstein's newly re-appreciated "physical strategy" and particle physics and would have suggested a rivalry from massive spin 2 variants of General Relativity. The Putnam-Grünbaum debate on conventionality is revisited with an emphasis on the broad modal scope of conventionalist views. Massive scalar gravity thus contributes to a historically plausible rational reconstruction of much of 20th-21st century space-time philosophy in the light of particle physics. An appendix reconsiders the Malament-Weatherall-Manchak conformal restriction of conventionality and constructs the 'universal force' influencing the causal structure. Subsequent works will discuss how massive gravity could have provided a template for a more Kant-friendly space-time theory that would have blocked Moritz Schlick's supposed refutation of synthetic _a priori_ knowledge, and how Einstein's false analogy between the Neumann-Seeliger-Einstein modification of Newtonian gravity and the cosmological constant \Lambda generated lasting confusion that obscured massive gravity as a conceptual possibility. (shrink)

Misconceptions about energy conservation abound due to the gap between physics and secondary school chemistry. This paper surveys this difference and its relevance to the 1690s–2010s Leibnizian argument that mind-body interaction is impossible due to conservation laws. Justifications for energy conservation are partly empirical, such as Joule’s paddle wheel experiment, and partly theoretical, such as Lagrange’s statement in 1811 that energy is conserved if the potential energy does not depend on time. In 1918 Noether generalized results like Lagrange’s and proved (...) a converse: symmetries imply conservation laws and vice versa. Conservation holds if and only if nature is uniform. The rise of field physics during the 1860s–1920s implied that energy is located in particular places and conservation is primordially local: energy cannot disappear in Cambridge and reappear in Lincoln instantaneously or later; neither can it simply disappear in Cambridge or simply appear in Lincoln. A global conservation law can be inferred in some circumstances. Einstein’s General Relativity, which stimulated Noether’s work, is another source of difficulty for conservation laws. As is too rarely realized, the theory admits conserved quantities due to symmetries of the Lagrangian, like other theories. Indeed General Relativity has more symmetries and hence more conserved energies. An argument akin to Leibniz’s finally gets some force. While the mathematics is too advanced for secondary school, the ideas that conservation is tied to uniformities of nature and that energy is in particular places, are accessible. Improved science teaching would serve the truth and enhance the social credibility of science. (shrink)