The literature on deep brain stimulation (DBS) and adaptive DBS (aDBS) raises concerns that these technologies may affect personality, mood, and behavior. We conducted semi-structured interviews with researchers (n = 23) involved in developing next-generation DBS systems, exploring their perspectives on ethics and policy topics including whether DBS/aDBS can cause such changes. The majority of researchers reported being aware of personality, mood, or behavioral (PMB) changes in recipients of DBS/aDBS. Researchers offered varying estimates of the frequency of PMB changes. A (...) smaller majority reported changes in personality specifically. Some expressed reservations about the scientific status of the term ‘personality,’ while others used it freely. Most researchers discussed negative PMB changes, but a majority said that DBS/aDBS can also result in positive changes. Several researchers viewed positive PMB changes as part of the therapeutic goal in psychiatric applications of DBS/aDBS. Finally, several discussed potential causes of PMB changes other than the device itself. (shrink)

The expansion of research on deep brain stimulation (DBS) and adaptive DBS (aDBS) raises important neuroethics and policy questions related to data sharing. However, there has been little empirical research on the perspectives of experts developing these technologies. We conducted semi-structured, open-ended interviews with aDBS researchers regarding their data sharing practices and their perspectives on ethical and policy issues related to sharing. Researchers expressed support for and a commitment to sharing, with most saying that they were either sharing their data (...) or would share in the future and that doing so was important for advancing the field. However, those who are sharing reported a variety of sharing partners, suggesting heterogeneity in sharing practices and lack of the broad sharing that would reflect principles of open science. Researchers described several concerns and barriers related to sharing, including privacy and confidentiality, the usability of shared data by others, ownership and control of data (including potential commercialization), and limited resources for sharing. They also suggested potential solutions to these challenges, including additional safeguards to address privacy issues, standardization and transparency in analysis to address issues of data usability, professional norms and heightened cooperation to address issues of ownership and control, and streamlining of data transmission to address resource limitations. Researchers also offered a range of views on the sensitivity of neural activity data (NAD) and data related to mental health in the context of sharing. These findings are an important input to deliberations by researchers, policymakers, neuroethicists, and other stakeholders as they navigate ethics and policy questions related to aDBS research. (shrink)

Dystonia is a movement disorder that can have a debilitating impact on motor functions and quality of life. There are 250,000 cases in the United States, most with childhood onset. Due to the limited effectiveness and side effects of available treatments, pediatric deep brain stimulation has emerged as an intervention for refractory dystonia. However, there is limited clinical and neuroethics research in this area of clinical practice. This paper examines whether it is ethically justified to offer pDBS to children with (...) refractory dystonia. Given the favorable risk-benefit profile, it is concluded that offering pDBS is ethically justified for certain etiologies of dystonia, but it is less clear for others. In addition, various ethical and policy concerns are discussed, which need to be addressed to optimize the practice of offering pDBS for dystonia. Strategies are proposed to help address these concerns as pDBS continues to expand. (shrink)

The capacity of next-generation closed-loop or adaptive deep brain stimulation devices to read and write shows great potential to effectively manage movement, seizure, and psychiatric disorders, and also raises the possibility of using aDBS to electively modulate mood, cognition, and prosociality. What separates aDBS from most neurotechnologies currently used for enhancement is that aDBS remains an invasive, surgically-implanted technology with a risk-benefit ratio significantly different when applied to diseased versus non-diseased individuals. Despite a large discourse about the ethics of enhancement, (...) no empirical studies yet examine perspectives on enhancement from within the aDBS research community. We interviewed 23 aDBS researchers about their attitudes toward expanding aDBS use for enhancement. A thematic content analysis revealed that researchers share ethical concerns related to safety and security; enhancement as unnecessary, unnatural or aberrant; and fairness, equality, and distributive justice. Most researchers felt that enhancement applications for DBS will eventually be technically feasible and that attempts to develop such applications for DBS are already happening. However, researchers unanimously felt that DBS ideally should not be considered for enhancement until researchers better understand brain target localization and functioning. While many researchers acknowledged controversies highlighted by scholars and ethicists, such as potential impacts on personhood, authenticity, autonomy and privacy, their ethical concerns reflect considerations of both gravity and perceived near-term likelihood. (shrink)

InThe Promise of Green PoliticsDouglas Torgerson offers a survey of different schools of ecological thought, discusses their implications for the larger ...

In this article, Laura Quintana elaborates on a conceptual distinction between violence and rage. Along with this distinction, she recognises that while rage may possess a destructive potential, it can also be politicised in emancipatory practices that confront conditions of injustice and structural violence. Her analysis centers on contemporary political movements in Latin America, which she views as collective manifestations of rage. Within these movements, the manifestation of rage is intertwined with forms of care and communal labor. Quintana characterises (...) such movements as embodying a “dignified rage” (digna rabia) that calls for an emancipatory transformation of the status quo. She contends that these practices can be understood in terms of the notion of “anti-violence,” as it has been coined by Étienne Balibar. In this she diverges from Judith Butler, since, according to Quintana’s analysis, such practices challenge the demand for non-violence that has often served to neutralise the disruptive force of such manifestations and movements. (shrink)

In this article I present a disagreement between classical and constructive approaches to predicativity regarding the predicative status of so-called generalised inductive definitions. I begin by offering some motivation for an enquiry in the predicative foundations of constructive mathematics, by looking at contemporary work at the intersection between mathematics and computer science. I then review the background notions and spell out the above-mentioned disagreement between classical and constructive approaches to predicativity. Finally, I look at possible ways of defending the constructive (...) predicativity of inductive definitions. (shrink)

Predicativity is a notable example of fruitful interaction between philosophy and mathematical logic. It originated at the beginning of the 20th century from methodological and philosophical reflections on a changing concept of set. A clarification of this notion has prompted the development of fundamental new technical instruments, from Russell's type theory to an important chapter in proof theory, which saw the decisive involvement of Kreisel, Feferman and Schütte. The technical outcomes of predica-tivity have since taken a life of their own, (...) but have also produced a deeper understanding of the notion of predicativity, therefore witnessing the " light logic throws on problems in the foundations of mathematics. " (Feferman 1998, p. vii) Predicativity has been at the center of a considerable part of Feferman's work: over the years he has explored alternative ways of explicating and analyzing this notion and has shown that predicative mathematics extends much further than expected within ordinary mathematics. The aim of this note is to outline the principal features of predicativity, from its original motivations at the start of the past century to its logical analysis in the 1950-60's. The hope is to convey why predicativity is a fascinating subject, which has attracted Feferman's attention over the years. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to discuss the relevance that emotions can play in our epistemic life considering the state of the art of the philosophical debate on emotions. The strategy is the one of focusing on the three main models on emotions as evaluative judgements, bodily feelings, and perceptions, following the fil rouge of emotion intentionality for rising questions about their epistemic functions. From this examination, a major challenge to mainstream epistemology arises, the one that asks to provide (...) prominence to the epistemic agent and to her affects. This chapter discusses these implications, also providing an overview of the many alternatives available nowadays in epistemology, arguing for an open, comprehensive, and interdisciplinary approach to emotions in knowledge. (shrink)

While various definitions of moral distress have been proposed, some agreement exists that it results from illegitimate constraints in clinical practice affecting healthcare professionals’ moral agency. If we are to reduce moral distress, instruments measuring it should provide relevant information about such illegitimate constraints. Unfortunately, existing instruments fail to do so. We discuss here several shortcomings of major instruments in use: their inability to determine whether reports of moral distress involve an accurate assessment of the requisite clinical and logistical facts (...) in play, whether the distress in question is aptly characterized as moral, and whether the moral distress reported is an appropriate target of elimination. Such failures seriously limit the ability of empirical work on moral distress to foster appropriate change. (shrink)

This article provides a much‐needed review of the neural bases of implicit statistical learning. Batterink, Paller and Reber focus on the neural processes that underpin performance in experimental paradigms employed in implicit learning and statistical learning research. An important insight is that learning across all paradigms is supported by interactions between the declarative and nondeclarative memory systems of the brain. They conclude with a helpful discussion of future directions of research.

Los autores que dialogan en el número 27 de Ístmica con sus respectivos cuentos; el guatemalteco Francisco Alejandro Méndez y el costarricense Iván Molina Jiménez, han encontrado maneras subrepticias y transtemporales de erizarnos la piel a través de la narrativa que nos ofrecen en esta edición. Méndez (1964), es periodista, crítico literario, catedrático universitario y reconocido escritor del istmo, quien obtuvo el Premio Nacional de Literatura de Guatemala en el 2017. Ha publicado los siguientes libros de novela y cuento: Graga (...) y otros cuentos (Editorial Serviprensa Centroamericana, Guatemala, 1991), Manual para desaparecer (Arco Iris, El Salvador, 1997), Sobrevivir para contarlo (Praxis, México, 1999), Crónicas suburbanas (Editorial X, Guatemala, 2001), Ruleta rusa (Fondo de cultura económico, México-Guatemala, 2001), Completamente Inmaculada (Perro azul, San José de Costa Rica, 2002), Reinventario de ficciones. Catálogo marginal de bestias, crímenes y peatones (La Tatuana, Guatemala, 2006), Les ombres du jaguar et autres nouvelles (Éditions Equilibrio, París, 2009), Juego de muñecas. Un caso más para Wenceslao Pérez Chanán, (Editorial FLACSO, Guatemala, 2012) y Triple Play, (Germinal, Costa Rica, 2013).Como investigador, también ha publicado los siguientes ensayos de crítica literaria: América Central en el ojo de sus críticos (Universidad Rafael Landívar, Guatemala, 2005), Hacia un nuevo canon de la vanguardia en América Central (Ed. Cultura, Guatemala, 2006) y Diccionario de Autores yCríticos de Guatemala (La Tatuana, Guatemala, 2010).Por su parte, Molina (1961), es historiador y escritor de ciencia ficción costarricense, autor, coautor o editor de numerosos estudios sobre historia de CostaRica, en particular, y de Centroamérica, en general. Es catedrático de la Escuela de Historia e investigador del Centro de Investigación en Identidad y CulturaLatinoamericanas (CIICLA) de la Universidad de Costa Rica. Ha obtenido el Premio Nacional de Historia (1991), el Premio de la Academia de Geografía eHistoria (1991), el Premio Áncora del periódico La Nación (1992), el Premio al Investigador en Ciencias Sociales (2015) y el Premio Luis Ferrero de Investigación Cultural (2016). Entre sus investigaciones más recientes figuran: La educación en Costa Rica de la época colonial al presente (EUNA, Costa Rica, 2016) y Príncipes de las remotidades. Carlos Luis Fallas y los escritores proletarios costarricenses (EUNED, Costa Rica, 2016). En el género de la ciencia ficción hapublicado varios libros de cuentos cortos y algunos de sus relatos han sido incluidos en recopilaciones y revistas publicadas en México, Colombia, Perú, España, Argentina, Estados Unidos y Cuba. Su más reciente libro de ciencia ficción es Las fugitivas de Abidos (La Jirafa y Yo, Costa Rica, 2017).En los cuentos de ambos autores que presentamos en esta edición, confluyen la creación de una atmósfera de suspenso, que puede originar desde aparentes alucinaciones hasta revivir temores atávicos. En este encuentro convergen monstruos reales y ficticios -aunque nos cueste diferenciarlos-, así como las neurosis del siglo XXI y las leyendas del siglo XIX, que aliviadas unas por el psicoanálisis y alimentadas otras, por los primeros experimentos de “ingeniería genética”, consiguen sembrarnos una interrogante sobre la (in)distinción de lo real en nuestro entorno. (shrink)

This book is derived from the author's Concise guide to ethics in mental health care, published in 2004. It has been revised, updated, and rewritten with new chapters, topics and data.

This paper argues for more randomised controlled trials in educational research. Educational researchers have largely abandoned the methodology they helped to pioneer. This gold-standard methodology should be more widely used as it is an appropriate and robust research technique. Without subjecting curriculum innovations to a RCT then potentially harmful educational initiatives could be visited upon the nation's children.

La sección de literatura de esta edición N.° 32, nos trae una selección alegremente subjetiva y, por lo tanto, abierta a controversias, de la poesía de la guatemalteca Isabel de los Ángeles Ruano. Esta escritora, periodista y docente, nació en 1945 y se le otorgó el Premio Nacional de Literatura Miguel Ángel Asturias, en el año 2001, pese a esto, su obra ha tenido escasa divulgación, no más allá de los mismos diez o quince poemas publicados por doquier. Por ello, (...) en esta sección reproducimos textos más bien poco conocidos de los poemarios publicados de la autora: Cariátides (1967, México DF: Ecuador OO’O) y Canto de Amor a la Ciudad de Guatemala (1988, Guatemala: CENALTEX, Ministerio de Educación), incluidos en la antología Torres y Tatuajes (1988, Guatemala: Grupo Literario Editorial RIN-78), así como de los poemarios publicados por primera vez en dicha antología, según lo describe Ruano en su prólogo a esta obra, los cuales son: Tratados de los Ritmos, Tratados de las Olas, Poemas de Arena, Los Muros Perdidos, Iconografía del Tiempo, El Mar y Tú, Cantar Indio, Retablo Lírico y Cartas de Fuego, estos dos últimos, una colecciónde sonetos. Igualmente, la autora ha publicado los poemarios: Los del viento (1999, Guatemala: Óscar de León Palacios), Café Express (2002, Guatemala: Editorial Cultura), Versos dorados (2006, Guatemala: Editorial Cultura), Poemas grises (2010, Guatemala: Editorial Cultura) y El perro ciego (2020, Guatemala: Editorial Cultura). A fines de la década de 1980, Ruano comenzó a padecer trastornos mentales, desde entonces es vendedora ambulante, posteriormente cambia su expresión de género y en la actualidad reside ‒con gran estrechez económica‒ en la Zona 21 de Ciudad Guatemala. (shrink)

This book provides rigorous analyses of Deleuze's writings on theatre practitioners such as Artaud, Beckett and Carmelo Bene, as well as offering innovative ...

That Schopenhauer’s view of Buddhism influenced Wagner’s and Nietzsche’s Buddhism seems a commonplace among scholars. However, there seem to be no studies which actually demonstrated this, showing how Schopenhauer was their main source of Buddhism compared to the other Buddhist texts they read. In this article, I aim to fill this gap, analysing Wagner’s and Nietzsche’s Buddhism in the light of the sources of Buddhism they read. This will allow me to demonstrate how Schopenhauer was the main source of Buddhism (...) for both Wagner and Nietzsche, having a deep and long-lasting impact on their conceptions of Buddhism. (shrink)

BackgroundRandomized controlled trials (RCTs) are often complex and expensive to perform. Less than one third achieve planned recruitment targets, follow-up can be labor-intensive, and many have limited real-world generalizability. Designs for RCTs conducted using cohorts and routinely collected health data, including registries, electronic health records, and administrative databases, have been proposed to address these challenges and are being rapidly adopted. These designs, however, are relatively recent innovations, and published RCT reports often do not describe important aspects of their methodology in (...) a standardized way. Our objective is to extend the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement with a consensus-driven reporting guideline for RCTs using cohorts and routinely collected health data.MethodsThe development of this CONSORT extension will consist of five phases. Phase 1 (completed) consisted of the project launch, including fundraising, the establishment of a research team, and development of a conceptual framework. In phase 2, a systematic review will be performed to identify publications (1) that describe methods or reporting considerations for RCTs conducted using cohorts and routinely collected health data or (2) that are protocols or report results from such RCTs. An initial “long list” of possible modifications to CONSORT checklist items and possible new items for the reporting guideline will be generated based on the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) and The REporting of studies Conducted using Observational Routinely-collected health Data (RECORD) statements. Additional possible modifications and new items will be identified based on the results of the systematic review. Phase 3 will consist of a three-round Delphi exercise with methods and content experts to evaluate the “long list” and generate a “short list” of key items. In phase 4, these items will serve as the basis for an in-person consensus meeting to finalize a core set of items to be included in the reporting guideline and checklist. Phase 5 will involve drafting the checklist and elaboration-explanation documents, and dissemination and implementation of the guideline.DiscussionDevelopment of this CONSORT extension will contribute to more transparent reporting of RCTs conducted using cohorts and routinely collected health data. (shrink)

In this chapter, I focus on the faculties by which we gain knowledge, namely, sensibility and the understanding, as well as on the methodological framework within which Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz examines them. I stress the importance that the author gives to sensibility and the physiological apparatus that grounds and explains sensation.With respect to her conception of understanding, I will show that it is both the sign of man’s filiation with God and a faculty that displays deficiencies and (...) limitations with respect to the difficult task of attaining knowledge.Finally, I examine Sor Juana’s criticism both of the Neoplatonic method, which looks for a vision of the universe as a whole, as well as of the deductive method of the Aristotelian- Scholastic tradition, which attempts to reduce the unmanageable diversity of beings to some specific characteristics and laws.My conclusion is that Sor Juana shares with modern philosophers the critical attitude against tradition; she holds that traditional methods do not enable us to reach knowledge about either the remotest causes or the closest effects. On my view, Sor Juana takes an epistemological approach to philosophy, as do Bacon and Descartes, but she does not propose a new method; this is not because of some radical skepticism on her part, but because of the enormity of the task of the human mind achieving complete knowledge. (shrink)

Over the last decade, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been defined first as a concept whereby companies decide voluntarily to contribute to a better society and cleaner environment and, second, as a process by which companies manage their relationship␣with stakeholders (European Commission, 2001. Nowadays, CSR has become a priority issue on governments’ agendas. This has changed governments’ capacity to act and impact on social and environmental issues in their relationship with companies, but has also affected the framework in which CSR (...) public policies are designed: governments are incorporating multi-stakeholder strategies. This article analyzes the CSR public policies in European advanced democracies, and more specifically the EU-15 countries, and provides explanatory keys on how governments have understood, designed and implemented their CSR public policies. The analysis has entailed the classification of CSR public policies taking into consideration the actor to which the governments’ policies were addressed. This approach to the analysis of CSR public policies in the EU-15 countries leads us to observe coinciding lines of action among the different countries analyzed, which has enabled us to propose a ‹four ideal’ typology model for governmental action on CSR in Europe: Partnership, Business in the Community, Sustainability, and Citizenship, and Agora. The main contribution of this article is to propose an analytical framework to analyze CSR public policies, which provide a perspective on the relationships between governments, businesses, and civil society stakeholders, and enable us to incorporate the analysis of CSR public policies into a broader approach focused on social governance. (shrink)

Deep brain stimulation is a well-accepted treatment for movement disorders and is currently explored as a treatment option for various neurological and psychiatric disorders. Several case studies suggest that DBS may, in some patients, influence mental states critical to personality to such an extent that it affects an individual’s personal identity, i.e. the experience of psychological continuity, of persisting through time as the same person. Without questioning the usefulness of DBS as a treatment option for various serious and treatment refractory (...) conditions, the potential of disruptions of psychological continuity raises a number of ethical and legal questions. An important question is that of legal responsibility if DBS induced changes in a patient’s personality result in damage caused by undesirable or even deviant behavior. Disruptions in psychological continuity can in some cases also have an effect on an individual’s mental competence. This capacity is necessary in order to obtain informed consent to start, continue or stop treatment, and it is therefore not only important from an ethical point of view but also has legal consequences. Taking the existing literature and the Dutch legal system as a starting point, the present paper discusses the implications of DBS induced disruptions in psychological continuity for a patient’s responsibility for action and competence of decision and raises a number of questions that need further research. (shrink)

This paper examines faculty perceptions regarding ethical behavior among colleagues and students, and faculty practices with regard to teaching ethics in three institutions over a 4-year period. Faculty reported an uneven pattern of unethical behavior among colleagues over the period. A majority of business courses included ethics, however as both a specific topic on the syllabus and within course discussions. The percentage of courses with ethics discussions increased in 2006, however, the time allocated to these discussions decreased. These results suggest (...) that faculty are approaching ethics instruction less formally, raising concerns over the success of curriculum integration. (shrink)

Data documenting poor understanding among research participants and real-time efforts to assess comprehension in large-scale studies are focusing new attention on informed consent comprehension. Within the context of biobanking consent, we previously convened a multidisciplinary panel to reach consensus about what information must be understood for a prospective participant’s consent to be considered valid. Subsequently, we presented them with data from another study showing that many U.S. adults would fail to comprehend the information the panel had deemed essential. When asked (...) to evaluate the importance of the information again, panelists’ opinions shifted dramatically in the direction of requiring that less information be understood. Follow-up interviews indicated significant uncertainty about defining a threshold of understanding and what should happen when prospective participants are unable to grasp key information. These findings have important implications for urgently needed discussion of whether... (shrink)

Although the view that sees proper names as referential singular terms is widely considered orthodoxy, there is a growing popularity to the view that proper names are predicates. This is partly because the orthodoxy faces two anomalies that Predicativism can solve: on the one hand, proper names can have multiple bearers. But multiple bearerhood is a problem to the idea that proper names have just one individual as referent. On the other hand, as Burge noted, proper names can have predicative (...) uses. But the view that proper names are singular terms arguably does not have the resources to deal with Burge’s cases. In this paper I argue that the Predicate View of proper names is mistaken. I first argue against the syntactic evidence used to support the view and against the predicativist’s methodology of inferring a semantic account for proper names based on incomplete syntactic data. I also show that Predicativism can neither explain the behaviour of proper names in full generality, nor claim the fundamentality of predicative names. In developing my own view, however, I accept the insight that proper names in some sense express generality. Hence I propose that proper names—albeit fundamentally singular referential terms—express generality in two senses. First, by being used as predicates, since then they are true of many individuals; and second, by being referentially related to many individuals. I respond to the problem of multiple bearerhood by proposing that proper names are polyreferential, and also explain the behaviour of proper names in light of the wider phenomenon I called category change, and show how Polyreferentialism can account for all uses of proper names. (shrink)

Much is being made of local food. It is at once a social movement, a diet, and an economic strategy—a popular solution—to a global food system in great distress. Yet, despite its popularity or perhaps because of it, local food (especially in the US) is also something of a chimera if not a tool of the status quo. This paper reflects on and contrasts aspects of current local food rhetoric with Dalhberg’s notion of a regenerative food system. It identifies three (...) problematic emphases—the locavore emphasis, the Wal-Mart emphasis, and the Pollan emphasis—and argues that they are shifting local food (as a concept and a social movement) away from the deeper concerns of equity, citizenship, place-building, and sustainability. It is suggested that local food activists and advocates might consider the use of multiple methodologies and forms of expression to explore the integration and reintegration of local food into diverse and redundant place-based practice. A short case study of a low-income, urban neighborhood in Lansing, Michigan, illustrates the value of contextual analysis for more fully enabling the local food movement and a regenerative food system. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to contribute to understanding the changing role of government in promoting corporate social responsibility (CSR). Over the last decade, governments have joined other stakeholders in assuming a relevant role as drivers of CSR, working together with intergovernmental organizations and recognizing that public policies are key in encouraging a greater sense of CSR. This paper focuses on the analysis of the new strategies adopted by governments in order to promote, and encourage businesses to adopt, CSR (...) values and strategies. The research is based on the analysis of an explanatory framework, related to the development of a relational analytical framework, which tries to analyze the vision, values, strategies and roles adopted by governments, and the integration of new partnerships that governments establish in the CSR area with the private sector and social organizations. The research compares CSR initiatives and public policies in three European countries: Italy, Norway and the United Kingdom, and focuses on governmental drivers and responses. The preliminary results demonstrate that governments are incorporating a common statement and discourse on CSR, working in partnership with the private and social sectors. For governments, CSR implies the need to manage a complex set of relationships in order to develop a win–win situation between business and social organizations. However, the research also focuses on the differences between the three governments when applying CSR public policies. These divergences are based on the previous cultural and political framework, such as the welfare state typology, the organizational structures and the business and social and cultural background in each country. (shrink)

The orthodox view of anger takes desires for revenge or retribution to be central to the emotion. In this paper, I develop an empirically informed challenge to the retributive view of anger. In so doing, I argue that a distinct desire is central to anger: a desire for recognition. Desires for recognition aim at the targets of anger acknowledging the wrong they have committed, as opposed to aiming for their suffering. In light of the centrality of this desire for recognition, (...) I argue that the retributive view of anger should be abandoned. I consider and dismiss two types of moves that can be made on the part of a proponent of the orthodox view in response to my argument. I propose that a pluralist view, which allows for both retribution and recognition in anger, is to be preferred. (shrink)

Camp (2009) distinguishes two varieties of conceptual recombination. One of them is full-blown or (as I prefer to call it) spontaneous recombination. The other is causal-counterfactual recombination. She suggests that while human animals recombine their concepts in a full-blown way, many non-human animals are capable of conceptual recombinability but only of the causal-counterfactual kind. In this paper, I argue that there is conceptual space to draw further sub-distinctions on how different animals may recombine their concepts. More specifically, I propose to (...) differentiate between a) narrow causal-counterfactual recombination; b) broad causal-counterfactual recombination; c) lean spontaneous recombination; d) robust spontaneous recombination. Afterwards, I focus on how these distinctions relate to several previous philosophical ideas on the representational capacities of non-human animals. I also provide several empirical examples suggesting that some animals display one or another of these four ways of recombining concepts, at least in some contexts. (shrink)

According to Weyl, “‘inexhaustibility’ is essential to the infinite”. However, he distinguishes two kinds of inexhaustible, or merely potential, domains: those that are “extensionally determinate” and those that are not. This article clarifies Weyl's distinction and explains its enduring logical and philosophical significance. The distinction sheds lights on the contemporary debate about potentialism, which in turn affords a deeper understanding of Weyl.

Over the last five decades, philosophers of language have looked into the mechanisms for doing things with words. The same attention has not been devoted to how to undo those things, once they have been done. This paper identifies and examines three strategies to make one’s speech acts undone—namely, Annulment, Retraction, and Amendment. In annulling an act, a speaker brings to light its fatal flaws. Annulment amounts to recognizing an act as null, whereas retraction and amendment amount to making it (...) null. Speakers employ retraction to cancel the deontic updates engendered by a given act. They instead use amendment to adjust its degree of strength. I will argue that annulling, retracting, and amending are second-order speech acts, whose felicity conditions vary with the type of illocution they operate on. Undoing is therefore conceived of as a form of doing. Furthermore, I claim that, in calling off our acts, we undo the conventional or illocutionary effects of our words while leaving intact their past causal or perlocutionary outcomes. (shrink)

Aristotle's Topics is a handbook for dialectic, which can be understood as a philosophical debate between a questioner and a respondent. In book 2, Aristotle mainly develops strategies for making deductions about 'accidents', which are properties that might or might not belong to a subject (for instance, Socrates has five fingers, but might have had six), and about properties that simply belong to a subject without further specification. In the present commentary, here translated into English for the first time, Alexander (...) develops a careful study of Aristotle's text. He preserves objections and replies from other philosophers whose work is now lost, such as the Stoics. He also offers an invaluable picture of the tradition of Aristotelian logic down to his time, including innovative attempts to unify Aristotle's guidance for dialectic with his general theory of deductive argument (the syllogism), found in the Analytics. The work will be of interest not only for its perspective on ancient logic, rhetoric, and debate, but also for its continuing influence on argument in the Middle Ages and later. (shrink)