Preoccupation with LTP as a putative memory mechanism may have retarded the consideration of pathological modulation of synaptic plasticity in clinical disorders where memory dysfunction is not a primary feature. Encouraged by Shors & Matzel's review, we consider the relationship between stress, synaptic plasticity, and depressive disorder.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Decision-Making as a Broader ConceptJacinta O. A. Tan (bio), Anne Stewart (bio), and Tony Hope (bio)KeywordsCompetence, decision-making, capacity, anorexia nervosa, autonomy, values, identityWe thank Demian Whiting for the thoughtful critique of aspects of our paper (Tan et al. 2006a). A primary aim of our research was to provide empirical grounds on which to stimulate discussion about the nature of decision-making capacity (DMC). Whiting criticizes in particular the concept (...) of 'pathological values' that we suggested might be relevant in the assessment of DMC and in the related issue of deciding when a patient's refusal of beneficial treatment should be overridden.Whiting's central concern is with DMC. Whiting argues that the absence of pathological values should not be a criterion for DMC. We are unclear whether he is also arguing that pathological values do not provide a reason of any kind for overriding treatment refusal. At the end of the paper he writes: "we cannot justify compulsory treatment of patients who have pathological values... on the grounds that these patients lack DMC" (2009, XX). This seems to leave open the possibility that we may be able to justify compulsory treatment of patients who have pathological values on grounds other than that they lack DMC. As we wrote in our response to the discussants of our original paper, "The primary issue for us is whether the reasons for refusal to which we draw attention provide grounds for overriding refusal, and if they do how they can be characterized in such a way as to avoid the ever-present danger of simply overriding autonomy in a patient's best interests" (Tan et al. 2006b, 300).In deciding on whether to use compulsory treatment, there are other relevant factors that may need to be considered, such as the seriousness of the decision, which determines the threshold for competence. However, in this response we consider three issues. First, we argue that the current concept of DMC is by no means so clear cut or generally agreed upon as Whiting implies, and that some of the lack of clarity relates to pathological values. Second, that the concept of DMC is itself dependent on accounts of autonomy, and that it is plausible that pathological values can affect autonomy. Third, we directly consider the question of whether a coherent account of pathological values might be given based on a concept of authenticity.The Current Criteria for DMCWhiting argues that the current criteria for DMC are correct and that an additional criterion along the lines of absence of pathological values should not be added. This argument assumes that there is a clear and agreed understanding of the current criteria. We believe this is not the case for three reasons.(i) Whiting begins his account of DMC by saying that it is normally taken to include: "(1) [End Page 345] understanding (and appreciation)" (2009, 341). Already there is an area of dispute, and the use of parentheses reflects this. The concept of 'appreciation' was developed by Grisso and Applebaum (Grisso, Appelbaum, and Hill-Fotouhi 1997). It is not included in either English common law development, for example (ReC), nor in the criteria specified in the Mental Capacity Act 2005. More important, Grisso and Appelbaum in their comment on our original paper (2006) argue that our work advances thinking about 'appreciation' rather than requiring that we add new elements. The implication is that they believe that what we have called pathological values are relevant to the assessment of capacity and are already included in an account of capacity that incorporates the criterion of 'appreciation.' In our response, we argued that pathological values are not entirely captured within the account of appreciation that Grisso and Appelbaum had previously given. We do not want to revisit that issue here, but the point of relevance is that on one view (that of Grisso and Appelbaum) pathological values are already included in the current criteria for DMC as part of the concept of appreciation, whereas on Whiting's view they are not.(ii) Even if there were agreement over the wording and concepts relevant to DMC there is a further important issue: how are those concepts... (shrink)

In some cases people judge it morally acceptable to sacrifice one person’s life in order to save several other lives, while in other similar cases they make the opposite judgment. Researchers have identified two general factors that may explain this phenomenon at the stimulus level: (1) the agent’s intention (i.e. whether the harmful event is intended as a means or merely foreseen as a side-effect) and (2) whether the agent harms the victim in a manner that is relatively “direct” or (...) “personal”. Here we integrate these two classes of findings. Two experiments examine a novel personalness/directness factor that we call personal force, present when the force that directly impacts the victim is generated by the agent’s muscles (e.g., in pushing). Experiments 1a and b demonstrate the influence of personal force on moral judgment, distinguishing it from physical contact and spatial proximity. Experiments 2a and b demonstrate an interaction between personal force and intention, whereby the effect of personal force depends entirely on intention. These studies also introduce a method for controlling for people’s real-world expectations in decisions involving potentially unrealistic hypothetical dilemmas. (shrink)

Increased productivity may have negative impacts on farm animal welfare in modern animal production systems. Efficiency gains in production are primarily thought to be due to the intensification of production, and this has been associated with an increased incidence of production diseases, which can negatively impact upon FAW. While there is a considerable body of research into consumer attitudes towards FAW, the extent to which this relates specifically to a reduction in production diseases in intensive systems, and whether the increased (...) incidence of diseases represents a barrier to consumer acceptance of their increased use, requires further investigation. Therefore a systematic review of public attitudes towards FAW was conducted, with a specific focus on production diseases in intensive systems. Four databases were searched to identify relevant studies. A screening process, using a set of pre-determined inclusion criteria, identified 80 studies, with the strength of evidence and uncertainty assessed for each. A thematic analysis led to the identification of 6 overarching themes constructed from 15 subthemes. The results demonstrate that the public are concerned about FAW in modern production systems. Concern varied in relation to age, gender, education and familiarity with farming. Naturalness and humane treatment were central to what was considered good welfare. An evidence gap was highlighted in relation to attitudes towards specific production diseases, with no studies specifically addressing this. However, the prophylactic use of antibiotics was identified as a concern. A number of dissonance strategies were adopted by consumers to enable guilt free meat consumption. (shrink)

A growing body of empirical evidence suggests that positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishments may be a robust framework for the measurement, management and development of wellbeing. While the original PERMA framework made great headway in the past decade, its empirical and theoretical limitations were recently identified and critiqued. In response, Seligman clarified the value of PERMA as a framework for and not a theory of wellbeing and called for further research to expand the construct. To expand the framework (...) into organizational contexts, recent meta-analyses and systematic literature reviews showed that physical health, mindset, physical work environments and economic security could be seen as essential contextually relevant building blocks for work-related wellbeing and are therefore prime candidates to expand the PERMA framework for use within organizational contexts. Through expanding the original PERMA framework with these four factors, a new holistic approach to work-related wellbeing and work performance was born: the PERMA+4. As such, the purpose of this brief perspective paper is to provide a conceptual overview of PERMA+4 as holistic framework for work-related wellbeing and work performance which extends beyond the predominant componential thinking of the discipline. Specifically, we aim to do so by providing: a brief historical overview of the development of PERMA as a theory for wellbeing, a conceptual overview of PERMA+4 as a holistic framework for work-related wellbeing and work performance, empirical evidence supporting the usefulness of PERMA+4, and charting a course for the second wave of positive organizational psychological research. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to describe briefly the institutional arrangements which condition the activities of accountants in the United States; to heighten an awareness of the values which are embodied in the existing structures of accountability; to appraise the consistency with which the established ideals of society have been actualised in financial reporting, and to discern the shape of the emerging history of financial reporting in the light of new values and possibilities. I suggest that the tradition of (...) fair presentation in financial reporting is in danger of being eliminated by a purely political response to previous abuses. Mandatory accounting standards do have a role in preventing these abuses, but they can also be seen as instruments of distributive justice. To promote an awareness and discussion of the issues, I point out some of the goals and values underlying a few of the major structures designed for the distribution of economic costs and benefits. (shrink)

The second wave of devastating consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic has been linked to dramatic declines in well-being. While much of the well-being literature is based on descriptive and correlational studies, this paper evaluates a growing body of causal evidence from high-quality randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that test the efficacy of positive psychology interventions (PPIs). This systematic review analyzed the findings from 25 meta-analyses, 42 review papers, and the high-quality RCTs of PPIs designed to generate well-being that were included within (...) those studies. Findings reveal PPIs have the potential to generate well-being even during a global pandemic, with larger effect sizes in non-Western countries. Four exemplar PPIs—that have been tested with a high-quality RCT, have positive effects on well-being, and could be implemented during a global pandemic—are presented and discussed. Future efforts to generate well-being can build on this causal evidence and emulate the most efficacious PPIs to be as effective as possible at generating well-being. However, the four exemplars were only tested in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic) countries but seem promising for implementation and evaluation in non-WEIRD contexts. This review highlights the overall need for more rigorous research on PPIs with more diverse populations and in non-WEIRD contexts to ensure equitable access to effective interventions that generate well-being for all. (shrink)

During the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic, preclinical and clinical research were sped up and scaled up in both the public and private sectors and in partnerships between them. This resulted in some extraordinary advances, but it also raised a range of issues regarding the ethics, rigour, and integrity of scientific research, academic publication, and public communication. Many of the failures of scientific rigour and integrity that occurred during the pandemic were exacerbated by the rush to generate, disseminate, and (...) implement research findings, which not only created opportunities for unscrupulous actors but also compromised the methodological, peer review, and advisory processes that would usually identify sub-standard research and prevent compromised clinical or policy-level decisions. While it would be tempting to attribute these failures of science and its translation solely to the “unprecedented” circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, the reality is that they preceded the pandemic and will continue to arise once it is over. Existing strategies for promoting scientific rigour and integrity need to be made more rigorous, better integrated into research training and institutional cultures, and made more sophisticated. They might also need to be modified or supplemented with other strategies that are fit for purpose not only in public health emergencies but in any research that is sped-up and scaled up to address urgent unmet medical needs. (shrink)

Recent writing on the idea of a form of life has tended to be critical of the use made of this notion by writers such as Peter Winch, D. Z. Phillips and Norman Malcolm. Rightly or wrongly these writers have been regarded as meaning by ‘a form of life’, something like ‘a way or style of life’, and recent explicatory work on the notion has largely tended to discount this as a plausible interpretation of what Wittgenstein meant in his use (...) of the expression. The intention of this paper is not that of direct intervention in this particular dispute, though the conclusions drawn, if correct, would have some bearing on it. The intention is rather to develop, in order to make use of it, the idea of a form of life within the context of a number of philosophical difficulties. I should certainly claim to be drawing upon the remarks made by Wittgenstein in his own use of the expression: but I should not claim to be expounding Wittgenstein. Hence I do not wish to enter into the disputes referred to above about what precisely Wittgenstein meant by the expression, though again, what I say, if not wholly misguided, should have some bearing on these disputes. (shrink)

There are many important methodological decisions that need to be made when examining emotional reactivity in psychopathology. In the present study, we examined the effects of two such decisions in an investigation of emotional reactivity in depression: (1) which (if any) comparison condition to employ; and (2) how to define change. Depressed (N = 69) and control (N = 37) participants viewed emotion-inducing film clips while subjective and facial responses were measured. Emotional reactivity was defined using no comparison condition (i.e., (...) raw scores), baseline comparison condition (i.e., no stimulus presented), and neutral comparison condition (i.e., neutral stimulus presented). Change in emotional reactivity was assessed using four analytic approaches: difference scores, percentage change, residualised change, and ANCOVA. Results differed among the three comparison conditions and among several of the analytic approaches. Overall, our investigation suggests that choosing a comparison condition and the definition of change can significantly influence the presence of group differences in emotional reactivity. Recommendations for studies of emotional reactivity in psychopathology are discussed. (shrink)

My dissertation consists of two main parts. In the first part, I begin by assuming the plausibility of the libertarian thesis that agents sometimes could have done otherwise than they did given the very same history of the world. In light of this assumption, I undertake to develop a model of agency which does not employ the concept of agent-causation. My agency theory is developed in three main stages: I suggest that any agency theory must satisfy four desiderata: It must (...) adequately account for the freedom and responsibility of human agents. It must provide an adequate answer to the question of what distinguishes human actions from mere happenings. It must adequately account for the epistemological fact that human agents have an immediate and nonobservational awareness of their actions. It should have the support of a respectable philosophical tradition. I argue that agent-causation provides a theory of agency which fails adequately to satisfy these four desiderata. I claim both that human actions are uncaused exercisings by agents of their powers and that human agents typically act for reasons. I maintain that the central issue dividing agency theorists and nonagency theorists is whether reasons for performing actions cause the latter. I maintain that the sense of 'because' in 'I did x because...' is not causal in nature, but teleological. ;Having developed my model of agency, in the second part of my dissertation I investigate what are some of the paradigmatic actions human agents perform. I claim that bodily actions, such as moving an arm, are psychological in nature. Essential to my argument is the concept of a body-image. A normal agent 'feels' as if she is present in her physical arm. The way a normal agent feels is revealed in the case of a phantom limb. The subject of a phantom arm feels as if her amputated physical arm is still there and she can move while feeling armishly. I maintain that the bodily action of moving an arm is the agent's movement as a psychological arm-image of her physical arm, whether the physical arm is present or not. (shrink)

There is an interesting logical/semantic issue with some mathematical languages and theories. In the language of (pure) complex analysis, the two square roots of i’ manage to pick out a unique object? This is perhaps the most prominent example of the phenomenon, but there are some others. The issue is related to matters concerning the use of definite descriptions and singular pronouns, such as donkey anaphora and the problem of indistinguishable participants. Taking a cue from some work in linguistics and (...) the philosophy of language, I suggest that i functions like a parameter in natural deduction systems. This may require some rethinking of the role of singular terms, at least in mathematical languages. (shrink)

Over the past decade, global health has emerged as one of the fastest growing academic programs in the United States. Ethics training is cited widely as an essential feature of U.S. global health programs, but generally it is not deeply integrated into the global health teaching and training curricula. A discussion about the pedagogy of teaching global health ethics is long overdue; to date, only a few papers specifically engage with pedagogy rather than competencies or content. This paper explores the (...) value of case study pedagogy for a full-semester graduate course in global health ethics at an American university. I address some of the pedagogical challenges of teaching global health ethics through my innovative use of case study methodology—the “prospective case study”. (shrink)

My argument will be that our understanding of human beings, which is what I take the Christian doctrine of man to be concerned with, will benefit considerably from an examination of two different but related clusters of human attitudes which can be found respectively under the headings ‘optimism’ and ‘pessimism’. There are many pitfalls in the way of such an enterprise, and occasionally some prejudices to be overcome. For example L. E. Loemker in the relevant articles in the Encyclopedia of (...) Philosophy concludes a fairly lengthy discussion with the rather terminal judgement. (shrink)

In this article I shall concern myself with the question ‘Is some type of justification required in order for belief in God to be rational?’ Many philosophers and theologians in the past would have responded affirmatively to this question. However, in our own day, there are those who maintain that natural theology in any form is not necessary. This is because of the rise of a different understanding of the nature of religious belief. Unlike what most people in the past (...) thought, religious belief is not in any sense arrived at or inferred on the basis of other known propositions. On the contrary, belief in God is taken to be as basic as a person's belief in the existence of himself, of the chair in which he is sitting, or the past. The old view that there must be a justification of religious belief, whether known or unknown, is held to be mistaken. One of the most outspoken advocates of this view is Alvin Plantinga. According to Plantinga the mature theist ought not to accept belief in God as a conclusion from other things he believes. Rather, he should accept it as basic, as a part of the bedrock of his noetic structure. ‘The mature theist commits himself to belief in God; this means that he accepts belief in God as basic.’. (shrink)

Tome I: Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Danish and Dutch -- Tome II: English, A - K -- Tome III: English L-Z -- Tome IV: Finnish, French, Galician and German -- Tome V: Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian and Polish -- Tome VI: Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish and Swedish.

Professor Parkinson in his lecture on ‘The Translation Theory of Understanding’ discusses two stages in the development of a false but influential tradition which he finds common to Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Professor George Steiner's After Babel. He is not, of course, alleging any direct historical influence of the one on the other; neither is he principally addressing Steiner's book as a whole, but rather the account of understanding upon which it appears to be founded. I should like (...) to take his paper as the starting-point for my own, but begin from a somewhat broader view than he does of the legacy of Locke. With Parkinson's constructive position I have no quarrel, and I shall not address myself directly to it. (shrink)

Some authors have claimed that ante rem structuralism has problems with structures that have indiscernible places. In response, I argue that there is no requirement that mathematical objects be individuated in a non-trivial way. Metaphysical principles and intuitions to the contrary do not stand up to ordinary mathematical practice, which presupposes an identity relation that, in a sense, cannot be defined. In complex analysis, the two square roots of –1 are indiscernible: anything true of one of them is true of (...) the other. I suggest that ‘i’ functions like a parameter in natural deduction systems. I gave an early version of this paper at a workshop on structuralism in mathematics and science, held in the Autumn of 2006, at Bristol University. Thanks to the organizers, particularly Hannes Leitgeb, James Ladyman, and Øystein Linnebo, to my commentator Richard Pettigrew, and to the audience there. The paper also benefited considerably from a preliminary session at the Arché Research Centre at the University of St Andrews. I am indebted to my colleagues Craige Roberts, for help with the linguistics literature, and Ben Caplan and Gabriel Uzquiano, for help with the metaphysics. Thanks also to Hannes Leitgeb and Jeffrey Ketland for reading an earlier version of the manuscript and making helpful suggestions. I also benefited from conversations with Richard Heck, John Mayberry, Kevin Scharp, and Jason Stanley. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This unique book by Stewart Shapiro looks at a range of philosophical issues and positions concerning mathematics in four comprehensive sections. Part I describes questions and issues about mathematics that have motivated philosophers since the beginning of intellectual history. Part II is an historical survey, discussing the role of mathematics in the thought of such philosophers as Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Mill. Part III covers the three major positions held throughout the twentieth century: the idea that mathematics is logic (...) (logicism), the view that the essence of mathematics is the rule-governed manipulation of characters (formalism), and a revisionist philosophy that focuses on the mental activity of mathematics (intuitionism). Finally, Part IV brings the reader up-to-date with a look at contemporary developments within the discipline. This sweeping introductory guide to the philosophy of mathematics makes these fascinating concepts accessible to those with little background in either mathematics or philosophy. (shrink)

This paper defends the view that standards, which are typically social in nature, play a role in determining whether a subject has knowledge. While the argument focuses on standards that pertain to reasoning, I also consider whether there are similar standards for memory and perception.Ultimately, I argue that the standards are context sensitive and, as such, we must view attributions of knowledge as indexical. I exploit similarities between this view and a version of the relevant alternatives reply to skepticism in (...) order to defend this reply against the objection that it is ad hoc. (shrink)

In this paper, I use the cases of intuitionistic arithmetic with Church’s thesis, intuitionistic analysis, and smooth infinitesimal analysis to argue for a sort of pluralism or relativism about logic. The thesis is that logic is relative to a structure. There are classical structures, intuitionistic structures, and (possibly) paraconsistent structures. Each such structure is a legitimate branch of mathematics, and there does not seem to be an interesting logic that is common to all of them. One main theme of my (...) ante rem structuralism is that any coherent axiomatization describes a structure, or a class of structures. If one weakens the logic, then more axiomatizations become coherent. (shrink)

A number of authors have recently weighed in on the issue of whether it is coherent to have bound variables that range over absolutely everything. Prima facie, it is difficult, and perhaps impossible, to coherently state the “relativist” position without violating it. For example, the relativist might say, or try to say, that for any quantifier used in a proposition of English, there is something outside of its range. What is the range of this quantifier? Or suppose we ask the (...) relativist if there are some things that cannot appear in the range of any bound variable. The likely response would be along these lines: “No. For each object o, it possible to include o in the range of quantifiers, but one cannot quantify over everything at once.” This sentence contains unrestricted quantifiers, or so it seems, pending some clever move from a relativist. On the other hand, in the context of set theory, the reasoning behind the Burali-Forti paradox strongly suggests that there are well-orderings strictly longer than the collection of all ordinals. And set theorists regularly do transfinite recursions and transfinite reductions along such well-orderings. The relativist simply points out that one can always define new ordinals, and thus expand the range of one’s bound variables. The purpose of this paper is to explore the iterative framework, proposed in Zermelo’s 1930 paper, “Über Grenzzahlen und Mengenbereiche” (“On boundary numbers and domains of sets”), in order to shed light on these issues, and see what is involved in resolving them. (shrink)

I contrast two solutions to the lottery paradox concerning knowledge: contextualism and subject-sensitive invariantism. I defend contextualism against an objection that it cannot explain how 'knows' and its cognates function inside propositional attitude reports. I then argue that subject-sensitive invariantism fails to provide a satisfactory resolution of the paradox.

tome I. Index of names, A-K -- tome 2. Index of names, L-Z -- tome 3. Index of subjects, overview of the articles in the series.

The problem of easy knowledge arises for theories that have what I call a “basic knowledge structure”. S has basic knowledge of P just in case S knows P prior to knowing that the cognitive source of S's knowing P is reliable.1 Our knowledge has a basic knowledge structure (BKS) just in case we have basic knowledge and we come to know our faculties are reliable on the basis of our basic knowledge. The problem I raised in “Basic Knowledge and (...) the Problem of Easy Knowledge”2 (BKEK) is that once we allow for basic knowledge, we can come to know our faculties are reliable in ways that intuitively are too easy. This raises a serious doubt about whether we had the basic knowledge in the first place. In “Easy Knowledge”, Peter Markie argues that BKS theories do not face any problem concerning easy knowledge.3 I argued that the problem arises in two forms, and Markie takes issue with both. I will argue that Markie's defense of BKS theories fails. (shrink)

Narrative medicine is predicated on the importance of narrative to human life. Although that in itself is not controversial, an extension of this principle that has sprung up in narrative psychiatry—namely, that by coming to imagine a different life story one can become a different person—ought to be. One reason one cannot remake one’s life in the image of a story is that life is not to be mistaken for a story in the first place. The seminal study of psychotherapy, (...) Persuasion and Healing, although recommending that the demoralized absorb more uplifting stories about themselves, appears to recognize some limit to the possibility of modeling life on story. The same study likens therapeutic stories to placebos, but as it happens, placebos themselves have their limits, alleviating symptoms but not curing or “healing.” In order for someone to become a different person through the agency of the placebo effect, it would have to be more robust than it is. The argument that life follows narrative is an ironic one for a discipline devoted to narrative to make, given the salience in the tradition of the novel, from Don Quixote forward, of works that explore the fallacies of that presumption. In keeping with its attention to narrative, this article challenges the use of a short story by Chitra Divakaruni as an illustration of the principles of narrative psychiatry. (shrink)

It is of course true that the articulation of religious and theological views depends upon and often masks philosophical presuppositions. For example, those who quote with approval Anselm's ‘credo ut intelligam’, ‘I believe so that I may understand’, seldom follow the good example set by Anselm, and make explicit, as Anselm does in the following sentence, the fact that this principle rests upon a further principle: ‘For I believe this also, that “unless I believe, I shall not understand”’ . This (...) paper is an attempt to track down and expose one very pervasive set of views about the nature of experience which is implicit in a wide range of religious and theological claims. (shrink)

Leg rigidity is associated with frequent falls in people with Parkinson’s disease, suggesting a potential role in functional balance and gait impairments. Changes in the neural state due to secondary tasks, e.g., activation maneuvers, can exacerbate rigidity, possibly increasing the risk of falls. However, the subjective interpretation and coarse classification of the standard clinical rigidity scale has prohibited the systematic, objective assessment of resting and activated leg rigidity. The pendulum test is an objective diagnostic method that we hypothesized would be (...) sensitive enough to characterize resting and activated leg rigidity. We recorded kinematic data and electromyographic signals from rectus femoris and biceps femoris during the pendulum test in 15 individuals with PD, spanning a range of leg rigidity severity. From the recorded data of leg swing kinematics, we measured biomechanical outcomes including first swing excursion, first extension peak, number and duration of the oscillations, resting angle, relaxation index, maximum and minimum angular velocity. We examined associations between biomechanical outcomes and clinical leg rigidity score. We evaluated the effect of increasing rigidity through activation maneuvers on biomechanical outcomes. Finally, we assessed whether either biomechanical outcomes or changes in outcomes with activation were associated with a fall history. Our results suggest that the biomechanical assessment of the pendulum test can objectively quantify parkinsonian leg rigidity. We found that the presence of high rigidity during clinical exam significantly impacted biomechanical outcomes, i.e., first extension peak, number of oscillations, relaxation index, and maximum angular velocity. No differences in the effect of activation maneuvers between groups with clinically assessed low rigidity were observed, suggesting that activated rigidity may be independent of resting rigidity and should be scored as independent variables. Moreover, we found that fall history was more common among people whose rigidity was increased with a secondary task, as measured by biomechanical outcomes. We conclude that different mechanisms contributing to resting and activated rigidity may play an important yet unexplored functional role in balance impairments. The pendulum test may contribute to a better understanding of fundamental mechanisms underlying motor symptoms in PD, evaluating the efficacy of treatments, and predicting the risk of falls. (shrink)

This article explains how Pope Francis’s economic views are both radical and practical. His views are practical in the sense that they are sensitive to social realities, not theoretical abstractions; and they are radical in the sense that they undermine traditional economic ideologies. To demonstrate these points, I show how Francis’s pronouncements are consistent with “economic democracy.” In economic democracy efforts are made to create a more equal dispersal of capital assets and the economy is more squarely oriented around fundamental (...) human ends, including the common good, human dignity, equality and opportunity, meaningful work, ecological responsibility, and solidarity. (shrink)

Moral philosophers and theologians have long debated the classic moral dilemma of lying to an intruder in order to save a refugee. This dilemma presents an especially difficult challenge to those who reject consequentialist reasoning. Many contemporary defenders of Thomas Aquinas have argued that lying is never permissible under any circumstances, but none has offered a satisfactory answer to the question of what one ought to do when facing such a dilemma. I argue that there can be no morally satisfying (...) answer to this question, because every possible action will involve some degree of sin, even if lying is the least sinful action. This should not lead us to redefine what it means to tell a lie, nor to say that lying to the intruder is a good or right action; rather, it should lead us to acknowledge the tragic dimension of life in a fallen world. (shrink)

This is a response to Jennifer Hornsby's Presidential Address to the Aristotelian Society in 1996 (published 1997) and to Julian Dodd's defences of an identity theory. Both authors explain their versions of the theory through its rejection of a correspondence theory and its insistence on the indefinability of truth. I ask what more there is to the identity theory to justify its title and argue that the investigation of this matter reveals difficulties which neither author resolves.

Entitlement theorists claim that bequest is a moral right. The aim of this essay is to determine whether entitlement theorists can, on their own grounds, consistently defend that claim. I argue that even if there is a moral right to self-appropriated property and to engage in inter vivos transfers, it is a mistake to contend that there exists an equivalent moral right to make a bequest. Taxing or regulating bequest does not violate an individual’s moral rights because, regardless of whether (...) bequest safeguards certain interests, those interests are not the interests of a living, morally inviolable being. Instead, they are the interests of a deceased entity that has lost the ability to track what it values and pursue projects in accord with those values – a quality that by entitlement theorists’ own arguments renders persons morally significant and deserving of rights in the first place. (shrink)

There is a parallel between the debate between Gottlob Frege and David Hilbert at the turn of the twentieth century and at least some aspects of the current controversy over whether category theory provides the proper framework for structuralism in the philosophy of mathematics. The main issue, I think, concerns the place and interpretation of meta-mathematics in an algebraic or structuralist approach to mathematics. Can meta-mathematics itself be understood in algebraic or structural terms? Or is it an exception to the (...) slogan that mathematics is the science of structure? (shrink)

This chapter considers Ralph Cudworth as a philosophical critic of Hobbes. Cudworth saw Hobbes as a representative of the three views he was attacking: atheism, determinism, and the denial that morality is eternal and immutable. Moreover, he did not just criticize Hobbes by assuming that a general critique of those views applied to Hobbes’s particular case. Rather, he singled out Hobbes, often by quoting him, and argued against the distinctively Hobbesian positions he had identified. In this chapter I look at (...) Cudworth as a critic of Hobbes in two of the three central areas, atheism and ethics, focusing on passages where we see him explicitly picking out Hobbes. (shrink)

I provide a characterization of weakly pseudo-rationalizable choice functions---that is, choice functions rationalizable by a set of acyclic relations---in terms of hyper-relations satisfying certain properties. For those hyper-relations Nehring calls extended preference relations, the central characterizing condition is weaker than (hyper-relation) transitivity but stronger than (hyper-relation) acyclicity. Furthermore, the relevant type of hyper-relation can be represented as the intersection of a certain class of its extensions. These results generalize known, analogous results for path independent choice functions.

In this paper, I assume that if we have libertarian freedom, it is located in the power to choose and its exercise. Given this assumption, I then further assume a version of the Principle of Alternative Possibilities which states that an agent is morally responsible for his choice only if he could have chosen otherwise. With these assumptions in place, I examine three recent attempts to construct Frankfurt‐style counterexamples to PAP. I argue that all fail to undermine the intuitive plausibility (...) of PAP. (shrink)

James Van Cleve raises some objections to my attempt to solve the bootstrapping problem for what I call “basic justification theories.” I argue that given 1 the inference rules endorsed by basic justification theorists, we are a priori (propositionally) justified in believing that perception is reliable. This blocks the bootstrapping result.

According to N. T. Wright, anyone who is a Christian should at least think twice before he or she speaks about the soul, especially as an entity that is distinct from its physical body and can survive death in a disembodied intermediate state until the resurrection and reembodiment. In Wright’s mind, talk of the soul is talk about soul-body substance dualism (dualism, for short), which is the villain in Christian anthropological thought. As far as Wright is concerned, it is time (...) for Christians to renounce dualism once and for all. In this paper, I take issue with Wright’s position on substance dualism. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop a noncausal view of agency. I defend the thesis that choices are uncaused mental actions and maintain, contrary to causal theorists of action, that choices differ intrinsically or inherently from nonactions. I explain how they do by placing them in an ontology favored by causal agency theorists (agent-causationists). This ontology is one of powers and liabilities.After explicating how a choice is an uncaused event, I explain how an adequate account of freedom involves the concept of (...) choosing for a reason. Choosing for a reason is a teleological notion, and I set forth what is involved in making a choice for a purpose. (shrink)

The space, work, and pedagogy of universities have undergone rapid and unprecedented change during the Covid pandemic. These developments have been heralded as marking the emergence of a ‘new normal’. Reflecting on the unique aspirations and utopian sense of universities, I give an account of the political stakes at a time of fundamental change. I also provide a brief introduction to the other essays in this Supplement.

While Kierkegaard is perhaps known best as a religious thinker and philosopher, there is an unmistakable literary element in his writings. He often explains complex concepts and ideas by using literary figures and motifs that he could assume his readers would have some familiarity with. This dimension of his thought has served to make his writings far more popular than those of other philosophers and theologians, but at the same time it has made their interpretation more complex. Kierkegaard readers are (...) generally aware of his interest in figures such as Faust or the Wandering Jew, but they rarely have a full appreciation of the vast extent of his use of characters from different literary periods and traditions. The present volume is dedicated to the treatment of the variety of literary figures and motifs used by Kierkegaard. The volume is arranged alphabetically by name, with Tome I covering figures and motifs from Agamemnon to Guadalquivir. (shrink)