Evolution and geometry generate complexity in similar ways. Evolution drives natural selection while geometry may capture the logic of this selection and express it visually, in terms of specific generic properties representing some kind of advantage. Geometry is ideally suited for expressing the logic of evolutionary selection for symmetry, which is found in the shape curves of vein systems and other natural objects such as leaves, cell membranes, or tunnel systems built by ants. The topology and geometry of (...) class='Hi'>symmetry is controlled by numerical parameters, which act in analogy with a biological organism’s DNA. The introductory part of this paper reviews findings from experiments illustrating the critical role of two-dimensional (2D) design parameters, affine geometry and shape symmetry for visual or tactile shape sensation and perception-based decision making in populations of experts and non-experts. It will be shown that 2D fractal symmetry, referred to herein as the “symmetry of things in a thing”, results from principles very similar to those of affine projection. Results from experiments on aesthetic and visual preference judgments in response to 2D fractal trees with varying degrees of asymmetry are presented. In a first experiment (psychophysical scaling procedure), non-expert observers had to rate (on a scale from 0 to 10) the perceived beauty of a random series of 2D fractal trees with varying degrees of fractal symmetry. In a second experiment (two-alternative forced choice procedure), they had to express their preference for one of two shapes from the series. The shape pairs were presented successively in random order. Results show that the smallest possible fractal deviation from “symmetry of things in a thing” significantly reduces the perceived attractiveness of such shapes. The potential of future studies where different levels of complexity of fractal patterns are weighed against different degrees of symmetry is pointed out in the conclusion. (shrink)

This paper describes how body regimes are effectuated in the prevailing treatment strategy of physiotherapy. The process of self‐mastering in the context of sports‐related injuries is highlighted. Through a Foucauldian perspective on body regimes the aim is to shed light on the process of individualization and self‐mastery in rehabilitation. The treatment of illness in the physiotherapy clinic does not characterize the patient as sick, and exempt the patient from daily duties and expectations. The empirical data include 17 qualitative illness narratives (...) and several years of fieldwork observing patients with anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries in a physiotherapy clinic. The study demonstrates how the expectation that the patients be active and self‐mastering permeates the total process of treatment. The individual responsibility for personal well‐being is a recurrent phenomenon in public health services in general, and specifically prominent in the rehabilitation of sports injuries. (shrink)

A. C. Grayling's lucid and stimulating books, based on the idea that philosophy should engage with the world and make itself useful, invariably cause discussion. The Challenge of Things joins earlier collections such as The Reason of Things and Thinking of Answers, collecting Grayling's recent writings on the world in a time of war and conflict. In describing and exposing the dark side of things, he also explores ways out of the habits and prejudices of mind that (...) would otherwise trap us forever in the deadly impasses of conflicts of all kinds. Whether he is writing about the First World War and its legacy, free speech, the advantages of an atheist prime minister or the role of science in the arts, his essays are always enlightening, enlivening, and hopeful. (shrink)

Emotions, Embodied Cognition and the Adaptive Unconscious argues for the need to consider many other factors, drawn from disciplines such as socio-biology, evolutionary psychology, the study of the emotions, the adaptive unconscious, the senses and conscious deliberation in analysing the complex topography of social action and the making of things. These factors are taken as ecological conditions that shape the contemporary expression of complex societies, not as constraints on human plasticity Without 'foundations', complex society cannot exist nor less evolve. (...) This is the familiar pairing from complexity theory: path dependency and dynamic emergence. Inter-disciplinary and complexity perspectives need to be incorporated into the social sciences. Routinely, sociologists think of social phenomena as a distinct field, expressed in the term: the 'social construction of' without apparent need to refer to other material, biological, psychological, material or ecological conditions or agents. This book shows how the familiar sociological dynamics of identity, solidarity, differentiation and communication are shaped through the persistent interaction of unconscious and affective processing with conscious deliberation in newly emergent contexts. It is this re-expression, not the surpassing, of human characteristics in contemporary social action that needs to re-inform a complex, ecological approach to the theory and methodologies of the social sciences. The book is intended for a postgraduate/research audience and doctoral students to introduce and synthesise inter-disciplinary contributions to research into complexity theory in the social sciences. (shrink)

Because this lecture was a tribute to the contribution of Monod to science it focused on his views, without discussing the work of others who contributed to his achievements. In particular, because Monod was implicitly a platonician/pythagorean (with his emphasis on the importance of beauty in things), he thought that symmetry had to be introduced in the concept of allostery. In fact this was an extra feature that was absent from the original work of Jean-Pierre Changeux on the (...) enzyme threonine deaminase, where the first hypothesis of the binding of a regulator molecule on the enzyme could be located at a place different from the catalytic substrate binding site was presented (hence the word allostery coined by Monod in the introduction of the conference where the work of Changeux was presented). Symmetry is not a critical component of the concept of allostery. (shrink)

Kant once wrote, “Many historians of philosophy... let the philosophers speak mere nonsense.... They cannot see beyond what the philosophers actually said to what they really meant to say.’ Rae Langton begins her book with this quotation. She concludes it, after a final pithy summary of the position that she attributes to Kant, with the comment, “That, it seems to me, is what Kant said, and meant to say”. In between are some two hundred pages of admirably clear, tightly argued (...) exegesis, supplemented by detailed references, in which she offers what the dust jacket blurb fairly describes as “a new interpretation and defence of Kant’s doctrine of things in themselves.” This is an extremely engaging and thought-provoking book. I am pleased to recommend it. (shrink)

Kant once wrote, “Many historians of philosophy... let the philosophers speak mere nonsense.... They cannot see beyond what the philosophers actually said to what they really meant to say.’ Rae Langton begins her book with this quotation. She concludes it, after a final pithy summary of the position that she attributes to Kant, with the comment, “That, it seems to me, is what Kant said, and meant to say”. In between are some two hundred pages of admirably clear, tightly argued (...) exegesis, supplemented by detailed references, in which she offers what the dust jacket blurb fairly describes as “a new interpretation and defence of Kant’s doctrine of things in themselves.” This is an extremely engaging and thought-provoking book. I am pleased to recommend it. (shrink)

This book is concerned with the history of metaphysics since Descartes. Taking as its definition of metaphysics 'the most general attempt to make sense of things', it charts the evolution of this enterprise through various competing conceptions of its possibility, scope, and limits. The book is divided into three parts, dealing respectively with the early modern period, the late modern period in the analytic tradition, and the late modern period in non-analytic traditions. In its unusually wide range, A. W. (...) Moore's study refutes the tired old cliché that there is some unbridgeable gulf between analytic philosophy and philosophy of other kinds. It also advances its own distinctive and compelling conception of what metaphysics is and why it matters. Moore explores how metaphysics can help us to cope with continually changing demands on our humanity by making sense of things in ways that are radically new. (shrink)

The bestseller from our pre-eminent philosopher, A.C. Grayling 'Grief and loneliness, depression, despair and failure - those things are the common human lot at least at times in all our lives'. Yet it is philosophy which, while not providing an answer to these problems, can enable us to prepare for them, and create strategies with which to deal with them. It is only through reflecting upon the world around us, reading, thinking, questioning, enjoying, that we can inculcate understanding, tolerance (...) and importantly the courage to live our lives. It is our responsibility to live such 'considered lives' and to realise that we are authors of a narrative that can be shaped and controlled. This is the fifth in a series of essay miscellanies from our foremost philosopher A.C. Grayling, reflecting upon the form of our world and its multiplicity. The essays are grouped by theme into reflections upon life and the standards we live by, including vivid polemics and perceptive pieces on significant thinkers, contemporary rights and liberties issues. This book brilliantly articulates the philosophical debate and reflection that is needed to prepare us for life in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

This is a study of the correspondence between Forms and particulars in Plato. The aim is to determine whether they exhibit an ontological symmetry, in other words, whether there is always one where there is the other. This points to two questions, one on the existence of things that do not have corresponding Forms, the other on the existence of Forms that do not have corresponding things. Both questions have come up before. But the answers have not (...) been sufficiently sensitive to the intricacies of the questions. Nor have they been adequately resourceful with what little evidence there is in the original sources. The intention here is to make up for that deficiency, not just with better answers but also with better insight into the questions. (shrink)

This chapter argues that scientific and philosophical progress in our understanding of the living world requires that we abandon a metaphysics of things in favour of one centred on processes. We identify three main empirical motivations for adopting a process ontology in biology: metabolic turnover, life cycles, and ecological interdependence. We show how taking a processual stance in the philosophy of biology enables us to ground existing critiques of essentialism, reductionism, and mechanicism, all of which have traditionally been associated (...) with substance ontology. We illustrate the consequences of embracing an ontology of processes in biology by considering some of its implications for physiology, genetics, evolution, and medicine. And we attempt to locate the subsequent chapters of the book in relation to the position we defend. (shrink)

In this new collection A.C. Grayling adds to the variety of discussion and insight in his previous three essay collections. He returns to questions of personal ethics and the problems of the contemporary world, but also looks at the lives and ideas of great thinkers, the role of the arts in civilisation, and the need for reason everywhere Anthony Grayling illustrates in his celebrated accessible prose what each area offers to thought. In a wide-ranging array of illuminating topics, THE HEART (...) OF THINGS shows how far-reaching Grayling's masterly, and timely, commentary on the humanities is to general readers. (shrink)

In the past decade, the notion of a neural correlate of consciousness has become a focal point for scientific research on consciousness. A growing number of investigators believe that the first step toward a science of consciousness is to discover the neural correlates of consciousness. Indeed, Francis Crick has gone so far as to proclaim that ‘we need to discover the neural correlates of consciousness. For this task the primate visual system seems especially attractive. No longer need one spend time (...) attempting to endure the tedium of philosophers perpetually disagreeing with each other. Consciousness is now largely a scientific problem’. Yet the question of what it means to be a neural correlate of consciousness is actually far from straightforward, for it involves fundamental empirical, methodological, and philosophical issues about the nature of consciousness and its relationship to the brain. Even if one assumes, as we do, that states of consciousness causally depend on states of the brain, one can nevertheless wonder in what sense there is, or could be, such a thing as a neural correlate of consciousness. (shrink)

Most moral theorists agree that it is one thing to believe that someone has slighted you and another to resent her for the insult; one thing to believe that someone did you a favor and another to feel gratitude toward her for her kindness. While all of these ways of responding to another's conduct are forms of moral appraisal, the reactive attitudes are said to 'go beyond' beliefs in some way. We think this claim is adequately explained only (...) when we take seriously the fact that reactive attitudes are emotions. In this paper, we appeal to insights of the emotions literature to highlight one key way in which reactive attitudes go beyond beliefs: beliefs about a person and her morally significant conduct merely ascribe to the person the property of having performed a morally significant action, while reactive attitudes are ways of experiencing that person as having performed a morally significant action. We then suggest that appreciating this is a crucial first step toward understanding why reactive emotions play roles in our practices around responsibility that beliefs do not. (shrink)

This study reveals that increases in the global population command an augmented demand for products and services that calls for more effective ways of using existing natural resources and materials. The recent development of information and communication technologies, which had a great impact on many areas, also had a damaging effect on the environment and human health. Therefore, societies are moving toward a greener future by reducing the consumption of nonrenewable materials, raw materials, and resources while at the same time (...) decreasing energy pollution and consumption. Since information technology is considered a tool for solving ecological difficulties, the green Internet of things is playing a vital role in creating a sustainable home. Extensive data analysis is required to obtain a valuable overview of the large and diverse data generated by the G-IoT. The gathered information will facilitate forecasting, decision-making, and other activities related to smart urban services and then contribute to the incessant development of G-IoT technology. Therefore, even if sustainable and smart cities become an actuality, the G-IoT approach and the knowledge gained through big data analysis will make cities more sustainable, safer, and smarter. The goal of this article is to combine innovation in technological development with the main focus on resource sharing in creating cities that improve the quality of life while reducing pollution and realizing more efficient use of the raw materials. In the practice of big data science, it is always of interest to provide the best description of the data under consideration. Recent studies have pointed out the applicability of the statistical distributions in modeling data in applied sciences. In this article, we introduce a new family of statistical models to provide the best description of the life span of the wireless sensors network’s data. Based on the proposed approach, a special submodel called new exponent power-Weibull distribution is studied in detail. The applicability of the proposed model is shown by analyzing the life span of the wireless sensors network’s data. (shrink)

Star Trek is fundamentally about the triumph of the human spirit. Star Trek envisions a future in which humans have put away their petty differences to explore the cosmos, supported by an egalitarian society founded on the dignity of individuals and the loftiness of the human spirit, all the while boldly moralizing through progressive ideas. While exploring a hypergiant star, the Enterprise encounters the ship of an unknown species: the Vissians, which has a third gender, called a cogenitor. Philosophers such (...) as Immanuel Kant and Plato imagine morality as timeless and changeless, something that any rational being can understand. Vice and virtue may be compared to sounds, colors, heat and cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the mind. Hume believes that facts and values are always separate things. (shrink)

'The unconsidered life is not worth living' - Socrates. Thinking about life, what it means and what it holds in store does not have to be a despondent experience, but rather can be enlightening and uplifting. A life truly worth living is one that is informed and considered so a degree of philosophical insight into the inevitabilities of the human condition is inherently important and such an approach will help us to deal with real personal dilemmas. This book is an (...) accessible, lively and thought-provoking series of linked commentaries, based on A. C. Grayling's 'The Last Word' column in the Guardian. Its aim is not to persuade readers to accept one particular philosophical point of view or theory, but to help us consider the wonderful range of insights which can be drawn from an immeasurably rich history of philosophical thought. Concepts covered include courage, love, betrayal, ambition, cruelty, wisdom, passion, beauty and death. This will be a wonderfully stimulating read and act as an invaluable guide as to what is truly important in living life, whether facing success, failure, justice, wrong, love, loss or any of the other profound experience life throws out. (shrink)

The most important question we can ask ourselves is: what kind of life is the best? This is the same as asking: How does one give meaning to one's life? How can one justify one's existence and make it worthwhile? How does one make experience valuable, and keep growing and learning in the process - and through this learning acquire a degree of understanding of oneself and the world? A civilised society is one which never ceases debating with itself aboutwhat (...) human life should best be. Some would, with justice, say that if wewant ours to be such a society we must all contribute to that discussion. This book is, with appropriate diffidence, such a contribution. It consists of a collection of Grayling's regular 'Last Word' columns in the Guardian.This time topics include Suicide, Deceit, Luxury, Profit, Marriage, Meat-eating, Liberty, Slavery, Protest, Guns and War. (shrink)

An axiomatic treatment of the relation part of is shown to lead naturally to an account of the ways in which parts of things are matched. The determination of matchings by the properties of parts and by the relations between parts is discussed and shown to be relevant to certain classificatory problems in science. The connexions between matchings and symmetries of parts are explored, and a general account is given of the ways in which ambiguities in the matching of (...) parts may be resolved. (shrink)

With the rapid growth of informatics systems’ technology in this modern age, the Internet of Things (IoT) has become more valuable and vital to everyday life in many ways. IoT applications are now more popular than they used to be due to the availability of many gadgets that work as IoT enablers, including smartwatches, smartphones, security cameras, and smart sensors. However, the insecure nature of IoT devices has led to several difficulties, one of which is distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. (...) IoT systems have several security limitations due to their disreputability characteristics, like dynamic communication between IoT devices. The dynamic communications resulted from the limited resources of these devices, such as their data storage and processing units. Recently, many attempts have been made to develop intelligent models to protect IoT networks against DDoS attacks. The main ongoing research issue is developing a model capable of protecting the network from DDoS attacks that is sensitive to various classes of DDoS and can recognize legitimate traffic to avoid false alarms. Subsequently, this study proposes combining three deep learning algorithms, namely recurrent neural network (RNN), long short-term memory (LSTM)-RNN, and convolutional neural network (CNN), to build a bidirectional CNN-BiLSTM DDoS detection model. The RNN, CNN, LSTM, and CNN-BiLSTM are implemented and tested to determine the most effective model against DDoS attacks that can accurately detect and distinguish DDoS from legitimate traffic. The intrusion detection evaluation dataset (CICIDS2017) is used to provide more realistic detection. The CICIDS2017 dataset includes benign and up-to-date examples of typical attacks, closely matching real-world data of Packet Capture. The four models are tested and assessed using Confusion Metrix against four commonly used criteria: accuracy, precision, recall, and F-measure. The performance of the models is quite effective as they obtain an accuracy rate of around 99.00%, except for the CNN model, which achieves an accuracy of 98.82%. The CNN-BiLSTM achieves the best accuracy of 99.76% and precision of 98.90%. (shrink)

Animals and robots perceiving and acting in a world require an ontology that accommodates entities, processes, states of affairs, etc., in their environment. If the perceived environment includes information - processing systems, the ontology should reflect that. Scientists studying such systems need an ontology that includes the first - order ontology characterising physical phenomena, the second - order ontology characterising perceivers of physical phenomena, and a third order ontology characterising perceivers of perceivers, including introspectors. We argue that second - and (...) third - order ontologies refer to contents of virtual machines and examine requirements for scientific investigation of combined virtual and physical machines, such as animals and robots. We show how the CogAff architecture schema, combining reactive, deliberative, and meta - management categories, provides a first draft schematic third - order ontology for describing a wide range of natural and artificial agents. Many previously proposed architectures use only a subset of CogAff, including subsumption architectures, contention - scheduling systems, architectures with Ôexecutive functionsÕ and a variety of types of ÔOmegaÕ architectures. Adding a multiply - connected, fastacting ÔalarmÕ mechanism within the CogAff framework accounts for several varieties of emotions. H - CogAff, a special case of CogAff, is postulated as a minimal architecture specification for a human - like system. We illustrate use of the CogAff schema in comparing H - CogAff with Clarion, a well known architecture. One implication is that reliance on concepts tied to observation and experiment can harmfully restrict explanatory theorising, since what an information processor is doing cannot, in general, be determined by using the standard observational techniques of the physical sciences or laboratory experiments. Like theoretical physics, cognitive science needs to be highly speculative to make progress. Ó 2004 Published by Elsevier B. V. (shrink)

Floods are one of the most common natural disasters in the world that affect all aspects of life, including human beings, agriculture, industry, and education. Research for developing models of flood predictions has been ongoing for the past few years. These models are proposed and built-in proportion for risk reduction, policy proposition, loss of human lives, and property damages associated with floods. However, flood status prediction is a complex process and demands extensive analyses on the factors leading to the occurrence (...) of flooding. Consequently, this research proposes an Internet of Things-based flood status prediction (IoT-FSP) model that is used to facilitate the prediction of the rivers flood situation. The IoT-FSP model applies the Internet of Things architecture to facilitate the flood data acquisition process and three machine learning (ML) algorithms, which are Decision Tree (DT), Decision Jungle, and Random Forest, for the flood prediction process. The IoT-FSP model is implemented in MATLAB and Simulink as development platforms. The results show that the IoT-FSP model successfully performs the data acquisition and prediction tasks and achieves an average accuracy of 85.72% for the three-fold cross-validation results. The research finding shows that the DT scores the highest accuracy of 93.22%, precision of 92.85, and recall of 92.81 among the three ML algorithms. The ability of the ML algorithm to handle multivariate outputs of 13 different flood textual statuses provides the means of manifesting explainable artificial intelligence and enables the IoT-FSP model to act as an early warning and flood monitoring system. (shrink)

For many economists, including those who have made the most marked contribution to the development of the discipline, their work has to be understood in the context of the rhetorical strategy they were pursuing – what they wanted to persuade us of and how they wanted to do it. The paper identifies two fundamental rhetorical strategies of laissez-faire resting on entirely distinct ontological foundations. What distinguishes these two strategies is the way they articulate the individual with the general interest, how (...) they relate the micro to the macro. The two strategies discussed in the paper are characterised by the stance they take on a fundamental ontological issue, the way in which the things which appear to us in the world are related to the things or matters which compose them. A reductionist approach suggests that we can understand an entity at one level as a congeries. An entity in this view is just an aggregate of entities at a lower, substrate level – a purely external unity. The properties and behaviour of an entity can then be understood in terms of the properties and behaviour of the constituent lower-level components, taken in isolation. In this approach, phenomena at some level are regarded as having just the qualities enjoyed by its lower-level, substrate elements, writ large. The contrary, holistic, stance is to view the qualities of phenomena at one level as emergent at that level, and to assert that an entity can be understood as a product of the inter-relations between its component parts. We have, then, a pair of contrasted approaches: a polarity which is productive in the study of schools of thought, of competing methodologies, and of rhetorical strategies in economics. The paper applies this approach to the work of Smith, Keynes, Hayek, Lucas and Friedman. (shrink)

Different questions generate different forms of practical reasoning. A contextually unrestricted ‘What shall I do?’ is too open to focus reflection. More determinately, an agent may ask, ‘Shall I do X, or Y?’ To answer that, he may need to weigh things up—as fits the derivation of ‘deliberation’ fromlibra(Latin for ‘scales’). Ubiquitous and indispensable though this is, I mention it only to salute it in passing. Or he may ask how to achieve a proposed end: if his end is (...) to do X, he may ask ‘How shall I do X?’ Or he may ask how to apply a universal rule or particular maxim. Aristotle supplies examples inDe Motu Animalium(7.701a7 ff.), whose wording I freely adapt to my own purposes:A1 reasons to a necessary means to achieving an end:I will make a cloak.To make a cloak I must do A.So, I will do A. (shrink)

I want to discuss a view of punishment which stresses its ‘expressive’ character and seeks in that its justification. While I shall label this view ‘expressionism’, I should warn that most theorists who express an ‘expressionist’ view do not present it as an exhaustive account, but rather claim to be highlighting an aspect that tends to be neglected within the rationalist framework common to retributivism and utilitarianism. Among contemporary writings I shall focus on Joel Feinberg's article, ‘The Expressive Function of (...) Punishment’ in The Monist 49, No. 4 . While I accept that ‘expression’ usefully sums up much of what underlies punitive practices, I shall urge that the term conceals a variety of more or less amalgamated ingredients which need to be disentangled for critical inspection. I shall argue that under those aspects, punishment's justification continues to be elusive. I do not imagine that these arguments will deter my more punitive colleagues from continuing to seek such justification, but I hope they will search elsewhere. Feinberg writes: Punishment is a conventional device for the expression of attitudes of resentment and indignation, and of judgments of disapproval and reprobation, either on the part of the punishing authority himself or of those ‘in whose name’ the punishment is inflicted. Punishment, in short, has a symbolic significance largely missing from other kinds of penalties. (shrink)

Rarely in economics does the field see such unambiguous causation as in the case of the Covid-19 shut down of the global economy. Pretty well every economist would agree to this proposition and whi...

The subject of personal identity has received substantial treatment in contemporary African philosophy. Importantly, the dominant approach to personal identity is communitarian. Bernard Matolino's new book Personhood in African Philosophy enters into this discussion by way of contesting some of the assumptions underlying communitarian approaches. His own critical assessment leads him to what I believe is an unprecedented objection in the literature; the conclusion that communitarian philosophers are involved in a category mistake when framing the question and articulating the notion (...) of personhood. I intend to present a brief summary of the chapters of the book and reflect on some of the main philosophical issues that the book provokes, noting what I take to be refreshing insights that Matolino brings to the discussion while also engaging critically with the ones I find most contentious. In particular, I briefly assess Matolino's implicit suggestion that an Akan inspired quasi-physicalist account of mind avoids the mind-body interaction problem; I object to the category mistake charge on behalf of communitarians; and lastly, I raise questions about, and propose ways Matolino can refine, his proposal concerning a new way of thinking about personhood, which goes under the rubric of Limited Communitarianism. (shrink)

In Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy, C.D. Broad advanced a distinctive ontology of things and processes. He argues that neither things nor processes are reduced to each other but instead are reduced to some further kind of entity: “absolute process.” This paper will present Broad's theory of absolute processes and argue that they are best understood as tropes by developing a version of Donald C. Williams's trope ontology. This process ontology of tropes is then defended against objections in the (...) contemporary metaphysics literature. (shrink)

ABSTRACTI have claimed previously that Hegel and Sellars are both, in the end, monistic visionaries, though with radically different visions of the grand unity of things. In this paper I explain an...

Having concepts is a distinctive sort of cognitive capacity. One thing that conceptual thought requires is obeying the Generality Constraint: concepts ought to be freely recombinable with other concepts to form novel thoughts, independent of what they are concepts of. Having concepts, then, constrains cognitive architecture in interesting ways. In recent years, spurred on by the rise of evolutionary psychology, massively modular models of the mind have gained prominence. I argue that these architectures are incapable of satisfying the Generality (...) Constraint, and hence incapable of underpinning conceptual thought. I develop this argument with respect to two well-articulated proposals, due to Dan Sperber and Peter Carruthers. Neither proposal gives us a satisfactory explanation of Generality within the confines of a genuinely modular architecture. Massively modular minds may display considerable behavioral and cognitive flexibility, but not humanlike conceptualized thought. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Martin Heidegger and OntologyEmmanuel Levinas (bio)The prestige of Martin Heidegger 1 and the influence of his thought on German philosophy marks both a new phase and one of the high points of the phenomenological movement. Caught unawares, the traditional establishment is obliged to clarify its position on this new teaching which casts a spell over youth and which, overstepping the bounds of permissibility, is already in vogue. For once, (...) Fame has picked one who deserves it and, for that matter, one who is still living. Anyone who has studied philosophy cannot, when confronted by Heidegger’s work, fail to recognize how the originality and force of his achievements, stemming from genius, are combined with an attentive, painstaking, and close working-out of the argument—with that craftsmanship of the patient artisan in which phenomenologists take such pride. In this study, it is important for us to understand, above all, the true intentions of our author, to illuminate what he thinks really needs to be said, and to surmise what is most critical for him.To get to the heart of Heidegger’s system, it seems fitting to begin with a problem that is generally familiar. We choose the problem of knowledge, a deeper understanding of which takes us to the very threshold of Heidegger’s thought. For this problem, central to modern philosophy, is one of the main obstacles of modern philosophy that Heidegger wishes to surmount. Neo-Kantianism, which takes knowledge as the philosophical problem of the first rank, is the movement against which Heidegger rebels with all his strength. We have, thus, every chance of gaining access to his thought by the main door, so to speak. Once inside the system we will try to trace its outlines, 2 reserving, for a second part of our work, the determination of Heidegger’s place in the history of ideas, especially in the phenomenological movement, as well as of his relations with the philosopher to whom he owes so much—Edmund Husserl. 31In its most general form, the problem of the theory of knowledge has a critical significance. It consists in delineating a domain where knowledge can be certain and in determining the criteria for the legitimate scope of knowledge. But this problem, as normal and as simple as it may appear, has deeper roots. That knowledge should need a criterion at all presupposes that truth is not identical to all that is known and that the course [End Page 11] of things can fail to correspond with the course of thought. “How does knowledge correspond to being?” is a more profound formulation of the problem of knowledge.But we are not going to touch anymore on the primordial phenomenon that generates the problem. The problem of correspondence between thing and thought presupposes a free activity of thought and its isolation in relation to the object. It is precisely this presupposition which renders their harmony and even their contact problematic. “How does the subject take leave of itself to attain the object?” is what the problem of knowledge, in the last analysis, boils down to. Its true source is thus the concept of “subject” as elaborated by modern philosophy. The cogito presided over the subject’s birth. The cogito was the affirmation of the privileged nature of the subject’s immanent sphere, of its unique place in existence; hence, the cogito was the specificity of the subject’s connection to the rest of reality, the sui generis nature which opens up the passage from immanence to transcendence, the passage from ideas contained in the thinking substance to 4 their “formal existence.”The concept of the subject, understood as a substance having a specific position in the entire domain of being, presents us with difficulties of two kinds. First, how do we understand this leave-taking from the self which the thinking substance brings about and which displays an entirely original aspect? Indeed, we could say that thought, in reaching out toward objects, does not actually take leave of itself, since its objects—considered as ideas and contents of thought—are, in a certain sense, already within it. In order to make sense of this paradox, Descartes... (shrink)

In this essay, we consider a set of related questions concerning the role and nature of money, the working of markets, and the relationship between forms of social organization and money. Among other things, we speculate that efforts to purge the neo-classical theory of markets of the phenomenon of false trading have been misguided in the sense that they fail to grasp the dependence of a market system on the existence of some false trading.

It is tempting to think that all of normativity, such as our reasons for action, what we ought to do, and the attitudes that it is fitting for us to have, derives from what is valuable. But value-first approaches to normativity have fallen out of favour as the virtues of reasons- and fittingness-first approaches to normativity have become clear. On these views, value is not explanatorily prior to reasons and fit; rather the value of things is understood in terms (...) of the pro-attitudes it is fitting to have, or that we have reasons to have, towards these things. The value-first accounts of reasons and fit that have been proposed have been direct accounts of reasons and fit. On these views, the fittingness of an attitude is explained in terms of the value of having it or the value of the object of that attitude. This chapter details and surveys these problems, explaining which are yet to be overcome, and explaining which problems direct value-first accounts can overcome. This chapter then explores the prospects of an indirect value-first account of reasons and fit. It argues that it avoids the problems that direct value-first accounts face and may be as explanatorily powerful as fittingness- and reasons-first accounts of value and normativity more generally. (shrink)

This response outlines more reasons why we need the integrative framework of grandparental investments and intergenerational transfers that we advocated in the target article. We discusses obstacles that stand in the way of such a framework and of a better understanding of the effects of grandparenting in the developed world. We highlight new research directions that have emerged from the commentaries, and we end by discussing some of the things in our target article about which we may have been (...) wrong. (shrink)

Having concepts is a distinctive sort of cognitive capacity. One thing that conceptual thought requires is obeying the Generality Constraint: concepts ought to be freely recombinable with other concepts to form novel thoughts, independent of what they are concepts of. Having concepts, then, constrains cognitive architecture in interesting ways. In recent years, spurred on by the rise of evolutionary psychology, massively modular models of the mind have gained prominence. I argue that these architectures are incapable of satisfying the Generality (...) Constraint, and hence incapable of underpinning conceptual thought. I develop this argument with respect to two well-articulated proposals, due to Dan Sperber and Peter Carruthers. Neither proposal gives us a satisfactory explanation of Generality within the confines of a genuinely modular architecture. Massively modular minds may display considerable behavioral and cognitive flexibility, but not humanlike conceptualized thought. (shrink)

“May the Force be with you” is a standard blessing and parting phrase exchanged by members of the Jedi Order and others in the Star Wars universe. The Star Wars saga is an epic tale of good versus evil, light versus dark, freedom versus tyranny, Jedi versus Sith, with the mysterious "will of the Force" rallying the armies of light in their war against the armies of darkness. The privation theory of evil offers a way to reconcile the goodness of (...) the all‐encompassing Force with the reality of evil. The Force, binding both galaxies and living beings together, is the source of the measure, order, and form that make things good. One reason why the privation theory of evil does not fit well with the metaphysics of Star Wars is the simple fact that the Force, far from being absent whenever evil is afoot, is abundantly present. (shrink)

Peter Dabrock argues that western Christian roots have shaped the western European mindset, that of believers and secular thinkers alike, such that (1) western Europeans hold the concept of human dignity as a central moral category and believe that respect for human dignity should frame social and political decisions and respect for human dignity is the foundation of bioethics, (2) Christians and secular thinkers can engage each other on secular terms using the shared language and focus on human dignity, and (...) (3) such engagement using a common moral focus/lens facilitates dialogue and convergence on issues in bioethics. Dabrock's analysis and conclusions raise a number of important points for discussion. This essay examines three elements of his analysis that are particularly important for assessing his overall claim about a common Christian and secular morality in western Europe and for understanding the relationship between such a vision and Christian bioethics. (shrink)

This thesis examines necessary truth and defends a normative, or linguistic, account of it. Roughly, it holds that necessary truths state or follow from conceptual norms (i.e., norms that determine patterns of correct concept use). While the thesis touches upon logical and mathematical truth, its primary focus are those necessary truths typically expressed using natural language. The thesis has three parts. In Part I, I criticise metaphysical accounts of necessity and present and defend a normative account of it. At no (...) point do I give a history of normative accounts, but clearly their roots are to be found in the first half of the twentieth century – in the works of Wittgenstein and Carnap, for example. In Part II, I consider whether language can sustain the normative account. Some argue that the account requires language to be regimented in a way that it is not. I show that while it requires a distinction in kind between empirical and conceptual principles, it nevertheless makes room for indeterminacy regarding whether a given statement is an empirical claim or follows from conceptual norms. Finally, in Part III, I consider the relationship between the world and our conceptual scheme. I argue that denying our concepts answer to the world does not mean that they cannot be justified. The normative account does not say that we have no reasons for categorising things in a certain way, but rather that natural facts, in combination with our interests, are fit to provide them. The purpose of the thesis is to show that normative accounts of necessity can be much more robust than they are often given credit for and needn’t have the malign implications often associated with them. (shrink)

One of the criteria to a strong principle in natural sciences is simplicity. This paper claims that the Free Energy Principle (FEP), by virtue of unifying particles with mind, is the simplest. Motivated by Hilbert’s 24th problem of simplicity, the argument is made that the FEP takes a seemingly mathematical complex domain and reduces it to something simple. More specifically, it is attempted to show that every ‘thing’, from particles to mind, can be partitioned into systemic states by virtue (...) of self-organising symmetry break, i.e. self-entropy in terms of the balance between risk and ambiguity to achieve epistemic gain. By virtue of its explanatory reach, the FEP becomes the simplest principle under quantum, statistical and classical mechanics conditions. (shrink)

“Risk” is all about living a faith filled life. Within the pages of this work you will discover the year-by-year history of the ups and downs of the happenings regarding Foursquare Church. There are no sure things in this crazy epic journey called life. The only constant we can hang our hope upon is the name of Jesus. Christ has called us to live beyond what we can see and lean only to what He has said. In the parable (...) of the talents Jesus was very clear about how He felt regarding those who would not risk. In Matthew 25:28-30 He states, “‘Take the thousand and give it to the one who risked the most and get rid of this “play-it-safe-mentality” who won’t go out on a limb. Jesus rewards those who Risk. Foursquare Church and its history is one successive detail regarding progressive risking on God and his faithfulness to reward said risk. I invite you to read and risk on God. You will find great joy in discovering the rewards of a life that is lived by faith. (shrink)

The notion of choice and its individualistic underpinnings is fundamentally inconsistent with the collectivist NHS ethosIn both the policy1 and academic2 literatures, the issue of extending patient choice in the UK National Health Service is currently a much discussed issue. From December 2005—for example, general practitioners will be required to offer patients needing elective surgery the choice of five providers at the point of referral.1 Choice is often thought of as an intrinsically good thing; that is, that people value (...) choice in and of itself.3 A probable underlying reason for this belief is that choice is tied in with the notion of individual autonomy, or freedom, a concept that looms large in ethical theories of the good. Beauchamp and Childress—for example, classified respect for …. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on four areas Aristotle considered when determining what something really was, namely, essence, predicates, judgments, and potentials. Understanding and employing these concepts in our own concept of monster will help us avoid our currently tainted love of Supernatural. According to Aristotle, there are essential and accidental aspects of being. In the simplest terms, the essential aspects are the things that could not change about something, while the accidental aspects are things that could change. Aristotle's third (...) taxonomy of being is found in judgments of truth and falsity about a thing. These judgments can apply to questions of essence, accident, or any of the categories. Any question about the essential nature of monsters requires an answer that applies to all monsters. (shrink)

A summary of Sellars' argument that the Given is a myth--there is no such thing as a given in our knowledge.