Epistemological questions about the significance of disagreement have advanced in concert with broader developments in social epistemology concerning testimony, the nature of expertise and epistemic authority, the role of institutions, group belief, and epistemic injustice (among others). During this period, related issues in the epistemology of religion have reemerged as worthy of new consideration, and available to be situated with new conceptual tools. This volume explores many of the issues at the intersection of the epistemology of disagreement and religious epistemology: (...) in particular, how to think carefully about religious diversity and disagreement, balancing epistemic humility with personal conviction, the place of religious belief in our social lives, and how best to think about truths concerning religion. (shrink)

The cognitive and behavioral functions of the frontal lobes have been of great interest to neuroscientists, neurologists, psychologists and psychiatrists. Recent technical advances have made it possible to trace their neuroanatomical connections more precisely and to conduct evoked potential and neuroimaging studies in patients. This book presents a broad and authoritative synthesis of research progress in this field. It encompasses neuroanatomical studies; experiments involving temporal organization and working memory tasks in non-human primates; clinical studies of patients following frontal lobe excisions (...) for intractable epilepsy; metabolic imaging in schizophrenia and affective disorder; neurobehavioral studies of patients with dementia, frontal lobe tumors, and head injuries; magnetic resonance imaging methods for studying human frontal lobe anatomy; theoretical approaches to describing frontal lobe functions; and rehabilitation of patients with frontal lobe damage including their core problem of diminished awareness. Written by a distinguished group of neuroscientists, psychologists and clinicians, Frontal Lobe Function and Dysfunction provides the best current source of information on this region of the brain and its role in cognition, behavior and clinical disorders. (shrink)

The architects of punctuated equilibrium and species selection as well as more recent workers (Vrba) have narrowed the original formulation of species selection and made it dependent upon so-called emergent characters. One criticism of this narrow version is the dearth of emergent characters with a consequent diminution in the robustness of species selection as an important evolutionary process. We argue that monomorphic species characters may at times be the focus of selection and that under these circumstances selection at the organism (...) level is by-passed due to the absence of critical variance. Selection therefore shifts to the species level where variability reemerges in a clade. The absence of critical variance among organisms prevents effect macroevolution from operating. If species-wide properties are important in macroevolutionary processes, as we contend, systematists should pay more attention to their elucidation. (shrink)

Previous research has shown that emotionally-valenced words are given higher judgements of learning (JOLs) than are neutral words. The current study examined potential explanations for this emotional salience effect on JOLs. Experiment 1 replicated the basic emotionality/JOL effect. In Experiments 2A and 2B, we used pre-study JOLs and assessed memory beliefs qualitatively, finding that, on average, participants believed that positive and negative words were more memorable than neutral words. Experiment 3 utilised a lexical decision task, resulting in lower reaction times (...) (RTs) for positive words than for neutral words, but equivalent RTs for negative and neutral words, suggesting that processing fluency may partially account for higher JOLs for positive words, but not for negative words. Finally, we conducted a series of moderation analyses in Experiment 4 which assessed the relative contributions of fluency and beliefs to JOLs by measuring both factors in the same participants, showing that RTs made no significant contribution to JOLs for either positive or negative words. Our findings suggest that although positive words may be more fluently processed than neutral words, memory beliefs are the primary factor underlying higher JOLs for both positive and negative words. (shrink)

Assertion is governed by an epistemic norm requiring knowledge. This idea has been hotly debated in recent years, garnering attention in epistemology, philosophy of language, and linguistics. This chapter presents and extends the main arguments in favor of the knowledge norm, from faulty conjunctions, several conversational patterns, judgments of permission, excuse, and blame, and from showing how. (Paired with a chapter by Peter J. Graham and Nikolaj J. L. L. Pedersen, "Knowledge is Not Our Norm of Assertion.").

In the twenty years since the first Earth Day, the environmental movement has become increasingly “commercialized.” In this paper, I examine why many environmental organizations now offer an array of products through catalogs and magazines, or manage stores and outlets. In part one, I explore some of the economic and political influences during the 1970s and 1980s that resulted in increased organizational sophistication and an increased production of environmental products. The part two, I explore the “commercialization” of environmentalism from two (...) angles. First, in terms of a deconstructionist critique of the system of commodities and image, I demonstrate that when environmental organizations partake in this consumer culture, they actually reproduce precisely the values and institutions that they criticize. Second, from a “constructionist” perspective, I argue that environmental products can re-enchant or reconnect people with nature, and thus can help change cultural attitudes about human-naturerelationships. I conclude that environmental products are contradictory because environmental merchandise is juxtaposed uneasily between environmental ideological rhetoric and material ambition. Environmental organizations must recognize this ambiguity before they can deal with the problem effectively. (shrink)

The current model of adult neurogenesis in mammals suggests that adult‐born neurons are generated by stem cells that undergo long‐term self‐renewal, and that a lifetime supply of stem cells resides in the brain. In contrast, it has recently been demonstrated that adult‐born neurons in crayfish are generated by precursors originating in the immune system. This is particularly interesting because studies done many years ago suggest that a similar mechanism might exist in rodents and humans, with bone marrow providing stem cells (...) that can generate neurons. However, the relevance of these findings for natural mechanisms underlying adult neurogenesis in mammals is not clear, because of uncertainties at many levels. We argue here that the recent findings in crayfish send a strong signal to re‐examine existing data from rodents and humans, and to design new experiments that will directly test the contributions of the immune system to adult neurogenesis in mammals. (shrink)

Recent preclinical studies have shown the feasibility of specific variants of nuclear transfer to prevent mitochondrial DNA disorders. Nuclear transfer could be a valuable reproductive option for carriers of mitochondrial mutations. A clinical application of nuclear transfer, however, would entail germ-line modification, more specifically a germ-line modification of the mitochondrial genome. One of the most prominent objections against germ-line modification is the fear that it would become possible to alter ‘essential characteristics’ of a future person, thereby possibly violating the child's (...) right to an open future. As only the nuclear DNA would contain the ingredients for individual characteristics, modification of the mtDNA is often considered less controversial than modification of the nuclear DNA. This paper discusses the tenability of this dichotomy. After having clarified the concept of germ-line modification, it argues that modification of the mtDNA is not substantively different from modification of the nuclear DNA in terms of its effects on the identity of the future person. Subsequently the paper assesses how this conclusion affects the moral evaluation of nuclear transfer to prevent mtDNA disorders. It concludes that the moral acceptability of germ-line modification does not depend on whether it alters the identity of the future child—all germ-line modifications do—but on whether it safeguards the child's right to an open future. If nuclear transfer to prevent mtDNA disorders becomes safe and effective, then dismissing it because it involves germ-line modification is unjustified. (shrink)

How did bioethics manage to grow, flourish and ultimately do so well from a very unpromising birth in the 1970s? Many explanations have been advanced. Some ascribe the field9s growth to a puzzling, voluntary abnegation of moral authority by medicine to non-physicians. Some think bioethics survived by selling out to the biomedical establishment—public and private. This transaction involved bestowing moral approbation on all manner of biomedicine9s doings for a seat at a well-stocked funding table. Some see a sort of clever (...) intellectual bamboozlement at work wherein bioethicists pitched a moral elixir of objective expertise that the morally needy but unsophisticated in medicine and the biological sciences were eager to swallow. While each of these reasons has its defenders, I think the main reason that bioethics did well was that it did good. By using the media to move into the public arena, the field engaged the public imagination, provoked dialogue and debate, and contributed to policy changes that benefitted patients and healthcare providers. (shrink)

Oxford Scholarly Classics brings together a number of great academic works from the archives of Oxford University Press. Reissued in a uniform series design, they will enable libraries, scholars, and students to gain fresh access to some of the finest scholarship of the last century.

Randomised clinical trials provide the most valid means of establishing the efficacy of clinical therapeutics. Ethical standards dictate that patients and clinicians should not consent to randomisation unless there is uncertainty about whether any of the treatment options is superior to the others ("equipoise"). However, true equipoise is rarely present; most randomised trials, therefore, present challenging ethical dilemmas. Minimising the tension between science and ethics is an obligation of investigators and clinicians. This article briefly reviews several techniques for addressing this (...) issue and suggests that unbalanced randomisation, a technique rarely employed in current clinical trial practice, may be useful for enhancing the ethical design of human experimentation. (shrink)

To begin with, can we possibly call esthetic activity a cognitive function , that is, do the products of esthetic activity possess, along with their other characteristics, a certain cognitive value?

It would be no exaggeration to say that our art is presently undergoing a revolutionary stage in its development. The revolutionary renewal that has seized all spheres of life is being ever more forcefully represented in artistic culture as well. That culture is beginning to free itself from bureaucratic regimentation, incompetent pressure from above, inflated authorities, lifeless cliches, and opportunism of the moment. Art is actively seeking its place in perestroika, and is in turn in many respects defining the moral (...) climate of perestroika. Recent works such as Fire [Pozhar] by V. Rasputin, the Sad Detective Story [Pechal'nyi detektiv] by V. Astaf'ev, The Execution Block [Plakha] by Ch. Aitmatov, the paintings of G. Korzhev and V. Sidorov, the sculpture of V. Klykov, etc., are actively working for renewal. (shrink)

The essential purpose of the present article is to put forward a new theory concerning the last scene of the Septem, 1005–78. The problem of the play's ending as a whole has been very thoroughly discussed by P. Nicolaus, Die Frage nach der Echtheit der Schlussszene von Aischylos' Sieben gegen Theben ; since I have no wish to duplicate Nicolaus's work I shall deal only very briefly with those aspects of the problem on which I find myself in agreement with (...) him and with other scholars. (shrink)

Книга предназначена для исследователей, специалистов, преподавателей, аспирантов, студентов, а также всех тех, кто интересуется вопросами философии.

jild-i 1. Āzādī va marzʹhāyash -- jild-i 2. Istiqlāl (farhangī).