Advancements in novel neurotechnologies, such as brain computer interfaces and neuromodulatory devices such as deep brain stimulators, will have profound implications for society and human rights. While these technologies are improving the diagnosis and treatment of mental and neurological diseases, they can also alter individual agency and estrange those using neurotechnologies from their sense of self, challenging basic notions of what it means to be human. As an international coalition of interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners, we examine these challenges and make (...) recommendations to mitigate negative consequences that could arise from the unregulated development or application of novel neurotechnologies. We explore potential ethical challenges in four key areas: identity and agency, privacy, bias, and enhancement. To address them, we propose democratic and inclusive summits to establish globally-coordinated ethical and societal guidelines for neurotechnology development and application, new measures, including “Neurorights,” for data privacy, security, and consent to empower neurotechnology users’ control over their data, new methods of identifying and preventing bias, and the adoption of public guidelines for safe and equitable distribution of neurotechnological devices. (shrink)

The book shows how Agamben's political concerns emerged and evolved as Agamben responded to contemporary events and new intellectual influences while striving to remain true to his deepest intuitions. Kotsko reveals the trajectory of Agamben's work and shows us what it means to practice philosophy as a living, responsive discipline.

In this article I expound an understanding of the quantum mechanics of so-called “indistinguishable” systems in which permutation invariance is taken as a symmetry of a special kind, namely the result of representational redundancy. This understand- ing has heterodox consequences for the understanding of the states of constituent systems in an assembly and for the notion of entanglement. It corrects widespread misconceptions about the inter-theoretic relations between quantum mechanics and both classical particle mechanics and quantum field theory. The most striking (...) of the heterodox consequences are: that fermionic states ought not always to be considered entangled; it is possible for two fermions or two bosons to be discerned using purely monadic quantities; and that fermions may always be so discerned. (shrink)

A fascinating exploration of the nature of consciousness This engaging and readable book provides an introduction to consciousness that does justice both to the science and to the philosophy of consciousness, that is, the mechanics of the mind and the experience of awareness. The book opens with a general discussion of the brain and of consciousness itself. Then, exploring the areas of brain science most likely to illuminate the basis of awareness, Zeman focuses on the science of sleep and waking (...) and on the science of vision. He describes healthy states and disorders--epilepsy, narcolepsy, blindsight and hallucinations after stroke--that provide insights into the capacity for consciousness and into its contents. And he tracks the evolution of the brain, the human species, and human culture and surveys the main current scientific theories of awareness, pioneering attempts to explain how the brain gives rise to experience. Zeman concludes by examining philosophical arguments about the nature of consciousness. A practicing neurologist, he animates his text with examples from the behavioral and neurological disorders of his patients and from the expanding mental worlds of young children, including his own. His book is an accessible and enlightening explanation of why we are conscious. (shrink)

A hypothesis on the evolutionary origin of the genetic pathway of sex determination in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is presented here. It is suggested that the pathway arose in steps, driven by frequency‐dependent selection for the minority sex at each step, and involving the sequential acquisition of dominant negative, neomorphic genetic switches, each one reversing the action of the previous one. A central implication is that the genetic pathway evolved in reverse order from the final step in the hierarchy up (...) to the first. The possible applicability of the model to the other well‐characterized sex determination pathway, that of Drosophila melanogaster, and to sex determination in mammals, is discussed, along with some potential implications for pathway evolution in general. Finally, the specific molecular and population genetic questions that the model raises are described and some tests are proposed. (shrink)

I provide an account of precision testing in particle physics that makes a virtue of theory-ladenness in experiments. Combining recent work on the philosophy of experimentation with a broader view of the scientific process allows one to understand that the most precise and secure knowledge produced in a mature science cannot be achieved in a theory-independent fashion. I discuss precision tests of the muon’s magnetic moment and effective field theory as a means to repurpose precision tests for exploratory purposes.

In this paper I will focus on the case of the discovery of parity nonconservation in weak interactions from the period spanning 1947–1957, and the lessons this episode provides for successful theory construction in HEP. I aim to (a) summarize the history into a coherent story for philosophers of science, and (b) use the history as a case study for the epistemological evolution of the understanding of weak interactions in HEP. I conclude with some philosophical lessons regarding theory construction in (...) physics. (shrink)

This article seeks to challenge the regnant liberal orthodoxy that human rights are the highest and most important of our social virtues. It questions the individualist assumptions of such universa...

The phenomenon of ‘canalization’ ‐ the genetic capacity to buffer developmental pathways against mutational or environmental perturbations ‐ was first characterized in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Despite enormous subsequent progress in understanding the nature of the genetic material and the molecular basis of gene expression, there have been few attempts to interpret the classical work on canalization in molecular genetic terms. Some recent findings, however, bear on one form of canalization, ‘genetic canalization’, the stabilization of development against mutational (...) effects. These data indicate that co‐expressed paralogous genes can function as mutual ‘back‐up’ elements in developmental processes. Paralogues, however, are far from the only basis of canalization: other genetic sources can be readily envisaged and some of these are described here. The evolutionary questions about genetic canalization and the mechanistic questions about developmental instability that still need to be addressed are also briefly discussed. (shrink)

C.H. Waddington is today remembered chiefly as a Drosophila developmental geneticist who developed the concepts of “canalization” and “the epigenetic landscape.” In his lifetime, however, he was widely perceived primarily as a critic of Neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory. His criticisms of Neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory were focused on what he saw as unrealistic, “atomistic” models of both gene selection and trait evolution. In particular, he felt that the Neo-Darwinians badly neglected the phenomenon of extensive gene interactions and that the “randomness” of mutational (...) effects, posited in the theory, was a false postulate. This last criticism dealt with the phenomenon known today as “developmental constraints.” Although population genetics itself has evolved considerably from its form at mid-20th century, much of Waddington’s critique, it is argued here, retains cogency. Yet, he did not attempt to develop a full-fledged alternative theory himself. Perhaps most surprisingly, in retrospect, is that he did not try to marry his work on gene interactions in development with his evolutionary interests, to create a theory of “genetic networks” and their evolution. Whether evolutionary genetics today will incorporate “network thinking” as a central element or whether there will be a general retreat to the more atomistic approach offered by genomics, remains an open question. (shrink)

In multi-agent systems (MAS), abstract argumentation and argumentation schemes are increasingly important. To be useful for MAS, argumentation schemes require a computational approach so that agents can use the components of a scheme to construct and present arguments and counterarguments. This paper proposes a syntactic analysis that integrates argumentation schemes with abstract argumentation. Schemes can be analysed into the roles that propositions play in each scheme and the structure of the associated propositions, yielding a greater understanding of the schemes, a (...) uniform method of analysis, and a systematic means to relate one scheme to another. This analysis of the schemes helps to clarify what is needed to provide denotations of the terms and predicates in a semantic model. (shrink)

Field philosophy is both a collaborative practice of engaged scholarship and a theory of knowledge that contrasts with the model of disciplinary knowledge production. I briefly describe the origins...

First published in Italian in 2008 and appearing here in English for the first time, _Janus's Gaze_ is the culmination of Carlo Galli's ongoing critique of the work of Carl Schmitt. Galli argues that Schmitt's main accomplishment, as well as the thread that unifies his oeuvre, is his construction of a genealogy of the modern that explains how modernity's compulsory drive to achieve order is both necessary and impossible. Galli addresses five key problems in Schmitt's thought: his relation to the (...) state, the significance of his concept of political theology, his readings of Machiavelli and Spinoza, his relation to Leo Strauss, and his relevance for contemporary political theory. Galli emphasizes the importance of passing _through_ Schmitt’s thought—and, more important, _beyond_ Schmitt’s thought—if we are to achieve insight into the problems of the global age. Adam Sitze provides an illuminating introduction to Schmitt and Galli's reading of him. (shrink)

The paper gives ontologies in the Web Ontology Language (OWL) for Legal Case-based Reasoning (LCBR) systems, giving explicit, formal, and general specifications of a conceptualisation LCBR. Ontologies for different systems allows comparison and contrast between them. OWL ontologies are standardised, machine-readable formats that support automated processing with Semantic Web applications. Intermediate concepts, concepts between base-level concepts and higher level concepts, are central in LCBR. The main issues and their relevance to ontological reasoning and to LCBR are discussed. Two LCBR systems (...) (AS-CATO, which is based on CATO, and IBP) are analysed in terms of basic and intermediate concepts. Central components of the OWL ontologies for these systems are presented, pointing out differences and similarities. The main novelty of the paper is the ontological analysis and representation in OWL of LCBR systems. The paper also emphasises the important issues concerning the representation and reasoning of intermediate concepts. (shrink)

Most contemporary interpreters of Aquinas have assumed that Thomas subscribed to a “non-repeatability principle” such that created entities, once destroyed entirely, cannot be “brought back" into existence, even by God's power. Souls persisting in the interim between death and resurrection thus play an essential identity-preserving role between our death and rising again. No separated souls, no resurrection. Two of Aquinas’s best medieval interpreters, however, reject this interpretation. Leaning largely on one of Aquinas’s late quodlibetal questions, they deny that Thomas held (...) any non-repeatability principle strong enough to bar God’s resurrecting us even from complete destruction, souls and all. Here the chapter argues that careful analysis of the quodlibet and other texts largely vindicates the contemporary interpretation. It does so in a surprising way, however, since it turns out Aquinas’s non-repeatability principle applies only to corruptible, material entities like us, and not to incorruptible entities like angels. The reason Aquinas held this view, the chapter argues, is rooted in his theory of individuation. (shrink)

In many domains of public discourse such as arguments about public policy, there is an abundance of knowledge to store, query, and reason with. To use this knowledge, we must address two key general problems: first, the problem of the knowledge acquisition bottleneck between forms in which the knowledge is usually expressed, e.g., natural language, and forms which can be automatically processed; second, reasoning with the uncertainties and inconsistencies of the knowledge. Given such complexities, it is labour and knowledge intensive (...) to conduct policy consultations, where participants contribute statements to the policy discourse. Yet, from such a consultation, we want to derive policy positions, where each position is a set of consistent statements, but where positions may be mutually inconsistent. To address these problems and support policy-making consultations, we consider recent automated techniques in natural language processing, instantiating arguments, and reasoning with the arguments in argumentation frameworks. We discuss application and “bridge” issues between these techniques, outlining a pipeline of technologies whereby: expressions in a controlled natural language are parsed and translated into a logic (a literals and rules knowledge base), from which we generate instantiated arguments and their relationships using a logic-based formalism (an argument knowledge base), which is then input to an implemented argumentation framework that calculates extensions of arguments (an argument extensions knowledge base), and finally, we extract consistent sets of expressions (policy positions). The paper reports progress towards reasoning with web-based, distributed, collaborative, incomplete, and inconsistent knowledge bases expressed in natural language. (shrink)

Contents of this volume are divided into the following Parts: Of Justice; Of Police; Of Arms; and Of the Laws of Nations.

This article describes a refutation method of proving maximality of three-valued paraconsistent logics. After outlining the philosophical background related to paraconsistent logics and the refutation approach to modern logic, we briefly describe how these two areas meet in the case of maximal paraconsistent logics. We focus on a method of proving maximality introduced in [34] and [37] that has the benefit of being simple and effective. We show how the method works on a number of examples, thus emphasising the fact (...) that it provides a unifying approach to the search for maximal paraconsistent logics. Finally, we show how the method can be generalised to cover a wide range of paraconsistent logics. We also conduct a small experimental setting that confirms the theoretical results. (shrink)

This paper provides a sustained investigation into ancient teichopolitics – the politics of constructing walls – and the question of whether the best city should be surrounded by walls. Plato’s Laws adopts the Spartan view that walls have a negative effect on national character and argues that they should be ‘left lying asleep and undisturbed in the ground’. Aristotle’s Politics puts forward a series of objections to Plato and adopts the more pragmatic view that walls are necessary. Although both philosophers (...) debate the status of walls and foreigners within the best city, they fail to draw the thoroughly modern connection between teichopolitics and immigration. (shrink)

Ecosystems of Jubilee, by José Humphreys and Adam Gustine, is a practical look at the economic ethics and practices found in the Scripture. Focusing on the biblical practices of gleaning, Sabbath, and Jubilee, this book aims to help Christians embrace a serious commitment to economic development as a way of seeking justice in their neighborhoods.

A more ethical economic system is now possible, one that rectifies the crisis spots of our current downturn while balancing the injustices of extreme poverty and wealth. Adam Arvidsson and Nicolai Peitersen, a scholar and an entrepreneur, outline the shape such an economy might take, identifying its origins in innovations already existent in our production, valuation, and distribution systems. Much like nineteenth-century entrepreneurs, philosophers, bankers, artisans, and social organizers who planned a course for modern capitalism that was more economically (...) efficient and ethically desirable, we now have a chance to construct new instruments, institutions, and infrastructure to reverse the trajectory of a quickly deteriorating economic environment. Considering a multitude of emerging phenomena, Arvidsson and Peitersen show wealth creation can be the result of a new kind of social production, and the motivation of continuous capital accumulation can exist in tandem with a new desire to maximize our social impact. Arvidsson and Peitersen argue that financial markets could become a central arena in which diverse ethical concerns are integrated into tangible economic valuations. They suggest that such a common standard has already emerged and that this process is linked to the spread of social media, making it possible to capture the sentiment of value to most people. They ultimately recommend how to build upon these developments to initiate a radical democratization of economic systems and the value decisions they generate. (shrink)

James Adam was a Scottish classics scholar who taught at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. A strong defender of the importance of Greek philosophy in a well-rounded education, Adam published a number of Plato's works including Protagoras and Crito. This two-volume critical edition of the Republic was another major contribution to the field. Though his preface claims 'an editor cannot pretend to have exhausted its significance by means of a commentary,' Adam's depth of knowledge and erudite analysis of the (...) Greek text ensured that his edition remained the standard reference for decades to follow, and it remains a thought-provoking evaluation of one of the great works of Western thought. Volume 2 examines Books 6–10, which discuss the place of the philosopher and questions of governance. (shrink)

The paper provides an OWL ontology for legal cases with an instantiation of the legal case Popov v. Hayashi. The ontology makes explicit the conceptual knowledge of the legal case domain, supports reasoning about the domain, and can be used to annotate the text of cases, which in turn can be used to populate the ontology. A populated ontology is a case base which can be used for information retrieval, information extraction, and case based reasoning. The ontology contains not only (...) elements for indexing the case (e.g. the parties, jurisdiction, and date), but as well elements used to reason to a decision such as argument schemes and the components input to the schemes. We use the Protégé ontology editor and knowledge acquisition system, current guidelines for ontology development, and tools for visual and linguistic presentation of the ontology. (shrink)

Argumentation Frameworks provide a fruitful basis for exploring issues of defeasible reasoning. Their power largely derives from the abstract nature of the arguments within the framework, where arguments are atomic nodes in an undifferentiated relation of attack. This abstraction conceals different senses of argument, namely a single-step reason to a claim, a series of reasoning steps to a single claim, and reasoning steps for and against a claim. Concrete instantiations encounter difficulties and complexities as a result of conflating these senses. (...) To distinguish them, we provide an approach to instantiating AFs in which the nodes are restricted to literals and rules, encoding the underlying theory directly. Arguments in these senses emerge from this framework as distinctive structures of nodes and paths. As a consequence of the approach, we reduce the effort of computing argumentation extensions, which is in contrast to other approaches. Our framework retains the theoretical and computational bene.. (shrink)

Scheler’s main objection against Kant’s ethical system was that it was a formal system, not material. Ethics should deal with actual deeds, intentions, values, etc., not with a form, but with a content. Scheler separated values from goods and made them immutable and imperishable ideal objects that become real only when manifesting themselves ingoods. The world of values is hierarchical and is founded on the value of God. However, the principal moral values – good and evil – are not included (...) in this hierarchy; they come into play when actualizing other values. Values are accessible to humans through an emotive intuition and are inaccessible to reason, which is a fairly serious weakness of Scheler’s system. The person, defined as the unity of actions, is the original carrier of good and evil. Moral goodness of a person becomes a reality when nonmoral positive values are actualized. There is a measure of innateness in Scheler’s system. Not only the entire emotive apparatus is built into the human being – strivings, preference, will, and feelings with the dominating character of love and hate – but also general rules or hierarchy of values and the rules or axioms of application of values. The general aspect of such rules means that formal ethics is innate, and this formal aspect of ethics acquires material dimension in life according toa particular social milieu. In this way, Kant’s framework of formal ethics is moved to the inborn level of emotive machinery. (shrink)

In 1751, Grigorii Teplov published his book that he considered to be an introduction to philosophy for the uninitiated. In the first part, Teplov introduced the reader to the subject of philosophy; however, Teplov concentrated on philosophy and methodology of science, thereby presenting a rather limited view of philosophy. In the second part, he presented the history of philosophy showing how inadequate his knowledge of the subject was. In the third part, he discussed some ontological and epistemological problems when in (...) his presentation of several philosophical concepts basing his presentation largely on Wolff. (shrink)

This paper explores how a particular form of regulation—prior ethical review of research—developed over time in a specific context, testing the claims of standard explanations for such change against more recent theoretical approaches to institutional changes, which emphasize the role of gradual change. To makes its case, this paper draws on archival and interview material focusing on the research ethics review system in the UK National Health Service. Key insights center on the minimal role scandals play in shaping changes in (...) this regulatory setting and how these depend upon the absence of a single coherent profession associated with biomedical research. (shrink)

In the paper, classical assumptions of the problem of change are presented and analyzed. The author considers following assumptions which make theses about: (i) identity and persistence through time; (ii) a conceptual change; (iii) intrinsic properties; and (iv) the Leibniz's Law. In the light of the analyses, it is shown that the problem of change does not have substantial nature and therefore cannot be treated as legitimization of the theories of persistence. Finally, the author acknowledges a relationship between the rethought (...) matter of change and the theories of persistence. (shrink)

Abstract:Frantz Fanon uses the metaphor of the Tower of the Past in his conclusion to Peau noire, masques blancs (Black Skin, White Masks) to argue that racialized historical narratives alienate and imprison their readers. In the first part of this article I read excerpts from Polybius and Bede to isolate the metaphors that both authors use to describe and explain the phenomenon of empire and its impact on historical understanding. In the second part I return to Fanon, and particularly his (...) discussion of the phrase "Our ancestors, the Gauls," to trace his critique of discourses of ancient history in the context of French colonialism. (shrink)

In Knowledge and Its Limits, Timothy Williamson argues that knowledge is a purely mental state, that is, that it is never a complex state or condition comprising mental factors and non-mental, environmental factors. Three of his arguments are evaluated: arguments from (1) the non-analyzability of the concept of knowledge, (2) the “primeness” of knowledge, and (3) the (alleged) inability to satisfactorily specify the “internal” element involved in knowledge. None of these arguments succeeds. Moreover, consideration of the third argument points the (...) way to a cogent argument that knowledge is not a purely mental state. (shrink)

The article answers the question: to what degree is Johann Friedrich Herbart’s tendency to unify the object of psychology (subsequently abandoning faculty psychology) relies on developing intuitions of Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s theory of knowledge? In the first part, I discuss the topic of the article and justify the choice of Herbartian psychology as the object of investigation. In the second part, I present Herbart’s basic psychological texts. I present ideas stemming from the philosophical tradition, which Herbart introduces into his psychology: (...) especially Fichte’s critique of the faculty theory and Kant’s conviction, that a theory is scientific only inasmuch as it is mathematized. I argue that postulating mathematization of psychology brings Herbart to a critique of faculty psychology, subsequently closer to a Fichtean perspective. In the third part I present a theory of consciousness, underlying Herbart’s critique, which cannot be reduced to the concepts of pre-Kantian psychology and metaphysics. I point out the origins of such theory in Fichte’s theory of knowledge, especially in his analyses of representation. I discuss Herbart’s critique of Fichte interconnecting the notions of representation and drive. I argue as well, that the notion of representation as analysed in Fichte’s theoretical philosophy remains important for Herbartian psychology. It allows transforming the the object of psychology into a system of dynamically and reciprocally conditioning rules. This change of structure allows to present psychic phenomena in quantitative categories, allowing for mathematizing psychology. I shortly discuss Herbart’s method of relations. I point out its connection to his theory of consciousness, but also its strong metaphysical implications. In the fourth part of the article, I briefly discuss such implications of Herbart’s psychology: the abandonment of the ego for the simple notion of the soul. I conclude with a question about the potential relation between Herbart’s concept of the soul and problems posed within German early romanticism. (shrink)

The Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the “People of the Book” in the Language of Islam. By Sidney H. Griffith. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013. Pp. xiii + 255. $29.95.