Distinctions in fundamentality between different levels of description are central to the viability of contemporary decoherence-based Everettian quantum mechanics (EQM). This approach to quantum theory characteristically combines a determinate fundamental reality (one universal wave function) with an indeterminate emergent reality (multiple decoherent worlds). In this chapter I explore how the Everettian appeal to fundamentality and emergence can be understood within existing metaphysical frameworks, identify grounding and concept fundamentality as promising theoretical tools, and use them to characterize a system of explanatory (...) levels (with associated laws of nature) for EQM. This Everettian level structure encompasses and extends the ‘classical’ levels structure. The ‘classical’ levels of physics, chemistry, biology, etc. are recovered, but they are emergent in character and potentially variable across Everett worlds. EQM invokes an additional fundamental level, not present in the classical levels picture, and a novel potential role for self-location in interlevel metaphysics. When given a modal realist interpretation, EQM also makes trouble for supervenience-based approaches to levels. (shrink)

Teacher-administrator Philip Dow explores the implications of setting intellectual character (rather than intellectual content) at the heart of our educational programs. With ample stories and practical suggestions, Dow shows how intellectual virtues like tenacity, carefulness and curiosity are teachable traits that can produce good lives.

New York Times best-selling author offers a groundbreaking approach to activate the subconscious brain to set yourself free from your past and create a terrific future. Can you remember a time in your life when you felt absolutely confident, happy, and free? Imagine what your life would be like if you could live in that space... In this book, Dr. Mike Dow shares a groundbreaking, life-changing program he created: Subconscious Visualization Technique (SVT). Now, if you think the subconscious brain is (...) some woo-woo pseudoscience, prepare to have your mind blown. The cutting-edge research, protocol, and audio tracks Mike offers will help you speak directly to your subconscious brain and tap into your greatest strengths, gifts, and resources. His program, the first of its kind, starts with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), then incorporates various types of subconscious tools: mindfulness, guided visualization, audio-visual entrainment, and bilateral stimulation of the brain and body. Your subconscious can change the way you digest food, help you access memories and repressed feelings, boost your immune system, and activate mindbody healing so that you don't have to constantly treat your symptoms. Some examples of syndromes that SVT can treat include chronic pain, fibromyalgia, leaky gut, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), migraines, anxiety disorders, and more! SVT helps you access the best parts of yourself and move into your true self. In short, your subconscious brain can change your life!" -- ONIX annotation. (shrink)

In a work that casts philosophical and theological reflections against a backdrop of personal experience, Leon Wiener Dow offers a learned discourse that elucidates the telos of Jewish law and the philosophical-theological commitments that animate it. To the reader gazing upon the halakha from the outside, this book offers a glimpse of its central, orienting concepts. To the reader who lives amidst the rigor of halakha, this book bestows an insightful glance at the law's orienting ethos and higher aspirations that (...) often remain opaque. (shrink)

In this chapter, I shall give an account of the emergence of bioethics as a field of study and then describe its common features in an international context. In the final section I shall suggest how some concept of public reason might be used to meet the challenges thrown up by the contentious nature of the field.

Marxists should reconsider their usual attitude to universal human rights. On the Jewish Question did not reject the entire French Declaration of 1791. In 1843 Marx and Engels were close to Babouvism, the continuation of French rights. Nor was their view that the 1791 Declaration must be completed by economic and social rights; rather, their criticism concerned the reduction of universal rights to citizen rights because it left the state the final arbiter of justice, denying the ‘voice from below’. The (...) source of human rights cannot be the state or its hegemonic rule of law. The article concludes that a politics of human rights would return justice to individuals and create a counter-hegemony. (shrink)

Aristotle, in the Rhetoric, appears to claim both that emotion-arousal has no place in the essential core of rhetorical expertise and that it has an extremely important place as one of three technical kinds of proof. This paper offers an account of how this apparent contradiction can be resolved. The resolution stems from a new understanding of what Rhetoric I. I refers to - not emotions, but set-piece rhetorical devices aimed at manipulating emotions, which do not depend on the facts (...) of the case in which they are deployed. This understanding is supported by showing how it fits with evidence for how rhetoric was actually taught in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, in particular by Thrasymachus and Gorgias. The proposed interpretation fits well with Aristotle's overall view of the nature of rhetoric, the structure of rhetorical speeches, and what is and is not relevant to the pragma, the issue of the case at hand. (shrink)

There is a systematic and suggestive analogy between grounding and causation. In my view, this analogy is no coincidence. Grounding and causation are alike because grounding is a type of causation: metaphysical causation. In this paper I defend the identification of grounding with metaphysical causation, drawing on the causation literature to explore systematic connections between grounding and metaphysical dependence counterfactuals, and I outline a non-reductive counterfactual theory of grounding along interventionist lines.

Quantum physics is believed to be the fundamental theory underlying our understanding of the physical universe. However, it is based on concepts and principles that have always been difficult to understand and controversial in their interpretation. This book aims to explain these issues using a minimum of technical language and mathematics. After a brief introduction to the ideas of quantum physics, the problems of interpretation are identified and explained. The rest of the book surveys, describes and criticises a range of (...) suggestions that have been made with the aim of resolving these problems; these include the traditional, or 'Copenhagen' interpretation, the possible role of the conscious mind in measurement, and the postulate of parallel universes. This new edition has been revised throughout to take into account developments in this field over the past fifteen years, including the idea of 'consistent histories' to which a completely new chapter is devoted. (shrink)

Organizations routinely make choices when addressing conflicting stakes of their stakeholders. As stakeholder theory continues to mature, scholars continue to seek ways to make it more usable, yet proponents continue to debate its legitimacy. Various scholarly attempts to ground stakeholder theory have not narrowed down this debate. We draw from the work of Juergen Habermas to theoretically advance stakeholder theory, and to provide practical examples to illustrate our approach. Specifically, we apply Habermas’ language-pragmatic approach to extend stakeholder theory by advancing (...) seven sets of normative axioms. We conclude that a deliberative approach, with its focus on the conditions of legitimation and deliberative democracy, has the potential to become a cornerstone of stakeholder theory. The need for global stakeholder discourse and its internalization in corporate structures and institutions is exemplified by a multitude of CSR and stakeholder initiatives that have mushroomed in response to global risk scenarios such as climate change, nuclear warfare, or terrorism. Further research may help to build a functioning global governance system in order to provide guidance for management in the 21st century. (shrink)

This book defends a radical new theory of contingency as a physical phenomenon. Drawing on the many-worlds approach to quantum theory and cutting-edge metaphysics and philosophy of science, it argues that quantum theories are best understood as telling us about the space of genuine possibilities, rather than as telling us solely about actuality. When quantum physics is taken seriously in the way first proposed by Hugh Everett III, it provides the resources for a new systematic metaphysical framework encompassing possibility, necessity, (...) actuality, chance, counterfactuals, and a host of related modal notions. -/- Rationalist metaphysicians argue that the metaphysics of modality is strictly prior to any scientific investigation; metaphysics establishes which worlds are possible, and physics merely checks which of these worlds is actual. Naturalistic metaphysicians respond that science may discover new possibilities and new impossibilities. This book's quantum theory of contingency takes naturalistic metaphysics one step further, allowing that science may discover what it is to be possible. As electromagnetism revealed the nature of light, as acoustics revealed the nature of sound, as statistical mechanics revealed the nature of heat, so quantum physics reveals the nature of contingency. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: 1.Lost Spaces -- Sandy Island -- Leningrad -- Arne -- Old Mecca -- New Moore -- Time Landscape -- The Aralqum Desert -- 2.Hidden Geographies -- The Labyrinth -- Zheleznogorsk -- The Underground Cities of Cappadocia -- Fox Den -- North Cemetery, Manila -- North Sentinel Island -- 3.No Man's Lands -- Between Border Posts (Guinea and Senegal) -- Bir Tawil -- Nahuaterique -- Twayil Abu Jarwal -- Traffic Island -- 4.Dead Cities -- Wittenoom -- Kangbashi (...) -- Kijong-dong -- Aghdam -- Pripyat -- The Archaeological Park of Sicilian Incompletion -- 5.Spaces of Exception -- Camp Zeist -- Geneva Freeport -- Bright Light, 4 Mures Street, Bucharest -- International Airspace -- Gutterspace -- Bountiful -- Mount Athos -- Ranch of Sprouts: Brotas Quilombo -- FARC-controlled Colombia -- Hobyo -- 6.Enclaves and Breakaway Nations -- Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog -- Chitmahals -- Sealand -- United Kingdom of Lunda Tchokwe -- Gagauzia -- 7.Floating Islands --. (shrink)

Five leading thinkers on the concept of 'rights' in an era of rightlessness Sixty years ago, the political theorist Hannah Arendt, deprived of her German citizenship as a Jew and in exile from her country, observed that before people can enjoy any of the 'inalienable' Rights of Man--before there can be any specific rights to education, work, voting, and so on--there must first be such a thing as 'the right to have rights.' The concept received little attention at the time, (...) but in our age of refugee crises and extra-state war, the phrase has become the center of a crucial and lively debate. Here five leading thinkers from varied disciplines, including history, law, and politics, discuss the critical issue of the basis of rights and the meaning of radical democratic politics today. (shrink)

This book equips readers with a sound understanding of the value-base of mental health care and provides them with the skills and knowledge to demystify complex values in decision-making in order to reach outcomes which are focused on the needs of service users. Engaging case examples and exercises link theory and practice throughout.

Fortunately, to be a commentator on a lecture does not entail that one disagrees with it! I heartily endorse a great deal of what Jonathan has argued for in this lecture; and I cannot think of a more timely moment to speak up for respect for human dignity in an absolute opposition to humiliation, when In the USA and in the UK political leaders have used public humiliation of minority groups as a way of gaining power, and such denial of (...) basic human rights has seemingly become acceptable to large section of the population. (shrink)

I defend the conserved quantity theory of causation against two objections: firstly, that to tie the notion of "cause"to conservation laws is impossible, circular or metaphysically counterintuitive ; and secondly, that the conser quantity theory entails an undesired notion of identity through time. My defence makes use of an important meta-philosophical distinction between empirical analysis and conceptual analysis. My claim is that the conserved quantity theory of causation must be understood primarily as an empirical, not a conceptual, analysis of causation.

The best studies on the relationship between pharmaceutical corporations and medicine have recognized that it is an ambiguous one. Yet most scholarship has pursued a simpler, more saleable narrative in which pharma is a scheming villain and medicine its maidenly victim. In this article, I argue that such crude moral framing blunts understanding of the murky realities of medicine's relationship with pharma and, in consequence, holds back reform. My goal is to put matters right in respect to one critical area (...) of scholarly interest, the medical journal publication.Pharma relies on peer advocacy to sell its wares to prescribing doctors. This is an arrangement in which clinicians’ qualified colleagues, including “key opinion leaders,” are recruited by pharmaceutical corporations and marketing agencies to deliver commercially expedient content to their professional fellows. Precisely how this practice works in the setting of publications is not well understood because ethicists studying the problem have made too much of the narrative of corporate villainy and medical victimhood. Accordingly, criticism of industry publications has been preoccupied with the crudely dishonest practices of ghostwriting, ghost authorship, and “ghost management,” vices condemned as “dirty little secrets” perpetrated from “behind the scenes” with the connivance of academic “shills” or “guest authors,” in contempt of standards set by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. This account is appealing, and yet it is wrong or, at the very least, seriously incomplete, with only limited relevance to the actualities of contemporary industry practices. In truth, many commercial publications are not developed in secret but fashioned within a culture of open collaboration, where academic authors make substantial, independent contributions; pharmaceutical companies are showcased rather than hidden; and medicine's editorial standards assist rather than impede the workings of commerce. (shrink)

BackgroundThe International Committee of Medical Journal Editors Recommendations set ethical and editorial standards for article publication in most leading medical journals. Here, I examine the strengths and weaknesses of the Recommendations in the prevention of commercial bias in industry-financed journal literature, on three levels – scholarly discourse, article content, and article attribution.DiscussionWith respect to overall discourse, the most important measures in the ICMJE Recommendations are for enforcing clinical trial registration and controlling duplicate publication. With respect to article content, the ICMJE (...) promotes stringent author accountability and adherence to established reporting standards. However, the ICMJE accepts the use of commercial editorial teams to produce manuscripts, which is a potential source of bias, and accepts private company ownership and analysis of clinical trial data. New ICMJE guidance on data sharing will address but not eliminate problems of commercial data access. With respect to attribution, the Recommendations oppose guest authorship and encourage clear documentation of author contributions. However, they exclude writers from coauthorship; provide no specific advice on the attribution of commercial literature, for instance with respect to company authorship, author sequence or prominent commercial labeling; and endorse the use of fine print and euphemism. The ICMJE requires detailed author interest disclosures, but overlooks the interests of non-authors and companies, and does not recommend that interests most salient to the publication are highlighted. Together, these weaknesses facilitate “advocacy”-based marketing, in which literature planned, financed and produced by companies is fronted by academics, enabling commercial messages to be presented to customers by their respected clinical peers rather than companies themselves.ConclusionsThe ICMJE Recommendations set important research and reporting standards, without which commercial bias would likely be a significantly greater problem than it is today. However, they also support practices of commercial data control, content development and attribution that run counter to science’s values of openness, objectivity and truthfulness. These weaknesses could be addressed with appropriate modifications to the Recommendations. The ICMJE should also disclose its own commercial interests and funding – not least because publishing organizations that finance it and pay the salaries of some member editors derive substantial revenues from industry. (shrink)

This paper outlines a non-reductive counterfactual account of grounding along interventionist lines, and uses the account to argue that taking grounding seriously requires ascribing non-trivial truth-conditions to a range of counterpossible counterfactuals. This result allows for a diagnosis of a route to scepticism about grounding, as deriving at least in part from scepticism about non-trivial counterpossible truth and falsity.

BackgroundThe International Committee of Medical Journal Editors Recommendations set ethical and editorial standards for article publication in most leading medical journals. Here, I examine the strengths and weaknesses of the Recommendations in the prevention of commercial bias in industry-financed journal literature, on three levels – scholarly discourse, article content, and article attribution.DiscussionWith respect to overall discourse, the most important measures in the ICMJE Recommendations are for enforcing clinical trial registration and controlling duplicate publication. With respect to article content, the ICMJE (...) promotes stringent author accountability and adherence to established reporting standards. However, the ICMJE accepts the use of commercial editorial teams to produce manuscripts, which is a potential source of bias, and accepts private company ownership and analysis of clinical trial data. New ICMJE guidance on data sharing will address but not eliminate problems of commercial data access. With respect to attribution, the Recommendations oppose guest authorship and encourage clear documentation of author contributions. However, they exclude writers from coauthorship; provide no specific advice on the attribution of commercial literature, for instance with respect to company authorship, author sequence or prominent commercial labeling; and endorse the use of fine print and euphemism. The ICMJE requires detailed author interest disclosures, but overlooks the interests of non-authors and companies, and does not recommend that interests most salient to the publication are highlighted. Together, these weaknesses facilitate “advocacy”-based marketing, in which literature planned, financed and produced by companies is fronted by academics, enabling commercial messages to be presented to customers by their respected clinical peers rather than companies themselves.ConclusionsThe ICMJE Recommendations set important research and reporting standards, without which commercial bias would likely be a significantly greater problem than it is today. However, they also support practices of commercial data control, content development and attribution that run counter to science’s values of openness, objectivity and truthfulness. These weaknesses could be addressed with appropriate modifications to the Recommendations. The ICMJE should also disclose its own commercial interests and funding – not least because publishing organizations that finance it and pay the salaries of some member editors derive substantial revenues from industry. (shrink)

This article explores three ways in which physics may involve counterpossible reasoning. The first way arises when evaluating false theories: to say what the world would be like if the theory were true, we need to evaluate counterfactuals with physically impossible antecedents. The second way relates to the role of counterfactuals in characterizing causal structure: to say what causes what in physics, we need to make reference to physically impossible scenarios. The third way is novel: to model metaphysical dependence in (...) physics, we need to consider counterfactual consequences of metaphysical impossibilities. Physics accordingly bears substantial and surprising counterpossible commitments. (shrink)

The evolutionary framework suggested by Müller & Schumann (M&S) can be extended further by considering drug-taking in terms of Niche Construction Theory (NCT). It is suggested here that genetic and environmental components of addiction are modified by cultural acceptance of the advantages of non-addicted drug taking and the legitimate supply of performance-enhancing drugs. This may then reduce the prevalence of addiction.

One property of the emulator framework presented by Grush is that imagery operates off-line. Contrary to this viewpoint, we present evidence showing that mental rotation of a simple figure modulates low-level features of drawing articulation. This effect is dependent upon the type of rotation, suggesting a more integrative online role for imagery than proposed by the target article.

Industrial production imposes geographical, economic and cultural distances between producers and consumers. The concept of constituting 'missing objects' can help shrink these distances by enabling actors to engage in discourses and practices about contexts beyond what is materially present. Since the mid-1990s, food miles have emerged as an example of missing objects, representing the distance that agricultural products travel from the farm to the dining table, and the environmental effects of transportation. I analyse how consumers, farmers, activists, industry and policy-makers (...) in the United States and Europe are building agency in making and using food miles. (shrink)

One of the currently popular dogmata of anti-consequentialism is that consequentialism doesn't respect, recognize, or in some important way account for what is referred to as the The charge is often made, but rarely explained in any detail, much less argued for. In this paper I explain what I take to be the most plausible interpretation of the separateness of persons charge. I argue that the charge itself can be deconstructed into at least two further objections to consequentialist theories. These (...) objections amount to (i) the rejection of axiological aggregation, and (ii) the rejection of deontic aggregation. Of these two objections, I argue that the first one, though often made, is untenable. I also argue that the second objection, in its various forms, relies on distinctions whose moral significance is vigorously denied by almost all consequentialist theorists. I thus argue that the separateness of persons objection poses no special threat to consequentialism. (shrink)

In ‘Quiddistic Knowledge’ (Schaffer in Philos Stud 123:1–32, 2005), Jonathan Schaffer argued influentially against the view that the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary. In this reply I aim to show how a coherent and well-motivated form of necessitarianism can withstand his critique. Modal necessitarianism—the view that the actual laws are the laws of all possible worlds—can do justice to some intuitive motivations for necessitarianism, and it has the resources to respond to all of Schaffer’s objections. It also has certain (...) advantages over contingentism in the domain of modal epistemology. I conclude that necessitarianism about laws remains a live option. (shrink)