Alexithymia, psychological distress, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are highly related constructs. The ongoing debate about the nature and relationship between these constructs is perpetuated by an overreliance on cross-sectional research. We examined the longitudinal interactive relationship between alexithymia, psychological distress, and PTSD. We hypothesised that there is an interactive relationship between the three constructs. Military personnel (N = 1871) completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, the Kessler 10 and a PTSD Checklist (PCL-C) at pre-deployment, post-deployment, and at 3–4 years following (...) the post-deployment assessment. We initially tested whether psychological distress is either a moderator or mediator in the relationship between alexithymia and PTSD across the time points. General psychological distress was a partial mediator of total PTSD severity and hyperarousal symptomology at all three time points. Psychological distress fully mediated re-experiencing and avoidance symptomology at all three time points. Our results suggest that those with alexithymia are at longitudinal risk of developing more severe PTSD symptomology and experiencing hyperarousal irrespective of temporal proximity to traumatic exposure. Further, vulnerability to the emergence of re-experiencing and avoidance symptomology for those with alexithymia is increased when one experiences greater distress. Our results show that alexithymia is a persistent risk factor for PTSD symptomology. (shrink)

ICTs, personal data, digital rights, the GDPR, data privacy, online security… these terms, and the concepts behind them, are increasingly common in our lives. Some of us may be familiar with them, but others are less aware of the growing role of ICTs and data in our lives - and the potential risks this creates. These risks are even more pronounced for vulnerable groups in society. People can be vulnerable in different, often overlapping, ways, which place them at a disadvantage (...) to the majority of citizens; Table 3 in this guide presents some of the many forms and causes of vulnerability. As a result, vulnerable people need greater support to navigate the digital world, and to ensure that they are able to exercise their rights. This guide explains where such support can be found, and also answers the following questions: - What are the main ethical and legal issues around ICTs for vulnerable citizens? - Who is vulnerable in Europe? - How do issues around ICTs affect vulnerable people in particular? This guide is a resource for members of vulnerable groups, people who work with vulnerable groups, and citizens more broadly. It is also useful for data controllers1 who collect data about vulnerable citizens. While focused on citizens in Europe, it may be of interest to people in other parts of the world. It forms part of the Citizens’ Information Pack produced by the PANELFIT project, and is available in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. You are welcome to translate this guide into other languages. Please send us a link to online versions in other languages, so that we can add them to the project website. (shrink)

Despite the recent proliferation of scientific, clinical, and narrative accounts of auditory verbal hallucinations, the phenomenology of voice hearing remains opaque and undertheorized. In this article, we outline an interdisciplinary approach to understanding hallucinatory experiences which seeks to demonstrate the value of the humanities and social sciences to advancing knowledge in clinical research and practice. We argue that an interdisciplinary approach to the phenomenology of AVH utilizes rigorous and context-appropriate methodologies to analyze a wider range of first-person accounts of AVH (...) at 3 contextual levels: cultural, social, and historical; experiential; and biographical. We go on to show that there are significant potential benefits for voice hearers, clinicians, and researchers. These include informing the development and refinement of subtypes of hallucinations within and across diagnostic categories; “front-loading” research in cognitive neuroscience; and suggesting new possibilities for therapeutic intervention. In conclusion, we argue that an interdisciplinary approach to the phenomenology of AVH can nourish the ethical core of scientific enquiry by challenging its interpretive paradigms, and offer voice hearers richer, potentially more empowering ways to make sense of their experiences. (shrink)

A variety of studies show that parental absence early in life leads to deleterious effects on the developing CNS. This is thought to be largely because evolutionary-dependent stimuli are necessary for the appropriate postnatal development of the young brain, an effect sometimes termed the “experience-expectant brain,” with parents providing the necessary input for normative synaptic connections to develop and appropriate neuronal survival to occur. Principal among CNS systems affected by parental input are the monoamine systems. In the present study,N= 434 (...) rhesus monkeys (233 males, 201 females) were reared in one of two conditions: as mother-reared controls (MR;n= 269) or without adults with 24-h access to same-aged peers (PR;n= 165). When subjects were six-months-old, they underwent a separation paradigm involving 4, sequential, four-day social separations from their mothers or peers, with each separation followed by three-day reunions with their mothers or their peers. Prior to the separation paradigm, baseline cisternal CSF samples were obtained, as well as at the end of each the four social separations, and after final separation, during a recovery period. CSF was assayed for concentrations of monoamine metabolites and a blood sample was genotyped for the serotonin transporter (5-HTT) genotype. Replicating earlier landmark findings, PR subjects with thesallele exhibited lower baseline concentrations of the serotonin metabolite 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA), when compared to PR subjects homozygous for theLallele. MR subjects were undifferentiated by genotype. PR subjects exhibited lower CSF 5-HIAA concentrations during baseline, but higher CSF 5-HIAA during social separations, when compared to MR subjects. There were rearing effects for the dopamine metabolite homovanillic acid (HVA) and for the norepinephrine metabolite 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylglycol (MHPG), with PR subjects showing higher HVA and lower MHPG when compared to MR subjects. These findings indicate that there are long-term deficits in the response of monoamines following early maternal absence. The results of this study confirm and extend earlier findings that early parental absence has deleterious consequences for the development of the monoamine systems, and that these consequences are modulated by the 5-HTT genotype. (shrink)

The aim of this workshop was to ask potential end-users of the citizens’ information pack on legal and ethical issues around ICTs the following questions: What is your knowledge of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, and what actions have you taken in response to these regulations? What challenges are you experiencing in ensuring the protection and security of your project data, and compliance with the GDPR, within existing data management processes/systems? What information/tools/resources do you need to overcome these challenges? (...) What are the best formats/channels for receiving, sharing and acting upon this information? What is the most appropriate structure/format for the citizens’ information pack? (shrink)

We define a formal semantics of conditionals based on _normatively ideal worlds_. Such worlds are described informally by Armgardt (Gabbay D, Magnani L, Park W, Pietarinen A-V (eds) Natural arguments: a tribute to john woods, College Publications, London, pp 699–708, 2018) to address well-known problems of the counterfactual approach to causation. Drawing on Armgardt’s proposal, we use iterated conditionals in order to analyse causal relations in scenarios of multi-agent interaction. This results in a refined counterfactual approach to causal responsibility in (...) legal contexts, which solves overdetermination problems in an intuitively accessible manner. (shrink)

This article, divided into two parts, traces and discusses two pairs of analogies invoked in Sanskrit literature to articulate the paradox of God’s oneness and multiplicity vis-à-vis the souls and the manifest world, reflecting the philosophical positions of pariṇāmavāda and vivartavāda. These are, respectively, the analogies of fire in wood and dairy products in milk, and moon/sun in pools of water and space in pots. In Part I, having introduced prevalent ideas about the status of the supreme principle vis-à-vis (...) creation in Śaivism, Sāṅkhya, and Vedānta, I investigate instances of the first pair of analogies in multiple textual genres, and especially in Śaiva literature from South and Southeast Asia, to highlight the influence of pariṇāma-Vedānta on the Śaiva textual corpus. Arguing that the distribution of the two pairs of analogies may cast some light on the relationship between different strands of dualistic and non-dualistic scriptures, I propose that the first pair could be traced back to the “formative” period of Śaivism—that is, prior to the emergence of the fully dualistic Śaiva Saiddhāntika corpus known to us. (shrink)

This article, divided into two parts, traces and discusses two pairs of analogies invoked in Sanskrit literature to articulate the paradox of God’s oneness and multiplicity vis-à-vis the souls and the manifest world, reflecting the philosophical positions of pariṇāmavāda and vivartavāda. These are, respectively, the analogies of fire in wood and dairy products in milk, and moon/sun in pools of water and space in pots. Having introduced prevalent ideas about the status of the supreme principle vis-à-vis the souls and (...) creation in Śaivism, Sāṅkhya, and Vedānta, and having investigated instances of the first pair of analogies in multiple textual genres in Part I, here I turn to the discussion of the second set of analogies. Having proposed that the first set reflects the influence of pariṇāma-Vedānta on an early strand of the Śaiva textual corpus, I argue that the second set, attested prevalently in relatively late sources, betrays a Śaṅkarian origin, thereby suggesting a vivartavāda-Advaita Vedānta influence on the Śaiva corpus after the 9th or 10th century. (shrink)

Da quando Spengler, nel secondo volume del Tramonto dell’Occidente (1922), ha preso a prestito dalla terminologia mineralogica la nozione di «pseudomorfosi» per applicarla alla morfologia delle culture e all’interpretazione dei rapporti fra differenti tradizioni culturali, questo concetto si è ampiamente diffuso nel vocabolario della filosofia e delle scienze umane. Il presente articolo si ripropone di ricostruire alcune tappe fondamentali della storia degli effetti di tale prestito, indagandone al contempo le oscillazioni dello spettro semantico e le implicazioni metodologiche ed epistemologiche. In (...) Spengler il concetto viene assunto in accezione fondamentalmente negativa, per descrivere un fenomeno di costrizione morfologica: una cultura nuova è costretta dalla forza d’inerzia di una cultura precedente ad assumere forme estranee per manifestare i propri contenuti. Diversi lettori del Tramonto mutuano tale termine adattandolo alle proprie ricerche: Jonas per esplorare la relazione fra la gnosi e le tradizioni greca, orientale e cristiana; Mumford per analizzare le connessioni fra i recenti progressi tecnologici e le vecchie forme del potere e dell’economia; Adorno per condannare perniciose mimesi (la filosofia che imita le scienze; l’arte che imita il linguaggio concettuale; la musica che imita la pittura). Tutti condividono l’idea che la pseudomorfosi consista in una falsa manifestazione formale, che finisce per mascherare l’espressione di un contenuto autentico e originario; inoltre, l’adozione di forme vecchie per comunicare contenuti nuovi favorisce analogie e somiglianze meramente superficiali e sostanzialmente infondate. Anche Panofsky accoglie la nozione nella sua iconologia, imprimendo tuttavia al concetto curvature differenti in diversi momenti della sua opera: in Studies of Iconology (1939) si riconosce alla pseudomorfosi una positiva valenza euristica, capace di portare ad espressione, nel Rinascimento, contenuti rimasti inespressi nell’antichità grazie alla sopravvivenza di elementi della mediazione medievale. Una complessa relazione a tre tempi, dunque, che mette in luce un poietico movimento retroattivo del presente sul passato remoto grazie alla metabolizzazione del presente prossimo: una significativa riqualificazione della funzione pseudomorfica (già adombrata dalle ricerche di Warburg sul Nachleben der Antike), che tuttavia si perde nella successiva riflessione panofskyana, dal momento che in Tomb Sculpture (1964) torna a riaffermarsi l’accezione negativa e semplificatoria di pseudomorfosi come apparente ma infondata analogia formale. Assunto in questo senso peggiorativo, il termine trapassa nella successiva storiografia artistica (ad esempio in Rosenblum e Bois). Ma l’affermarsi, in tempi recenti, di una rivalutazione dei fenomeni di anacronismo (Didi-Huberman, Nagel, Wood, Powell) sta comportando, in parallelo, una riqualificazione delle potenzialità euristiche della retroazione pseudomorfica. Per potersi realizzare compiutamente, tale riqualificazione deve accompagnarsi con una coerente teoria delle somiglianze. (shrink)

Em seu artigo “Kant’s Critique of the Three Theistic Proofs [partial], from Kant’s Rational Theology”, incluído no livro Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Critical Essays, Allen Wood pretende mostrar que Kant não teria provado que a existência não poderia ser um predicado real ou determinante. Em seu artigo “Anselm’s Ontological Arguments”, publicado na revista The Philosophical Review, Norman Malcolm pretende mostrar que Kant não teria provado que a existência necessária não poderia ser um predicado real ou determinante. Lidando com (...) as defesas de Wood e Malcolm para o argumento ontológico contra as críticas de Kant, pretendo sugerir, primeiramente, que o argumento de Kant funciona e, em segundo lugar, que ele não depende dos seus Postulados do Pensamento Empírico. Na verdade, advogo a tese de que o segundo Postulado poderia ser justificado por um apelo às conclusões de Kant sobre a existência, na seção “Sobre a impossibilidade de uma prova ontológica da existência de Deus”. (shrink)

We attempt to quantify and qualify the preferences of consumers for beef with a number of environmental and food quality attributes. Our goal is to evaluate the viability of a proposed food co-operative based in the Wood River watershed of southern Saskatchewan, Canada. The food co-operative was designed to provide a price premium to producers who adopted alternative management practices. In addition, the study evaluated the acceptance of a proposed food co-operative by consumer that had environmental interests as compared (...) to the general population. Conjoint analysis was used to determine the trade-off and relative value of beef with the following production and purchasing characteristics: (a) use of hormones, antibiotics and vaccination in production; (b) method of obtaining the beef including monthly or yearly purchase contracts or a local market; (c) price relative to beef purchased from the local grocery store; and (d) impact on the river ecosystem. Consumers from environmental groups had stronger environmental and food quality preferences than individuals from the general population. However, consumers from both groups expressed a willingness to pay higher prices for food that had these attributes. It was uncertain whether the magnitude of the premium, in combination with a desire not to enter a long-term purchasing commitment, would be large enough to encourage farmers to adopt the alternative management. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.1 (2001) 151-153 [Access article in PDF] Allen W. Wood. Kant's Ethical Thought. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. xxiv + 436. Cloth, $54.95. This book by Allen Wood in its first half gives us a state-of-the-art survey of traditional topics in the interpretation of Kant's ethics, and in the second half breaks new ground, and significantly widens the canon of (...) works that need to be taken account of in presenting Kant's ethics as a whole. Wood tells us that his main criticism of previous interpretations of Kant's ethics is that they overemphasize the universal law formulation of the categorical imperative, when the most promising version is the formula of humanity. One of the major contributions of this book is the detailed argument (passim, but especially Chapter IV) that the formula of humanity is the preferable one for understanding Kant's ethics in application, and the one used most in the Metaphysics of Morals.Part I takes the reader on the familiar traversal of the text of Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Chapter 1 is a discussion of the topics that come up in Chapter One of the Groundwork. Chapter 2 is a coverage of the first part of Kant's Chapter Two. Chapters 3, 4, and 5, are discussions of what are usually called the first (universal law), second (humanity), and third (autonomy and kingdom of ends) formulations of the categorical imperative. The discussion of Kant's Chapter Three is brief (basically, Wood's pages 171-182).Wood comments that the proper way to expound Kant's views on ethics would be, after (1) an introductory exposition based in the Groundwork, (i.e., his Chapters 1-5) to present (2) Kant's views on "human nature and its consequences for the application of the foundational principles" (13) (his Chapters 6-9). Only then would one be in a position to "provide (3) a systematic exposition of the Metaphysics of Morals as the definitive form of Kant's practical philosophy" (13). But such an undertaking would have been too ambitious for any single book. Hence Wood's book omits part (3), though he makes significant use of the Metaphysics of Morals throughout.Wood urges his readers not to neglect his extensive endnotes (xv), where sometimes [End Page 151] important matters are discussed that could not be accommodated within the main text. In addition, in the notes one can find some fascinating passages, e.g., (1) a significant self-criticism (345, n.12). (2) Another note finds Wood saying that Andrea Dworkin borrows her views of sexuality from Simone de Beauvoir (without acknowledgment), and that Beauvoir and Sartre's views were largely anticipated by Kant. Then he adds this zinger: "These comparisons also shed light on the cogency of the condescending explanations usually offered for Kant's views on sex. For it would not naturally occur to us to attribute the views of Beauvoir or Sartre to their sexual inexperience, to the lingering effects of their excessively religious upbringing or to the puritanical attitudes characteristic of mid-century Parisian intellectuals" (397, n.11).One of the traditional topics Wood discusses is the proper formulation of maxims for evaluation by the universal law formulation. He thinks that there are bound to be some systematic failures to achieve correct results because of inadequacies of this formulation, but he discusses fairly extensively how to minimize such erroneous outcomes by correct formulations of maxims (97-107), and his discussion makes some useful contributions to this once heavily discussed topic. One might add another, almost commonsense suggestion to his: Maxims mention ends of action, as well as proposed action-kinds; since actions are thus described within maxims as means to ends, action-descriptions would include only action characteristics that are causally relevant to the achievement of the ends of actions. This reminder enables us to eliminate many irrelevant action-descriptors.Part II of the Wood book is entitled "Anthropological Applications." In this section he pursues topics that have not been central to... (shrink)

This masterful work on Kant's Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason explores Kant's treatment of the Idea of God, his views concerning evil, and the moral grounds for faith in God. Kant and Religion works to deepen our understanding of religion's place and meaning within the history of human culture, touching on Kant's philosophical stance regarding theoretical, moral, political, and religious matters. Wood's breadth of knowledge of Kant's corpus, philosophical sharpness, and depth of reflection sheds light not only (...) on Kant, but also on the fate of religion and its relation to philosophy in the modern world. (shrink)

A student's future as a knowledge worker (one who "thinks for a living" with the task of problem solving) is the starting point of this book. With this in mind, the book combines a review of philosophical positions and problems with practical examples and perspectives gained from everyday challenges faced by knowledge workers in their businesses and organizations. Through the use of summative chapters, highlighted key concepts, questions for reflection, and illustrative examples on how to work with the theories presented, (...) the book provides a clear and accessible introduction to this challenging subject. Philosophy of Science primarily addresses students studying language, communication, marketing, economics, and management. However, the survey of the theoretical schools of thought - as well as the discussions on research ethics and the role of research in society - will be equally relevant for other students in the humanities and the natural and social sciences. (shrink)

Philosophical arguments usually are and nearly always should be abductive. Across many areas, philosophers are starting to recognize that often the best we can do in theorizing some phenomena is put forward our best overall account of it, warts and all. This is especially true in esoteric areas like logic, aesthetics, mathematics, and morality where the data to be explained is often based in our stubborn intuitions. -/- While this methodological shift is welcome, it's not without problems. Abductive arguments involve (...) significant theoretical resources which themselves can be part of what's being disputed. This means that we will sometimes find otherwise good arguments which suggest their own grounds are problematic. In particular, sometimes revising our beliefs on the basis of such an argument can undermine the very justification we used in that argument. -/- This feature, which I'll call self-effacingness, occurs most dramatically in arguments against our standing views on the esoteric subject matters mentioned above: logic, mathematics, aesthetics, and morality. This is because these subject matters all play a role in how we reason abductively. This isn't an idle fact; we can resist some challenges to our standing beliefs about these subject matters exactly because the challenges are self-effacing. The self-effacing character of certain arguments is thus both a benefit and limitation of the abductive turn and deserves serious attention. I aim to give it the attention it deserves. (shrink)

Anche se siamo comunemente abituati a pensare alla scienza come a un qualcosa di assolutamente atemporale e indipendente da tutto, in realtà essa è profondamente influenzata dalla cultura e dalla società del tempo in cui vive. Infatti né la scienza è isolabile dalla società, né la società è isolabile dalla scienza, tanto meno come si sta configurando oggi. Per approfondire questi aspetti, esistono però due visioni antagoniste che bisogna superare: secondo la visione scolastica, retaggio del positivismo ottocentesco ancora molto diffuso (...) fra scienziati e pubblico di non esperti, la scienza è conoscenza senza soggetto conoscente. All'opposto, la visione cinica della scienza, sull'onda di talune elaborazioni della sociologia della scienza, la riduce a nient'altro che a una costruzione di soggetti che partecipano al gioco scientifico, una cultura come altre e da "mediare", e comunque una conoscenza relativa, se non frutto di una costruzione puramente soggettiva, arbitraria, ideologica. Un'analisi della costituzione sociale della scienza può, invece, mirare a un'indagine scientifica sulla scienza proprio configurando una relatività della conoscenza che supera sia l'assolutismo idealistico sia il relativismo soggettivistico. (shrink)

Woods's chapter focuses primarily on procedural justice within the international financial institutions. She argues that the procedures adopted by these institutions are central to the debate about global economic justice, and thus it is essential to explore how these bodies make decisions and implement them. Her conclusions suggest that, notwithstanding recent and important reforms, the institutions still suffer from weaknesses in representation and accountability. Unless these bodies attend to these deficiencies, the range and scope of their activities should be circumscribed.

Contemporary proponents of republican political theory often focus on the concept of freedom as non-domination, and how best to promote it within a state. However, there is little attention paid to what the republican conception of freedom demands in the international realm. In this essay I examine what is required for an agent to enjoy freedom as non-domination, and argue that this might only be achieved for individuals if one of two possibilities is pursued internationally: either (1) all nations are (...) made equally powerful, such that none may arbitrarily impose its will on another without penalty, or (2) all nations are joined under a global sovereign which guarantees that the weaker states are not subject to the whims of the stronger. I further argue that the first condition cannot suffice for achieving true non-domination, and as a result, republicanism must prescribe working toward the establishment of a global state. This paper provides an important contribution to the literature by addressing the international implications of the republican conception of freedom. (shrink)

The questions -- The purpose of morality and law -- The past and the future -- What is religion? -- What is the rule of law? -- The families of religion : western religions -- The families of religion : eastern religions -- The families of law -- A brief tour of secular law -- Money, banks and corporations -- Secularisation and religious decline -- Reasons for the decline of religiosity -- Secularisation of government -- The rise of the lawyers (...) -- Who rules the world : lawyers or economists? -- What is wrong with the law? -- Scientific progress and the law -- A way of living -- A billion years from now. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche was among the figures from the history of nineteenth century philosophy that, perhaps surprisingly, some of the Vienna Circle’s members had presented as one of their predecessors. While, primarily for political reasons, most Anglophone figures in the history of analytic philosophy had taken a dim view of Nietzsche, the Vienna Circle’s leader Moritz Schlick admired and praised Nietzsche, rejecting what he saw as a misinterpretation of Nietzsche as a militarist or proto-fascist. Schlick, Frank, Neurath, and Carnap were in (...) different ways committed to the view that Nietzsche made a significant contribution to the overcoming of metaphysics. Some of these philosophers praised the intimate connection Nietzsche drew between his philosophical outlook and empirical studies in psychology and physiology. In his 1912 lectures on Nietzsche, Schlick maintained that Nietzsche overcame an initial Schopenhauerian metaphysical-artistic phase in his thinking, and subsequently remained a positivist until his last writings. Frank and Neurath made the weaker claim that Nietzsche contributed to the development of a positivistic or scientific conception of the world. Schlick and Frank took a further step in seeing the mature Nietzsche as an Enlightenment thinker. (shrink)

This is an in-depth study of J.G. Fichte’s philosophy of mathematics and theory of geometry. It investigates both the external formal and internal cognitive parallels between the axioms, intuitions and constructions of geometry and the scientific methodology of the Fichtean system of philosophy. In contrast to “ordinary” Euclidean geometry, in his Erlanger Logik of 1805 Fichte posits a model of an “ursprüngliche” or original geometry – that is to say, a synthetic and constructivistic conception grounded in ideal archetypal elements that (...) are grasped through geometrical or intelligible intuition. -/- Accordingly, this study classifies Fichte’s philosophy of mathematics as a whole as a species of mathematical Platonism or neo-Platonism, and concludes that the Wissenschaftslehre itself may be read as an attempt at a new philosophical mathesis, or “mathesis of the mind.” -/- “This work testifies to the author's exact and extensive knowledge of the Fichtean texts, as well as of the philosophical, scientific and historical contexts. Wood has opened up completely new paths for Fichte research, and examines with clarity and precision a domain that up to now has hardly been researched.” Professor Dr. Marco Ivaldo -/- “This study, written in a language distinguished by its limpidity and precision, and constantly supported by a close reading of the Fichtean texts and secondary literature, furnishes highly detailed and convincing demonstrations. In directly confronting the difficult historical relationship between the Wissenschaftslehre and mathematics, the author has broken new ground that is at once stimulating, decidedly innovative, and elegantly audacious.” Professor Dr. Emmanuel Cattin. (shrink)

According to Schopenhauer’s compensation argument for pessimism, the non-existence of the world is preferable to its existence because no goods can ever compensate for the mere existence of evil. Standard interpretations take this argument to be based on Schopenhauer’s thesis that all goods are merely the negation of evils, from which they assume it follows that the apparent goods in life are in fact empty and without value. This article develops a non-standard variant of the standard interpretation, which accepts the (...) relevance of the negativity thesis but rejects that the argument assumes that life’s goods are all empty and valueless. Instead, it argues that whatever value negative goods might possess, they do not have the kind of value to compensate for positive evils. This involves additional development of the negativity thesis and a defence of it against objections from Byron Simmons (2021). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:April 3, 2010 (11:17 am) C:\Users\Milt\Desktop\backup copy of Ken's G\WPData\TYPE2902\russell 29,2 050 red.wpd 1 Gabbay and Woods, eds., The Rise of Modern Logic from Leibniz to Frege, Vol. 3 of the Handbook of the History of Logic (Amsterdam, etc.: North-Holland, 2004). russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s. 29 (winter 2009–10): 167–90 The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U. issn 0036-01631; online 1913-8032 eviews BERTRAND RUSSELL IN RECENT (...) BOOKS ON LOGIC HISTORY Irving Anellis Peirce Edition / Indiana U.–Purdue U. Indianapolis, in 46202–5157, usa [email protected] Dov M. Gabbay and John Woods, eds. Logic from Russell to Church. Vol. 5 of The Handbook of the History of Logic. Amsterdam, etc.: North-Holland, 2009. Pp. xii + 1056. us$260; £157.99; ¤185.95. Leila Haaparanta, ed. The Development of Modern Logic. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 2009. Pp. x + 904. us$150.00. The essay “Bertrand Russell’s Logic” by Andrew D. Irvine in Volume 5 of the Handbook of the History of Logic is one of the shortest in the volume (pp. 1–28). But something of Russell pervades many of the other essays as well, as we might expect given the centrality that Principia Mathematica has occupied in the historiography of logic through much of the twentieth century. This is especially evident in the lengthiest of the essays, Andrea Cantini’s “Paradoxes, Self-reference and Truth in the 20th Century” (pp. 875–1013), and more than tangentially in Dale Jacquette’s “Logic for Meinongian Object Theory Semantics” (pp. 29–76) and Michael Potter’s “The Logic of the Tractatusz” (pp. 255–304). In their preface, the editors of the Handbook explain (p. vii) the rationale for treating Frege and Russell in separate volumes.1 One reason is that it was a matter of simple conveniencez—zto keep the volume covering logic from Leibniz to Frege of manageable size. The other is historical: while admitting that Frege and Russell shared important goals and the philosophical position of logicism, it is noted that Frege’s most important work in logic and foundations was carried out prior to his learning of Russell’s paradox, whereas the entire corpus of Russell’s work, Principiaz included, was designed to a considerable extent in eTorts to deal with the paradox, as was much of the work in logic, set theory, and philosophy of logic that came as a consequence of the discovery of that paradox. Gabbay April 3, 2010 (11:17 am) C:\Users\Milt\Desktop\backup copy of Ken's G\WPData\TYPE2902\russell 29,2 050 red.wpd 168 Reviews and Woods also make explicit the philosophical diTerences between Frege and Russell regarding the epistemological status of axioms as one of the signiWcant diTerences between these two. More particularly, the editors assert (p. viii) that, in the very brief period between publication of the second volume of Frege’s Grundgesetze (1903) and Russell’s Principles of Mathematics (1903), there was a pronounced shift initiated in the goals of mathematical logic, away from naïve apriority of axiom systems, towards study of the limits and properties of formal systems.Thecontributors to these metalogical concerns, Herbrand, Hilbert, and Gödel, among others, are the subject of the bulk of the essays included in Volume 5 of the Handbook. The task that Irvine undertakes is initiated by the eTort to understand the unity of Russell’s technical body of work in mathematics, logic, metaphysics, and epistemology. Thus the discrepancy between the neo-Hegelian concept of relations, inherited from Bradley, with certain types of relationsz—zlogical, spatial, temporal, for examplez—zwith the mathematical understanding of relations, is given as the ground for Russell’s abandonment of idealism in favour of realism (pp. 4–5). For example, there is nothing inherent in two relata, say Abelard and Héloise, which contributes to the relation of love between the pair; rather, its root is found in the mental states of one or the other of the lovers, so that the relation itself is not an intrinsic property of one of the pair. Likewise, Russell reaches this position... (shrink)

Émile Durkheim remains one of the most controversial, and deeply misunderstood, classics of social theory. His work differs from the dominant version of sociology that has essentially accepted the modernist self-description of contemporary societies; and it contradicts the individualism that has come to dominate the social sciences. For everybody who is interested in constructing theoretical alternatives to this individualism, Durkheim's sociology can be a useful inspiration - not only because of the solutions it suggests, but already because of the questions (...) it asks. Making use of the theoretical possibilities offered by the Durkheimian tradition, however, requires going beyond the familiar appropriations. The Oxford Handbook of Émile Durkheim takes stock of the different recent debates on Durkheimian sociology, and makes them accessible to a wide audience spanning various disciplines; this includes crucial debates that, due to language barriers, are not easily accessible for an English-reading public. The handbook's chapters elucidate the controversial key concepts of Durkheimian sociology; situate them within the contemporary political and theoretical debates they were originally responding to; offer surveys of empirical research that uses Durkheimian concepts (on topics that were already central for Durkheim's own work as well as on topics that Durkheim hardly touched upon), thus demonstrating the possibilities of a Durkheimian sociology; bring out the divergent, and competing, ways in which Durkheim's ideas have been appropriated and reformulated within more recent theoretical developments in the social sciences. In doing so, this volume is an important resource for all scholars and students looking to understand Durkheimian sociology. (shrink)

Thomas Reid is now recognized as one of the towering figures of the Enlightenment. Best known for his published writings on epistemology and moral theory, he was also an accomplished mathematician and natural philosopher, as an earlier volume of his manuscripts edited by Paul Wood for the Edinburgh Reid Edition, Thomas Reid on the Animate Creation, has shown. The Correspondence of Thomas Reid collects all of the known letters to and from Reid in a fully annotated form. Letters already (...) published by Sir William Hamilton and others have been reedited, and roughly half of the letters included appear in print for the first time. Writing in 1802, Reid's disciple and biographer Dugald Stewart doubted that Reid's correspondence &"would be generally interesting.&" This collection proves otherwise, for the letters illuminate virtually every aspect of Reid's life and career and, in some instances, provide us with invaluable evidence about activities otherwise undocumented in his manuscripts or published works. Through his correspondence we can trace Reid's relations with contemporaries such as David Hume and his colleagues at both King's College, Aberdeen, and the University of Glasgow, as well as his engagement with the most controversial philosophical, scientific, and political issues of his day. If anything, the letters assembled here serve as the starting point for understanding Reid and his place in the Enlightenment. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s and Heidegger’s objections against the possibility of a science of aesthetics were influential on different sides of the analytic/continental divide. Heidegger’s anti-scientism leads him to an alētheic view of artworks which precedes and exceeds any possible aesthetic reduction. Wittgenstein also rejects the relevance of causal explanations, psychological or physiological, to aesthetic questions. The main aim of this paper is to compare Heidegger with Wittgenstein, showing that: there are significant parallels to be drawn between Wittgenstein’s and Heidegger’s anti-scientism about aesthetics, (...) and that their anti-scientism leads both towards partly divergent criticisms of what I will call ‘aestheticism’. The divergence is mainly due to a broader metaphilosophical disagreement concerning appeals to ordinary language. Thus situating the two philosophers’ positions facilitates a possible critical dialogue between analytic and continental approaches in aesthetics. (shrink)

This paper explores the wartime creation of veterinary expertise in cattle breeding, and its contribution to the transition between two very different types of agriculture. During the interwar period, falling prices and steep competition from imports caused farmers to adopt a ‘low input, low output’ approach. To cut costs, they usually butchered, marketed or doctored diseased cows in preference to seeking veterinary aid. World War II forced a greater dependence on domestic food production, and inspired wide-ranging state-directed attempts to increase (...) agricultural output. However, the weak connection between veterinary services and livestock productivity meant that the drive for greater milk yields did not automatically translate into a demand for improved veterinary health care. Rather veterinary expertise had to be actively created and made relevant to the new context. Leaders of the profession secured this goal through establishing a government-backed ‘scheme for the control of certain diseases of dairy cows’. Drawing on pre-existing but rarely applied reproductive technologies, the scheme provided the opportunities and education necessary for more extensive veterinary interventions in cattle breeding. I show how its operation transformed understandings of fertility, raised veterinarians to the status of experts, won them the patronage of farmers and the state, and facilitated the shift to a productivity-oriented agriculture. (shrink)

Abstract:We discuss the role that transnational corporations (TNCs) should play in developing global governance, creating a framework of rules and regulations for the global economy. The central issue is whether TNCs should provide global rules and guarantee individual citizenship rights, or instead focus on maximizing profits. First, we describe the problems arising from the globalization process that affect the relationship between public rules and private firms. Next we consider the position of economic and management theories in relation to the social (...) responsibility of the firm. We argue that instrumental stakeholder theory and business and society research can only partially solve the global governance issue, and that more recent concepts of corporate citizenship and republican business ethics deliver theoretically and practically helpful, fresh insights. However, even these need further development, especially with regard to the legitimacy of corporate political activity. (shrink)

Anyone seriously interested in Aristotle's moral philosophy must take full account of the Eudemian Ethics, a work which has in the past been unduly neglected in favour of the Nicomachean Ethics. The relation between the two treatises is now the subject of lively debate. This volume contains a translation of three of the eight books of the Eudemian Ethics - those that are likely to be of most interest to philosophers today - together with a philosophical commentary on these books (...) from a contemporary point of view. Like the other volumes in the series, it is intended to serve the needs of readers of Aristotle without a knowledge of Greek, and the aim in the translation has been to give as accurate an idea as possible of Aristotle's text; but for the benefit of those who are able to read the original there are notes on the Greek text used for problematic passages. In preparing this new edition Michael Woods has made use of the much improved text of the Eudemian Ethics that has recently been published as an Oxford Classical Text, and has taken into consideration recent philosophical work on Aristotle's ethics. The Clarendon Aristotle Series is designed for both students and professionals. It provides accurate translations of selected Aristotelian texts, accompanied by incisive commentaries which focus on philosophical problems and issues. The volumes in the series have been widely welcomed and favourably reviewed. Important new titles are being added to the series, and a number of well-established volumes are being reissued with revisions and/or supplementary material. (shrink)

This Volume contains seven works of Kant, newly translated and edited, with Introductions. What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking? 1786 (Allen Wood) On the miscarriage of all philosophical trials in theodicy. 1791 (George di Giovanni Religion within the boundaries of mere reason. 1793 (George di Giovanni) The end of all things. 1794 (Allen Wood) The conflict of the faculties. 1798 (Mary J. Gregor & Robert Anchor) Preface to Reinhold Bernhard Jackmann's examination of the Kantian Philosophy (...) of Religion. 1800 (Allen W. Wood) Lectures on the philosophical doctrines of religion (1817) (Allen W. Wood -/- . (shrink)

Regulation and governance of medical research is frequently criticised by researchers. In this paper, we draw on Everett Hughes’ concepts of professional licence and professional mandate, and on contemporary sociological theory on risk regulation, to explain the emergence of research governance and the kinds of criticism it receives. We offer explanations for researcher criticism of the rules and practices of research governance, suggesting that these are perceived as interference in their mandate. We argue that, in spite of their complaints, researchers (...) benefit from the institutions of governance and regulation, in particular by the ways in which regulation secures the social licence for research. While it is difficult to answer questions such as: “Is medical research over-regulated?” and “Does the regulation of medical research successfully protect patients or promote ethical conduct?”, a close analysis of the social functions of research governance and its relationship to risk, trust, and confidence permits us to pose these questions in a more illuminating way. (shrink)

From the ferment of recent debates about the intellectual virtues, Roberts and Wood develop an approach they call 'regulative epistemology', exploring the connection between knowledge and intellectual virtue. In the course of their argument they analyse particular virtues of intellectual life - such as courage, generosity, and humility - in detail.

Simondon adopts some concepts of social psychology as ‘in group’ and ‘out group’, namely from Kurt Lewin and Gordon Allport, that allow him to describe the fundamental processes shaping the domain of collective individuation, and to challenge Bergson’s distinction between a ‘closed’ community and an ‘open’ society. Reconstructing Simondon’s sources is necessary to understand how he tries to provide an analysis of the social system without presupposing a given anthropology, but rather exploring different perspectives on the human/nature threshold through the (...) concept of transindividual. In his study of the social system Simondon progressively gives conceptual shape to the processes he calls transindividual thanks to the ontogenetic analysis of the phenomena of belief, work and language. In all these domains, a ‘basic community’ emerges just over the threshold of the biological group, where the structural ambivalence of all collective processes as simultaneously closed and open becomes clear. That is why Simondon does not present the concept of the transindividual as a solution to the epistemological problem of psychic and collective individuation, but rather as the ‘field’ in which a whole series of social, biological and technical dimensions can be made converge towards a science of anthropogenic processes. (shrink)

In a recent article Duncan Purves, Ryan Jenkins, and B. J. Strawser argue that in order for a decision in war to be just, or indeed the decision to resort to war to be just, it must be the case that the decision is made for the right reasons. Furthermore, they argue that this requirement holds regardless of how much good is produced by said action. In this essay I argue that their argument is flawed, in that it mistakes what (...) makes an agent morally good for what makes an act morally good. I argue that the main thrust of Purves et al.’s argument in fact undermines the conclusion they wish to draw, and that the reasons for one’s action do not make an in principle difference to the morality of actions in war. I further argue that this position undermines the traditional ad bellum just war constraint of right intention, and that the morality of actions in war is, at core, only concerned with outcomes. I conclude by clarifying that one’s reasons for action do in fact matter when deciding to enter war or kill in war, but only because one’s reasons significantly impact the way in which one acts. The purpose of this paper is to clear the theoretical space by showing why intentions/reasons do not in principle matter when assessing the morality of war (or killing), but this should not be taken as an argument that we should ignore intentions/reasons altogether. (shrink)

Warfare is becoming increasingly automated, from automatic missile defense systems to micro-UAVs (WASPs) that can maneuver through urban environments with ease, and each advance brings with it ethical questions in need of resolving. Proponents of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) provide varied arguments in their favor; robots are capable of better identifying combatants and civilians, thus reducing "collateral damage"; robots need not protect themselves and so can incur more risks to protect innocents or gather more information before using deadly force; (...) robots can assess situations more quickly and do so without emotion, reducing the likelihood of fatal mistakes due to human error; and sending robots to war protects our own soldiers from harm. However, these arguments only point in favor of autonomous weapons systems, failing to demonstrate why such systems need be made *lethal*. In this paper I argue that if one grants all of the proponents' points in favor of LAWS, then, contrary to what might be expected, this leads to the conclusion that it would be both immoral and illegal to deploy *lethal* autonomous weapons, because the many features that speak in favor of them also undermine the need for them to be programmed to take lives. In particular, I argue that such systems, if lethal, would violate the moral and legal principle of necessity, which forbids the use of weapons that impose superfluous injury or unnecessary harm. I conclude by highlighting that the argument is not against autonomous weapons per se, but only against *lethal* autonomous weapons. (shrink)

Mark Schroeder has argued that all reasonable forms of inconsistency of attitude consist of having the same attitude type towards a pair of inconsistent contents (A-type inconsistency). We suggest that he is mistaken in this, offering a number of intuitive examples of pairs of distinct attitudes types with consistent contents which are intuitively inconsistent (B-type inconsistency). We further argue that, despite the virtues of Schroeder's elegant A-type expressivist semantics, B-type inconsistency is in many ways the more natural choice in developing (...) an expressivist account of moral discourse. We close by showing how to adapt ordinary formality-based accounts of logicality to define a B-type account of logical inconsistency and distinguish it from both semantic and pragmatic inconsistency. In sum, we provide a roadmap of how to develop a successful B-type expressivism. (shrink)