We report on the small-scale (0.5 13 h - 1M, a large-scale bias of ~2.0 and a satellite fraction of 12 ± 2 per cent. Thus, these galaxies occupy haloes with average masses in between those of the higher redshift BOSS CMASS sample and the original SDSS I/II luminous red galaxy sample © 2012 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society © doi:10.1093/mnras/sts314.

In this paper, we discuss our approach to developing engaging course content linked to distinct learning outcomes on the topic of academic authorship. Academic authorship is a critical element of research culture and responsible conduct of research (RCR) courses. Drawing on instructional design methods, our online course aims to stimulate critical thinking about ethical authorship practices and to help students develop skills for resolving authorship-related conflicts. The course is scaffolded to facilitate engagement by tying video and podcast-style media, a choice-based (...) interactive simulation, and traditional case study activities, to specific learning objectives. We describe how each instructional technique enhances student engagement and learning for the paired objective, and the benefits of the holistic course design. Finally, we illustrate how RCR instructors can incorporate our materials in full or in part into their own course curricula and encourage others to use our course development approach when designing their own courses. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 6, June 2019, Page 22-25.

The chapters in this volume deal with timely issues regarding democracy in theory and in practice in today's globalized world. Authored by leading political philosophers of our time, they appear here for the first time. The essays challenge and defend assumptions about the role of democracy as a viable political and legal institution in response to globalization, keeping in focus the role of rights at the normative foundations of democracy in a pluralistic world.

In this chapter, we argue that a distinct concept of “aesthetic hope” emerges from the way Kierkegaard’s Aesthete treats hope [Haab] and its relationship to recollection [Erindring] in “The Unhappiest One” and “Rotation of Crops.” We first show that aesthetic hope is distinct from the two other kinds of hope discussed by Kierkegaard: temporal hope and eternal hope. We then consider the suggestion that aesthetic hope is also an expression of despair – an inverse hope against hope, which seeks to (...) avoid disappointment by hoping for things that are in some sense certain. The aesthete’s recommendation that we hope in such a way illuminates Kierkegaard’s view of the “dialectic” of temporal hope and eternal hope. Finally, we explore the treatment of hope in Either/Or as essentially involving a controlled, attentional element that anticipates some contemporary trends in the philosophy of hope. (shrink)

Digital artifacts — humanly-constructed items that inhabit our computers and networks — suffer an unfortunate reputation as being virtual and therefore unreal, and all too easy to reproduce on the cheap. These features together prompt the question of this article: if digital artifacts can be reproduced for free, and if they are unreal, why do they have economic value at all? Using a focal case study of bitcoin — the most unreal digital artifact of them all, and one that has (...) been copied and pasted a thousand times over — I answer the question. Some digital artifacts can't be copied on the cheap, as it turns out, and they are real enough to be useful. (shrink)

The Yogācāra school of logic developed a theory of sign-inferences that has many features of the Stoic and Epicurean logical teachings with small inclusions of Aristotelian ideas. In the Nyāyabindu of Dharmakīrti, we can find the following schemes of formal reasoning: modus Barbara (Figure I) and modus Camenes (Figure IV) of the Aristotelian syllogistic, and all the inference rules of the Stoic logic: modus ponens, modus tollens, modus ponendo tollens, modus tollendo ponens I, modus tollendo ponens II. The three premises (...) of Yogācāra inference (if p, then q; there is an example that p and q occur together; p; then q) corresponds to the Epicurean doctrine of three premises with a necessary exemplification. Thus, the paper is a comparative study of Greek and Buddhist theory of sign-inferences, showing a deep similarity between them. (shrink)

Let a "smooth experience" be an experience with perfectly gradual changes in phenomenal character. Consider, as examples, your visual experience of a blue sky or your auditory experience of a rising pitch. Do the phenomenal characters of smooth experiences have continuous or discrete structures? If we appeal merely to introspection, then it may seem that we should think that smooth experiences are continuous. This paper (1) uses formal tools to clarify what it means to say that an experience is continuous (...) or discrete, and (2) develops a discrete model of the phenomenal characters of smooth experiences. As a result, I'll argue that introspection leaves open whether smooth experiences are continuous or discrete. Yet I’ll also argue—perhaps surprisingly—that the discrete theory may better fit our introspective evidence. Along the way, I explain why the sense of ‘continuity’ ascribed to smooth experiences is distinct from the sense of ‘continuity’ ascribed to the stream of consciousness. (shrink)

I argue that the classical doctrine of the eternal processions (CDEP) is inconsistent with the doctrine of creation ex nihilo (DCEN). More specifically, I argue that the metaphysical entailments of each doctrine are inconsistent with one another. According to the CDEP, God must be atemporal and immutable to avoid entailing some sort of ontological subordination obtaining between the Son and Spirit to the Father. On classical understandings of immutability, and thus atemporality, God experiences no change whatsoever, be that change intrinsic (...) or extrinsic. According to the DCEN, there is a state of affairs in which God exists without the universe, and there exists a state of affairs in which God exists with the universe, entailing – at minimum that God extrinsically changes. As a result, the CDEP and the DCEN are inconsistent with one another and cannot both be affirmed within the same coherent theological system. One of the two, or both, should be rejected. (shrink)

The concept of personhood has outlived its usefulness for bioethics, says Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby (2024). The concept of personhood has been important to the bioethics literature from fairly earl...

Until the time of Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill, philosophers generally held economics to be an integral element of moral philosophy. These days, the language of values—moral, aesthetic, and cognitive—dominates philosophic discourse, even though contemporary philosophers rarely hold economics to be integral to moral philosophy. Examining the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche and the art of Marcel Proust, Edward Andrew provides the first sustained critical analysis of values discourse, an analysis that deconstructs its content and its form.

This essay first discusses the structure of the film (Memento_ (Christopher Nolan, 2000), its status as a neo-noir, and the implications of its accompanying website for its ontology. It then considers two clusters of philosophical themes in the film: the nature of mind and memory, and freedom, personal identity, and moral responsibility;.

Newton’s laws of motion imply that any plurality of particles whatsoever considered as a whole obeys Newton’s laws. Nevertheless, I define a Newtonian composite object as an object for the purposes of Newtonian mechanics in which the atoms act in casual dependence on one another in such a way that the whole is structurally stable in many interactions. An elastic solid object is a type of a Newtonian composite object in which each atom is in stable spatial equilibrium relative to (...) the others — it can only move slightly relative to its position in the lattice of inter-atomic spatial relations. It is easy to generalize the notion of Newtonian composite object and define a general composite object. (shrink)

In a recent article, James Spiegel has suggested ways in which premortalism may bolster the free will defence in response to the logical problem of evil. Building on his presentation, this present article further reinforces the premortalist free will defence whilst also critiquing similarly related defences (such as the necessity of nomic regularity for significant freedom). Contrary to expectation, the premortalist defence is compatible with diverse accounts of divine knowledge (i.e., middle knowledge, dynamic omniscience, etc.) and does not present overly (...) problematic questions of identity if substance dualism is presupposed. More importantly, the premortalist free will defence raises critical questions of consent and agential contractualism that are often overlooked in the literature. Over against a consequentialist framework, the premortalist defence acknowledges the importance of treating the agent as an end in and of herself. Questions of eschatology naturally arise, and contra James Spiegel, this article will propose that universalism, the belief that eventually all will be saved, is nigh undeniable on a premortalist account, given perfect being theism. (shrink)

The text on this website is copyright in the same way as any other publication. It is of course legitimate to make small quotations from it. A link to this site should then be put in to acknowledge the origin of quoted text. For any more substantial use of the material on this site you should ask permission from me. You should also ask my permission to use any of the graphic icons or the images which are marked as being (...) my photographs. (shrink)

This article argues that paintings have a nonconceptual content unlike that of mechanically produced images. The first part of the article outlines an information-theory approach modelled on the camera and based on the idea that pictures convey information about what they depict. Picture structure is conceived of as contentful by virtue of a supposed causal link with what is depicted and as nonconceptual because it is independent of observers’ understanding. The second part introduces an embodied depiction approach based on Merleau-Ponty’s (...) view of style and the act of painting. It is argued that because of bodily mediation the nonconceptual content of paintings cannot be assimilated to the information-theory approach; painted configurations are contentful by virtue of being the product of intelligent activity, but are nonconceptual because they differ from concepts in their representational function. (shrink)

In September of 1869, while studying sponges off the Norwegian island of Gisoe, Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) discovered a tiny, flagellated ball-shaped organism swimming about in his samples. Appearing first to be the planula larva of an invertebrate marine animal further observation revealed it to be a colony of flagellated cells with a complex life cycle transitioning between multicellular and single-cell stages and several distinct forms of protozoa. Haeckel named it Magosphaera planula (the "magician's ball") and it eventually assumed a central (...) role in his theories of animal evolution, appearing as the modern exemplar of the blastaea stage in his gastraea theory of metazoan evolution. Throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth it was an object of considerable scientific interest, and yet it was only ever observed by Haeckel himself and then only the once. Eventually it faded altogether from scientific discussion. This paper traces the rise and fall of Magosphaera as an important epistemic object in the theories of Haeckel and other biologists, and an attempt is made to identify what exactly the organism (or organisms!) was that Haeckel observed in the fall of 1869. (shrink)

A leading author, philosopher, and activist, Thoreau’s call to simple living has enticed readers for over one hundred years. Selections from Thoreau’s most influential texts are analyzed in this book in order for students to better grasp Thoreau’s life and the historical events that shaped his ideas.

This article argues that the goals of agricultural research in poor countries have changed substantially over the last four decades. In particular they have broadened from the early (and narrow) emphasis on food production to a much wider agenda that includes poverty alleviation, environmental degradation, and social inclusion. Conversely, agricultural research systems have proved remarkably resistant to the concomitant need for changes in research focus. As a result many, at both the national and international level, are under great strain. In (...) terms of public policy the article goes on to suggest that shortcomings of existing conceptual approaches to technology development could be supplemented by adopting analytical principles that view innovation in systemic terms. An approach where flows of knowledge between institutional nodes is a key to innovative performance (the “National Systems of Innovation” approach) is suggested as one such conceptual framework that might help supplement conventional policy analysis. (shrink)

Charlie Dunbar Broad is one of the most important philosophers of this century. I know that this may sound like a very irresponsible -- even whimsical -- thing to say; so I better make a strong case for this assertion. Right away, philosophers who share other sympathies may start listing more famous philosophers as prima facie evidence against my apparently rash opinion.

This collision explores ecological aesthetics through two encounters with dead whales: one literary and one osseous . The literary animal is the taxidermied whale that drives the narrative of László Krasznahorkai’s 1989 novel The Melancholy of Resistance, and the osseous encounter involves a bench made of one jawbone and one rib from a baleen whale. Considered together, the immense totality of the taxidermied whale and the metonymic bones provide unsettling aesthetic insights into ecological matters of interconnectedness – of the relationships (...) between parts and wholes and amongst parts within a whole or wholes. Through analyses of the visual, literary, and haptic aspects of these encounters, this paper raises questions about what it means to perceive and think about ecology through aesthetic encounters with non-human animal bones and taxidermied bodies. (shrink)

The past one hundred fifty years of debate over the use of animals in research and testing has been characterized mainly byad hominem attacks and on uncritical rejection of the other sides’ arguments. In the classroom, it is important to avoid repeating exercises in public relations and to demand sound scholarship.

This paper argues that Schelling’s understanding of love more readily captures his notion of unground as a contradictory-producing a priori. Love is a more appropriate term for unground insofar as it conveys the juxtaposition of feelings which motivate the eternal beginning. Self-expression, for Schelling, is born from the tension between God’s longing to be and his freedom. While this antithesis entails that God’s decision to be is only subjectively intelligible, it also implies the element of risk in the decision insofar (...) as it suggests the groundlessness—and, thus, ambiguity—of God’s wanting to be. Indeed, for Schelling, God must decide whether to relinquish his perfection for the sake of an uncertain future. This essay offers a fresh interpretation God’s decision insofar as it introduces love as a means of understanding the attractiveness of God’s risk-taking, while also affirming his freedom to decide if the risk is worthwhile. (shrink)

Geologists propose the term Anthropocene to reflect the dramatic changes that humans have made to the planet. While scientists pursue the reality of our current epoch, technology and media create an increasingly spectacular narrative surrounding environmental events. I look to critiques from Guy Debord and other media theorists as well as Patrick Modiano’s In the Café of Lost Youth to outline modes of détournement and resistance to an increasingly mediated world. Contemporary environmental aesthetics must face the challenge of critiquing technological (...) immersion even while making use of these very same technologies to reveal material and affective connections between humans and the environment. (shrink)