Developing a definition of group selection, and applying that definition to the dispute in the social sciences between methodological holists and methodological individualists, are the two goals of this paper. The definition proposed distinguishes between changes in groups that are due to group selection and changes in groups that are artefacts of selection processes occurring at lower levels of organization. It also explains why the existence of group selection is not implied by the mere fact that fitness values of organisms (...) are sensitive to the composition of groups. And, lastly, the definition explains why group selection need not involve selection for altruism. Group selection is thereby seen as an evolutionary force which is objectively distinct from other evolutionary forces. Applying the distinction between group and individual selection to the holism/individualism dispute has the desirable result that the dispute is not decidable a priori. This way of looking at the dispute yields a conception of individualism which is untainted by atomism and a conception of holism which is unspoiled by hypostatis. (shrink)

Educational Research is commonly regarded as a rational pursuit aimed at the production of objective knowledge. Researchers are expected to avoid value bias by detaching themselves from the normative conceptions of education that shape practice in schools and classrooms, and by casting themselves in the role of the impartial spectator. It is assumed that, as a rational pursuit, educational research is not directly concerned with changing practice but simply with discovering facts about it.This paper claims that it is possible to (...) construct a view of educational research as a form of rational and disciplined inquiry that does not depend on any underpinning spectator theory of knowledge. Nor, the paper claims, does it imply any underpinning foundational principles of rational action and choice. Rather it implies a form of disciplined conversation in which reasons for action are scrutinised, critiqued and modified without resort to foundational principles of rationality. Drawing particularly on the work of John Dewey, Richard Rorty and Amartya Sen, the paper casts educational research as a practical science—a form of action research—that is underpinned by a democratic conception of rationality. In doing so, it contrasts educational research, shaped by a pragmatic theory of knowledge, with research on education that is shaped by a spectator theory. (shrink)

The logical empiricists said some good things about epistemology and scientific method. However, they associated those epistemological ideas with some rather less good ideas about philosophy of language. There is something epistemologically suspect about statements that cannot be tested. But to say that those statements are meaningless is to go too far. And there is something impossible about trying to figure out which of two empirically equivalent theories is true. But to say that those theories are synonymous is also to (...) go too far. My goal in this paper is not to resuscitate all these positivist ideas, but to revisit just one of them. Instrumentalism is the idea that theories are instruments for making predictions. Of course, no one would disagree that this is one of the things we use theories to do. In just the same way, no one could disagree with the emotivist claim that one of the things we do with ethical terms like "good" and "right" is to express our feelings of approval and disapproval. Instrumentalism and emotivism become contentious, and therefore interesting, when these claims are supplemented. (shrink)

Educational Research is commonly regarded as a rational pursuit aimed at the production of objective knowledge. Researchers are expected to avoid value bias by detaching themselves from the normative conceptions of education that shape practice in schools and classrooms, and by casting themselves in the role of the impartial spectator. It is assumed that, as a rational pursuit, educational research is not directly concerned with changing practice but simply with discovering facts about it.This paper claims that it is possible to (...) construct a view of educational research as a form of rational and disciplined inquiry that does not depend on any underpinning spectator theory of knowledge. Nor, the paper claims, does it imply any underpinning foundational principles of rational action and choice. Rather it implies a form of disciplined conversation in which reasons for action are scrutinised, critiqued and modified without resort to foundational principles of rationality. Drawing particularly on the work of John Dewey, Richard Rorty and Amartya Sen, the paper casts educational research as a practical science—a form of action research—that is underpinned by a democratic conception of rationality. In doing so, it contrasts educational research, shaped by a pragmatic theory of knowledge, with research on education that is shaped by a spectator theory. (shrink)

In this article we attempt to complicate traditional--and, we argue, limited and exclusionary--definitions of interdisciplinarity as the bringing into dialogue of established disciplines without questioning the parameters and practices of those disciplines. We propose that interdisciplinarity instead might mean teaching and learning among, between, and in the midst of those of innate or learned capacities--not only college faculty but also students and staff. To illustrate this more radical iteration of interdisciplinarity, we draw on a range of definitions of the key (...) terms, “discipline” and “faculty,” and we offer a case study of a workshop we co-facilitated in which we brought differently positioned individuals together to engage in the educational process and the production of knowledge. We hope that this discussion contributes to expanding the notions and practices of interdisciplinarity. (shrink)

Book Reviws in this ArticleThe Human Body and the Law, 2nd edition by D.W. Meyers, Edinburgh University Press, 1990Classic Cases in Medical Ethics by Gregory E. Pence. New York: McGraw‐Hill Publishing Co. 1990Changing Values in Medical and Health Care Decision Making, edited by Uffejuul Jensen and Gavin Mooney. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 1990IVF and Justice by Teresa Iglesias, London: The Linacre Centre For Health Care Ethics, 1990The Practical, Moral and Personal Sense of Nursing: A Phenomenon‐ological Philosophy of Practice by (...) Anne H. Bishop and John R. Scudder, Jr. New York: State University of New York Press, 1990A Companion to Ethics, edited by Peter Singer. Oxford and Cambridge, Mass: Basil Blackwell, 1991.Ethics and Law in Health Care and Research edited by Peter Byrne, Chichester, UK: 1990The Human Embryo edited by G.R. Dunstan, Exeter: Exeter University Press, 1990Everyday Ethics: Resolving Dilemmas in Nursing Home Life by Rosalie A. Kane and Arthur L. Caplan. N.Y.: Springer Publishing Company, 1990Psychiatric Ethics, 2nd edition, edited by S. Bloch and P. Chodoff. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991Health Care and Gender by Charlotte Muller. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1990. (shrink)

What do musicians, critics, and listeners mean when they use emotion‐words to describe a piece of instrumental music? How can ‘pure’ musical sounds ‘express’ emotions such as joyfulness, sadness, anguish, optimism, and anger? Sounds are not living organisms; sounds cannot feel emotions. Yet many people around the world believe they hear emotions in sounds and/or feel the emotions expressed by musical patterns. Is there a reasonable explanation for this dilemma? These issues gain additional importance when we ask them in the (...) context of music education. For example, can we, or should we, teach music students to listen‐for musical expressions of emotion? If so, how? My contention is that listeners can and do hear emotions in musical patterns; musical sounds can be expressive of emotions. Accordingly, I offer ideas for teaching students how to hear and create musical expressions of emotions. (shrink)

What do musicians, critics, and listeners mean when they use emotion‐words to describe a piece of instrumental music? How can ‘pure’ musical sounds ‘express’ emotions such as joyfulness, sadness, anguish, optimism, and anger? Sounds are not living organisms; sounds cannot feel emotions. Yet many people around the world believe they hear emotions in sounds and/or feel the emotions expressed by musical patterns. Is there a reasonable explanation for this dilemma?These issues gain additional importance when we ask them in the context (...) of music education. For example, can we, or should we, teach music students to listen‐for musical expressions of emotion? If so, how?My contention is that listeners can and do hear emotions in musical patterns; musical sounds can be expressive of emotions. Accordingly, I offer ideas for teaching students how to hear and create musical expressions of emotions. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Standard Models of Decision‐making Capacity and Surrogate Decision‐making References Further reading.

The argument from design is best understood as a likelihood inference. Its Achilles heel is our lack of knowledge concerning the aims and abilities that the putative designer would have; in consequence, it is impossible to determine whether the observations are more probable under the design hypothesis than they are under the hypothesis of chance. Hypotheses about the role played by natural selection in the history of life also can be evaluated within a likelihood framework, and here too there are (...) auxiliary assumptions that need to be in place if the likelihoods of selection and chance are to be compared. I describe some problems that arise in connection with the project of obtaining independent evidence concerning those auxiliary assumptions. (shrink)

In ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’, Quine attacks the analytic/synthetic distinction and defends a doctrine that I call epistemological holism. Now, almost fifty years after the article’s appearance, what are we to make of these ideas? I suggest that the philosophical naturalism that Quine did so much to promote should lead us to reject Quine’s brief against the analytic/synthetic distinction; I also argue that Quine misunderstood Carnap's views on analyticity. As for epistemological holism, I claim that this thesis does not follow (...) from the logical point that Duhem and Quine made about the role of auxiliary assumptions in hypothesis testing, and that the thesis should be rejected. (shrink)

In recent years, most political theorists have agreed that shame shouldn't play any role in democratic politics because it threatens the mutual respect necessary for participation and deliberation. But Christina Tarnopolsky argues that not every kind of shame hurts democracy. In fact, she makes a powerful case that there is a form of shame essential to any critical, moderate, and self-reflexive democratic practice. Through a careful study of Plato's Gorgias, Tarnopolsky shows that contemporary conceptions of shame are far too (...) narrow. For Plato, three kinds of shame and shaming practices were possible in democracies, and only one of these is similar to the form condemned by contemporary thinkers. Following Plato, Tarnopolsky develops an account of a different kind of shame, which she calls "respectful shame." This practice involves the painful but beneficial shaming of one's fellow citizens as part of the ongoing process of collective deliberation. And, as Tarnopolsky argues, this type of shame is just as important to contemporary democracy as it was to its ancient form. Tarnopolsky also challenges the view that the Gorgias inaugurates the problematic oppositions between emotion and reason, and rhetoric and philosophy. Instead, she shows that, for Plato, rationality and emotion belong together, and she argues that political science and democratic theory are impoverished when they relegate the study of emotions such as shame to other disciplines. (shrink)

Nietzsche announces his intentions to publish a “physiology of aesthetics”, namely a naturalistic explanation for how aesthetic judgements are grounded in the physiology of both the one experiencing the work, and the creator of it. But as well as the physiological reduction of aesthetic judgements, Nietzsche in many places across his oeuvre frames the apparatus of physiology, especially the prescriptive dimension of self-cultivation, in terms amenable to being treated as ‘aesthetic’. The first section will mount a (re-) defense of the (...) use of aestheticized language for discussing Nietzschean self-cultivation. The second section demonstrates an aesthetic evaluation of capacities that make possible the acquisition and removal of instinctual components, ultimately arguing for Nietzsche’s qualified indeterminism regarding the capacity for self-cultivation. The third section will assess the pres- ence of another aesthetic measure, this time in terms of envisaging one’s psycho-physiology by reference to an external spectacle. The final section discusses metaethical questions stemming from Nietzsche’s prescriptive language regarding the aestheticization of our physiology. (shrink)

Background: This study investigated the factors affecting the acceptability in France of abortions. Method: 80 study participants from Toulouse and 124 from Metz judged the acceptability of abortion in 64 vignettes composed of five factors: 1) the adolescent's age (15 or 17.5 years), 2) the adolescent's plans to continue schooling or not, 3) the fetus' age (1, 2, 3, or 4 months), 4) the adolescent's parents' agreement or not, and 5) the agreement or not of baby's father. Results: Three clusters (...) were noted: 1) abortion is never acceptable (8% of participants), 2) abortion is always acceptable (23%), and 3) acceptability of abortion depends on the circumstances (63%). In the majority cluster (3), all five factors had significant effects, but the fetus's age accounted for most of the variance (78%). Conclusion: Most subjects in this study judged, in accordance with French law, that the acceptability of induced abortion in minors depends on the circumstances and, in particular, on the fetus' age. (shrink)

Aim To explore the views in non-Western cultures about ending the lives of damaged newborns.Method 254 university students from India and 150 from Kuwait rated the acceptability of ending the lives of newborns with genetic defects in 54 vignettes consisting of all combinations of four factors: gestational age ; severity of genetic defect ; the parents’ attitude about prolonging care ; and the procedure used .Results Four clusters were identified by cluster analysis and subjected to analysis of variance. Cluster I, (...) labelled ‘Never Acceptable’, included 4% of the Indians and 59% of the Kuwaitis. Cluster II, ‘No Firm Opinion’, had little variation in rating from one scenario to the next; it included 38% of the Indians and 18% of the Kuwaitis. In Cluster III, ‘Parents’ Attitude+Severity+Procedure’, all three factors affected the ratings; it was composed of 18% of the Indians and 16% of the Kuwaitis. Cluster IV was called ‘Severity+Parents’ Attitude’ because these had the strongest impact; it was composed of 40% of the Indians and 7% of the Kuwaitis.Conclusions In accordance with the teachings of Islam versus Hinduism, Kuwaiti students were more likely to oppose ending a newborn's life under all conditions, Indian students more likely to favour it and to judge its acceptability in light of the different circumstances. (shrink)

Abstract“Comprehensive Healthcare for America” is a largely single-payer reform proposal that, by applying the insights of behavioral economics, may be able to rally patients and clinicians sufficiently to overcome the opposition of politicians and vested interests to providing all Americans with less complicated and less costly access to needed healthcare.

Adaptationism is a doctrine that has meant different things to different people. In this essay, I want to isolate and discuss a reading of adaptationism that makes it a non-trivial empirical thesis about the history of life. I'll take adaptationism to be the following claim: natural selection has been the only important cause of most of the phenotypic traits found in most species. I won't try to determine whether adaptationism, so defined, is true. Rather, my task will be one of (...) clarification. What does this statement mean, and how is it related to various remarks that biologists have made about adaptationism, pro and con? (shrink)

First published in 1987, Althusser, The Detour of Theory was widely received as the fullest account of its subject to date. Drawing on a wide range of hitherto untranslated material, it examined the political and intellectual contexts of Althusser's `return to Marx' in the mid-1960s and proclamaed of a `crisis of Marxism'. It concluded with a balance-sheet of Althusser's contribution to historical materialism. In this second edition, Gregory Elliott has added a substantial postscript in which he surveys the posthumous (...) edition of the French philosopher's work. (shrink)

[Elliott Sober] In 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism', Quine attacks the analytic/synthetic distinction and defends a doctrine that I call epistemological holism. Now, almost fifty years after the article's appearance, what are we to make of these ideas? I suggest that the philosophical naturalism that Quine did so much to promote should lead us to reject Quine's brief against the analytic/synthetic distinction; I also argue that Quine misunderstood Carnap's views on analyticity. As for epistemological holism, I claim that this thesis (...) does not follow from the logical point that Duhem and Quine made about the role of auxiliary assumptions in hypothesis testing, and that the thesis should be rejected. \\\ [Peter Hylton] Section I of this essay discusses Quine's views about reference, contrasting them with those of Russell. For the latter, our language and thought succeed in being about the world because of our acquaintance with objects; the relation of reference-roughly, the relation between a name and its bearer-is thus fundamental. For Quine, by contrast, the fundamental relation by which our language comes to be about the world, and to have empirical content, is that between a sentence and stimulations of our sensory surfaces; reference, while important, is a derivative notion. Section II shows how this view of reference as derivative makes possible the notorious Quinean doctrine of ontological relativity. Section III raises the issue of realism. It argues that somewhat different notions of realism are in play for Quine and for Russell-for Russell, objects, and our knowledge of objects, play the fundamental role, while for quine objectivity and truth are fundamental, with ontology being derivative. (shrink)