In this paper we discuss ethical implications of the use of mobile phone apps in the control of the COVID-19 pandemic. Contact tracing is a well-established feature of public health practice during infectious disease outbreaks and epidemics. However, the high proportion of pre-symptomatic transmission in COVID-19 means that standard contact tracing methods are too slow to stop the progression of infection through the population. To address this problem, many countries around the world have deployed or are developing mobile phone apps (...) capable of supporting instantaneous contact tracing. Informed by the on-going mapping of ‘proximity events’ these apps are intended both to inform public health policy and to provide alerts to individuals who have been in contact with a person with the infection. The proposed use of mobile phone data for ‘intelligent physical distancing’ in such contexts raises a number of important ethical questions. In our paper, we outline some ethical considerations that need to be addressed in any deployment of this kind of approach as part of a multidimensional public health response. We also, briefly, explore the implications for its use in future infectious disease outbreaks. (shrink)

As a 2006 Institute of Medicine report highlights, surprisingly little empirical attention has been paid to how prisoners arrive at decisions to participate in modern research. With our study, we aimed to fill this gap by identifying a more comprehensive range of factors as reported by prisoners themselves during semistructured interviews. Our participants described a diverse range of motives, both favoring and opposing their eventual decision to join. Many are well-recognized considerations among nonincarcerated clinical research participants, including a desire for (...) various forms of personal benefit, altruism, and concern about study risks and inconveniences. However, a number of influences seem unique to prisoners. Participants did not report that they were not coerced into enrolling, and they have even been under pressure not to enroll. However, many sought to enroll in order to obtain access to better health care, raising a concern about whether they were unfairly exploited. (shrink)

Reuse of elements from existing ontologies in the construction of new ontologies is a foundational principle in ontological design. It offers the benefits, among others, of consistency and interoperability between such knowledge structures as well as sharing resources. Reuse is widely found within important collections of established ontologies, such as BioPortal and the OBO Foundry. However, reuse comes with its own potential problems involving ontological commitment, granularity, and ambiguity. Guidelines are proposed to aid ontology developers and curators in their prospective (...) reuse of content. These guidelines have been gleaned over years of practice in the ontology field. The guidelines are couched in experiential reports on designing and curating particular ontologies (e.g., EXACT and EXACT2) and using generally accepted approaches (e.g., MIREOT) in doing so. Various software tools to assist in ontology reuse are surveyed and discussed. (shrink)

The value of any kind of data is greatly enhanced when it exists in a form that allows it to be integrated with other data. One approach to integration is through the annotation of multiple bodies of data using common controlled vocabularies or ‘ontologies’. Unfortunately, the very success of this approach has led to a proliferation of ontologies which itself creates obstacles to integration. The Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) consortium has set in train a strategy to overcome this problem. Existing (...) OBO ontologies, including the Gene Ontology, are undergoing a process of coordinated reform and new ontologies being created on the basis of an evolving set of shared principles governing ontology development. The result is an expanding family of ontologies designed to be interoperable, logically well-formed, and to incorporate accurate representations of biological reality. We describe the OBO Foundry initiative, and provide guidelines for those who might wish to become involved. (shrink)

Harmonic Grammar (HG) is a model of linguistic constraint interaction in which well-formedness is calculated as the sum of weighted constraint violations. We show how linear programming algorithms can be used to determine whether there is a weighting for a set of constraints that fits a set of linguistic data. The associated software package OT-Help provides a practical tool for studying large and complex linguistic systems in the HG framework and comparing the results with those of OT. We describe the (...) translation from Harmonic Grammars to systems solvable by linear programming, and we illustrate the usefulness of OT-Help with a set of studies of the predictions HG makes for phonological typology. (shrink)

This volume collects selected papers delivered at the 15th Conference of the International Society for Utilitarian Studies, which was held at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in July 2018. It includes papers dealing with the past, present, and future of utilitarianism – the theory that human happiness is the fundamental moral value – as well as on its applications to animal ethics, population ethics, and the future of humanity, among other topics.

It is well known that John Stuart Mill repeatedly acknowledges Harriet Taylor Mill's substantial contribution to On Liberty. After her death, however, he decides to publish the book under his name only. Are we justified in continuing this practice, initiated by JSM, of refusing unequivocal co-authorship status to HTM? Drawing on stylometric analyses, we make a preliminary case that JSM did not write On Liberty all by himself and that HTM had a hand in formulating it. Drawing on plausible standards (...) for authorship ascription, we further point out that authorship status requires, in addition to a substantial contribution, the approval by all contributors. We discuss potential reasons to assume that HTM did not approve the published version of On Liberty and would have objected to including her name on the title page. (This paper is available on an open-access basis at UTILITAS). (shrink)

This handbook presents a comprehensive introduction to the core areas of philosophy of education combined with an up-to-date selection of the central themes. It includes 95 newly commissioned articles that focus on and advance key arguments; each essay incorporates essential background material serving to clarify the history and logic of the relevant topic, examining the status quo of the discipline with respect to the topic, and discussing the possible futures of the field. The book provides a state-of-the-art overview of philosophy (...) of education, covering a range of topics: Voices from the present and the past deals with 36 major figures that philosophers of education rely on; Schools of thought addresses 14 stances including Eastern, Indigenous, and African philosophies of education as well as religiously inspired philosophies of education such as Jewish and Islamic; Revisiting enduring educational debates scrutinizes 25 issues heavily debated in the past and the present, for example care and justice, democracy, and the curriculum; New areas and developments addresses 17 emerging issues that have garnered considerable attention like neuroscience, videogames, and radicalization. The collection is relevant for lecturers teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of education as well as for colleagues in teacher training. Moreover, it helps junior researchers in philosophy of education to situate the problems they are addressing within the wider field of philosophy of education and offers a valuable update for experienced scholars dealing with issues in the sub-discipline. Combined with different conceptions of the purpose of philosophy, it discusses various aspects, using diverse perspectives to do so. Contributing Editors: Section 1: Voices from the Present and the Past: Nuraan Davids Section 2: Schools of Thought: Christiane Thompson and Joris Vlieghe Section 3: Revisiting Enduring Debates: Ann Chinnery, Naomi Hodgson, and Viktor Johansson Section 4: New Areas and Developments: Kai Horsthemke, Dirk Willem Postma, and Claudia Ruitenberg. (shrink)

This article is a collective writing experiment undertaken by philosophers of education affiliated with the PESGB (Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain). When asked to reflect on questions concerning the Philosophy of Education in a New Key in May 2020, it was unsurprising that the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on society and on education were foremost in our minds. We wanted to consider important philosophical and educational questions raised by the pandemic, while acknowledging that, first and foremost, it (...) is a human tragedy. With nearly a million deaths reported worldwide to date, and with everyone effected in one way or another by Covid-19, there is a degree of discomfort, and a responsibility to be sensitive, in reflecting and writing about it academically. Members of this ‘Covid Collective’ come from various countries, with perspectives from Great Britain and Ireland well represented, and we see academic practice as a globally connected enterprise, especially since the digital revolution in academic publishing. The concerns raised in this article relate to but move beyond Covid-19, reflecting the impact of neoliberalism [and other political developments] on geopolitics with educational concerns as central to our focus. (shrink)

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)

This article focuses on the role of the interchromatin compartment (IC) in shaping nuclear landscapes. The IC is connected with nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) and harbors splicing speckles and nuclear bodies. It is postulated that the IC provides routes for imported transcription factors to target sites, for export routes of mRNA as ribonucleoproteins toward NPCs, as well as for the intranuclear passage of regulatory RNAs from sites of transcription to remote functional sites (IC hypothesis). IC channels are lined by less‐compacted (...) euchromatin, called the perichromatin region (PR). The PR and IC together form the active nuclear compartment (ANC). The ANC is co‐aligned with the inactive nuclear compartment (INC), comprising more compacted heterochromatin. It is postulated that the INC is accessible for individual transcription factors, but inaccessible for larger macromolecular aggregates (limited accessibility hypothesis). This functional nuclear organization depends on still unexplored movements of genes and regulatory sequences between the two compartments. (shrink)

“Tell me," Wittgenstein once asked a friend, "why do people always say, it was natural for man to assume that the sun went round the earth rather than that the earth was rotating?" His friend replied, "Well, obviously because it just looks as though the Sun is going round the Earth." Wittgenstein replied, "Well, what would it have looked like if it had looked as though the Earth was rotating?” What would it have looked like if we looked at all (...) sciences from the viewpoint of Wittgenstein’s philosophy? Wittgenstein is undoubtedly one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. His complex body of work has been analysed by numerous scholars, from mathematicians and physicists, to philosophers, linguists, and beyond. This volume brings together some of his central perspectives as applied to the modern sciences and studies the influence they may have on the thought processes underlying science and on the world view it engenders. The contributions stem from leading scholars in philosophy, mathematics, physics, economics, psychology and human sciences; all of them have written in an accessible style that demands little specialist knowledge, whilst clearly portraying and discussing the deep issues at hand. (shrink)

A high percent of oxidative energy metabolism is needed to support brain growth during infancy. Unhealthy diets and limited nutrition, as well as other environmental insults, can compromise these essential developmental processes. In particular, iron deficiency anemia has been found to undermine both normal brain growth and neurobehavioral development. Even moderate ID may affect neural maturation because when iron is limited, it is prioritized first to red blood cells over the brain. A primate model was used to investigate the neural (...) effects of a transient ID and if deficits would persist after iron treatment. The large size and postnatal growth of the monkey brain makes the findings relevant to the metabolic and iron needs of human infants, and initiating treatment upon diagnosis of anemia reflects clinical practice. Specifically, this analysis determined whether brain maturation would still be compromised at 1 year of age if an anemic infant was treated promptly once diagnosed. The hematology and iron status of 41 infant rhesus monkeys was screened at 2-month intervals. Fifteen became ID; 12 met clinical criteria for anemia and were administered iron dextran and B vitamins for 1–2 months. MRI scans were acquired at 1 year. The volumetric and diffusion tensor imaging measures from the ID infants were compared with monkeys who remained continuously iron sufficient. A prior history of ID was associated with smaller total brain volumes, driven primarily by significantly less total gray matter and smaller GM volumes in several cortical regions. At the macrostructual level, the effect on white matter volumes was not as overt. However, DTI analyses of WM microstructure indicated two later-maturating anterior tracts were negatively affected. The findings reaffirm the importance of iron for normal brain development. Given that brain differences were still evident even after iron treatment and following recovery of iron-dependent hematological indices, the results highlight the importance of early detection and preemptive supplementation to limit the neural consequences of ID. (shrink)

The rise of the phenomenon of virtue ethics in recent years has increased at a rapid pace. Such an explosion carries with it a number of great possibilities, as well as risks. This volume has been written to contribute a multi-faceted perspective to the current conversation about virtue. Among many other thought-provoking questions, the collection addresses the following: What are the virtues, and how are they enumerated? What are the internal problems among ethicists, and what are the objections and replies (...) to contemporary virtue ethics? Additionally, the practical implications following from the answers to these questions are discussed in new and fascinating research. Fundamental concepts such as teleology and eudaimonism are addressed from both a historical and dialectical approach. This tome will contribute not only to providing further clarity to the current horizons in virtue ethics, but also to the practical conclusion following from the study: to challenge the reader toward a greater pursuit of the virtuous life. (shrink)

Intellectual humility, which entails openness to other views and a willingness to listen and engage with them, is crucial for facilitating civil dialogue and progress in debate between opposing sides. In the present research, we tested whether intellectual humility can be reliably detected in discourse and experimentally increased by a prior self-affirmation task. Three-hundred and three participants took part in 116 audio and video-recorded group discussions. Blind to condition, linguists coded participants’ discourse to create an intellectual humility score. As expected, (...) the self-affirmation task increased the coded intellectual humility, as well as participants’ self-rated prosocial affect (e.g., empathy). Unexpectedly, the effect on prosocial affect did not mediate the link between experimental condition and intellectual humility in debate. Self-reported intellectual humility and other personality variables were uncorrelated with expert-coded intellectual humility. Implications of these findings for understanding the social psychological mechanisms underpinning intellectual humility are considered. (shrink)

Regular musical activity as a complex multimodal lifestyle activity is proposed to be protective against age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease. This cross-sectional study investigated the association and interplay between musical instrument playing during life, multi-domain cognitive abilities and brain morphology in older adults from the DZNE-Longitudinal Cognitive Impairment and Dementia Study study. Participants reporting having played a musical instrument across three life periods were compared to controls without a history of musical instrument playing, well-matched for reserve proxies of education, (...) intelligence, socioeconomic status and physical activity. Participants with musical activity outperformed controls in global cognition, working memory, executive functions, language, and visuospatial abilities, with no effects seen for learning and memory. The musically active group had greater gray matter volume in the somatosensory area, but did not differ from controls in higher-order frontal, temporal, or hippocampal volumes. However, the association between gray matter volume in distributed frontal-to-temporal regions and cognitive abilities was enhanced in participants with musical activity compared to controls. We show that playing a musical instrument during life relates to better late-life cognitive abilities and greater brain capacities in OA. Musical activity may serve as a multimodal enrichment strategy that could help preserve cognitive and brain health in late life. Longitudinal and interventional studies are needed to support this notion. (shrink)

DBS Think Tank IX was held on August 25–27, 2021 in Orlando FL with US based participants largely in person and overseas participants joining by video conferencing technology. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 and provides an open platform where clinicians, engineers and researchers can freely discuss current and emerging deep brain stimulation technologies as well as the logistical and ethical issues facing the field. The consensus among the DBS Think Tank IX speakers was that DBS expanded in (...) its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. After collectively sharing our experiences, it was estimated that globally more than 230,000 DBS devices have been implanted for neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. As such, this year’s meeting was focused on advances in the following areas: neuromodulation in Europe, Asia and Australia; cutting-edge technologies, neuroethics, interventional psychiatry, adaptive DBS, neuromodulation for pain, network neuromodulation for epilepsy and neuromodulation for traumatic brain injury. (shrink)

This book is a critical introduction to the long-standing debate concerning the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics and the problems it has posed for physicists and philosophers from Einstein to the present. Quantum theory has been a major infulence on postmodernism, and presents significant problems for realists. Keeping his own realist position in check, Christopher Norris subjects a wide range of key opponents and supporters of realism to a high and equal level of scrutiny. With a characteristic combination of (...) rigour and intellectual generosity, he draws out the merits and weaknesses from opposing arguments. In a sequence of closely argued chapters, Norris examines the premises of orthodox quantum theory, as developed most influentially by Bohr and Heisenberg, and its impact on varous philosophical developments. These include the ideas developed by W.V Quine, Thomas Kuhn, Michael Dummett, Bas van Fraassen, and Hilary Puttnam. In each case, Norris argues, these thinkers have been influenced by the orthodox construal of quantum mechanics as requiring drastic revision of principles which had hitherto defined the very nature of scientific method, causal explanati and rational enquiry. Putting the case for a realist approach which adheres to well-tried scientific principles of causal reasoning and inference to the best explanation, Christopher Norris clarifies these debates to a non-specialist readership and scholars of philosophy, science studies and the philosophy of science alike. Quantum Theory and the Flight From Realism suggests that philosophical reflection can contribute to a better understanding of these crucial, current issues. (shrink)

According to reductionists about agency, an agent’s bringing something about is reducible to states and events involving the agent bringing something about. Many have worried that reductionism cannot accommodate robust forms of agency, such as self-determination. One common reductionist answer to this worry contends that self-determining agents are identified with certain states and events, and so these states and events causing a decision counts as the agent’s self-determining the decision. In this paper, I discuss Michael Bratman’s well-known identification reductionist (...) theory and his general strategy of grounding an agent’s identification at a time in the agent’s identity over time. I develop two constraints that an adequate identification reductionist theory must satisfy, argue that Bratman’s theory cannot satisfy both, and show that his general strategy for grounding an agent’s identification at a time in the agent’s identity over time is without merit. (shrink)

What is it about the nature of "soul" that makes it so difficult to adequately capture its complexity in a strictly discursive account? Why do some of the most profound human experiences elude our attempts to theorize them? How can a written document do justice to the dynamic activity of thinking, as opposed to merely presenting a collection of thoughts-as-artifacts? Finally, what can we learn about the activity of philosophizing, and about the human soul, by reflecting on the possibilities and (...) limitations of writing? These concerns, in various forms and in different registers, have preoccupied Michael Davis throughout his distinguished career. This volume is in honor of, and in dialogue with, Davis's work, which spans ancient philosophy and literature, continental philosophy and political philosophy. It includes original essays by numerous distinguished scholars in the fields of philosophy and political science. The remarkable range and caliber of the contributions attest to the breadth and depth of Davis's influence. The essays in Part I of the volume explore the nature of soul through the lens of tragedy. Part II consists of three essays that explore the human longing for perfect knowledge and completion--and the obstacles to the fulfilment of that longing--in relation to the divine. In Part III, the essays address the distinctive challenges of the political sphere and philosophy's relation to it. And while the relationship between philosophy and poetry is an implicit theme throughout the volume, the essays in Part IV focus directly on philosophy's aestheticizing tendencies. Many different philosophical and literary works are discussed throughout these chapters, including ancient works such as Plato's Republic, Euthydemus and Laws, Homer's Iliad, and Euripides' Trojan Women, as well as works by modern philosophers such as Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. In addition, three essays analyze some of Shakespeare's plays in relation to the thought of Plato and Machiavelli. All of the essays are thematically linked by a common thread as they attend to the poetic dimension of philosophical thinking. Michael Davis is Professor of Philosophy at Sarah Lawrence College, where he has taught since 1977 and has been the Sarah Yates Exley Chair in Teaching Excellence (2003-2005). He has also taught on the graduate faculty at Fordham University and the New School for Social Research. He is the author of numerous articles and books, which include: Ancient Tragedy and the Origins of Modern Science; The Poetry of Philosophy: On Aristotle's Poetics; The Politics of Philosophy: A Commentary on Aristotle's Politics; The Autobiography of Philosophy; Rousseau's The Reveries of the Solitary Walker; Wonderlust: Ruminations on Liberal Education; and The Soul of the Greeks: An Inquiry. He is also co-translator (with Seth Benardete) of Aristotle's On Poetics. Contributors include: Abraham Anderson, Jonathan Badger, Robert Berman, Ronna Burger, Kenneth DeLuca, Gwenda-lin Grewal, Scott Hemmenway, Paul Kirkland, Mary Nichols, Denise Schaeffer, Paul Stern, Richard Velkley, Lisa Pace Vetter, Ann Ward, Lee Ward, Catherine Zuckert and Michael Zuckert. About the Editor: Denise Schaeffer is Professor of Political Science at the College of the Holy Cross. She is the author of Rousseau on Education, Freedom and Judgment and contributing co-editor (with Christopher Dustin) of Socratic Philosophy and Its Others. She is co-editor (with Gregory McBrayer and Mary P. Nichols) of the Focus Philosophical Library edition of Plato's Euthydemus, for which she authored the Introduction and co-authored the Interpretive Essay. (shrink)

The similarities between the concept of cosmopolitanism and the concept of the world-state are, in some regards, fairly intuitive. At the very least, the theme of universalism is often seen as common to both. The precise form of a universalized ethical or political order, however, is not expressly conceptually determined by either cosmopolitanism or the world-state; both are susceptible to pluralist interpretations. Further, we cannot assume that an ethical concern will either motivate the creation of, or become a central policy (...) issue to, a world-state, in the way that a concern for moral universalism—sometimes referred to as ‘moral minimalism’—is inseparable from the cosmopolitan project more generally. Nor does cosmopolitanism have a necessary political component in the manner in which the world-state does. Nevertheless, we may assume that any form of global government should have some minimal degree of responsibility and concern for the welfare of all world-citizens. This paper considers Michael Walzer’s analysis of moral minimalism, and posits that this concept could form a common normativebasis for both moral cosmopolitanism and the reform of existing institutions of global governance, as well as having possible applications for the drafting of just policies for a potential world-state. (shrink)

Many philosophers of action, including Bratman and Mele, conceive intentions functionally, as executive states: intentions are mental states that represent an action and tend to cause this action. In the philosophical tradition (e.g. for Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Leibniz, Kant) another function of intentions, which may be called “volitive”, played a much more prominent role: intentions are mental states that represent what kind of actions we want and prefer to be realised and thus, in a possibly rational way, synthesise our motivational, (...) desiderative, and perhaps affective as well as cognitive attitudes towards this action. This paper argues that intentions must fulfil both functions and then develops a concept of ‘intention’ that integrates both functions. One reason for including the volitive function in the definition of ‘intention’ is that only via this function the value of actions as such is realised, namely to enable the person, the kernel of the self to express herself and to control the world. Various forms of dissociation of the two functions are discussed and a proposal how to deal with such cases in the definition of ‘intention’ is developed. (shrink)

Williams's classic 1980 article ‘Internal and External Reasons’ has attracted much criticism, but, in my view, has never been properly refuted. I wish to describe and defend Williams's account against three powerful criticisms by Michael Smith, John McDowell and Tim Scanlon. In addition, I draw certain implications from Williams's account – implications with which Williams would not necessarily agree – about the nature and the role of the personal in ethics. Williams's insight, that a reason (including a moral reason) (...) must find purchase in an agent's ‘subjective motivational set’ if it is to function as a reason at all, undermines a central assumption of many moral philosophers, realists and non‐cognitivists alike: that there exists a singular objective realm of moral facts and moral reasons supervening on the situation before the agent. According to this assumption, if two people facing that situation disagree about whether one of them has reason to Φ, then at least one of them must be mistaken. I reject this assumption and defend Williams's account, while pointing at ways in which the account might be developed. While the internalism‐externalism debate itself is well‐worn, there is still something new and important that can be gleaned from it. (shrink)

This article examines Hilary Putnam's work in the philosophy of mathematics and - more specifically - his arguments against mathematical realism or objectivism. These include a wide range of considerations, from Gödel's incompleteness-theorem and the limits of axiomatic set-theory as formalised in the Löwenheim-Skolem proof to Wittgenstein's sceptical thoughts about rule-following, Michael Dummett's anti-realist philosophy of mathematics, and certain problems – as Putnam sees them – with the conceptual foundations of Peano arithmetic. He also adopts a thought-experimental approach – (...) a variant of Descartes' dream scenario – in order to establish the in-principle possibility that we might be deceived by the apparent self-evidence of basic arithmetical truths or that it might be ‘rational’ to doubt them under some conceivable set of circumstances. Thus Putnam assumes that mathematical realism involves a self-contradictory ‘Platonist’ idea of our somehow having quasi-perceptual epistemic ‘contact’ with truths that in their very nature transcend the utmost reach of human cognitive grasp. On this account, quite simply, ‘nothing works’ in philosophy of mathematics since wecan either cling to that unworkable notion of objective truth or abandon mathematical realism in favour of a verificationist approach that restricts the range of admissible statements to those for which we happen to possess some means of proof or ascertainment. My essay puts the case, conversely, that these hyperbolic doubts are not forced upon us but result from a false understanding of mathematical realism – a curious mixture of idealist and empiricist themes – which effectively skews the debate toward a preordained sceptical conclusion. I then go on to mount a defence of mathematical realism with reference to recent work in this field and also to indicate some problems – as I seethem – with Putnam's thought-experimental approach as well ashis use of anti-realist arguments from Dummett, Kripke, Wittgenstein, and others. (shrink)

Response‐dispositional (RD) properties are standardly defined as those that involve an object's appearing thus or thus to some perceptually well‐equipped observer under specified epistemic conditions. The paradigm instance is that of colour or other such Lockean “secondary qualities”, as distinct from those—like shape and size—that pertain to the object itself, quite apart from anyone's perception. This idea has lately been thought to offer a promising alternative to the deadlocked dispute between hard‐line ‘metaphysical’ realists and subjectivists, projectivists, social constructivists, or hard‐line (...) anti‐realists. A chief source text is Plato's Euthyphro, where the issue is posed in ethical terms: do the gods infallibly approve virtuous acts on account of their divine moral omniscience or are virtuous acts just those the gods approve? Among the areas proposed as amenable to an RD approach are epistemology, ethics, political theory, and philosophy of mathematics. It is claimed that by making due allowance for the involvement of normalised or optimised human responses one can steer a course between the twin poles of an objectivist realism that places truth beyond our cognitive grasp and an epistemic conception that confines truth within the limits of humanly attainable proof, knowledge, or verification. Here I argue—on the contrary—that RD approaches can be shown to offer nothing more than a variant of the same old realist versus anti‐realist dilemma. That is, they work out either as a trivial (tautologous) claim that ‘truth’ simply equates with ‘best judgement’ in the ideal (quasi‐objective) limit or as the claim—advanced by anti‐realists like Michael Dummett—that we cannot form any adequate conception of objective (recognition‐transcendent) truths. After looking at this issue in various contexts of debate, I conclude that one useful (if pyrrhic) outcome is to demonstrate the non‐availability of any middle‐ground stance. We are left with the strictly unavoidable choice between a realist or objectivist approach and one that assimilates truth to the consensus of accredited best opinion. This latter amounts to a roundabout, elaborately qualified version of the anti‐realist case. (shrink)

One of this century’s most important philosophers here focuses on Plato’s Protagoras, Phaedo, Republic, and Philebus and on Aristotle’s three moral treatises to show the essential continuity of Platonic and Aristotelian reflection on the nature of the good.“Well translated and usefully annotated by P. Christopher Smith.... Gadamer’s book exhibits a broad and grand vision as well as a great love for the Greek thinkers.”-Alexander Nehemas, New York Times Book Review“The translation is highly readable. The translator’s introduction and frequent annotation (...) provide special elucidation on points of doctrinal complexity, giving ample references to other works and rival interpretations.”-Choice“This book is an important addition to the steadily growing number of Gadamer’s works available in English. In it, we see Gadamer at his best, that is, engaged in the practice of interpreting important texts from the philosophical tradition, and also at his most controversial.... I enthusiastically recommend this...challenging book as one that rewards all efforts to understand the important claims it makes on its readers.”-Francis J. Ambrosio, International Philosophy QuarterlyHans-Georg Gadamer is professor of philosophy emeritus at the University of Heidelberg. He is the author of numerous books, including two others translated by Smith: Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato and Hegel’s Dialectic: Five Hermeneutical Studies. (shrink)

One strategy for dealing with apparent cases of knowledge from falsehood is to deny that the knowledge actually is from a falsehood. Those endorsing such a move have suggested that cases of knowledge from falsehood are instead cases of knowledge despite falsehood. We here provide a dilemma for those wanting to reject the possibility of knowledge from falsehood. The dilemma is explained in part by examining recent attempts to deny that knowledge can be inferentially derived from falsehood.

Michael Esfeld has recently put forth his ontology of persons, with which he hopes to secure freedom and irreducible personhood as well as scientific realism, all by working with minimal ontological assumptions. I present his view and investigate it, finding it too minimalistic: Esfeld’s featureless matter points do not warrant an emergence of persons from matter, and his claim that persons can create themselves by adopting a normative attitude seems more like a just-so story. Also, Esfeld’s rejection of classical (...) mind-body dualism seems premature. I present as an alternative a modified mind-body dualism which solves the problems of Esfeld’s view and argue that embedding it in a theistic worldview is favorable for any account that seeks to establish irreducible personhood. (shrink)

The history of contractarian moral theory is long and varied. It includes the classic social contract theories of Hobbes (1651), Hume (1739/1740), and Kant (1785) as well as modern versions of these theories, such as those of Gauthier (1986), Scanlon (1998), Darwall (2006), and Southwood (2010). In Minimal Morality: A Multilevel Social Contract Theory (2018), I continue this tradition by developing a ‘multilevel social contract theory’ that combines Humean, Hobbesian, and Kantian moral features. In this article, I reply to comments (...) by Fred D’Agostino, John Thrasher, Christopher W. Morris, and Peter Vanderschraaf. I am deeply grateful for these commentators’ constructive and engaging comments that, in their own way, shed light on core assumptions and features of the theory. Due to space restrictions, I focus on what I consider to be the main criticisms and have organized my responses thematically. I hope that doing so will also help readers who are less familiar with my work to understand the relevance of multilevel social contract theory for morally diverse societies. (shrink)

When is a person justified in believing a proposition? In this paper, I defend a view according to which a person is justified in believing a proposition just in case the person’s evidence sufficiently supports the proposition and the person responsibly acquired and sustained the evidence that supports the proposition. This view overcomes a deficiency in a prominent theory of epistemic justification. As championed by Earl Conee and Richard Feldman, Evidentialism is a theory subject to counterexamples at the hands of (...) cases involving epistemic irresponsibility. I critically discuss such a case as put forward by Jason Baehr. After providing an argument that clarifies why the case is problematic for Evidentialism, I defend my argument from a response by Earl Conee. Then I develop a theory of epistemic justification capable of handling cases involving epistemic irresponsibility, and I defend this theory from evidentialist objections. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I argue for a new conception of the epistemic condition on moral responsibility.

Abstract This paper explores gender and mental health with particular reference to the emerging philosophical field of critical realism. This philosophy suggests a shared ontology and epistemology for the natural and social sciences. Until recently, most of the debate surrounding gender and mental health has been guided either implicitly or explicitly within a positivist or constructivist philosophy. With this in mind, key areas of critical realism are explored in relation to gender and mental health, and contrasted with the positions of (...) positivism and constructivism. It is argued that critical realism offers an alternative philosophical framework for the exploration of gender issues within mental health care. (shrink)

Hegel's first major philosophical work is one of philosophy's true masterpieces. Despite its notorious difficulty, it is one of the most influential philosophical works ever written. The Phenomenology is not only the first presentation of Hegel's system; it also is an account of the historical development of Geist from Greek tragedy to the triumph of philosophy as science in Hegel's own time. This volume of essays offers an interpretation of the spirit of Hegel's Phenomenology as well as a concise reading (...) of the main text. It discusses also the historical and philosophical background of Hegel's main work and takes note of its reception. Since the essays were written by philosophers from different countries—both established Hegel scholars and promising young researchers—this volume presents the reader with an international overview of recent Hegel research. The main goal of the collection is to offer students a hermeneutical tool for the reading of Hegel's masterpiece while opening up new fields of research for those who know Hegel and German philosophy well. The contributors are Christoph Asmuth, Klaus Brinkmann, Paul Cobben, Alfred Denker, Richard Findler, Jeffery Kinlaw, Angelica Nuzzo, Tom Rockmore, Dale Snow, Mike Vater, Ludovicus De Vos, Robert Williams, and Holger Zaborowski. (shrink)

Globalization leads to cross-border business transactions between societies with very different norms and regulations regarding bribery. Bribery in international business transactions can be seen as a function of not only the demand for such bribes in different countries, but the supply, or willingness to provide bribes by multinational firms and their representatives. This study addresses the propensity of firms from 30 different countries to engage in international bribery. The study incorporates both domestic (economic development, culture, and domestic corruption in the (...) supplying country) and international factors (those countries’ patterns of trade and involvement in international accords) in explaining the willingness to bribe abroad. The propensity to provide bribes was the lowest when corruption was not tolerated in the multinational firms’ home countries, when the firms’ countries were signatories of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) anti-bribery convention, and when those countries traded heavily with wealthier nations. Further, these findings are maintained when controlling for levels of economic development and cultural values in the supplying country. In terms of culture, firms from high power distance countries showed a somewhat greater propensity for providing bribes in transactions with less-developed nations. (shrink)

Michael Peters, Sonja Arndt & Marek TesarThis is a collective writing experiment of PESA members, including its Executive Committee, asking questions of the Philosophy of Education in a New Key. Co...

"Schelling has undergone his philosophical education before the public" - so G. W. F. Hegel in criticism of the novel systematic projects which his philosophical ally and later rival F. W. J. Schelling successively made public. Today, however, Hegel's derisive judgment can be seen not to hold: Instead, it is much rather the case that Schelling's productivity expresses the genuine continuity of his thought. Moreover, his thought is attractive precisely because it embodies an inconclusive - perhaps the never-ending - search (...) for an abiding philosophical orientation in an ever more complex world. The title both emphasizes the singularity of Schelling's thought and recognizes its profound relation to that of his contemporaries. This volume, which connects the latest work in Fichte-, Hegel- and Schelling-studies, contains original contributions in English and German on Schelling's philosophy from international group of researchers. (shrink)

There is a growing understanding that modern slavery is a phenomenon ‘hidden in plain sight’ in the home countries of multinational firms. Yet, business scholarship on modern slavery has so far focussed on product supply chains. To address this, we direct attention to the various institutional pressures on the UK construction industry, and managers of firms within it, around modern slavery risk for on-site labour. Based on a unique data set of 30 in-depth interviews with construction firm managers and directors, (...) we identify two institutional logics as being integral to explaining how these companies have responded to the Modern Slavery Act: a market logic and a state logic. While the institutional logics literature largely assumes that institutional complexity will lead to a conciliation of multiple logics, we find both complementarity and continued conflict in the logics in our study. Though we identify conciliation between aspects of the market logic and the state logic, conflict remains as engagement with actions which could potentially address modern slavery is limited by the trade-offs between the two logics. (shrink)

In this paper we re-examine the semantics of classical higher-order logic with the purpose of clarifying the role of extensionality. To reach this goal, we distinguish nine classes of higher-order models with respect to various combinations of Boolean extensionality and three forms of functional extensionality. Furthermore, we develop a methodology of abstract consistency methods (by providing the necessary model existence theorems) needed to analyze completeness of (machine-oriented) higher-order calculi with respect to these model classes.

A recent American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) clinical report states that it is an acceptable option for pediatric care clinicians to dismiss families who refuse vaccines. This is a clear shift in guidance from the AAP, which previously advised clinicians to “endeavor not to discharge” patients solely because of parental vaccine refusal. While this new policy might be interpreted as encouraging or recommending dismissal of vaccine-refusing families, it instead expresses tolerance for diverse professional approaches. This is unlike the earlier guidance, (...) which promoted a unified response to vaccine refusal. In fact, the resolution (which was presented at the AAP’s Annual Leadership Forum) that led to this clinical report also calls on the AAP “to continue to support pediatricians who continue to provide health care to children of parents who refuse to immunize their children.” However, the shift toward embracing dismissal as an acceptable response to vaccine refusal may erode professional solidarity. Pediatricians are clearly divided on this question; most do not dismiss vaccine-refusing families. By declaring that dismissal is an acceptable option, the AAP has sanctioned a practice that may be unfair to the many clinicians who do not dismiss these families. Clinicians who adopt a policy of dismissal toward families who refuse vaccines might impose burdens on colleagues who remain willing to offer care to those families, and their actions might show insufficient commitment to the efforts of their profession to promote health for all children. (shrink)

A regularity theory of causation analyses type-level causation in terms of Boolean difference-making. The essential ingredient that helps this theoretical framework overcome the problems of Hume’s and Mill’s classical accounts is a principle of non-redundancy: only Boolean dependency structures from which no elements can be eliminated track causation. The first part of this paper argues that the recent regularity theoretic literature has not consistently implemented this principle, for it disregarded an important type of redundancies: structural redundancies. Moreover, it is shown (...) that a regularity theory needs to be underwritten by a hitherto neglected metaphysical background assumption stipulating that the world's causal makeup is not ambiguous. Against that background, the second part then develops a new regularity theory that does justice to all types of redundancies and, thereby, provides the first all-inclusive notion of Boolean difference-making. (shrink)