L'une des tâches de la philosophie de la biologie contemporaine consiste à rechercher les conditions d'un usage des énoncés fonctionnels dont serait éliminée toute trace de causalité inversée ou d'interprétation mentaliste. Parmi les spécifications de l'idée d'un lien entre fonction et adaptation, la théorie de Millikan est remarquable en ceci qu'elle rend compte du divorce possible entre attribution légitime d'une fonction et absence de l'activité fonctionnelle correspondante, comme dans les cas de maladie ou d'atrophie congénitale. On peut montrer que la (...) distinction essentielle entre causes et moyens peut être comprise à partir d'une référence à l'opposition entre explication en termes de développement et explication en termes de sélection, à condition de reconnoître toute la portée de cette dernière. One aim of contemporary philosophy of biology is to secure a use of functional statements in which there would be no implication of reversed causation or anthropomorphic interpretation. Among the recent alternatives, Millikan's theory is most notable for the way it allows to explain the possible divorce between legitimate functional ascriptions and lack of corresponding functional activity, as in disease or congenital atrophy cases. It is argued that the crucial distinction between causes and means can be better understood with a reference to the contrast between developmental and selectional explanations. (shrink)

I am tasked with addressing philosophical hazards in the neuroscientific study of religion. As a philosopher concerned with the well-being of neuroscientists studying religion, I am inclined to begin with the philosophical hazards of philosophy. I am well aware of the extraordinary difficulties of both tasks, for the hazards are many and it is easy to miss the forest for the trees or the trees for the forest. Instead of focusing on one issue in great detail, I shall (...) hang a number of warning signs around a forest of issues that identify various philosophical hazards which deserve particular caution when it comes to neuroscience and religion. Since I am aiming for breadth over depth, my brief remarks on each issue shall be synoptic, non-exhaustive, contentious and suggestive for additional consideration and reflection. To redress such deficits, I have provided references for further reading. (shrink)

Multilevel research strategies characterize contemporary molecular inquiry into biological systems. We outline conceptual, methodological, and explanatory dimensions of these multilevel strategies in microbial ecology, systems biology, protein research, and developmental biology. This review of emerging lines of inquiry in these fields suggests that multilevel research in molecular life sciences has significant implications for philosophical understandings of explanation, modeling, and representation.

Qu'est-ce qui oriente la philosophie? Depuis Platon, le philosophe est celui qui tourne son regard vers le Bien et qui adopte une manière de vivre en accord avec sa pensée. Qu'est devenue cette manière de vivre comme exigence philosophique, pour un philosophe qui se laisse inspirer par la révélation chrétienne? Faut-il la nommer "sainteté"? Cet ouvrage présente six philosophes du XXe siècle qui ont cherché à accorder leur pensée et leur manière de vivre : Maurice Blondel, Erich Przywara, Simone Weil, (...) Aimé Forest, Michel Henry, Edith Stein. Des philosophes à l'écoute d'une inspiration qui oriente leur existence. La philosophie comme un acte de résistance spirituelle. Il y a là beaucoup à apprendre. (shrink)

Dans L'animal, l'homme, la fonction symbolique , Raymond Ruyer cherchait à caractériser la spécificité de l'homme à l'intérieur du monde biologique et il en distinguait trois traits constitutifs : le rôle modifié du cerveau, la transmission ou « hérédité » culturelle, la dimension symbolique du langage. Sa thèse était qu'il faut chercher dans le maniement des symboles ce qui rend possible les diverses manifestations de la culture, et qu'en vertu de cette origine commune, ces manifestations doivent être considérées comme indissociables. (...) Mais, il y a chez Ruyer, une troisième voie entre émergence et réduction. Il a, en ce qui concerne les symboles, une dette à l'égard de Cassirer et surtout de Susanne Langer. Enfin les acquis en éthologie cognitive et les recherches contemporaines sur l'évolution de la faculté du langage permettent d'apprécier avec quelque scepticisme la position de Ruyer. In Vanimal, Vhomme, la fonction symbolique , Raymond Ruyer tried to define the specificity of man within the biological world, distinguishing three characteristic features: the modified role of the brain, cultural transmission or "heredity", the symbolic dimension of language. He argued that one had to consider the manipulation of symbols as what makes possible the manifestations of culture, and that, because of their common origin, these manifestations should be held to be intricately linked. This paper focuses on the alternative to emergence and reduction that Ruyer intends to define, and elaborates, with respect to symbols, his debt towards Ernst Cassirer and, most notably, Susanne K. Langer. Finally, it provides a skeptical examination of Ruyer's position, drawing on the results of cognitive ethology and on contemporary research on the evolution of the linguistic faculty. (shrink)

Qu’elle soit ingrate ou réussie, la vieillesse soulève des questions incontournables : celles de la mort et de la souffrance, de la responsabilité et de la vulnérabilité. Du silence et de la parole aussi. Être vulnérable, c’est être fragile, friable ; c’est avoir besoin de son prochain. La vulnérabilité est liée, notamment, à la maladie, au grand âge, à la dépendance ou au fardeau de l’aide. Or, les personnes aidées et aidantes sont surtout des femmes. Il y a les femmes (...) du grand âge et les femmes de tous les âges, qui exécutent à leurs côtés, bénévolement, un travail domestique de santé. Faisons apparaître les obstacles au respect des droits et au pouvoir d’agir de ce « couple vulnérable » aidant-aidé, dans une perspective critique et féministe du droit et de l’éthique. Brisons le silence. (shrink)

The field of AI safety aims to prevent increasingly capable artificially intelligent systems from causing humans harm. Research on moral alignment is widely thought to offer a promising safety strategy: if we can equip AI systems with appropriate ethical rules, according to this line of thought, they'll be unlikely to disempower, destroy or otherwise seriously harm us. Deontological morality looks like a particularly attractive candidate for an alignment target, given its popularity, relative technical tractability and commitment to harm-avoidance principles. I (...) argue that the connection between moral alignment and safe behavior is more tenuous than many have hoped. In general, AI systems can possess either of these properties in the absence of the other, and we should favor safety when the two conflict. In particular, advanced AI systems governed by standard versions of deontology need not be especially safe. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In MemoriamForest HansenKingsley Blake Price, Professor of Philosophy at The Johns Hopkins University for more than three decades, died in Baltimore on October 27, 2009, at the age of 92. He had long served as an editorial consultant for PMER and participated in numerous PME international symposia. His personal and academic life drew admiration from his colleagues, students, and friends (overlapping classes).Kingsley was born in Salem, Indiana, where his (...) father was a Baptist minister. The family moved from there to California, and Kingsley grew up in Berkeley. He earned his B.A. with highest honors from University of California, Berkeley (1938) and went on there for his M.A. (1942) and Ph.D. (1946). His dissertation was on Locke’s theory of knowledge. Kingsley taught first at the University of Washington, then at the University of Nevada and Sarah Lawrence College (where he became a good friend of Susanne Langer) before becoming an assistant professor of philosophy and education at Hopkins in 1953. He retired from Hopkins in 1986. In the meantime he published books and articles, presented invited papers, and traveled extensively, especially to England, France, Italy, and Greece. In 1973–74 he was president of the Philosophy of Education Society.What is especially remarkable about this is that Kingsley became blind at the age of four, as a result of undiagnosed scarlet fever. For the rest of his life he was dependent upon others to read to him (he was never keen on taped readings, and was a consultant to the Library of Congress concerning recordings for the blind). He also needed others to help him with daily practical tasks. Yet he remained fiercely independent and lived alone until his death. He did not use a seeing-eye dog and only rarely a white cane.Besides his two books, Education and Philosophical Thought (1962) and On [End Page 194] Criticizing Music (1982), Kingsley published numerous articles and reviews in the Journal of Philosophy, the Review of Metaphysics, the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Educational Theory, the British Journal of Aesthetics, the Philosophy of Music Education Review, and others. His publications were mostly on topics of art (especially music) and education. He had long been working on a manuscript of reflections upon the alleged emotional qualities of music. Kingsley criticized other theories as having inconsistent of otherwise insupportable claims. Some of his former students hope to bring this work to fruition as a book.Kingsley took piano lessons as a youngster and, typically, excelled. As a teenager he placed second in a Major Bowes Amateur Hour radio competition and considered a career as a concert pianist. When one former student asked why he had not pursued that, Kingsley replied that philosophy was more in need of an excellent philosopher than music was of an only good pianist.A February memorial for Kingsley was postponed because of a blizzard in the Baltimore area. On April 25, 2010, former graduate students, readers, colleagues, and friends—some from as far away as California, Wyoming, Hawaii, and Florida—gathered in Baltimore to honor Kingsley and share their remembrances. Besides their expressions of admiration for his philosophical acumen and his rigorous teaching, people noted Kingsley’s high moral principles, his wide range of interests in the humanities, his commitment to efforts promoting world peace, and his connoisseurship in gardening and antique furniture. Many graduate students rode with him on his tandem bicycle, and later invited him to give papers at their colleges. He was a meticulous dresser and was proud of his bow ties, his four-in-hands, and his beret. Besides such personal testimonies by those present, letters by family members, friends abroad, former graduate students, and other friends were read. Photographs were on display, and recordings of some of Kingsley’s favorites by Bach, Schubert, and Vaughan Williams were played.Above all, Kingsley was that rare professor who maintained friendship with many of his students. He is survived by an older brother, two sisters, and numerous nephews, nieces, and their offspring. And by his many friends for whom his life has made a lasting impact. [End Page 195]Forest HansenEaston, Maryland Professor Emeritus, Lake Forest College forestval2... (shrink)

Cet essai a été présenté à l’atelier sur La démocratie de l’espace et l’espace de la démocratie, qui a eu lieu à Newcastle, en Angleterre, le 11 janvier 2008. Une version antérieure a été présentée à l’Université de Tokyo le 13 novembre 2007. Il sera publié en néerlandais, traduit par Freek Jansens, sous le titre “het plannen van ruimtes van (on)mogelijkheid” dans une collection éditée par Maarten Hajer et Jantine Grijzen sur les questions de politique contemporaine. Il a été traduit (...) de l’anglais par Martin Blanchard et révisé par Daniel Weinstock. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In Memoriam: Bennett ReimerForest HansenIn late afternoon on January 9, 2014, family members, colleagues, former students, and other friends met at Northwestern University to reflect upon and honor the life of Bennett Reimer, who had died from cancer on November 18, 2013 at the age of 81. The printed program fittingly called it a “Memorial Celebration,” because that is what it was. Fine wine and savory hors d’oeuvres were (...) served, a woodwind quartet of Bienen School of Music graduate students played Reimer favorites, and Beth Hebert, Bennett’s life partner of 27 years, greeted every person as they entered the hall. Reimer would have approved of the exuberant tastefulness of the event. He would probably have blushed and demurred, however, when in the formal part of the program his colleagues, daughters, and former students praised him in recalling specific occasions of his mentoring, inspiring, modeling, guiding, collaborating, and originating. (In his writing Reimer loved such extensive discriminatory lists.) Included among the expressions of respect and affection were these words by Estelle Jorgensen, who could not be present, read by Randall Allsup: [End Page 101]We have lost a wonderful person who lived life richly and made an outstanding contribution to the field of music education and beyond. In honor of his work as a philosopher of music education, among the many facets of his professional life, the Philosophy of Music Education Review will have a special issue devoted to the ideas that he left us, contributed by prominent music educational leaders and writers. Such moments of professional loss leave a rent in our midst that can never quite be patched. Along with our sorrow is our memory of the joy, idealism, and hope that characterized his lived life. We cling collectively to the memories of the blessings he brought us in simply being Bennett.Reimer was born on June 19, 1932 in Brooklyn, where he grew up. He earned a B.S. in music education in 1954 at SUNY at Fredonia and an M.S. (1955) and Ed.D. (1963) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His teaching career started at the Richmond Professional Institute of the College of William and Mary (1955–57) and continued at Madison College (Harrisburg VA) (1958–1960) and the University of Illinois (1960–65). At Case Western Reserve University (1965–1978), he became chair of the Music Education Department and holder of the Kulas Endowed Chair in Music. Then at Northwestern University he held the John W. Beattie Chair in Music from 1978 until his retirement in 1997. He chaired the Music Education Department there, directed the doctoral program in music education, and founded and directed the Center for the Study of Education and the Musical Experience—a weekly research forum for graduate students and faculty. Although Reimer had started out as an instructor in clarinet and oboe, musical theory, conducting, and music appreciation, he became a scholar, teacher, and lecturer in the new field of philosophy of music education with a worldwide following and reputation.Reimer was most noted for his seminal A Philosophy of Music Education (1970), which can fittingly be described as the founding document of the discipline. Typically he made revisions for the second edition in 1989 and more radical ones for the third edition in 2003, retitled as A Philosophy of Music Education: Advancing the Vision. This work has been translated into French, Japanese, and Chinese, and, forthcoming, Greek. He was associated with PMER and the International Society for Philosophy of Music Education (ISPME) from their beginnings in 1990.Besides his seminal works, Reimer wrote or co-wrote another twenty books and more than 150 articles, reviews, and book chapters. A few of his book titles indicate the range of his thought, from his early and widely used textbooks The Experience of Music (1971) for college students and Silver Burdett Music for grades 1–8 to his more recent Performing with Understanding: The Challenge of the National Standards for Musical Education (2000), World Musics and Music [End Page 102] Education: Facing the Issues (2002), and Seeking the Significance of Music Education (2009). He was an active participant and leader in a host of other music... (shrink)

Both the physiological and the pathological morphogenetic processes that we can meet in embryogenesis, neogenesis and degenerative dysgenesis present common features: they are ruled by three different kinds of mechanisms, one related to cell migration, the second to cell differentiation and the third to cell proliferation. We deal here with an application to the cambial growth which essentially involves the third type of mechanism.Woody plants produce secondary tissue (secondary xylem and phloem) from a meristematic tissue called vascular cambium, responsible for (...) the radial growth of a tree. This paper focuses on the formation of secondary xylem, considered in two dimensions in a cross-section framework. A new discrete modelling approach is used, based on the cellular scale, in order to attain a more accurate understanding of how the elementary microscopic behaviour of each cell takes part in the macroscopic morphogenesis. The mathematical model essentially uses an occurrence method simulating the main features of radial growth with simple geometric rules, such as Thom's division rule (Thom,1972)to account for the cell proliferation. The study applies to concrete instances in which the changes made in the geometrical cellular patterns of the vascular cambium clearly affect the shape of the tree, as in Pinus radiata (D. Don.). (shrink)

We perceive smells as perduring complex entities within a distal array that might be conceived of as smellscapes. However, the philosophical orthodoxy of Odor Theories has been to deny that smells are perceived as having a distal location. Recent challenges have been mounted to Odor Theories’ veracity in handling the timescale of olfactory perception, how it individuates odors as a distal entities, and their claim that olfactory perception is not spatial. The paper does not aim to dispute these criticisms. Rather, (...) what will be shown is that Molecular Structure Theory, a refinement of Odor Theory, can be further developed to handle these challenges. The theory is further refined by focusing on distal perception that requires considering the perceptual object as mereologically complex persisting odor against a background scene conceived of as a smellscape. What will be offered is an expansion of Molecular Structure Theory to account for distal smell perception within natural environments. (shrink)

La théorie étiologique définit les fonctions biologiques en faisant référence à l'action passée de la sélection naturelle. Elle peut ainsi permettre de définir les pathologies comme des dysfonctionnements : il y a pathologie lorsqu'un composant x de l'organisme ne fait plus ce qu'il est censé faire et qui a conduit à le retenir dans le passé de l'histoire évolutive. On peut distinguer trois problèmes qui attendent les partisans de cette solution. Le premier est celui de la conciliation entre deux visées (...) différentes : la théorie de l'évolution peut-elle à la fois contribuer à l'explication du fait récurrent de la maladie (ce que vise une « médecine darwinienne ») et permettre une démarcation entre normal et pathologique ? Le second problème est celui des exceptions : en certains cas, une incapacité acquise a bien valeur de pathologie, mais la présence de la capacité correspondante ne s'explique pas par la sélection, ce qui ôte à la proposition initiale son caractère de nécessité conceptuelle. Enfin, la réalisation d'un trait peut être à la fois atypique et adaptative, ce qui fragilise la notion de normalité biologique impliquée par la théorie étiologique. Ces problèmes sont sérieux et l'article examine pour conclure si un autre concept de fonction, le concept systémique, ne pourrait pas mieux convenir moyennant quelques ajustements, à la philosophie de la médecine. Etiological theory defines biological functions in reference to the past action of natural selection. Accordingly, it may define pathological states as dysfunctional states : component x being in a pathological state would mean x no longer does what it is still supposed to do, that is, what it has been designed to do in past evolutionary history. There are three problems with this solution. First, it may prove difficult to reconcile the evolutionary explanation of the recurring fact of disease (the purpose of a « Darwinian medicine ») and the suggested demarcation between the normal and the pathological. Second, we may think of cases where a certain capacity is impaired, this impairment being clearly a pathology, and where, nonetheless, the explanation of why the corresponding capacity is there is by no means selective. This weakens the initial proposition because it thereby loses its alleged conceptual necessity. Thirdly, a biological feature may be expressed in a way that is both atypical and adaptive, i.e. a challenge to the idea of biological normality involved in etiological theory. These seem to be quite serious problems and one may ask if another concept of function, the systemic concept with a number of adjustments, would not be better suited to the ends of the philosophy of medicine. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill examine dans le dernier des Trois Essais sur la religion l’argument du Dessein. Ce faisant, il l’évalue selon les normes épistémiques définies dans le Système de logique en dressant un parallèle avec l’hypothèse présentée par Darwin dans L’Origine des espèces. Pour comprendre le verdict nuancé rendu par Mill, il faut faire intervenir trois niveaux d’analyse : la relation entre méthode inductive et méthode hypothétique (théorie de la connaissance), le choix du phénoménalisme qui limite l’engagement naturaliste (métaphysique), la (...) question de l’espoir raisonnable (philosophie morale). La philosophie de la religion engage ainsi l’unité de la philosophie de Mill. (shrink)