This essay reviews six different approaches to intellectual property. It and argues that none of these accounts provide an adequate justification of intellectual property laws and policies because (1) there are many different types of intellectual property, and (2) a variety of incommensurable values play a role in the justification of intellectual property. The best approach to intellectual property is to assess and balance competing moral values in light of the particular facts and circumstances.

We define a class of formal systems inspired by Prawitz’s theory of grounds. The latter is a semantics that aims at accounting for epistemic grounding, namely, at explaining why and how deductively valid inferences have the power to epistemically compel to accept the conclusion. Validity is defined in terms of typed objects, called grounds, that reify evidence for given judgments. An inference is valid when a function exists from grounds for the premises to grounds for the conclusion. Grounds are described (...) by formal terms, either directly when the terms are in canonical form, or indirectly when they are in non-canonical form. Non-canonical terms must reduce to canonical form, and two terms may be said to be equal when they converge towards equivalent grounds. In our systems these properties can be proved through rules distinguished according to whether they concern types or logic. Type rules involve type introduction and elimination, equality for application of operational symbols, and re-writing equations for non-canonical terms. The logic amounts to a sort of intuitionistic system in a Gentzen format. To conclude, we show that each system of our class enjoys a normalization property. (shrink)

The question of whether our conscious experience is rich or sparse remains an enduring controversy in philosophy. The “overflow” account argues that perceptual consciousness is far richer than cognitive access: when perceiving a complex scene, subjects see more than they can report. This paper draws on aphantasia to propose a new argument in favor of overflow. First, it shows that opponents of overflow explain subjects’ performance in a change detection paradigm by appealing to a type of “internal imagery.” (...) Second, it provides empirical evidence to demonstrate that aphantasics are incapable of generating this imagery. However, aphantasics perform equally well in this task; and so the no-overflow account fails to explain their performance. This means that proponents of this view are committed to an unsupported view of perception. (shrink)

Despite its preeminent position in the just war tradition, the concept of proportionality is not well understood by military leaders. Especially lacking is a realization that there are four distinct types of proportionality. In determining whether a particular resort to war is just, national leaders must consider the proportionality of the conflict, i.e., balance the expected gain or just redress against the total harm likely to be inflicted by the impending armed action. This proportionality consideration is called jus ad bellum (...) proportionality. The second type of proportionality discussed is a continuing re-evaluation of the proportionality, taking into account the changing situation. The last true proportionality discussed is a consideration of hostile action taking during a conflict, or jus in bello proportionality. This consideration weighs the expected military gain of a particular action against the collateral damage and injuries that are expected from the act. Finally, the fourth category addressed is ‘political proportionality’, which is not a true proportionality consideration, but is rather self-interested deliberation on the possible political and military outcomes of actions. In some instances, it could be referred to as a measured response. A better understanding of proportionality in all its forms will help military leaders to give appropriate and moral advice on the potential resort to war, as well as on the conduct of military actions in war. The recent US war with Iraq in the spring of 2003 in defiance of the wishes of the majority of the UN Security Council, and especially with the potential for high noncombatant casualties in Baghdad, makes a discussion of the proper conduct of war even more poignant. (shrink)

The aim of the present paper is to give a purely probabilistic account for the approach to equilibrium of classical and quantum gas. The probability function used is classical. The probabilistic dynamics describes the evolution of the state of the gas due to unary and binary collisions. A state change amounts to a destruction in a state and the creation in another state. Transitions probabilities are splittled into destructions terms, denoting the random choice of the colliding particle(s), and creation (...) terms, describing the allocation of the same particle(s) on the final state(s). While the destruction term is the same for all types of particles, the creation one depends upon a parameter bound to the interpraticle correlation. The transition probabilities give rise to a homogeneous Markov chain. The equilibrium distributions satisfy the principle of detailed balance. Relaxation times depend upon the interparticle correlation. Relationships with the Ehrenfest urn model, Brillouin unified method, ensemble interpretation, and quantum H-theorem are considered too. (shrink)

This paper explores R.G. Collingwood's argument that a new type of archaeology, taking fairy tales as its subject matter, is capable of expanding our historical knowledge of cultural practices. I suggest that it is interesting from the point of view of current discussions about cosmopolitanism and communitarianism and also for understanding past practices, such as magic, without having to attribute failure of reasoning or a breakdown in mentality to the participants, as Le Roy Ladurie does. Collingwood maintains that the (...) natural sciences are unsuitable models for the human sciences. They are incapable of distinguishing between the inside and outside of an event. They do not acknowledge that a historical process is very different from a natural process. In addition, the natural sciences cannot take account of the self-critical or criteriological aspect of thought. Human sciences are criteriological in that they are capable of taking individuals who formulate intentions and purposes, and employ criteria to judge the extent to which they succeed or fail. Thought is self-critical, and to say that a certain thought conforms to a type of neurosis is to ignore its criteriological character. The implication is that when magic is viewed as bad science, or a failure in rationality, the criteriological character of magical thought is being denied. When magic is understood as an integral part of fairy tales and as a practice designed to arouse specific emotions to be channelled into practical effects, such as to inspire courage in warriors in battle, its character as purposive and intentional thought is being acknowledged. (shrink)

I propose and defend a proof-based account of legal exceptions. The basic thought is that the characteristic behaviour of exceptions is to be explained in terms of the distinction, relative to some given decision-type C in some decision-making context, between two classes of relevant facts: those that may, and those that may not, remain uncertain if a token decision C is to count as correctly made. The former is the class of exceptions. A fact F is an exception (...) relative to some decision-type C, I claim, if (i) the ascertainment of F is sufficient for a token decision C not to count as correctly made, and (ii) the ascertainment of the negation of F is not necessary for a token decision C to count as correctly made. I also recuperate, reconstruct and discuss some of HLA Hart’s early views on defeasible judicial decisions. These two projects are closely connected: the latter is a vehicle for the former. (shrink)

Mental Imagery, whereby we experience aspect of a perceptual scene or perceptual object in the absence of direct sensory stimulation is ubiquitous. Often the existence of mental imagery is demonstrated by asking one’s reader to volitionally generate a visual object, such as closing ones eyes and imagining an apple. However, mental imagery also arises in auditory, tactile, interoceptive, and olfactory cases. A number of influential philosophical theories have attempted to explain mental imagery in terms of belief-based forms of representation using (...) the Dependence Thesis, dependence upon means of access, such as enactivism, or in terms of the similarity of content with perceptual processing. The focus of this paper concerns the later approach and in particular assessing if Nanay’s promissory note that his theory is applicable to modalities other than vision, such as smell, seems likely to be of theoretical tender. The thesis argued for in this paper is that olfactory imagery exists and is best accounted for by considering it as a type of perceptual processing with a unique representational format relative to the olfactory perceptual modality. The paper concludes by summarizing the applicability of Nanay’s theory of mental imagery for olfaction and suggests some further issues that arise when transitioning to multi-modal mental imagery. (shrink)

Most philosophers of criminal law agree that between criminal offences and defences there is a significant, substantial difference. It is a difference, however, that has proved hard to pin down. In recent work, Duff and others have suggested that it mirrors the distinction between criminal answerability and liability to criminal punishment. Offence definitions, says Duff, are—and ought to be—those action-types ‘for which a defendant can properly be called to answer in a criminal court, on pain of conviction and condemnation if (...) she cannot offer an exculpatory answer’; and defences are ‘exculpatory answers’ that ‘block the transition from responsibility to liability’. I criticise this answerability-based account of the offence/defence divide. It is descriptively false, I claim, as well as normatively unappealing. (shrink)

In this work we study, design, and evaluate computational methods to support interpretation of statutory terms. We propose a novel task of discovering sentences for argumentation about the meaning of statutory terms. The task models the analysis of past treatment of statutory terms, an exercise lawyers routinely perform using a combination of manual and computational approaches. We treat the discovery of sentences as a special case of ad hoc document retrieval. The specifics include retrieval of short texts, specialized document types, (...) and, above all, the unique definition of document relevance provided in detailed annotation guidelines. To support our experiments we assembled a data set comprising 42 queries which we plan to release to the public in the near future in order to support further research. Most importantly, we investigate the feasibility of developing a system that responds to a query with a list of sentences that mention the term in a way that is useful for understanding and elaborating its meaning. This is accomplished by a systematic assessment of different features that model the sentences’ usefulness for interpretation. We combine features into a compound measure that accounts for multiple aspects. The definition of the task, the assembly of the data set, and the detailed task analysis provide a solid foundation for employing a learning-to-rank approach. (shrink)

Much of the recent philosophical discussion about free will has been focused on whether compatibilists can adequately defend how a determined agent could exercise the type of free will that would enable the agent to be morally responsible in what has been called the basic desert sense :5–24, 1994; Fischer in Four views on free will, Wiley, Hoboken, 2007; Vargas in Four views on free will, Wiley, Hoboken, 2007; Vargas in Philos Stud, 144:45–62, 2009). While we agree with Derk (...) Pereboom and others that the compatibilist’s burden should be properly understood as providing a compelling account of how a determined agent could be morally responsible in the basic desert sense, the exact nature of this burden has been rendered somewhat unclear by the fact that there has been no definitive account given as to what the basic desert sense of moral responsibility amounts to. In Sect. 1 we set out to clarify the compatibilist’s burden by presenting our account of basic desert moral responsibility—which we call retributivist desert moral responsibility for purposes of clarity—and explain why it is of central philosophical and practical importance to the free will debate. In Sect. 2 we employ a thought experiment to illustrate the kind of difficulty that compatibilists of any stripe are likely to encounter in attempting to explain how determined agents can exercise the kind of free will needed for retributivist desert moral responsibility. (shrink)

Social media is changing social accountability practices. The release of the Panama Papers on April 3, 2016 by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) unleashed a tsunami of over 5 million tweets decrying corrupt politicians and tax-avoiding business elites, calling for policy change from governments, and demanding accountability from corporate and private tax avoiders. The current study uses 297,000+ original English-language geo-codable tweets with the hashtags #PanamaGate, #PanamaPapers, or #PanamaLeaks to examine the trajectory of Twitter-based social accountability conversations and (...) the potential for the emergence of a longer-term social accountability user network. We propose that it is the combination of financial inscriptions and evaluative ethical utterances that incite and sustain social accountability conversations and social accountability networks. Financial inscriptions simultaneously remind audiences of both the information event that fomented the initial public reaction and the monetary magnitude of the event. Value-based ethical messaging, in turn, enunciates an ethical stance that simultaneously evaluates existing practices and emphasizes the need for accountability. It is the combining of these two types of messaging that helps to construct and sustain a normative narrative about social accountability. The results illustrate how the repetition and re-working of these two forms of messaging facilitated the construction of a normative narrative that coalesced into a social accountability network which persisted beyond the initial Panama Paper information event and which was re-activated in 2017 when the ICIJ published the Paradise Papers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 38.1 (2000) 87-101 [Access article in PDF] Collingwood on Re-Enactment and The Identity of Thought Giuseppina D'oro University of Keele Collingwood's The Idea of History is often discussed in the context of the issue of the reducibility/non-reducibility of explanations in the social sciences to explanations in the natural sciences. In the 1950s and 60s, following the publication of Hempel's influential article, "The Function (...) of General Laws in History,"1 many looked at Collingwood's defence of the autonomy of history as providing the appropriate conceptual resources to counter Hempel's claim that explanations in history and in the natural sciences share the same logical structure. Collingwood was recruited as an ally in a number of debates in analytical philosophy of history with a view to clarifying the nature of appropriately historical explanations and the proper subject matter of historical science. In this paper, I wish to consider Collingwood's account of historical understanding from a related but distinct perspective, that is, I wish to consider re-enactment from the perspective of Collingwood's (controversial) claim that thought stands outside time, and that it is because thought stands outside time that it is possible to understand the thoughts of other agents, including those of agents who lived in a distant past. Although Collingwood's account of re-enactment is developed in the context of his philosophy of history, it addresses some very general issues within the philosophy of mind. It is with Collingwood's approach to these general issues that the present paper is concerned: First, I explicate Collingwood's account of re-enactment against the background of his philosophy of mind and, second, attempt to show that one important goal of Collingwood's account of re-enactment is to undermine a certain type of scepticism about the possibility of sharing the thoughts of others, rather than provide a straightforward refutation of this sceptical position. While I believe Collingwood's claim that thought stands outside time to have important repercussions on how to understand [End Page 87] issues more closely related to the philosophy of history, I will not attempt, for reasons of space, to cash out these implications here.In The Idea of History2 the concept of re-enactment is expounded largely via an engagement with an imaginary objector. The position that Collingwood attributes to the imaginary objector can be preliminarily summarized as saying that the objector identifies thoughts with token acts of thinking which can be spatio-temporally located, rather than with the propositional content expressed by those token acts. It is because the objector holds thoughts to be token acts which can be spatio-temporally located that s/he denies that two agents can have or share one and the same thought. Collingwood's reply to the imaginary objector relies on a philosophy of mind that is developed elsewhere3 but whose key elements are presupposed by his discussion of re-enactment in The Idea of History, and essential to an understanding of Collingwood's position.4An important aspect of Collingwood's philosophy of mind concerns his understanding of what is meant by an 'object of thought': When I call a thing subjective I mean that it is or pertains to a subject or conscious mind. When I call it objective I mean that it is or pertains to the object of which such a mind is conscious. I do not call a real rose objective and an imaginary one subjective, or the molecules in it objective and the beauty of it subjective. A real rose I call real and an imaginary rose I call imaginary; and I call them both objective because they are the objects of a perceiving and imagining mind respectively. (SM, 11)5For the sake of clarity I shall refer to the subjective/objective distinction as used by Collingwood as subjective2 and objective2 and to the subjective/objective distinction against which it is contrasted as subjective1 and objective1. Objective1 means existing in... (shrink)

It is arguably the case that olfactory system contains two senses that share the same type of stimuli, sensory transduction mechanism, and processing centers. Yet, orthonasal and retronasal olfaction differ in their types of perceptible objects as individuated by their sensory qualities. What will be explored in this paper is how the account of orthonasal smell developed in the Molecular Structure Theory of smell can be expanded for retronasal olfaction (Young, 2016, 2019a-b, 2020). By considering the object of (...) olfactory perception to be the molecular structure of chemical compounds composing odor plumes, Molecular Structure Theory provides a means for determining an odor’s olfactory quality, how odors can be identified and individuated, and how we perceive smellscapes. Surveying the differences between orthonasal and retronasal olfaction provides the basis for the central argument of the paper that the perceptible objects we refer to as smells and individuated on the basis of their olfactory qualities are only relative to orthonasal olfaction. Retronasal olfaction it is speculatively concluded might play an essential role in our perception of flavorful objects. (shrink)

Originally published in 1957, the primary aim of this study was to shed light upon the logical character of the psychology of perception. D.W. Hamlyn begins by delimiting the field of psychological inquiry into perception, then gives a detailed account of the types of explanation appropriate in the field. He maintains that these explanations have certain important peculiarities which distinguish them from other scientific inquiries. In view of the central importance of Gestalt Theory in this field an account (...) is given of its origins, and its main features are critically discussed. The work should still be of considerable interest to both philosophers and psychologists, as well as to all those interested in the relations between the two subjects. (shrink)

The familiar Vendler-Kenny scheme of verb-types, viz., performances (further differentiated by Vedler into accomplishments and achievements), activities, and states, is too narrow in two important respects. First, it is narrow linguistically. It fails to take into account the phenomenon of verb aspect. The trichotomy is not one of verbs as lexical types but of predications. Second, the trichotomy is narrow ontologically. It is a specification in the context of human agency of the more fundamental, topic-neutral trichotomy, event-process-state.The central component (...) in this ontological trichotomy, event, can be sharply differentiated from its two flanking components by adapting a suggestion by Geoffrey N. Leech and others that the contrast between perfective and imperfective aspect in verbs corresponds to the count/mass distinction in the domain of nouns. With the help of two distinctions, of cardinal count adverbials versus frequency adverbials, and of occurrence versus associated occasion, two interrelated criteria for event predication are developed. Accordingly, Mary capsized the boat is an event predication because (a) it is equivalent to There was at least one capsizing of the boat by Mary, or (b) because it admits cardinal count adverbials, e.g., at least once, twice, three times. Ontologically speaking, events are defined as those occurrences that are inherently countable. (shrink)

Respect for autonomy is an important moral principle within medical ethics. However, the question of whether the normative importance of respect for autonomy is derived from other moral principles (such as welfare) or has independent moral value is debatable. In this paper it is argued that the normative importance of autonomy is derived from both welfare and non-welfare considerations. Welfare considerations provide two types of reason to respect autonomy, one related to the role of autonomy in creating welfare and one (...) related to its role in constituting welfare. In addition, autonomy seems to have normative importance that is unrelated to welfare considerations. This type of normative role is difficult to defend within medical ethics, because most non-welfare justifications of autonomy work for only a proportion of the autonomous decisions that patients make and give no clear guidance on how to respond to autonomous yet welfare-reducing treatment requests. A recent account of autonomy (Stephen Darwall’s “demand” account) provides a nuanced defence of autonomy that does not rely on welfare considerations. Darwall’s approach seems to work well within medical ethics and provides a principled explanation of how to respond to autonomous patient requests for treatment options that may not be in their best medical interests. It is argued that to fully respect autonomy within a medical consultation, practitioners must consider non-welfare autonomy as well as instrumental and intrinsic welfare-related autonomy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Nietzsche. His Philosophy of Contradictions and the Contradictions of His PhilosophyAlan D. SchriftWolfgang Müller-Lauter. Nietzsche. His Philosophy of Contradictions and the Contradictions of His Philosophy. Translated from the German by David J. Parent. Foreword by Richard Schacht. Ghicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999. Pp. xviii + 246. Paper, $21.95.Since this work first appeared in 1971, Wolfgang Müller-Lauter has been at the forefront of German Nietzsche scholarship. The long (...) overdue appearance in English translation of this important work is a welcome addition to the Nietzsche literature and, although dated in some respects, it remains an important work that warrants careful attention. As Richard Schacht notes in his foreword, the original publication of this work was a significant event in the history of Nietzsche studies in Germany. Coming ten years after the publication of Heidegger's massive two-volume Nietzsche, Müller-Lauter's book "provided a much-needed counterweight" to Heidegger's idiosyncratic treatment (ix). Aside from proferring a significant rejoinder to the Heideggerian interpretation, Müller-Lauter also responds to a vast array of German Nietzsche scholars, some well-known (K. Löwith, K. Jaspers, E. Fink, K. Schlechta), but many much less familiar. As such, this book is an important piece of historical scholarship, offering the contemporary English-speaking reader an interesting picture of German scholarship on Nietzsche before Heidegger's work took center stage as the dominant (unfortunately, some would say only) German work worth engaging.But Müller-Lauter's book is not just of historical interest; it offers a powerful and profound reading of Nietzsche's corpus focused on the question of contradiction, both the contradictions readers find amidst Nietzsche's various works and Nietzsche's own philosophy of contradiction, namely, that contradictoriness is in some sense constitutive of the world. For Müller-Lauter, contradiction, the unresolvable conflict between essentially antithetical perspectives, grounds Nietzsche's philosophizing in wills to power. Emphasizing the plurality of conflicting wills to power, Müller-Lauter offers in successive chapters interpretations of Nietzsche's views on history as the "concrete occurrences" of these conflicting wills to power; nihilism as the process by which an organized system of forces (physical, social, intellectual, cultural) disintegrates into an antagonistic multiplicity of competing wills; morality as demanding truths that, once discovered, it can neither face nor accept, fleeing instead into a fictitious world of its own creation; Christian truthfulness as a destruction of truth that presents a "multiplicity of mutually opposing untruths" (72). All of these interpretations are shown to rest upon a contradiction at the heart of Nietzsche's own account of will to power, namely, that the strong will to power both affirms the multiplicity of perspectives and yet imposes its perspective as absolute.This is the paradox of the overman, a paradox Müller-Lauter addresses in his final chapter on "the doctrine of eternal recurrence." Not surprisingly, the eternal recurrence reveals itself to be essentially contradictory. But this contradiction is not self-refuting; rather "since the eternal recurrence is only as a thought and a doctrine, its meaning remains insurmountably split into a duality" (121) reflected in two ultimately incompatible types of overman. There is, on the one hand, the "powerful overman" who sees the entirety of what is as necessary for his own existence; to affirm eternal [End Page 453] recurrence is to understand everything that has been as a necessary series of events that ends with himself at its apex. But there is also the "wise overman," who understands the totality of what has been and is as necessary for his having arrived at the present moment in which he transcends himself and becomes other. Where the meaning of the powerful overman's affirmation of eternal recurrence resides in his appearance as the being who is dominant, the meaning of the wise overman's affirmation lies in understanding and accepting what has been as the precondition for both what he presently is and what he can become. Although both types of overman want recurrence, Müller-Lauter concludes they want something different in it and by it: the wise overman "is concerned with dissolving in the stream of... (shrink)

In “Epistemic Modals,” Seth Yalcin argues that what explains the deficiency of sentences containing epistemic modals of the form ‘p and it might be that not-p’ is that sentences of this sort are strictly contradictory, and thus are not instances of a Moore-paradox as has been previous suggested. Benjamin Schnieder, however, argues in his Yalcin’s explanation of these sentences’ deficiency turns out to be insufficiently general, as it cannot account for less complex but still defective sentences, such as ‘Suppose (...) it might be raining.’ Consequently, Schnieder proposes his own, expressivist treatment of epistemic modals which he thinks can explain the deficiency of both the original sentence type as well as more complex cases of embedded sentences containing epistemic modals. In this study, I argue that although Schnieder is right to draw our attention to the explanatory failure of Yalcin’s account, we aren’t forced to adopt Schnieder’s expressivist account of epistemic modals. I defend instead a contextualist-friendly alternative which explains the deficiencies of all the relevant sentence types, while avoiding both the defects of Yalcin’s account and the intuitive costs of expressivism. (shrink)

Despite tremendous investment to promote gender equity, U.S. public accounting firms continue to be gendered organizations. Our archival study examines gender equity within the partnership of these large firms for a one-year period. We find female partners are clustered in lower prestige client types including investment funds, benefit plans, and single audits, rather than higher prestige public company clients. Second, we consider whether there is gender bias in prestige of client served by female partners who lead public company audits. In (...) these tests of those individuals who have already achieved the partnership and lead public company audits, we find no evidence of bias. This research contributes to the understanding of gender bias in U.S. public accounting firms and helps inform the societal narrative on where women continue to be marginalized even when they have achieved the highest levels in an organization. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume on the Idea of Existence1 Phillip D. Cummins One, the primary, aim of this paper is to understand an argument Hume employed to defend his contention that there is no special or distinctidea ofexistence. This contention he expressedvariouslyin the following passage: The idea ofexistence, then, is the very same with the idea of what we conceive tobe existent. To reflect on any thing simply, and to reflect on (...) it as existent, are nothing different from each other. That idea, when conjoin'd with the idea of any object, makes no addition to it. Whatever we conceive, we conceive to be existent. Any idea we please to form is the idea ofa being; and the idea of a being is any idea we please to form.2 My secondary aim is to understand what the quoted claim amounts to as a characterization of the idea of existence. I am among those who have serious difficulty understanding what precisely Hume is here claiming. Specifically, I am not sure how, if at all, his position on the idea ofexistence fits with other elements ofhis theory ofthought.3 For example, earlier in the Treatise, in "OfAbstract Ideas," Hume argued that under suitable conditions of habituation and linguistic competence, a single simple4 idea could be the idea ofboth a particular object, a line drawn on a particular sheet ofpaper, and a type ofobject, line in general (T 20-24). Further, on the basis of appropriate comparisons, a single simple idea can also be the idea oftwo different quaUties, purple and extended, for example (T 24-25, 34). The former claim is the positive component ofHume's account ofabstract thinking; the latter is the positive component of his position on distinctions of reason. Hume goes out ofhis way to distinguish his position on the idea of existence from his position on distinctions of reason (T 67). As for how it differs, ifat all, from his position on abstract ideas, a matter by no means obvious, Hume says nothing at all. His silence does not preclude speculation on the subject—on the contrary, it makes such speculation unavoidable—but it does give special importance to his brief and puzzhng proof that there is no special or distinct idea of existence. Volume XVII Number 1 61 PHILLIP D. CUMMINS I. Hume's Argument In making his case that we have no distinct idea of existence Hume first insists that we have an idea of existence, appealing to what he regards as an undeniable matter of psychological fact. He writes, There is no impression nor idea ofany kind, ofwhich we have anyconsciousness or memory, thatis not conceiVd as existent; and 'tis evident, that from this consciousness the most perfect idea and assurance ofbeing is deriv'd. (T 66) The argument seems to comprise the following propositions: attending to consciousness and memory reveals that all the perceptions we experience or remember are believed to exist; one cannot beUeve in the existence of something unless one has an idea of existence; therefore, there is an idea ofexistence (being) which in some way is derived from consciousness and memory. Hume next formulates what he calls a dilemma. From hence we may form a dilemma, the most clear and conclusive that can be imagin'd, viz. that since we never remember any idea or impression without attributing existence toit, the idea ofexistence must eitherbe deriv'd from a distinct impression, conjoin'd with every perception or object ofour thought, or must be the very same with the idea of the perception or object. (T 66) The alternatives seem clear: either, in believing in the past existence of, say, a blue spot once seen, one has two ideas, one of the blue spot and a different one of existence, or one has only one idea, which somehow is both the idea of the spot and the idea ofexistence. What is not immediately obvious is why Hume speaks ofa dilemma. From the supposed psychological fact (we never remember any idea or impression without attributing existence to it) and its corollary (we have an idea ofexistence) Hume develops a disjunction (either the idea ofexistence is derived from a distinct impression conjoined with every perception, or... (shrink)

As philosophical and scientific arguments for free will skepticism continue to gain traction, we are likely to see a fundamental shift in the way people think about free will and moral responsibility. Such shifts raise important practical and existential concerns: What if we came to disbelieve in free will? What would this mean for our interpersonal relationships, society, morality, meaning, and the law? What would it do to our standing as human beings? Would it cause nihilism and despair as some (...) maintain or would it rather have a humanizing effect on our practices and policies, freeing us from the negative effects of belief in free will? In this chapter we consider the practical implications of free will skepticism and argue that life without free will and basic desert moral responsibility would not be as destructive as many people believe. We argue that prospects of finding meaning in life or of sustaining good interpersonal relationships, for example, would not be threatened. On treatment of criminals, we argue that although retributivism and severe punishment, such as the death penalty, would be ruled out, preventive detention and rehabilitation programs would still be justified. While we will touch on all these issues below, our focus will be primarily on this last issue. -/- We begin in section I by considering two different routes to free will skepticism. The first denies the causal efficacy of the types of willing required for free will and receives its contemporary impetus from pioneering work in neuroscience by Benjamin Libet, Daniel Wegner, and John-Dylan Haynes. The second, which is more common in the philosophical literature, does not deny the causal efficacy of the will but instead claims that whether this causal efficacy is deterministic or indeterministic, it does not achieve the level of control to count as free will by the standards of the historical debate. We argue that while there are compelling objections to the first route—e.g., Al Mele (2009), Eddy Nahmias (2002, 2011), and Neil Levy (2005)—the second route to free will skepticism remains intact. In section II we argue that free will skepticism allows for a workable morality, and, rather than negatively impacting our personal relationships and meaning in life, may well improve our well-being and our relationships to others since it would tend to eradicate an often destructive form of moral anger. In section III we argue that free will skepticism allows for adequate ways of responding to criminal behavior—in particular, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and alternation of relevant social conditions—and that these methods are both morally justified and sufficient for good social policy. We present and defend our own preferred model for dealing with dangerous criminals, an incapacitation account built on the right to self-protection analogous to the justification for quarantine (see Pereboom 2001, 2013, 2014a; Caruso 2016a), and we respond to recent objections to it by Michael Corrado and John Lemos. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to present and defend an inferentialist account of the meaning of fictional names on the basis of Sellars-Brandom’s inferentialist semantics and a Brandomian anaphoric theory of reference. On this inferentialist account, the meaning of a fictional name is constituted by the relevant language norms which provide the correctness conditions for its use. In addition, the Brandomian anaphoric theory of reference allows us to understand reference in terms of anaphoric word-word relations, rather than (...) substantial word-world relations. In this paper I argue that this inferentialist account has many important merits over its rival theories. One important merit is that it explains why we can use fictional names to make true statements, even if they lack bearers. As a consequence, this theory allows us to use fictional names without committing ourselves to an implausible ontology of fictional entities. Another important merit is that it provides a uniform semantic account of fictional names across different types of statements in which fictional names are involved. (shrink)

The `fact' of pluralism in science is nosurprise. Yet, if science is representing andexplaining the structure of the oneworld, why is there such a diversity ofrepresentations and explanations in somedomains? In this paper I consider severalphilosophical accounts of scientific pluralismthat explain the persistence of bothcompetitive and compatible alternatives. PaulSherman's `Levels of Analysis' account suggeststhat in biology competition betweenexplanations can be partitioned by the type ofquestion being investigated. I argue that thisaccount does not locate competition andcompatibility correctly. I then (...) defend anintegrative model for understanding pluralism. This view is based on taking seriously both thecomplexity and contingency of biologicalorganization and the idealized character ofbiological models. On this view, explanationbecomes, among other things, the location forthe integration of diverse models. I explicatemy argument by an analysis of explanations ofdivision of labor in social insects. (shrink)

This review essay takes three very different types of books, one on new social movements, the second on global governance and the third on dystopia, to reflect on methodological questions in knowledge production for social change which is the professed aim of critical and radical scholarship. The essay reflects on the methodological problems of making connections between philosophical, sociological and empirical analyses in ways that can guide action. The treatment of facts and events, omission to consider gaps and absences in (...) accounts of experiences, the obfuscation of the desirable and the possible in legal liberalism, problems of connecting everyday life to ontological questions of being and reality, perspectives and unity of micro and macrocosms, are some of the themes considered. The essay engages the methodological strategies that are needed to make the moves from space/time in philosophy to spatio-temporality in sociological analysis to here and now in empirical studies. It argues that all levels are interpenetrated in manifest experiences and that it is important to grasp the institutional constraints on knowledge production if knowledge is to provide guidance for transformative action. (shrink)

The article presents a systematic and detailed account of scholarly developments on the problem of studying the process of nation-building and the role of history, memory, language and culture in reflecting this process. The research reveals that according to the premordialist approach, nations are not formed instantaneously, by the relevant political will or by coincidence of circumstances; the process of creating and consolidating a nation is a long and meaningful one, full of historical events and national cultural tokens. The (...) primordialist concepts are considered unanimous in their recognition of the exceptional significance of psychological factors in the creation of a nation. The creation of a nation involves a sophisticated set of linguistic, religious, ethnic, territorial and myth-household factors that determine the formation of a corresponding type of sociality. The framework of the analytics of the phenomenon of a nation includes not only psychological, but also social, cultural, political, ethical, moral and axiological aspects. The new system-building concepts such as solidarity, habitus, plebiscite were added to the discussion of nation. In view of that, it is impossible to carry out the reduction of the phenomenon of a nation to a particular problem field and to localize it to invariant indicators. The formation and optimization of the capitalistic type of social system generates new factors in the interpretation and consolidation of a nation. The reasons for a political defeat in the development of a nation can be referedr to either conscious manipulative techniques, or spontaneous miscalculations. Elaborating the alternative versions of history is nothing but unjustified politicization, implementation of imperial and colonial ambitions, overcoming which is a necessary prerequisite for successful nation-building. The establishment and offsetting of such manipulative influence facilitate the stabilization of the social situation and the resolution of conflicts, and, consequently, contribute to national development. The key point is to establish a nation within the framework of the international and state policy, especially by distinguishing the consolidating and disintegrating influences of state and international politicies on nation-building. The policy of uniting the nation can become effective when the important reforms do not deepen the fragmentation of the nation, but rather neutralize it. (shrink)

BACKGROUND: Alzheimer's disease is intimately tied to amyloid-beta peptide. Extraneuronal brain plaques consisting primarily of Abeta aggregates are a hallmark of AD. Intraneuronal Abeta subunits are strongly implicated in disease progression. Protein sequence mutations of the Abeta precursor protein account for a small proportion of AD cases, suggesting that regulation of the associated gene may play a more important role in AD etiology. The APP promoter possesses a novel 30 nucleotide sequence, or "proximal regulatory element" , at -76/-47, from (...) the +1 transcription start site that confers cell type specificity. This PRE contains sequences that make it vulnerable to epigenetic modification and may present a viable target for drug studies. We examined PRE-nuclear protein interaction by gel electrophoretic mobility shift assay and PRE mutant EMSA. This was followed by functional studies of PRE mutant/reporter gene fusion clones. RESULTS: EMSA probed with the PRE showed DNA-protein interaction in multiple nuclear extracts and in human brain tissue nuclear extract in a tissue-type specific manner. We identified transcription factors that are likely to bind the PRE, using competition gel shift and gel supershift: Activator protein 2 , nm23 nucleoside diphosphate kinase/metastatic inhibitory protein , and specificity protein 1 . These sites crossed a known single nucleotide polymorphism . EMSA with PRE mutants and promoter/reporter clone transfection analysis further implicated PuF in cells and extracts. Functional assays of mutant/reporter clone transfections were evaluated by ELISA of reporter protein levels. EMSA and ELISA results correlated by meta-analysis. CONCLUSIONS: We propose that PuF may regulate the APP gene promoter and that AD risk may be increased by interference with PuF regulation at the PRE. PuF is targeted by calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II inhibitor 1, which also interacts with the integrins. These proteins are connected to vital cellular and neurological functions. In addition, the transcription factor PuF is a known inhibitor of metastasis and regulates cell growth during development. Given that APP is a known cell adhesion protein and ferroxidase, this suggests biochemical links among cell signaling, the cell cycle, iron metabolism in cancer, and AD in the context of overall aging. (shrink)

Recent work takes both philosophical and scientific progress to consist in acquiring factive epistemic states such as knowledge. However, much of this work leaves unclear what entity is the subject of these epistemic states. Furthermore, by focusing only on states like knowledge, we overlook progress in intermediate cases between ignorance and knowledge—for example, many now celebrated theories were initially so controversial that they were not known. -/- This paper develops an improved framework for thinking about intellectual progress. Firstly, I argue (...) that we should think of progress relative to the epistemic position of an intellectual community rather than individual inquirers. Secondly, I show how focusing on the extended process of inquiry (rather than the mere presence or absence of states like knowledge) provides a better evaluation of different types of progress. This includes progress through formulating worthwhile questions, acquiring new evidence, and increasing credence on the right answers to these questions. I close by considering the ramifications for philosophical progress, suggesting that my account supports rejecting the most negative views while allowing us to articulate different varieties of optimism and pessimism. (shrink)

Some artworks—works of music, theatre, dance, and the like—are works for performance. Some works for performance are, I contend, unperformable. Some such works are unperformable by beings like us; others are unperformable given our laws of nature; still others are unperformable given considerations of basic logic. I offer examples of works for performance—focusing, in particular, on works of music—that would fit into each of these categories, and go on to defend the claim that such ‘works’ really are genuine works, musical (...) works and works for performance. I then argue that the very possibility of such works is ontologically significant. In particular, the possibility of these works raises serious problems for type-theoretic accounts of the ontology of music as well as certain mereological or constitution-based accounts. (shrink)

Objective: The field of clinical ethics is relatively new and expanding. Best practices in clinical ethics against which one can benchmark performance have not been clearly articulated. The first step in developing benchmarks of clinical ethics services is to identify and understand current practices.Design and setting: Using a retrospective case study approach, the structure, activities, and resources of nine clinical ethics services in a large metropolitan centre are described, compared, and contrasted.Results: The data yielded a unique and detailed account (...) of the nature and scope of clinical ethics services across a spectrum of facilities. General themes emerged in four areas—variability, visibility, accountability, and complexity. There was a high degree of variability in the structures, activities, and resources across the clinical ethics services. Increasing visibility was identified as a significant challenge within organisations and externally. Although each service had a formal system for maintaining accountability and measuring performance, differences in the type, frequency, and content of reporting impacted service delivery. One of the most salient findings was the complexity inherent in the provision of clinical ethics services, which requires of clinical ethicists a broad and varied skill set and knowledge base. Benchmarks including the average number of consults/ethicist per year and the hospital beds/ethicist ratio are presented.Conclusion: The findings will be of interest to clinical ethicists locally, nationally, and internationally as they provide a preliminary framework from which further benchmarking measures and best practices in clinical ethics can be identified, developed, and evaluated. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Descartes and the Last ScholasticsBlake D. DuttonRoger Ariew. Descartes and the Last Scholastics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999. Pp. xi + 230. Cloth, $42.50.The attempt to understand Descartes vis-à-vis the scholastic tradition dates back to the studies of Etienne Gilson early in this century. Though Descartes saw himself as a revolutionary who would overthrow the Aristotelianism entrenched in the universities, Gilson was able to demonstrate his reliance upon (...) a variety of scholastic sources for important terminology, distinctions, and arguments which permeate his writings. Unfortunately, this line of investigation was largely ignored among Anglo-American scholars who were generally hostile to Scholasticism and uninterested in contextualizing Descartes's thought. However, since the mid-eighties there has been a distinct shift in attitude as scholars have increasingly turned their attention to the place of Scholasticism within Descartes's intellectual environment. Among these, Roger Ariew has to be counted as one of the most sophisticated, and his new book, Descartes and the Late Scholastics, marks an important contribution to the growing literature on the topic.Ariew's book is actually a collection of essays published over the last decade, including two which he co-authored with Marjorie Grene. Many of these have been substantially expanded to include fresh material and reworked so as to give the whole a greater sense of continuity. After a marvelous opening chapter in which he lays out his overall account of Descartes's attitude towards Scholasticism, Ariew presents the remaining essays in two large groups: those dealing with the immediate context of Descartes's thought and those dealing with its reception through the early part of the eighteenth century.Among the more interesting results of the first group of studies is Ariew's claim that the scholastic climate in and around Paris during Descartes's lifetime was predominately Scotistic rather than Thomistic. He shows this by looking at positions taken by a number of Parisian schoolmen on important issues which typically divided Scotists and Thomists. Ariew goes on to argue that not only was the Parisian environment Scotistic, but that Descartes aligned himself with the Scotists on many key issues in both physics (e.g., that time is independent of motion) and metaphysics (e.g., that the principle of individuation is a form). This is certainly an intriguing claim since most studies of this type have viewed Descartes in relation to Aquinas and those Jesuit thinkers who were broadly Thomistic in outlook. In bringing to light this Scotistic background, Ariew has opened up an important new line of inquiry.Other topics included in this first section are the literary and philosophical background [End Page 275] to the "new way of ideas" of which Descartes is a founder, the place of Descartes's doctrine of matter and form in seventeenth century debates over hylomorphism, and the reaction of Scholastics to the observational results of the new astronomy. What emerges in these essays is not only a highly nuanced view of Descartes's relation to Scholasticism, but an important corrective to still prevalent views of the Scholastics as reactionary and blindly opposed to developments within the new science. This last point is made with particular force in the fifth essay entitled "Scholastics and the New Astronomy." There Ariew argues that the astronomical observations of Galileo et alia were not in themselves decisive for overthrowing the Aristotelian cosmology as it had been articulated in the seventeenth century. This is because scholastic astronomers were generally accepting of such findings (e.g., sunspots) and were able to accommodate them within their own systems by making relatively minor adjustments. Although these systems ultimately proved themselves inadequate, Ariew makes a strong case that the Aristotelianism of the seventeenth century was sufficiently fluid to accommodate most of what the astronomers offered up. Thus the necessity for a radical overhaul of basic philosophical and scientific assumptions was by no means as evident as standard histories of this period would have us believe.The second section of the book is dedicated to debates over Cartesianism and its fate in the generations immediately following Descartes's death. Here Ariew provides a wealth of detail about various condemnations of Cartesianism, a comparative study of... (shrink)

Constraints and dependencies among the elements of embodied cognition form patterns or microstrategies of interactive behavior. Hard constraints determine which microstrategies are possible. Soft constraints determine which of the possible microstrategies are most likely to be selected. When selection is non‐deliberate or automatic the least effort microstrategy is chosen. In calculating the effort required to execute a microstrategy each of the three types of operations, memory retrieval, perception, and action, are given equal weight; that is, perceptual‐motor activity does not have (...) a privileged status with respect to memory. Soft constraints can work contrary to the designer's intentions by making the access of perfect knowledge in‐the‐world more effortful than the access of imperfect knowledge in‐the‐head. These implications of soft constraints are tested in two experiments. In experiment 1 we varied the perceptual‐motor effort of accessing knowledge in‐the‐world as well as the effort of retrieving items from memory. In experiment 2 we replicated one of the experiment 1 conditions to collect eye movement data. The results suggest that milliseconds matter. Soft constraints lead to a reliance on knowledge in‐the‐head even when the absolute difference in perceptual‐motor versus memory retrieval effort is small, and even when relying on memory leads to a higher error rate and lower performance. We discuss the implications of soft constraints for routine interactive behavior, accounts of embodied cognition, and tool and interface design. (shrink)

MATERIALISTS claim that in principle mentality could be accounted for entirely by properties of matter. They must, of course, clarify, as far as possible, the precise scope of the concept "properties of matter." According to materialists there exists only one type of "substance" in the universe, namely matter. Sophisticated experimental and theoretical analyses have led contemporary physicists to interpret known material entities as being composed of two classes of elementary particles, namely quarks and leptons and constituents of interaction fields (...) that mediate interactions between some or all of the elementary particles and which comprise photons, gluons, intermediate bosons and gravitons. For instance, protons and neutrons are composed--by hypothesis--of quarks, while electrons are probably the most familiar leptons. Whether any analyzed and postulated elementary particles and constituents of interaction fields are "ultimate" components of matter can never be known. It remains always possible that more basic subcomponents of known components will be discovered. This has happened repeatedly throughout the history of physics. Hence, what physicists understand by the "physical properties" of the basic components of matter must always remain expressed in terms of usually intricate hypothetico-deductive theories which are tentative and fallible. Contemporary relativistic quantum mechanics of elementary particles and of interaction fields provide typical examples of such hypothetico-deductive theories relating to present known basic components of matter. (shrink)

The current meta-analysis reviews 24 studies on self-reported emotional reactions to facial expressions in socially anxious versus nonanxious individuals. We hypothesized that socially anxious individuals would perceive all face types as less approachable, more negative, and more arousing. After correcting for biases, results showed that socially anxious individuals, compared to controls, reported lower approachability to all types of expressions and higher arousal in response to neutral expressions. Variances among effects usually could not be explained by the proposed moderators. This suggests (...) that current conceptualizations of social anxiety should take into account the willingness to approach social stimuli rather than global measures of emotion or arousal. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reflections on Academic ReflectionJohn D. Copenhaver Jr.Contemplative pedagogy deserves both the careful scrutiny and the sustained exploration that the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies is uniquely well suited to provide. As higher education comes under increased pressure for accountability, we need to be able to explain clearly both the pedagogical value and academic integrity of these elements in our curriculum. Academics seeking to incorporate contemplative practices into their teaching need (...) to pay careful attention to their institutional setting. While people in all types of higher education may share certain values (e.g., free inquiry, critical thinking, intellectual rigor, clear reasoning), different institutional settings offer different kinds of opportunities and challenges. Shenandoah University, where I teach, is one of five private universities in Virginia related to the United Methodist Church (UMC). All these schools acknowledge the relationship, but some seem rather embarrassed by it. For us it is a warm embrace.In its mission statement, our university characterizes the relationship this way: “As an institution affiliated with the United Methodist Church, Shenandoah University practices the highest ethical standards in its interactions with the community and with students of other faiths.”1 While the university is clear about its church affiliation, the phrase “highest ethical standards in its interaction with students of other faiths” indicates the kind of mutual respect and understanding that characterize pluralism. Among its core values are “respect for diverse cultures, experiences, and perspectives” and “dedication to global outreach.”2 Dedication to “global outreach” sounds like window dressing, but it is genuine. With its Global Citizenship Project, the university funds all expenses for fifty-five students each year to travel to one of five countries over spring break for cultural immersion. This mission statement and our core values make it much easier to root our religious studies curriculum in an atmosphere of religious pluralism than one might expect at a church-related university.Our Department of Religion recognizes two purposes for religious studies. The first is to offer an array courses to meet general education needs for moral reasoning and cross-cultural understanding. One of the department’s goals for general education religion courses is to promote interreligious and multicultural understanding. Another is to serve the church by offering a program to train students for religious leadership roles, called the JustFaith Christian Leadership Program. It is designed to integrate theological education and spiritual formation that promotes social justice. [End Page 41] In the department’s view, this commitment to justice is consistent with our Wesleyan heritage, but is often neglected in churches and rare in higher education. Although our religion major requirements reflect the university’s Christian heritage, we do require a course in world religions and one course in a religious tradition other than Christianity.This institutional setting invites me to teach in very different ways. Of the eight courses I teach over a two-year rotation, two take a philosophical approach, two take a phenomenological approach without any contemplative practices, and two blend the phenomenological approach with contemplative practices.3 The other two I teach “from the inside,” as a Christian ordained in the United Methodist Church. I present my own experience and convictions as part of that tradition, and the course emphasizes religious practices such as fasting, prayer, meditation, contemplative prayer, and/or periods of solitude. This confessional approach would not be possible at a state university, but I think students should have this option at church-related schools. The delicate issue is that most students do not come to our university because of its religious heritage. Our students are much like their counterparts at state universities, and often register for courses on the basis of what fits their academic schedules rather than any particular interest in or affinity for the topic. For this reason, we try to be as clear as possible in course descriptions about the various contents and approaches of our courses. Still, that does not prevent a poorly advised agnostic or atheist from registering occasionally for my course on Christian spirituality. On the first day of class I discuss the confessional nature of the course and the spiritual exercises students will be expected to do. I do not screen anyone... (shrink)

It has been claimed that ceteris paribus laws, rather than strict laws are the proper aim of the special sciences. This is so because the causal regularities found in these domains are exception-ridden, being contingent on the presence of the appropriate conditions and the absence of interfering factors. I argue that the ceteris paribus strategy obscures rather than illuminates the important similarities and differences between representations of causal regularities in the exact and inexact sciences. In particular, a detailed account (...) of the types and degrees of contingency found in the domain of biology permits a more adequate understanding of the relations among the sciences. (shrink)

Human beings are restless souls, ever driven by an insistent inner force not only to _have_ more but to _be_ more—to be _infinitely_ more. Various philosophers have emphasized this type of ceaseless striving in their accounts of humanity, as in Spinoza’s notion of _conatus_ and Hobbes’s identification of “a perpetual and restless desire of power after power.” In this book, Laurence Cooper focuses his attention on three giants of the philosophic tradition for whom this inner force was a major (...) preoccupation and something separate from and greater than the desire for self-preservation. Cooper’s overarching purpose is to illuminate the nature of this source of existential longing and discontent and its implications for political life. He concentrates especially on what these thinkers share in their understanding of this psychic power and how they view it ambivalently as the root not only of ambition, vigorous virtue, patriotism, and philosophy, but also of tyranny, imperialism, and varieties of fanaticism. But he is not neglectful of the differences among their interpretations of the phenomenon, either, and especially highlights these in the concluding chapter. (shrink)

One of the best and most comprehensive works on Christian ethics yet to appear. Historical development is stressed equally with systematic exposition. Special attention is given to the Christian view of the nature of man, and there are careful discussions of Christian ethics in relation to various political, economic, and social problems. A distinguishing feature of the book is its account, in a long final section, of the relation of Christian ethics to various types of secular moral philosophy.--D. R.

Many democratic theorists hold that when a decision is collectively made in the right kind of way, in accordance with the right procedure, it is permissible to enforce it. They deny that there are further requirements on the type of reasons that can permissibly be used to justify laws and policies. In this paper, I argue that democratic theorists are mistaken about this. So-called public reason requirements follow from commitments that most of them already hold. Drawing on the democratic (...) ideal of civic equality, I show that it can successfully explain why political decision-making must have the right sort of procedure-independent justification. However, contra standard accounts of public reason, I argue that laws and policies need to be justified with convergence accessible, not shared, reasons. Public reasons are those that are accessible in light of evaluative standards shared by all, or in light of every citizen’s private evaluative standards. Since this will make the set of public reasons wider, it makes the theory more palatable to sceptics while retaining the framework’s justificatory potential. (shrink)

Group musical performance, especially large instrumental ensembles, present the outward appearance of an asymmetric, temporally immediate stimulus-response relationship between conductor and ensemble. Interestingly, anecdotal reports from both conductors and performers indicate a degree of variability in the timing of orchestral response to the conductor’s gestures. This observation is not present in anecdotal accounts of other instrumental ensemble settings, like wind bands, but commonplace occurrence among orchestral musicians indicates the potential presence of greater complexity in the observed relationship. This study investigates (...) both the quality and quantity of temporal lag between conductor and ensemble in two common instrumental ensemble configurations – wind bands and orchestras – in an effort to describe the interplay present within conducted group performance. The findings indicate that the anecdotally identified lag is present within all ensemble types, and that it presents a flexible, dynamic temporal relationship between conductor and ensemble. Additionally, both the quantity and quality of lag values are significantly different between ensemble types, experience levels, and musical content. Several avenues for future research are identified, and confounds within the sampled ensembles are examined for their potential roles in the observed relationships. (shrink)

Why games? How could anyone consider action games an experimental paradigm for Cognitive Science? In 1973, as one of three strategies he proposed for advancing Cognitive Science, Allen Newell exhorted us to “accept a single complex task and do all of it.” More specifically, he told us that rather than taking an “experimental psychology as usual approach,” we should “focus on a series of experimental and theoretical studies around a single complex task” so as to demonstrate that our theories of (...) human cognition were powerful enough to explain “a genuine slab of human behavior” with the studies fitting into a detailed theoretical picture. Action games represent the type of experimental paradigm that Newell was advocating and the current state of programming expertise and laboratory equipment, along with the emergence of Big Data and naturally occurring datasets, provide the technologies and data needed to realize his vision. Action games enable us to escape from our field's regrettable focus on novice performance to develop theories that account for the full range of expertise through a twin focus on expertise sampling and longitudinal studies of simple and complex tasks. (shrink)

This paper takes the view that compensated donation and altruism are not incompatible. In particular, it holds that the arguments against giving compensation stand on weak rational grounds: the charge that compensation fosters “commodification” has neither been specific enough to account for different types of monetary transactions nor sufficiently grounded in reality to be rationally convincing; although altruism is commendable, organ donors should not be compelled to act purely on the basis of altruistic motivations, especially if there are good (...) reasons to believe that significantly more lives can be saved and enhanced if incentives are put in place, and offering compensation for organs does not necessarily lead to exploitation—on the contrary, it may be regarded as a necessity in efforts to minimise the level of exploitation that already exists in current organ procurement systems. (shrink)

This article describes the path‐mapping theory of how humans integrate analogical mapping and general problem solving. The theory posits that humans represent analogs with declarative roles, map analogs by lower‐level retrieval of analogous role paths, and coordinate mappings with higher‐level organizational knowledge. Implemented in the ACT‐R cognitive architecture, the path‐mapping theory enables models of analogical mapping behavior to incorporate and interface with other problem‐solving knowledge. Path‐mapping models thus can include task‐specific skills such as encoding analogs or generating responses, and can (...) make behavioral predictions at the level of real‐world metrics such as latency or correctness. We show that the path‐mapping theory can successfully account for the major phenomena addressed by previous theories of analogy. We also describe a path‐mapping model that can account for subjects' incremental eye‐movement and typing behavior in a story‐mapping task. We discuss extensions and implications of this work to other areas of analogy and problem‐solving research. (shrink)

Despite its preeminent position in the just war tradition, the concept of proportionality is not well understood by military leaders. Especially lacking is a realization that there are four distinct types of proportionality. In determining whether a particular resort to war is just, national leaders must consider the proportionality of the conflict, i.e., balance the expected gain or just redress against the total harm likely to be inflicted by the impending armed action. This proportionality consideration is called jus ad bellum (...) proportionality. The second type of proportionality discussed is a continuing re-evaluation of the proportionality, taking into account the changing situation. The last true proportionality discussed is a consideration of hostile action taking during a conflict, or jus in bello proportionality. This consideration weighs the expected military gain of a particular action against the collateral damage and injuries that are expected from the act. Finally, the fourth category addressed is ‘political proportionality’, which is not a true proportionality consideration, but is rather self-interested deliberation on the possible political and military outcomes of actions. In some instances, it could be referred to as a measured response. A better understanding of proportionality in all its forms will help military leaders to give appropriate and moral advice on the potential resort to war, as well as on the conduct of military actions in war. The recent US war with Iraq in the spring of 2003 in defiance of the wishes of the majority of the UN Security Council, and especially with the potential for high noncombatant casualties in Baghdad, makes a discussion of the proper conduct of war even more poignant. (shrink)

This dissertation compares the thought and practice of Xunzi, a 4th--3rd century BCE Confucian, with that of Augustine of Hippo, a 4th--5th century CE Christian. Specifically, it compares their versions of the view that human nature is significantly bad or evil, and their prescriptions for the cultivation of ethically and religiously preferable modes of life, through the practice of what Pierre Hadot has called "spiritual exercises." ;Xunzi and Augustine deploy conceptual apparatuses structured by distinctive terms of art, responding to debates (...) within their own contexts. Their articulations of human personhood deeply shape their proposals and hopes for personal cultivation. This thesis examines their different anthropologies, with special attention to Augustine's concept of natura and Xunzi's idea of xing, both traditionally rendered in English as "human nature." It then discusses their positive proposals for ethico-religious education and personal cultivation, focusing on the specific practices they recommend and their accounts of how and why these practices are effective in the production of flourishing human beings. It explores Xunzi's opposition of "nature" and "artifice," his analysis of emotion, desire, and action, and his accounts of study, ritual practice, and music as spiritual exercises. It investigates Augustine's views of original sin and the mind imaging God, his account of disciplina "teaching" and "discipline," and his understandings of the liberal arts, learning from scripture, fasting, the Eucharist, and different types of prayer. ;Comparison of Xunzi and Augustine makes three contributions. First, it refines our analytical categories as students of religious thought and practice, especially in this case "human nature" and "spiritual exercises." Second, it illuminates both thinkers' views more fully, in particular deepening our understanding of Xunzi's moral psychology and Augustine's theories of Christian formation after "conversion" and baptism. Third, it contributes to contemporary debates in religious ethics: first, about moral personhood, proposing a new model of "chastened intellectualism" but underscoring the limitations of universalistic accounts; and second, about spiritual exercises, retrieving elements of Xunzi's account of ritual and Augustine's techniques for affecting one's inner discourse of interpretation and judgment. (shrink)

In this essay, I treat of a type of moral objection to Christian theism that is formulated by Friedrich Nietzsche. In an effort to provoke a negative moral‐aesthetic response to the conception of God underlying the Christian tradition, with the ultimate aim of recommending his own allegedly ‘healthier’ ideals, Nietzsche presents a number of distinct but related considerations. In particular, he claims that the traditional theological interpretation of the crucifixion of Jesus expresses the tasteless, vulgar, and morally objectionable character (...) of God, thus rendering Him unworthy of belief. In response to Nietzsche's worries, I first of all argue that his account of the origins of the belief in God is both prima facie implausible and historically false. At the same time I recognize that Nietzsche is expressing, in his typically bombastic manner, a genuine and widely held worry about what the crucifixion, as an event in salvation history, says about the nature of God. In response to this worry, I draw on the work of Wilhelm Dilthey in order to support the contention that the concept of divine transcendence, which underlies Nietzsche's concern, has its proper place within the Greek metaphysical tradition, rather than in Christian faith. Building on the work of Franz Rosenzweig and Jürgen Moltmann, I outline a conception of God that more accurately reflects the claim that the cross is the definitive revelation of the divine nature while at the same time foreclosing on the possibility of the kind of response that Nietzsche articulates. (shrink)

The analysis of legal communication has almost exclusively been the domain of discourse analysts focusing on the ways that the linguistic system is used to realise legal meanings. Multimodal discourse analysis, where visual forms in combination with traditional linguistic expressions co-occur, is now also an area of expanding interest. Taking a Systemic Functional Linguistics “social semiotic” perspective, this paper applies and critiques an analytical framework that has been used for examining intersemiotic complementarity in various types of page-based multimodal texts by (...) analysing a cartoon satirizing the demands that verdict deliberations can make on a citizen jury seated in a Crown Court. While the multimodal analysis reveals that a straightforward application of this analytical framework is useful in and of itself, it is argued that the framework needs to be extended to also account for further and more complex layers of represented meaning. The analysis is also situated in the wider legal social semiotic, and draws attention to international debates on the efficacy of the jury system itself. (shrink)

Philosophical accounts of emergence have been explicated in terms of logical relationships between statements (derivation) or static properties (function and realization). Jaegwon Kim is a modern proponent. A property is emergent if it is not explainable by (or reducible to) the properties of lower level components. This approach, I will argue, is unable to make sense of the kinds of emergence that are widespread in scientific explanations of complex systems. The standard philosophical notion of emergence posits the wrong dichotomies, confuses (...) compositional physicalism with explanatory physicalism, and is unable to represent the type of dynamic processes (self-organizing feedback) that both generate emergent properties and express downward causation. (shrink)

Constraints and dependencies among the elements of embodied cognition form patterns or microstrategies of interactive behavior. Hard constraints determine which microstrategies are possible. Soft constraints determine which of the possible microstrategies are most likely to be selected. When selection is non-deliberate or automatic the least effort microstrategy is chosen. In calculating the effort required to execute a microstrategy each of the three types of operations, memory retrieval, perception, and action, are given equal weight; that is, perceptual-motor activity does not have (...) a privileged status with respect to memory. Soft constraints can work contrary to the designer's intentions by making the access of perfect knowledge in-the-world more effortful than the access of imperfect knowledge in-the-head. These implications of soft constraints are tested in two experiments. In experiment 1 we varied the perceptual-motor effort of accessing knowledge in-the-world as well as the effort of retrieving items from memory. In experiment 2 we replicated one of the experiment 1 conditions to collect eye movement data. The results suggest that milliseconds matter. Soft constraints lead to a reliance on knowledge in-the-head even when the absolute difference in perceptual-motor versus memory retrieval effort is small, and even when relying on memory leads to a higher error rate and lower performance. We discuss the implications of soft constraints for routine interactive behavior, accounts of embodied cognition, and tool and interface design. (shrink)

The different aspects of floral evolution—Angiosperm descent, floral morphology and pollination ecology—are discussed on the basis of the anthocorm theory of the angiospermous flower. Opposed ideas are critically compared and rejected mainly on account of several inconsistencies and flaws in old floral concepts. Floral evolution passed from a very early phase of dicliny, anemophily and aphananthy of the anthocorm to a phase of incipient entomophily soon associated with a partial sex reversal within the anthocorm. This second phase culminated in (...) the monoclinous and primarily zoophilous flower types, whereas other floral types, more particularly the primarily anemophilous, diclinous flowers, are the direct descendants of the anthocorms of the initial phase. The second phase gave rise to at least two morphologically different flower types and two separate semophyletic lines of floral evolution , in each of which the primary zoophily is almost always associated with the development of intrafloral semaphylls usually of androecial derivation. Early flower types were aphananthous and clearly anthocormoid and assumed the morphology and other characteristics of a true flower by contractions, condensations, readjustments, oligomerisations, reductions and modifications leading to the great variety of adaptive floral patterns.Divers aspects de l'évolution de la fleur — à savoir la descendance des Angiospermes, la morphologie de la fleur, et l'écologie de la pollination — sont discutés à partir de l'hypothèse florale de l'anthocorme. Les opinions opposées, après d'être comparées et critisées, sont rejetées principalement à cause des inconséquences et inconsistances des anciens théorèmes morphologiques concernant l'origine de la fleur. L'évolution de la fleur commençait avec une phase d'antan de diclinie, anémophilie et aphananthie, et s'avançait graduellement dans la direction d'une phase entomophilique initiale, bientôt accompagnée d'un renversement de sexe partiel à l'intérieur de l'anthocorm. La deuxième phase culminait vers les types florals monoclines avec zoophilie primaire pendant que des autres types florals, particulièrement les fleurs diclines avec anémophilie primaire, sont les descendants directs du stade initiale de l'anthocorme. A partir de la phase II , au moins deux types florals différents et aussi deux sémophylèses florals séparés se développaient. Dans chacun de ses phases III et III A la zoophilie primaire est presque toujours accouplée avec l'origine des sémaphylles intrafloraux le plus souvent dérivés des étamines. Les anciens types des fleurs ayant été aphanantique et au début encore nettement anthocormoïdes , graduellement prenaient la forme d'une des plusieurs types floraux adaptifs par une contraction de l'axe florale et par l'entassement, l'oligomérisation et la modification des pièces de la fleur.Die drei Aspekte der Evolution der Blüte — die Abstammungsgeschichte der Angiospermen, Blütenmorphologie und Bestäubungsökologie — werden, ausgehend von der Anthokormtheorie der Angiospermenblüte, eingehend besprochen. Entgegengesetzte Meinungen werden kritisch verglichen und hauptsächlich auf Grund mehrerer Strittigkeiten und Fehler der älteren blütenmorphologischen Axiomen abgelehnt. Die Evolution der Blüte fing an mit einer frühen Phase mit Diklinie, Anemophilie und Aphananthie des Anthokorms und schritt allmählich weiter in die Richtung von beginnender Entomophilie, bald mit einer partiellen Geschlechtsinversion innerhalb des Anthokorms zusammengehend. Diese zweite Phase kulminierte in den monoklinen und primär zoophilen Blütentypen, während andere Blütengestalten, besonders die primär anemophilen und diklinen Angiospermenblüten, die unmittelbaren Abkömmlinge der Initialphase des Anthokorms sind. Aus der zweiten Phase entwickelten sich wenigstens zwei morphologisch differenzierte Blütenformen und auch zwei geschiedene Blütensemophylesen , in jeder die primäre Zoophilie fast immer verbunden ist mit der Entwicklung von intrafloralen und meistens von Staubblättern angeleiteten Semaphyllen . Die frühen Blütentypen waren aphanantisch und anfänglich noch deutlich anthokormoid und nahmen allmählich die entgültige Gestalt von einer der vielen adaptiven Blütentypen an durch eine Verkürzung der Blütenachse, und durch ein Zusammendrängen, Oligomerisation und Abänderung der Blütenteile. (shrink)