BackgroundHuntington’s disease has a poor prognosis. For HD patients in the Netherlands, one way of dealing with their poor prognosis is by drawing up an advance euthanasia directive. Little is known about the perspectives of HD patients on their AED.AimTo gain insight into patients’ views on and attitudes towards their AED, and changes over time.MethodsA longitudinal qualitative interview study using 1 to 6 semi-structured interviews over a period of maximum three years. Nine HD patients who either had an AED or (...) were thinking about drawing it up participated in this study.ResultsWe identified two themes that characterize patients’ perspectives on their AEDs: general character of the AED; uncertainty around their AED. Ad The conditions that the participants described in their AED were generally not very specific for the person. Mostly they were general notions of unbearable suffering. Familiarity with HD in the family could play a role in drawing up an AED. Ad Participants generally were aware of the tentative character of their AED and could have doubts concerning their own willingness or the willingness of others in the future. Sometimes these doubts were so great, that it prevented them from drawing up an AED. However, patients did not alter their AED during the follow-up period or changed in their view or attitude on their AED.ConclusionHD patients that draw up an AED usually describe general conditions for euthanasia and recognize that these conditions may change as the disease progresses. An AED or the wish to draw one up may be a good conversation starter for conversations about goals and preferences for future care. (shrink)

We report the identification of a recurrent, 520-kb 16p12.1 microdeletion associated with childhood developmental delay. The microdeletion was detected in 20 of 11,873 cases compared with 2 of 8,540 controls and replicated in a second series of 22 of 9,254 cases compared with 6 of 6,299 controls. Most deletions were inherited, with carrier parents likely to manifest neuropsychiatric phenotypes compared to non-carrier parents. Probands were more likely to carry an additional large copy-number variant when compared to matched controls. The clinical (...) features of individuals with two mutations were distinct from and/or more severe than those of individuals carrying only the co-occurring mutation. Our data support a two-hit model in which the 16p12.1 microdeletion both predisposes to neuropsychiatric phenotypes as a single event and exacerbates neurodevelopmental phenotypes in association with other large deletions or duplications. Analysis of other microdeletions with variable expressivity indicates that this two-hit model might be more generally applicable to neuropsychiatric disease. © 2010 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

RésuméUne innovation latine médiévale relativement bien connue est la doctrine de la supposition distributive. Cette notion est venue à être utilisée dans la théorie syllogistique à la fin du Moyen Âge et au début de la période moderne, alors que les logiciens latins cherchaient à établir des règles générales pour la productivité syllogistique à travers les différentes figures. Il est beaucoup moins connu que certains logiciens de la tradition arabe médiévale ont également tenté d’établir des règles générales pour le syllogisme, (...) faisant appel à ce qu’ils appelaient la « généralité du sujet ». Dans le présent article, j’introduis cette utilisation de la « généralité du sujet » dans certains ouvrages arabes influents en logique du XIIIe au XVIe siècle, en particulier Al-ǧumal par Afḍal al-Dīn al-Ḫūnaǧī (mort en 1248) et Tahḏīb al-manṭiq par Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī (morten 1390) et certains de leurs commentateurs. Je compare également ce concept de « généralité du sujet » au concept latin de « distribution ». (shrink)

En este artículo se quiere trazar una teoría política de la insurrección en el pensamiento de Max Stirner, en tanto alternativa ética y política a la revolución. Se mostrará cómo, según el pensador alemán, la revolución es en última instancia una estrategia fallida de emancipación en tanto en cuanto no libera al individuo de las formas de subjetividad que lo mantienen dependiente del poder. Más en general, se enseñará como el orden liberal post-revolucionario, detrás del lenguaje secular de los (...) derechos, las libertades y la igualdad, engendra técnicas más sutiles de gobernabilidad del individuo. La insurrección, en cambio, puede ser vista como un rechazo de las identidades y de los roles que disciplinan al individuo. Al respecto, se prestará una atención especial al concepto stirneriano de Eigenheit, como estrategia ética de auto-determinación y liberación de las formas rígidas de la subjetividad. En última instancia, se querrá mostrar cómo todo el proyecto político de la insurrección stirneriana se basa en un anarquismo ontológico que rechaza la lógica teleocrática del racionalismo moderno y pone en entredicho la misma noción de realización. The aim of this article to outline a political theory of insurrection in Max Stirner’s thought as an ethical and political alternative to revolution. I will show that revolution is ultimately a failed strategy of emancipation as it does not free the individual from the forms of subjectivity that keep her dependent on power. Insurrection, on the other hand, can be seen as a rejection of the identities and roles that discipline the individual. In this regard, special attention will be paid to the Stirnerian concept of Eigenheit as an ethical strategy of self-determination and liberation from rigid forms of subjectivity. Ultimately, I will show how the whole political project of the Stirnerian insurrection is based on an ontological anarchism that rejects the teleocratic logic of modern rationalism and calls into question the very notion of realization. (shrink)

THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE has been taken to be central to Avicenna’s metaphysics and ontology of being. Due to the influence that this distinction had on Thomism, and to a lesser extent on Maimonides’s work, some Medievalists and Orientalists took Avicenna’s distinction between essence and existence to be characterized by essentialism. A.-M. Goichon’s books Léxique de la Langue Philosophique d’Ibn Sina, Vocabulaires Comparés d’Aristote et d’Ibn Sina, and La Philosophie d’Avicenne et son Influence en Europe all offer a (...) great contribution to the translation and understanding of Avicenna’s works. However the interpretive reception of Goichon’s works has had a strong influence on subsequent Medievalists as well as Orientalist scholars. This impact on scholars, along with the stress on Avicenna’s influence on Thomism, has led in some instances to an exaggerated stress on the centrality of the essence/ existence distinction in Avicenna’s metaphysics. This state of affairs has eventually overshadowed other important aspects of Avicenna’s ontology of being and of his metaphysical and logical analysis of being in terms of the modalities of necessity, contingency, and impossibility. The examination of Avicenna’s metaphysics under the spell of all of these factors leads to an intellectually discomforting position that construes his ontology as essentialism. Consequently this leads to the interpretation of his work as being that of a metaphysician who subordinates existence to essence. Such interpretation has been even adopted by experts on Avicenna’s work within the Western scholarship as well as among some Arabists. For instance, some scholars stress that Averroes and Mulla Sadra are the metaphysicians of existence, while taking Avicenna to be the metaphysician of essence. John Caputo, a leading interpreter of Heidegger’s thought, makes extensive references to the work of the Thomist scholar Étienne Gilson in the context of examining Aquinas’s adoption of the Avicennian distinction between essence and existence. Caputo’s discussion of the essence/existence distinction adopts the standpoint that Gilson reflects in the reading of Avicenna’s metaphysics as being the starting point of a longstanding essentialist tradition that culminates with Hegel’s Science of Logic. This line of argumentation already supplies Caputo with sufficient arguments that enable him readily to stamp Avicenna’s metaphysics with Heidegger’s critique of the metaphysical tradition. Caputo based himself on what the Thomist scholar Gilson offers in this regard, particularly in taking Aquinas’s metaphysics to be the metaphysics of esse. Gilson’s position may itself be questioned on the ground that its interpretation of Avicenna has been pervaded by Thomist inclinations; this is the case, given that Gilson and other scholars construe Avicenna’s metaphysics as being essentially the metaphysics of essence. Based on this, Caputo accepts the claim that Avicenna’s ontology is essentialist. Such readings lead to the conclusion that Avicenna subordinates existence to essence and consequently that his ontology is characterized by what Heidegger takes to be a mark of the oblivion of being. The question that ought to be raised in this regard is whether the position of secondary scholarly sources is accurate. This is the case, given that some of the scholars, who propagate the claim that Avicenna is an essentialist, are after all scholars who have not consulted or studied the primary sources. Rather, they primarily rely on secondary sources that mediate Avicenna’s metaphysics through the Thomist scholarship and Latin translations. This is clearly the case with Gilson’s consideration of Avicenna’s corpus, which is addressed from the standpoint of Latin renderings of Avicenna’s texts rather than consulting the original Arabic or Persian texts. Having said that, the issue becomes more complicated in the light of considering Arabist or Medievalist scholars who do consult the primary Arabic sources, yet still hold that Avicenna is an essentialist. Such scholars remain under the influence of earlier translations and interpretations that were offered by prominent Orientalist scholars, who addressed the essence/ existence distinction in the light of broad philosophical concerns with Medieval Latin and Jewish philosophy, or by tracing the Aristotelian and Peripatetic influences on Islamic and Arabic philosophy. Some scholars like Gilson might even go further in terms of considering the works of Avicenna and Averroes from the standpoint of mapping out the doctrinal quarrels between Scotism and Thomism. The Medievalists who consult primary sources, yet who are still under the spell of earlier Orientalist views, do not attempt to review some of their positions by going back to a closer examination of the texts and to a questioning reception of dominant translations and interpretations. There is a hermeneutic need to return to the primary texts and to reexamine them in the light of new philosophical concerns. This return and reexamination are also needed in the light of questioning and adopting new methodological inclinations in translation and interpretation. This becomes a pressing issue given the seriousness of the philosophical consequences that might arise if we readily take Avicenna’s metaphysics to be characterized by essentialism. The examination of Avicenna’s ontology must account for the renderings of the terms mahiya, dhat, and wujud, be it in Latin, English, or French, or in terms of the Arabic/persian semantic, syntactic, and grammatical structure and derivation. The nuances of translation are determined by how these terms are philosophically used within the text and in the course of the development of Avicenna’s arguments. Such linguistic investigations would elucidate the philosophical interpretation of the essence/existence distinction in the light of addressing contemporary philosophical concerns, as these are attested with the consideration of Heidegger’s critique of classical ontology. (shrink)

Même si bon nombre de ses travaux ont porté sur l’interprétation des mythes grecs fondateurs, Vernant a consacré la première partie de sa carrière à l’étude de la naissance de la polis et de la démocratie grecques. Contre l’idée d’un surgissement miraculeux de la Raison en Ionie au VI e siècle avant notre ère, Vernant a montré ce que la conception grecque de la rationalité hérite du monde homérique mais surtout ce qu’elle doit aux structures sociales et politiques de la (...) polis démocratique. Mais les travaux de Vernant font plus qu’établir l’acte de naissance d’une forme particulière de rationalité « fille de la cité » : ils touchent au cœur du problème plus général des rapports entre raison et démocratie. (shrink)

Este ensayo se propone presentar una lectura de las críticas de Aristóteles a Parménides en la Física. El autor sugiere que algunas importantes cuestiones que Aristóteles tiene en cuenta cuando determina los principios básicos de la ciencia de la naturaleza surgen de esas críticas. Boeri argumenta que, a pesar del fuerte desacuerdo declarado por Aristóteles en Física I 2-3 respecto de las posiciones eleáticas en general y la posición de Parménides en particular, Aristóteles aprovecha su discusión con Parménides de (...) un modo constructivo a favor de su propia teoría del cambio y, en general, de las condiciones indispensables para la constitución de la ciencia de la naturaleza. Según el autor, uno de los puntos centrales del desacuerdo de Aristóteles con Parménides es al mismo tiempo una de las más fértiles cuestiones desde el punto de vista del uso de Aristóteles de tal desacuerdo para establecer los fundamentos de su física. (shrink)

Este artículo examina críticamente la reciente traducción e interpretación de la Ética a Nicómaco hecha por S. Rus Rufino y J.E. Meabe. El autor argumenta en contra de la interpretación general provista por los traductores y señala lo que considera que son errores fundamentales de interpretación del texto griego y del argumento general de Aristóteles que se sigue de dicha interpretación. This paper examines critically the recent translation and interpretation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics done by S. Rus Rufino (...) and J.E. Meabe. The author argues against the general view provided by the translators, pointing out what he takes to be fundamental mistakes in the interpretation both of the Greek text and of Aristotle's general argument. (shrink)

Le Politique est généralement conçu comme un dialogue décousu et manquant d'unité, au mieux comme une succession de méthodes et de voies de recherche différentes (division dichotomique, mythe, paradigme) visant chacune à définir le politique. Le présent article vise au contraire à montrer que l'unité du dialogue est coextensive au développement d'une unique diaíresis, et ce en soulignant, à partir de ce que le texte dit lui-même, que le mythe, la méthode par paradigme et l'analyse des constitutions existantes ne sont (...) que des moyens permettant à la division de tracer le sentier qui mène au politique tel qu'il devrait être. L'ensemble des passages méthodologiques du dialogue permet ainsi d'expliquer comment le Politique explore les possibilités et souligne les limites de la méthode diairétique. Plato's Statesman is usually read as a tedious and carelessly written exercise in dialectic, or, more charitably, as a patchwork of loosely connected applications of different methods of definition of statesmanship (division, myth and paradigm). In this paper, I argue that this much disputed problem of the unity of the dialogue can be solved, provided one reads the whole dialogue as what it claims to be, i.e. the developpment of a single diaíresis. It can be shown that the Eleatic Visitor makes use of the myth, of the analysis of paradigms and of the treatment of non-ideal constitutions as means to following a single path, throughout the whole dialogue, that leads to the definition of statesmanship as it should be. The Statesman emerges as Plato's most profound reflection on the possibilities and the limits of the diairetic method. (shrink)

Este ensayo se propone mostrar que, a pesar de la relevancia de la interpretación alejandrina del intelecto agente aristotélico (que Alejandro identifica con dios), tal interpretación no puede ser correcta por razones de orden sistemático que irían en contra de algunas premisas aristotélicas básicas, tanto ontológicas en general como de su noética y psicología en particular. En el desarrollo de su argumento general Boeri destaca la relevancia de algunos argumentos y explicaciones de Pseudo Filópono, quien (correctamente a su (...) juicio) se esfuerza por anclar el problema del intelecto del lado psicológico, lo cual presupone que el intelecto debe tener un “soporte” corpóreo. Una consecuencia de su examen es, según Boeri, que no sólo la interpretación de Alejandro del intelecto agente no constituye una correcta exégesis de De anima III 5, sino también que, al identificar al intelecto agente con el “intelecto que viene de afuera”, con dios y con la causa primera, Alejandro introduce una importante incoherencia dentro de su propia concepción psicológica que reconoce la tesis de Aristóteles de que los estados anímicos “se dan” a través del cuerpo. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo nos proponemos esclarecer el sentido de la educaciónpartiendo del marco general del pensamiento de Nietzsche, así como exponerla relación esencial entre filosofía y educación en el autor. En primertérmino abordamos la concepción de educación en Platón como punto departida para su comprensión en Nietzsche. Desde aquí señalamos el sentidoy el alcance de la relación entre educación y filosofía en ambos filósofos.No obstante la gran dificultad existente en orden a esclarecer un conceptoúnico de filosofía en Nietzsche, (...) intentamos fundamentar su idea de educacióndesde la crítica a la cultura que lleva a cabo; desarrollando tanto elconcepto como el sentido de la educación en relación a su concepción delser del hombre, y señalando la posibilidad de su cumplimiento histórico.Para ello abordaremos el tema de la educación en relación con los siguientesaspectos del filosofar nietzscheano: nihilismo, transmutación de los valores,voluntad de poder, necesidad y fundamentación de una nueva valoración, elser del hombre y el “último hombre”. A manera de conclusión tratamos depresentar desde la relación esencial entre educación y filosofía, relación fundadaen la concepción de la filosofía como preparación del “superhombre”,la inversión de la esencia de la educación pensada por Nietzsche. (shrink)

Los ultimos tiempos se caracterizan, sobre todo, por una mayor conciencia y un mayor interes acerca de los derechos humanos. Sin duda alguna es consecuencia de lo que experimento la humanidad en nuestro siglo. Las dos guerras mundiales, los campos de concentracion y de trabajo, los deportaciones masivas y ejecuciones, los crimenes de guerra y el exterminio de naciones enteras, muestran la violacion mas cruel de la dignidad de la persona humana y de sus derechos fundamentales. Hey dla, los Ilamados (...) derechos humanos, derechos de la persona o derechos naturales gozan de un gran reconocimiento. Sin embargo, 50 anos despues de proclamar la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas la Declaracion Universal de Derechos Humanos, el problema mas importante en la doctrina de los derechos humanos lo constituye todavia la busqueda del fundamento de los mismos. La abundante discusion que rodea esta cuestiön muestra diferentes posturas, a voces opuestas. Esta „gran dispersion de enfoques" -como dice Massini- lleva consigo consecuencias necesariamente negativas, porque „no puede sino conducir a su debilitamiento y, en definitiva, a su difuminacion. En ultima instancia, unos derechos quo se intentan justificar de modo tan desemejante y hasta contradictorio, tienden a aparecer como postulados gratuitos, como afirmaciones meramente dogmaticas". A pesar de esta dispersion, los enfoques para justificar los derechos humanos se pueden sintetizar en tres. (shrink)

Los ultimos tiempos se caracterizan, sobre todo, por una mayor conciencia y un mayor interes acerca de los derechos humanos. Sin duda alguna es consecuencia de lo que experimento la humanidad en nuestro siglo. Las dos guerras mundiales, los campos de concentracion y de trabajo, los deportaciones masivas y ejecuciones, los crimenes de guerra y el exterminio de naciones enteras, muestran la violacion mas cruel de la dignidad de la persona humana y de sus derechos fundamentales. Hey dla, los Ilamados (...) derechos humanos, derechos de la persona o derechos naturales gozan de un gran reconocimiento. Sin embargo, 50 anos despues de proclamar la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas la Declaracion Universal de Derechos Humanos, el problema mas importante en la doctrina de los derechos humanos lo constituye todavia la busqueda del fundamento de los mismos. La abundante discusion que rodea esta cuestiön muestra diferentes posturas, a voces opuestas. Esta „gran dispersion de enfoques" -como dice Massini- lleva consigo consecuencias necesariamente negativas, porque „no puede sino conducir a su debilitamiento y, en definitiva, a su difuminacion. En ultima instancia, unos derechos quo se intentan justificar de modo tan desemejante y hasta contradictorio, tienden a aparecer como postulados gratuitos, como afirmaciones meramente dogmaticas". A pesar de esta dispersion, los enfoques para justificar los derechos humanos se pueden sintetizar en tres. (shrink)

Patients with a life-threatening illness can be confronted with various types of loneliness, one of which is existential loneliness (EL). Since the experience of EL is extremely disruptive, the issue of EL is relevant for the practice of end-of-life care. Still, the literature on EL has generated little discussion and empirical substantiation and has never been systematically reviewed. In order to systematically review the literature, we (1) identified the existential loneliness literature; (2) established an organising framework for the review; (3) (...) conducted a conceptual analysis of existential loneliness; and (4) discussed its relevance for end-of-life care. We found that the EL concept is profoundly unclear. Distinguishing between three dimensions of EL—as a condition, as an experience, and as a process of inner growth—leads to some conceptual clarification. Analysis of these dimensions on the basis of their respective key notions—everpresent, feeling, defence; death, awareness, difficult communication; and inner growth, giving meaning, authenticity—further clarifies the concept. Although none of the key notions are unambiguous, they may function as a starting point for the development of care strategies on EL at the end of life. (shrink)

The publication of the article “Recent Models of the African Iron Age and the Cattle-Related Evidence” by Hromnik in a journal sponsored by Unesco raises a number of serious issues which we, as members of the International Scientific Committee charged with the responsibility of preparing an up-to-date and scientific history of Africa purged of its mists of racist propaganda, unfounded assertions and misleading and dangerous misinterpretations, cannot ignore. These issues include the scientific accuracy or authenticity of the article.

Aristotle'sSophistical Refutations(=Soph. el.) seeks to uncover the workings of apparent deductive reasoning, and is thereby largely devoted to the caricature of dialectic that the ancients callederistic(ἐριστική), the art of quarrelling. Unlike antilogy (ἀντιλογία), which refers to a type of argumentation where two arguments are pitted against each other in a contradictory manner, eristic takes on in Aristotle an exclusively pejorative meaning, as is made clear, for example, by this passage fromSoph. el.: ‘For just as unfairness in a contest is a (...) definite type of fault, and is a kind of foul fighting, so the art of contentious reasoning is foul fighting in disputation.’. (shrink)

t. 1. Introduction générale, témoignages, discours aus Corinthiens, sur la fortune.

This is a study of a crucial and controversial topic in metaphysics and the philosophy of science: the status of the laws of nature. D. M. Armstrong works out clearly and in comprehensive detail a largely original view that laws are relations between properties or universals. The theory is continuous with the views on universals and more generally with the scientific realism that Professor Armstrong has advanced in earlier publications. He begins here by mounting an attack on the orthodox and (...) sceptical view deriving from Hume that laws assert no more than a regularity of coincidence between instances of properties. In doing so he presents what may become the definitive statement of the case against this position. Professor Armstrong then goes on to establish his own theory in a systematic manner defending it against the most likely objections, and extending both it and the related theory of universals to cover functional and statistical laws. This treatment of the subject is refreshingly concise and vivid: it will both stimulate vigorous professional debate and make an excellent student text. (shrink)

This is a collection of essays written by leading experts in honour of Christopher Rowe, and inspired by his groundbreaking work in the exegesis of Plato. The authors represent scholarly traditions which are sometimes very different in their approaches and interests, and so rarely brought into dialogue with each other. This volume, by contrast, aims to explore synergies between them. Key topics include: the literary unity of Plato's works; the presence and role of his contemporaries in his dialogues; the function (...) of myth ; Plato's Socratic heritage, especially as played out in his discussions of psychology; his views of truth and being. Prominent among the dialogues discussed are Euthydemus, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Republic, Theaetetus, Timaeus, Sophist and Laws. (shrink)

In this important study D. M. Armstrong offers a comprehensive system of analytical metaphysics that synthesises but also develops his thinking over the last twenty years. Armstrong's analysis, which acknowledges the 'logical atomism' of Russell and Wittgenstein, makes facts the fundamental constituents of the world, examining properties, relations, numbers, classes, possibility and necessity, dispositions, causes and laws. All these, it is argued, find their place and can be understood inside a scheme of states of affairs. This is a comprehensive and (...) rigorously this-worldly account of the most general features of reality, argued from a distinctive philosophical perspective, and it will appeal to a wide readership in analytical philosophy. (shrink)

In this important study D. M. Armstrong offers a comprehensive system of analytical metaphysics that synthesises but also develops his thinking over the last twenty years. Armstrong's analysis, which acknowledges the 'logical atomism' of Russell and Wittgenstein, makes facts the fundamental constituents of the world, examining properties, relations, numbers, classes, possibility and necessity, dispositions, causes and laws. All these, it is argued, find their place and can be understood inside a scheme of states of affairs. This is a comprehensive and (...) rigorously this-worldly account of the most general features of reality, argued from a distinctive philosophical perspective, and it will appeal to a wide readership in analytical philosophy. (shrink)

This is a collection of twenty-five papers and reviews by the leading analytic philosopher of our time. It adds to the papers on metaphysics and epistemology to be found in his previous two-volume collection published by Oxford University Press. One previously unpublished paper—“Why Conditionalize?”—is included. Australasian philosophers may note with some pride that eleven of the pieces were first published in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy.

A wide-ranging study of the central concepts in epistemology - belief, truth and knowledge. Professor Armstrong offers a dispositional account of general beliefs and of knowledge of general propositions. Belief about particular matters of fact are described as structures in the mind of the believer which represent or 'map' reality, while general beliefs are dispositions to extend the 'map' or introduce casual relations between portions of the map according to general rules. 'Knowledge' denotes the reliability of (...) such beliefs as representations of reality. Within this framework Professor Armstrong offers a distinctive account of many of the main questions in general epistemology - the relations between beliefs and language, the notions of proposition, concept and idea, the analysis of truth, the varieties of knowledge, and the way in which beleifs and knowledge are supported by reasons. The book as a whole if offered as a contribution to a naturalistic account of man. (shrink)

We discuss our surgical philosophy concerning the subtle interplay between the size of the surgical margin taken and the resultant morbidity from ablative oncological. procedures, which is ever more evident in the treatment of head and neck malignancy. The extent of tissue resection is determined by the "trade off" between cancer control and the perioperative, functional and aesthetic morbidity and mortality of the surgery. We also discuss our dilemmas concerning recent minimally invasive endoscopic microsurgical. techniques for the trans-oral laser removal. (...) or co-ablation of aero-digestive tract tumours, which result in a minimal. surgical margin of oncological clearance. By a process of inductive argument as to the nature of the surgical margin, we consider whether the risks of taking a lesser margin with adjuvant therapy is justified by the attendant gain in reduced surgical morbidity and the possible costs in tumour control. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Prior’s puzzle is standardly taken to be the puzzle of why, given the assumption that that-clauses denote propositions, substitution of “the proposition that P” for “that P” within the complements of many propositional attitude verbs is invalid. I show that Prior’s puzzle is much more general than is ordinarily supposed. There are two variants on the substitutional form of the puzzle—a quantificational variant and a pronominal variant—and all three forms of the puzzle arise in a wide range of grammatical (...) positions, rather than merely in the complements of propositional attitude verbs. The generalized puzzle shows that a range of proposed solutions to the original puzzle fail, or are radically incomplete, and also reveals the connections between Prior’s puzzle and debates over the nature of semantic types and higher-order quantification. I go on to develop a novel, higher-order solution to the generalized form of the puzzle, and I argue that this higher-approach is superior to its first-order alternatives. (shrink)

We conduct an experiment to investigate the joint effects of advisor reassurance and advice source in enhancing the impact of advice on auditors’ whistleblowing propensity. Participants from a Big 4 firm assess the likelihood that a questionable act involving a superior will be reported, both before and after receiving advice. We manipulate, between-participants, the advice source and advisor reassurance on the firm’s policy on whistleblower protection, holding constant the advice recommendation. Our study is underpinned by the premise that moral agents (...) may require an impetus to do the right thing in the form of advice whose effects may vary by its source and nature. Results are consistent with our hypothesis. Specifically, while auditors’ propensity to report a questionable act increases after receiving advice, the increase is significantly higher when the advice is received with reassurance on whistleblower protection than without reassurance, with the effect of reassurance being greater when the advice is from an authoritative source than from a non-authoritative source. These results underscore the importance of advice in promoting whistleblowing and demonstrate how the impact of advice is jointly determined by its source and reassurance on whistleblower protection. (shrink)

According to a widespread view in metaphysics and philosophy of science, all explanations involve relations of ontic dependence between the items appearing in the explanandum and the items appearing in the explanans. I argue that a family of mathematical cases, which I call “viewing-as explanations”, are incompatible with the Dependence Thesis. These cases, I claim, feature genuine explanations that aren’t supported by ontic dependence relations. Hence the thesis isn’t true in general. The first part of the paper defends this (...) claim and discusses its significance. The second part of the paper considers whether viewing-as explanations occur in the empirical sciences, focusing on the case of so-called fictional models. It’s sometimes suggested that fictional models can be explanatory even though they fail to represent actual worldly dependence relations. Whether or not such models explain, I suggest, depends on whether we think scientific explanations necessarily give information relevant to intervention and control. Finally, I argue that counterfactual approaches to explanation also have trouble accommodating viewing-as cases. (shrink)

Sentimentalist theories in ethics treat evaluative judgments as somehow dependent on human emotional capacities. While the precise nature of this dependence varies, the general idea is that evaluative concepts are to be understood by way of more basic emotional reactions. Part of the task of distinguishing between the concepts that sentimentalism proposes to explicate, then, is to identify a suitably wide range of associated emotions. In this paper, we attempt to deal with an important obstacle to such views, which (...) arises from the dominant tradition in the philosophy of emotion. We will be attempting to steer a middle course between the traditional view and some recent, empirically-minded criticism. (shrink)

Bu makalenin [amacı], Osmanlı âlimlerinden Dâvûd Karsî’ye (ö. 1756 [?]) ait el-Îsâgûcî el-Cedîd’in t kikli neşrini ortaya koymaktır. Tahkik çalışması; eserin geniş bağlamını, müellifinin biyografisine genel bir bakışı ve içeriğinin bir incelemesiyle birlikte Ebherî’nin (ö. 663/1265) daha eski Îsâğûcî’si ile bir karşılaştırmasını içeren bir giriş ile başlamaktadır. Ebherî’nin orijinalinden yaklaşık iki kat daha uzun olan Karsî’nin eseri, 13. yüzyıldan itibaren Arabî mantık geleneğinde meydana gelen bazı önemli tartışmaların bir göstergesi konumundadır. Eser, müellifn kendi yapıtının, daha eski bir el kitabının “yeni” (...) (cedîd) bir versiyonu olduğunu vurgulaması bakımından da dikkate değerdir ki bu, 18. yüzyılın ortalarında bir Osmanlı medrese âlimi tarafından cedîd kavramına biçilen olumlu değere işaret etmektedir. (shrink)

Deductive inference is usually regarded as being “tautological” or “analytical”: the information conveyed by the conclusion is contained in the information conveyed by the premises. This idea, however, clashes with the undecidability of first-order logic and with the (likely) intractability of Boolean logic. In this article, we address the problem both from the semantic and the proof-theoretical point of view. We propose a hierarchy of propositional logics that are all tractable (i.e. decidable in polynomial time), although by means of growing (...) computational resources, and converge towards classical propositional logic. The underlying claim is that this hierarchy can be used to represent increasing levels of “depth” or “informativeness” of Boolean reasoning. Special attention is paid to the most basic logic in this hierarchy, the pure “intelim logic”, which satisfies all the requirements of a natural deduction system (allowing both introduction and elimination rules for each logical operator) while admitting of a feasible (quadratic) decision procedure. We argue that this logic is “analytic” in a particularly strict sense, in that it rules out any use of “virtual information”, which is chiefly responsible for the combinatorial explosion of standard classical systems. As a result, analyticity and tractability are reconciled and growing degrees of computational complexity are associated with the depth at which the use of virtual information is allowed. (shrink)

I want to defend a Combinatorialtheory of possibility. Such a view traces the very idea of possibility to the idea of the combinations – all the combinations which respect a certain simple form – of given, actual, elements. Combination is to be understood widely enough to cover the notions of expansion and contraction. The combinatorial idea is not new, of course. Wittgenstein gave a classical exposition of it in the Tractatus. Perhaps its charter is 3.4: ‘A proposition determines a place (...) in logical space. The existence of this logical place is guaranteed by the mere existence of the constituents’. There is a small additional combinatorial literature. I myself was converted to a combinatorial view by Brian Skyrms’ brief but fascinating article ‘Tractarian Nominalism.’. (shrink)

‘Sentimentalism’ is an old-fashioned name for the philosophical suggestion that moral or evaluative concepts or properties depend somehow upon human sentiments. This general idea has proven attractive to a number of contemporary philosophers with little else in common. Yet most sentimentalists say very little about the nature of the sentiments to which they appeal, and many seem prepared to enlist almost any object-directed pleasant or unpleasant state of mind as a sentiment. Furthermore, because battles between sentimentalism and its rivals (...) have tended to be joined over large issues about realism and antirealism, or cognitivism and noncognitivism, some attractive reasons for adopting sentimentalism which are to some extent independent of these issues have been largely ignored in metaethical discussion. This paper aims to motivate sentimentalism, but also to circumscribe its ambitions by rendering explicit some tacit assumptions in moral psychology on which I think the most promising sentimentalism depends. I begin (in section one) by sketching the kind of sentimentalism that I want to defend. Then, in sections two and three, I articulate two positive arguments for a sentimentalist understanding of certain evaluative concepts. The arguments I consider have their origins in the writings of various other authors, I think, but neither they nor their consequences have been clearly articulated before. In section four, I explore just what the sentiments would have to be like in order to play the role required of them in the arguments I develop. I will suggest that these arguments supply a highly specific ‘job description’ for the states to which sentimentalism appeals. Hence, sentimentalists who want to use these arguments, or ones like them, cannot be as casual about what they mean by ‘sentiments’ as many have tended to be. I then investigate a category of ‘natural emotions’ that meets that job description rather nicely, and offer some reasons for doubting that more inclusive categories of.... (shrink)

Bainbridge’s well known “Ironies of Automation” Analysis, design and evaluation of man–machine systems. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp 129–135, 1983. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-029348-6.50026-9) laid out a set of fundamental criticisms surrounding the promises of automation that, even 30 years later, remain both relevant and, in many cases, intractable. Similarly, a set of ironies in technologies for sensor driven self-quantification is laid out here, spanning from instrumental problems in human factors design to much broader social problems. As with automation, these ironies stand in the way (...) of many of the promised benefits of these wearable technologies. It is argued here that without addressing these ironies now, the promises of wearables may not come to fruition, and instead users may experience outcomes that are opposite to those which the designers seek to afford, or, at the very least, those which consumers believe they are being offered. This paper describes four key ironies of sensor driven self-quantification: know more, know better versus no more, no better; greater self-control versus greater social control; well-being versus never being well enough; more choice versus erosion of choice. (shrink)

On the basis of recent advancements in both neuroscience and archaeology, we propose a plausible biocultural mechanism at the basis of cultural evolution. The proposed mechanism, which relies on the notions of cultural exaptation and cultural neural reuse, may account for the asynchronous, discontinuous, and patchy emergence of innovations around the globe. Cultural exaptation refers to the reuse of previously devised cultural features for new purposes. Cultural neural reuse refers to cases in which exposure to cultural practices induces the formation, (...) activation, and stabilization of new functional and/or structural brain networks during the individual lifespan. The invention of writing is interpreted as a case of cultural exaptation of previous devices to record information, in use since at least the Early Later Stone Age and the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic. The measurable changes in brain structure and functioning caused by learning to read are proposed as an exemplar case of cultural neural reuse. It is argued that repeated cycles of cultural exaptation, development of appropriate strategies of cultural transmission, and ensuing cultural neural reuse represent the fundamental mechanism that has regulated the cultural evolution of our lineage. A general predictive model of when and under which circumstances the proposed mechanism should be expected to occur is proposed, and the relationship of our mechanism with gene-culture coevolutionary models is discussed. (shrink)

La riche collection d'objets en faïence du musée gréco-romain d'Alexandrie, dont nous préparons la publication complète, comprend plus de mille trois cents pièces découvertes, pour la majeure partie d'entre elles, à Alexandrie ou dans sa région. Nous présentons ici un tableau de la vaisselle ptolémaïque et romaine en insistant plus particulièrement sur les procédés de fabrication et la typologie de ces objets et offrons un état de la question sur la localisation des ateliers et le commerce de cette vaisselle.