To properly understand behavior, we must obtain both ultimate and proximate explanations. Put briefly, ultimate explanations are concerned with why a behavior exists, and proximate explanations are concerned with how it works. These two types of explanation are complementary and the distinction is critical to evolutionary explanation. We are concerned that they have become conflated in some areas of the evolutionary literature on human behavior. This article brings attention to these issues. We focus on three specific areas: the evolution of (...) cooperation, transmitted culture, and epigenetics. We do this to avoid confusion and wasted effort—dangers that are particularly acute in interdisciplinary research. Throughout this article, we suggest ways in which misunderstanding may be avoided in the future. (shrink)

Deacon presents a fascinating model that adds to explanations of the origins of life from physical matter. Deacon’s paper owes much to the work of Howard Pattee, who saw semiotic relations in informational terms, and Deacon binds his model to criticism of current information concepts in biology which he sees as semantically inadequate. In this commentary I first outline the broader project from Pattee, and then I present a cybernetic perspective on information. My claim is that this view of information (...) is already present within biology and provides what Deacon seeks. (shrink)

This commentary takes issue with Corballis's claim to have presented a falsifiable hypothesis. It argues that Corballis has instead presented a framework of weak inferences that, although unfalsifiable, might help to constrain future theory-building.

In this commentary we outline perceptual control theory and suggest this as a fruitful way for Lee and Schwarz (L&S) to fully embody their account of cleansing behavior. Moreover, we take issue with the command control approach that L&S have taken seeing this as an unnecessary cognitive commitment within an embodied model of cleansing behavior.

Locke & Bogin (L&B) rightly point to the absence of ontogeny in theories of language evolution. However, they overly rely upon ontogenetic data to isolate components of the language faculty. Only an adaptationist analysis, of the sort seen in evolutionary psychology, can carve language at its joints and lead to testable predictions about how language works.

Mongolian philosophy in the post-communism period.

Research papers presented at the same title scientific conference, dedicated to the World Philosophy Day.

Morals of 13th-20th century Mongolian Moral Doctrines.

Selected research articles on business ethics in Mongolia.

Andrews et al. present a form of instrumental adaptationism that is designed to test the hypothesis that a given trait is an adaptation. This epistemological commitment aims to make clear statements about behavioural natural kinds. The instrumental logic is sound, but it is the limits of our empirical imagination that can cause problems for theory construction.

Jablonka & Lamb (J&L) have presented a number of different possible mechanisms for finessing design. The extra-genetic nature of these mechanisms has led them to challenge orthodox neo-Darwinian views. However, these mechanisms are for calibration and have been designed by natural selection. As such, they add detail to our knowledge, but neo-Darwinism is sufficiently resourced to account for them.

The topic of biopolitics is a timely one, and it has become increasingly important for scholars to reconsider how life is objectified, mobilized, and otherwise bound up in politics. This cutting-edge volume discusses the philosophical, social, and political notions of biopolitics, as well as the ways in which biopower affects all aspects of our lives, including the relationships between the human and nonhuman, the concept of political subjectivity, and the connection between art, science, philosophy, and politics. In addition to tracing (...) the evolving philosophical discourse around biopolitics, this collection researches and explores certain modes of resistance against biopolitical control. Written by leading experts in the field, the book’s chapters explore resistance across a wide range of areas: politics and biophilosophy, technology and vitalism, creativity and bioethics, and performance. Resisting Biopolitics is an important intervention in contemporary biopolitical theory, looking towards the future of this interdisciplinary field. (shrink)

Understanding Deleuze, Understanding Modernism explores the multi-faceted and formative impact of Gilles Deleuze on the development and our understanding of modernist thought in its philosophical, literary, and more broadly cultural manifestations. Gilles Deleuze himself rethought philosophical history with a series of books and essays on individual philosophers such as Kant, Spinoza, Leibniz, Nietzsche, and Bergson and authors such as Proust, Kafka, Beckett and Woolf, on the one hand, and Bacon, Messiaen, and Pollock, among others, in other arts. This volume acknowledges (...) Deleuze's profound impact on a century of art and thought and the origin of that impact in his own understanding of modernism. Understanding Deleuze, Understanding Modernism begins by "conceptualizing" Deleuze by offering close readings of some of his most important works. The contributors offer new readings that illuminate the context of Deleuze's work, either by reading one of Deleuze's texts against or in the context of his entire body of work or by challenging Deleuze's readings of other philosophers. A central section on Deleuze and his aesthetics maps the relationships between Deleuze's thought and modernist literature. The volume's final section features an extended glossary of Deleuze's key terms, with each definition having its own expert contributor. (shrink)

"...A monográfia célja, hogy tanárképzésben és a tanártovábbképzésben résztvevők megismerkedjenek az intézményes és nem-intézményes nevelés aktuális és megoldandó feladataival, valamint a hazai és nemzetközi törekvésekkel ezen feladatok megoldására. A nemzetközi és összehasonlító megközelítésű kötet számos témája közé tartozik a nevelés (pedagógiai) antropológiai megközelítése, történeti-filozófiai előzményei, kapcsolódásai más tudományterületekkel, a nevelés stílusai, valamint a nevelő- és a tanulószerep." (@bookline.hu).

A collection of articles by distinguished scholars from a variety of disciplines providing a postmodern perspective on the ethical and political issues raised by the classical figure of Antigone, a woman who questions the role of the patriarchal state.

Glastonbury Abbey was the wealthiest and most influential monastery in later Anglo-Saxon England. It was a noted centre of scholarship, and claimed ancient origins which were later extravagantly embellished to link the house with such luminaries as St Patrick, St David and King Arthur. The historiographical evidence for Glastonbury is particularly challenging, because the accounts of the monastery's early history were revised and interpolated over centuries, as the legends grew. There are also complications in the study of its archive: the (...) manuscripts are mostly late and corrupt, and the whole is overshadowed by the contents list of a lost cartulary, which included many more early charters than now survive. The present volume is the first critical edition of the sixty-one surviving charters from the abbey's pre-Conquest archive, which date from the later seventh century to the reign of Cnut. The texts are edited to a high standard, with comprehensive commentaries that include translation and elucidation of the Old English boundary clauses, and authoritative assessments of authenticity. There is a long introduction with analysis and synthesis of the documentary evidence for Glastonbury's history in the Anglo-Saxon period and for the accumulation of its endowment, including a section on William of Malmesbury's works on Glastonbury. The volume concludes with a series of appendixes which present all the evidence for the lost charters in the Liber Terrarum and in other sources. (shrink)

The cosmological constant problem arises at the intersection between general relativity and quantum field theory, and is regarded as a fundamental problem in modern physics. In this paper, we describe the historical and conceptual origin of the cosmological constant problem which is intimately connected to the vacuum concept in quantum field theory. We critically discuss how the problem rests on the notion of physically real vacuum energy, and which relations between general relativity and quantum field theory are assumed in order (...) to make the problem well-defined. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Constructivist Model Building: Empirical Examples From Mathematics Education” by Catherine Ulrich, Erik S. Tillema, Amy J. Hackenberg & Anderson Norton. Upshot: The suggestion that model building can be used by teachers to enable productive interactions with students is taken up. Challenges and possibilities in exploring constructivist model building by examining mathematics teacher educators’ interactions with teachers are investigated.

Aristote, pendant l'Antiquité grecque, affirmait que "tous les hommes ont un désir naturel de savoir". De cette formule sont nées des questions essentielles dont une des plus importantes : comment connaît-on? Pour y répondre, Descartes, au début de la modernité, a également pensé à une disposition naturelle de l'homme à connaître. En supposant que "le bon sens est la chose du monde la mieux partagée", il faisait de la raison le signe distinctif existant entre l'homme et les autres êtres vivants. (...) La raison caractérise l'homme et s'emploie suivant une pluralité de modalités et en fonction des différentes sensibilités intellectuelles. Cet ouvrage, Le pluralisme des rationalités. Etats des lieux, débats et interrogations, est un ensemble de textes dont les auteurs expriment, en fonction de leurs sensibilités philosophiques, des champs d'expression de la raison. (shrink)

Abstract. In this article we developed scientific and applied foundations of commercialization of the nature-resource potential of anthropogenic objects, on the example of exhausted mines. It is determined that the category of “anthropogenic object” can be considered in a narrow-applied sense, as specific anthropogenic objects to ensure the target needs, and in a broad theoretical sense, meaning everything that is created and changed by human influence, that is the objects of both artificial and natural origin. It was determined that problems (...) of commercialization of the natural-resource potential of anthropogenic objects are most often considered by researchers for specific objects, without having complex methodological coverage from the point of view of combining environmental, technical, economic and managerial components. When studying the substantiation of the scientific base, the authors confirmed the feasibility of the commercialization of natural-resource potential of anthropogenic objects on the example of a number of theoretical scientific studies in reclamation, reconstruction, recreation, remediation, restoration of biological productivity and economic value of land disturbed by economic activity. The considered examples of exhausted mines in the 21st century in the USA, Canada, Germany, Romania, and Poland indicate a wide range of opportunities for their commercialization. The study of the potential for commercialization of exhausted mines in the post-Soviet countries testified to the underused reserves for the commercialization of their nature-resource potential and their high potential for further development. The authors proposed the identification of anthropogenic objects on the basic livelihood spheres of society. There were identified the main system (natural, biological, technical, economic, social, managerial) and structural (subjects, trends, threats, risks, problems, challenges) factors of diagnosing the state of an anthropogenic object. A set of measures has been developed for commercialization of an anthropogenic object in functional and production activities, product policy, financial and investment spheres, pricing and sales policies, promotion, management and determination of property rights. Recommendations were provided on optimizing the management decision-making process based on a set of positivistic development principles, methods, and management functions. The study allows international organizations, state and local authorities, territorial communities, owners and potential investors to see new opportunities and make mutually beneficial decisions on the rational use of the nature-resource potential of anthropogenic objects. (shrink)

The Casimir force between two neutral metallic plates is often considered conclusive evidence for the reality of electromagnetic zero-point fluctuations in 'empty space' (i.e. in absence of any boundaries). However, it is not well known that the Casimir force can be derived from many different points of view. The purpose of this note is to supply a conceptually oriented introduction to a representative set of these different interpretations. The different accounts suggest that the Casimir effect reveals nothing conclusive about the (...) nature of the vacuum. (shrink)