Our current society seems to require a sharp separation between what can be tolerated in public and what must remain hidden. There is explicit and implicit censorship of both the subject of death and of the crying and suffering of surviving relatives and friends. Medieval literature and literary studies, however, show how the experience of dying and its appropriate manifestations of grief seemed to be more integrated into everyday life, as opposed to the apparent “disintegration” of nowadays. It is possible (...) to begin to detect this evolution already in medieval Hispanic literature itself, from an apparently more public, visible and integrated death in 13th-century Hispanic literature to a more private, concealed and disintegrated death in 15th-century Hispanic literature. This process will continue its journey to the present society of eternal springs and summers from which we have eradicated autumns and winters, seasons as necessary for the cycle of life – for personal, psychological and social balance – as the first two. Keywords: death; mourning; crying; medieval literature. Resumen Nuestra sociedad actual parece presentar una tajante separación entre lo que puede ser tolerado en público y lo que debe permanecer oculto. Hay una censura explícita e implícita tanto del tema de la muerte como del llanto y el sufrimiento de los familiares y amigos supervivientes. Sin embargo, la literatura medieval y los estudios literarios sobre la misma muestran cómo la experiencia del morir y sus apropiadas manifestaciones de dolor parecían estar más integradas en la vida cotidiana en contraposición a la aparente “desintegración” actual. Es posible comenzar a detectar esta evolución ya en la propia literatura hispánica medieval, desde una muerte aparentemente más pública, visible e integrada en la literatura hispánica del siglo XIII hasta una muerte más privada, oculta y desintegrada en la literatura hispánica del siglo XV. Este proceso continuará su recorrido hasta una sociedad actual de eternas primaveras y veranos de la que hemos erradicado los otoños e inviernos, estaciones tan necesarias para el ciclo de la vida —para el equilibrio personal, psicológico y social— como las dos primeras. Palabras clave: muerte; duelo; llanto; literatura medieval. (shrink)

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

It is common to hear talk of the aim of belief and to find philosophers appealing to that aim for numerous explanatory purposes. What belief 's aim explains depends, of course, on what that aim is. Many hold that it is somehow related to truth, but there are various ways in which one might specify belief 's aim using the notion of truth. In this article, by considering whether they can account for belief 's standard of correctness and the epistemic (...) norms governing belief, I argue against certain prominent specifications of belief 's aim given in terms of truth, and advance a neglected alternative. (shrink)

The _Physics_ is a foundational work of western philosophy, and the crucial one for understanding Aristotle's views on matter, form, essence, causation, movement, space, and time. This richly annotated, scrupulously accurate, and consistent translation makes it available to a contemporary English reader as no other does—in part because it fits together seamlessly with other closely associated works in the New Hackett Aristotle series, such as the _Metaphysics_, _De Anima_, and forthcoming _De Caelo_ and _On Coming to Be and Passing Away_. (...) Eventually the series will include all of Aristotle's works. Sequentially numbered endnotes provide the information most needed at each juncture, while a detailed Index of Terms indicates places where focused discussion of key notions occurs. An illuminating general Introduction describes the book that lies ahead, explaining what sort of work it is and what sorts of evidence it relies on. (shrink)

In the international bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, the renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The impact of overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the profound effect of (...) cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning our next vacation—each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems shape our judgments and decisions. -/- Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives—and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and selected by The New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011, Thinking, Fast and Slow is destined to be a classic. (shrink)

Sometimes, learning about the origins of a belief can make it irrational to continue to hold that belief—a phenomenon we call ‘genealogical defeat’. According to explanationist accounts, genealogical defeat occurs when one learns that there is no appropriate explanatory connection between one’s belief and the truth. Flatfooted versions of explanationism have been widely and rightly rejected on the grounds that they would disallow beliefs about the future and other inductively-formed beliefs. After motivating the need for some explanationist account, we raise (...) some problems for recent versions of explanationism. Learning from their failures, we then produce and defend a more resilient explanationism. (shrink)

Examines the lived experience of social encounters drawing on phenomenological insights.

Interpreters are divided on the question of whether the phrase ‘form of life’ is used univocally in Wittgenstein’s later writings. Some univocal interpreters suggest that, for Wittgenstein, ‘form of life’ captures a uniquely biological notion: the biologically human form of life. Others suggest that it captures a cultural notion: the notion of differently enculturated forms of human life. Non-univocal interpreters, in contrast, argue that Wittgenstein does not use ‘form of life’ univocally, but that he uses it sometimes to highlight a (...) cluster of biological notions and sometimes a cluster of cultural ones. The debate between univocal and non-univocal readers has generated a raft of intricate, illuminating literature on both sides. If it remains to an extent open, it is partly as a result of the fact that the textual evidence available on this matter, in Wittgenstein’s later published and unpublished writings, is so limited. In this paper, I argue that considering Wittgenstein’s earlier treatment of ‘form’ can help to shed light on his later treatment of ‘form of life’. More specifically I argue that revisiting the Tractatus ’ treatment of ‘form’ gives us – perhaps surprisingly – reasons to support a non-univocal later reading of ‘forms of life’. (shrink)

Individual responsibility is usually articulated either in terms of an individual’s intentions or in terms of the consequences of her actions. However, many of the situations we encounter on a regular basis are structured in such a way as to render the attribution of individual responsibility unintelligible in intentional or consequential terms. Situations of this type require a different understanding of individual responsibility, which I call conditioned responsibility. The conditioned responsibility model advances that, in such situations, responsibility arises directly out (...) of the conditions in which the individual finds herself, irrespective of her intentions or of the consequences of her actions. This model gives rise to a series of challenges, some of which, I propose, can be addressed by drawing on Wittgenstein’s later notion of form of life, together with the notion of honesty implicit in his early approach to ethics. (shrink)

Infallibilism is the view that a belief cannot be at once warranted and false. In this essay we assess three nonpartisan arguments for infallibilism, arguments that do not depend on a prior commitment to some substantive theory of warrant. Three premises, one from each argument, are most significant: if a belief can be at once warranted and false, then the Gettier Problem cannot be solved; if a belief can be at once warranted and false, then its warrant can be transferred (...) to an accidentally true belief; if a belief can be at once warranted and false, then it can be warranted and accidentally true. We argue that each of these is either false or no more plausible than its denial. Along the way, we offer a solution to the Gettier Problem that is compatible with fallibilism. (shrink)

This book advances a reading of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus that moves beyond the main interpretative options of the New Wittgenstein debate. It covers Wittgenstein’s approach to language and logic, as well as other areas unduly neglected in the literature, such as his treatment of metaphysics, the natural sciences and value. Tejedor re-contextualises Wittgenstein’s thinking in these areas, plotting its evolution in his diaries, correspondence and pre- Tractatus texts, and developing a fuller picture of its intellectual background. This broadening of the (...) angle of view is central to the interpretative strategy of her book: only by looking at the Tractatus in this richer light can we address the fundamental questions posed by the New Wittgenstein debate – questions concerning the method of the Tractatus , its approach to nonsense and the continuity in Wittgenstein’s philosophy. Wittgenstein’s early work remains insightful, thought-inspiring and relevant to contemporary philosophy of language and science, metaphysics and ethics. Tejedor’s ground-breaking work ultimately conveys a surprisingly positive message concerning the power for ethical transformation that philosophy can have, when it is understood as an activity aimed at increasing conceptual clarification and awareness. (shrink)

I defend a new interpretation of Wittgenstein's notion of religious attitude in the Tractatus , one that rejects three key views from the secondary literature: firstly, the view that, for Wittgenstein, the willing subject is a transcendental condition for the religious attitude; secondly, the view that the religious attitude is an emotive response to the world or something closely modelled on this notion of emotive response; and thirdly, the view that, although the religious and ethical pseudo-propositions of the Tractatus are (...) nonsensical, they nevertheless succeed in expressing the religious attitude endorsed by Wittgenstein. In connection to the first, I argue that the notion of willing subject as transcendental condition is abandoned by Wittgenstein in the Notebooks and is no longer a feature of his position in the Tractatus . In connection to the second, I argue that the religious attitude is dispositional rather than emotive for Wittgenstein: it is a disposition to use signs in a way that demonstrates one's conceptual clarity. Finally, in connection to the third, I argue that the religious or ethical attitude is strongly ineffable in that it cannot be described, expressed or conveyed by language at all. (shrink)

Supererogatory acts—good deeds “beyond the call of duty”—are a part of moral common sense, but conceptually puzzling. I propose a unified solution to three of the most infamous puzzles: the classic Paradox of Supererogation (if it’s so good, why isn’t it just obligatory?), Horton’s All or Nothing Problem, and Kamm’s Intransitivity Paradox. I conclude that supererogation makes sense if, and only if, the grounds of rightness are multi-dimensional and comparative.

In Lukács: Praxis and the Absolute, Daniel Andrés López reassembles Lukács’s philosophy of praxis on a Hegelian basis, as a conceptual-historical totality, both defending him and proposing an unprecedented, immanent critique that raises problems for Marxian philosophy as a whole.

Wittgenstein's earlier treatment of causation and induction remains thought‐provoking and relevant to contemporary debates in the philosophy of science. Wittgenstein's approach to causation and induction in the Tractatus emerges in the context of two separate, but related discussions. A negative discussion that aims to expose a particular understanding of natural necessity as nonsensical, and a more positive discussion concerning the role played by laws in the natural sciences. In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein suggests that internal relations hold between propositions by virtue (...) of the latter's truth‐functional structures. Causal laws are instructions that circumscribe what counts as a senseful proposition of the causal form within an optional system. The natural necessity view (NNV) criticized by Wittgenstein in the Tractatus suggests that some relations of necessary entailment arise between possible states, not by virtue of any internal relations between them, but by virtue of the obtaining of certain laws of nature. (shrink)

" Qualia " is an unfamiliar term for something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us. As is so often the case with philosophical jargon, it is easier to give examples than to give a definition of the term. Look at a glass of milk at sunset; the way it looks to you--the particular, personal, subjective visual quality of the glass of milk is the quale of your visual experience at the (...) moment. The way the milk tastes to you then is another, gustatory quale, and how it sounds to you as you swallow is an auditory quale; These various "properties of conscious experience" are prime examples of qualia. Nothing, it seems, could you know more intimately than your own qualia ; let the entire universe be some vast illusion, some mere figment of Descartes' evil demon, and yet what the figment is made of will be the qualia of your hallucinatory experiences. Descartes claimed to doubt everything that could be doubted, but he never doubted that his conscious experiences had qualia, the properties by which he knew or apprehended them. (shrink)

The rapidly increasing numbers of elderly people in our society have raised some important moral questions: How should we distribute social resources among different age groups? What does justice require from both the young and the old? In this book, Norman Daniels offers the first systematic philosophical discussion of these urgent questions, advocating what he calls a "lifespan" approach to the problem: Since, as they age, people pass through a variety of institutions, the challenge of caring for the elderly becomes (...) the prudent allocation of public resources among the various stages of people's lives. Using this philosophical approach, Daniels addresses specific public policy issues such as the allocation of medical funds, the adequacy of long-term care, current Medicare cost-containment measures, and the equitable distribution of income support over the lifespan and between generations. (shrink)

The social sciences playa variety of multifaceted roles in the policymaking process. So varied are these roles, indeed, that it is futile to talk in the singular about the use of social science in policymaking, as if there were one constant relationship between two fixed and stable entities. Instead, to address this issue sensibly one must talk in the plural about uses of dif ferent modes of social scientific inquiry for different kinds of policies under various circumstances. In some cases, (...) the influence of social scientific research is direct and tangible, and the connection between the find ings and the policy is easy to see. In other cases, perhaps most, its influence is indirect-one small piece in a larger mosaic of politics, bargaining, and compromise. Occasionally the findings of social scientific studies are explicitly drawn upon by policymakers in the formation, implementation, or evaluation of particular policies. More often, the categories and theoretical models of social science provide a general background orientation within which policymakers concep tualize problems and frame policy options. At times, the in fluence of social scientific work is cognitive and informational in nature; in other instances, policymakers use social science primarily for symbolic and political purposes in order to le gitimate preestablished goals and strategies. Nonetheless, amid this diversity and variety, troubling general questions persistently arise. (shrink)

In this paper I explore the ethical responsibility of agents who find themselves in situations characterized by what I call the Individual Ethical Gap (IEG). Individual Ethical Gap situations are structured so as to rule out holding individuals responsible for their actions and omissions by virtue of the intentions behind or the consequences of their actions. I argue that, in IEG situations, individuals can nevertheless, depending on the circumstances, be held ethically responsible for their actions and omissions by virtue of (...) the conditions in which they find themselves operating. Individual Ethical Gap situations therefore give rise to what I call conditioned responsibility: responsibility stemming from the conditions in which one finds oneself enmeshed. This notion of an ethics stemming from conditions (rather than from consequences or intentions) gives rise to a particular form of vulnerability to error in our self- and other-ascriptions of ethical responsibility: a vulnerability in our ethical understanding. In the final section of the paper I use Pamela Sue Anderson’s discussion of vulnerability and of Kantian autonomy to show that this vulnerability arising from the conditioned aspect of our ethical responsibility need not be regarded as a threat to ethics but, on the contrary, as an element of belonging and of understanding that renders possible a more honest encounter with others and with the world. (shrink)

The potential to collect brain data more directly, with higher resolution, and in greater amounts has heightened worries about mental and brain privacy. In order to manage the risks to individuals posed by these privacy challenges, some have suggested codifying new privacy rights, including a right to “mental privacy.” In this paper, we consider these arguments and conclude that while neurotechnologies do raise significant privacy concerns, such concerns are—at least for now—no different from those raised by other well-understood data collection (...) technologies, such as gene sequencing tools and online surveillance. To better understand the privacy stakes of brain data, we suggest the use of a conceptual framework from information ethics, Helen Nissenbaum’s “contextual integrity” theory. To illustrate the importance of context, we examine neurotechnologies and the information flows they produce in three familiar contexts—healthcare and medical research, criminal justice, and consumer marketing. We argue that by emphasizing what is distinct about brain privacy issues, rather than what they share with other data privacy concerns, risks weakening broader efforts to enact more robust privacy law and policy. (shrink)

1. Happiness, then and now -- Happiness, eudaimonia, and practical reasoning -- Happiness as eudaimonia -- Happiness and virtuous activity -- New directions from old debates -- 2. Happiness then: the sufficiency debate -- Aristotle's case against the sufficiency thesis -- 3. Happiness now: rethinking the self -- Socrates' case for the sufficiency thesis -- Epictetus and the stoic self -- The Stoics' case for the sufficiency thesis -- The embodied conception of the self -- The embodied conception and psychological (...) well-being -- The Stoics' case against the embodied conception. (shrink)

Supererogatory acts are those that lie “beyond the call of duty.” There are two standard ways to define this idea more precisely. Although the definitions are often seen as equivalent, I argue that they can diverge when options are infinite, or when there are cycles of better options; moreover, each definition is acceptable in only one case. I consider two ways out of this dilemma.

The central question in contemporary ethics is whether virtue can replace duty as the primary notion in ethical theory. The subject of intense contemporary debate in ethical theory, virtue ethics is currently enjoying an increase in interest. This is the first book to focus directly on the subject. It provides a clear, systematic introduction to the area and houses under one cover a collection of the central articles published on the debate over the past decade. The essays encompass a wide (...) range ofaspects: the difference between virtue ethics and traditional duty ethics; present arguments for and against virtue ethics; the practical implications of virtue ethics and the Aristotelian and Kantian attitudes to virtue ethics. (shrink)

Moral functioning is a defining feature of human personhood and human social life. Moral Psychology provides an integrative and evaluative overview of the theoretical and empirical traditions that have attempted to make sense of moral cognition, prosocial behavior, and the development of virtuous character.This is the first book to integrate a comprehensive review of the psychological literatures with allied traditions in ethics. Moral rationality and decisionmaking; the development of the sense of fairness and justice, and of prosocial dispositions; as well (...) as the notion of moral self and moral identity and their relation to issues of character and virtue are fully discussed in the rich contexts provided by psychological and philosophical paradigms. Lapsley emphasizes parenting and educational strategies for influencing moral behavior, reasoning, and character development, and charts a line of research for the “post-Kohlbergian era” in moral psychology.This book will be an invaluable text for advanced courses in moral psychology, as taught in departments of psychology, education, and philosophy. It will also prove to be a standard reference work for researchers and ethicists alike. (shrink)

Professor Little presents an introduction to the philosophy of social science with an emphasis on the central forms of explanation in social science: rational-intentional, causal, functional, structural, materialist, statistical and interpretive. The book is very strong on recent developments, particularly in its treatment of rational choice theory, microfoundations for social explanation, the idea of supervenience, functionalism, and current discussions of relativism.Of special interest is Professor Little’s insight that, like the philosophy of natural science, the philosophy of social science can profit (...) from examining actual scientific examples. Throughout the book, philosophical theory is integrated with recent empirical work on both agrarian and industrial society drawn from political science, sociology, geography, anthropology, and economics.Clearly written and well structured, this text provides the logical and conceptual tools necessary for dealing with the debates at the cutting edge of contemporary philosophy of social science. It will prove indispensible for philosophers, social scientists and their students. (shrink)

Ackn o wledgments I owe special gratitude to Professors Hugo Adam Bedau and John Rawls for many helpful discussions of the general idea and scope, ...

Public discussions of political and social issues are often characterized by deep and persistent polarization. In social psychology, it’s standard to treat belief polarization as the product of epistemic irrationality. In contrast, we argue that the persistent disagreement that grounds political and social polarization can be produced by epistemically rational agents, when those agents have limited cognitive resources. Using an agent-based model of group deliberation, we show that groups of deliberating agents using coherence-based strategies for managing their limited resources tend (...) to polarize into different subgroups. We argue that using that strategy is epistemically rational for limited agents. So even though group polarization looks like it must be the product of human irrationality, polarization can be the result of fully rational deliberation with natural human limitations. (shrink)

From an early age, humans know a surprising amount about basic physical principles, such as gravity, force, mass, and shape. We can see this in the way that young children play, and manipulate objects around them. The same behaviour has long been observed in primates - chimpanzees have been shown to possess a remarkable ability to make and use simple tools. But what does this tell us about their inner mental state - do they therefore share the same understanding to (...) that of a young child? Do they understand the simple, underlying physical principles involved? Though some people would say that they do, this book reports groundbreaking research that questions whether this really is the case. -/- Folk Physics for Apes challenges the assumptions so often made about apes. It offers us a rare glimpse into the workings of another mind, examining how apes perceive and understand the physical world - an understanding that appears to be both similar to, and yet profoundly different from our own. The book will have broad appeal to evolutionary psychologists, developmental psychologists, and those interested in the sub-disciplines of cognitive science (philosophy, anthropology). The book additionally offers for developmental psychologists some valuable new non-verbal techniques for assessing causal understanding in young children. (shrink)

Sometimes it takes years of debate for philosophers to discover what it is they really disagree about. Sometimes they talk past each other in long series of books and articles, never guessing at the root disagreement that divides them. But occasionally a day comes when something happens to coax the cat out of the bag. "Aha!" one philosopher exclaims to another, "so that's why you've been disagreeing with me, misunderstanding me, resisting my conclusions, puzzling me all these years!".

This paper puts forward an alternative interpretation of the argument for simple objects advanced in the 2.0s of the Tractatus. In my view, Wittgenstein derives the simplicity of objects directly from his account of possible states, complex objects and senseful propositions. The key to Wittgenstein's argument is the idea that, if there were no simple objects, possible states would not be necessarily possible. If this were the case, however, there would be no senseful language, in Wittgenstein's view. One of the (...) subsidiary aims of this paper is to question the idea that Wittgenstein posits simples because, without them, language would be infinitely analysable.1. (shrink)

Philosophers have found postulating possible worlds to be very useful in a number of areas, including philosophy of language and mind, logic, and metaphysics. Impossible worlds are a natural extension to this use of possible worlds, and can help resolve a number of difficulties thrown up by possible‐worlds frameworks.

A remarkable number of Nietzsche's substantive moral psychological views have been borne out by evidence from the empirical sciences. Moral judgments are products of affects on Nietzsche's view, but the latter are in turn causally dependent upon more fundamental features of the individual. Nietzsche accepts a doctrine of types. The path is short from the acceptance of the Doctrine of Types to the acceptance of epiphenomenalism, as Leiter, and more recently, Riccardi argue. This chapter explains Nietzsche's phenomenological account of willing, (...) which serves as independent motivation for the view that Nietzsche denies the causal efficacy of conscious acts of willing. It also explores that in spite of an absence of volitional freedom, self‐control can be usefully understood on a strength‐model of motivational resources. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of how Nietzsche, without employing the contemporary methods of empirical psychology, could nonetheless be such a prescient moral psychologist. (shrink)

Nihilism is the thesis that no composite objects exist. Some ontologists have advocated abandoning nihilism in favor of deep nihilism, the thesis that composites do not existO, where to existO is to be in the domain of the most fundamental quantifier. By shifting from an existential to an existentialO thesis, the deep nihilist seems to secure all the benefits of a composite-free ontology without running afoul of ordinary belief in the existence of composites. I argue that, while there are well-known (...) reasons for accepting nihilism, there appears to be no reason at all to accept deep nihilism. In particular, deep nihilism draws no support either from the usual arguments for nihilism or from considerations of parsimony. (shrink)

Realists about possible worlds typically identify possible worlds with abstract objects, such as propositions or properties. However, they face a significant objection due to Lewis (1986), to the effect that there is no way to explain how possible worlds-as-abstract objects represent possibilities. In this paper, I describe a response to this objection on behalf of realists. The response is to identify possible worlds with propositions, but to deny that propositions are abstract objects, or indeed objects at all. Instead, I argue (...) that realists should follow Prior (1971) and others in treating higher-order quantification (e.g. quantification into predicate or sentence position) as a genuine form of quantification in its own right, and so in particular, not to be analysed in terms of first-order quantification over abstract objects. I argue that from this ‘higher-orderist’ perspective, there is a relatively straightforward answer to the question of how possible worlds-as-propositions succeed in representing possibilities. (shrink)

Realists about possible worlds typically identify possible worlds with abstract objects, such as propositions or properties. However, they face a significant objection due to Lewis (1986), to the effect that there is no way to explain how possible worlds-as-abstract objects represent possibilities. In this paper, I describe a response to this objection on behalf of realists. The response is to identify possible worlds with propositions, but to deny that propositions are abstract objects, or indeed objects at all. Instead, I argue (...) that realists should follow Prior (1971) and others in treating higher-order quantification (e.g. quantification into predicate or sentence position) as a genuine form of quantification in its own right, and so in particular, not to be analysed in terms of first-order quantification over abstract objects. I argue that from this ‘higher-orderist’ perspective, there is a relatively straightforward answer to the question of how possible worlds-as-propositions succeed in representing possibilities. (shrink)

It has become customary to conceptualize the living cell as an intricate piece of machinery, different to a man-made machine only in terms of its superior complexity. This familiar understanding grounds the conviction that a cell's organization can be explained reductionistically, as well as the idea that its molecular pathways can be construed as deterministic circuits. The machine conception of the cell owes a great deal of its success to the methods traditionally used in molecular biology. However, the recent introduction (...) of novel experimental techniques capable of tracking individual molecules within cells in real time is leading to the rapid accumulation of data that are inconsistent with an engineering view of the cell. This paper examines four major domains of current research in which the challenges to the machine conception of the cell are particularly pronounced: cellular architecture, protein complexes, intracellular transport, and cellular behaviour. It argues that a new theoretical understanding of the cell is emerging from the study of these phenomena which emphasizes the dynamic, self-organizing nature of its constitution, the fluidity and plasticity of its components, and the stochasticity and non-linearity of its underlying processes. (shrink)