This collection seeks to excavate the tradition of radical liberal class analysis, which predated and inspired Marx's reflections on class. Liberal class theory is distinctive because it regards relationship with the state as constitutive rather than just indicative of social class membership. Along with an introduction that frames the discussion historically and conceptually, Social Class and State Power provides readers with easy access to provocative texts from the early modern period to the present.

Ingratiation is an impression management strategy whereby actors try to curry favor with targets, and is one of the more pervasive social activities in a workplace. An assumption in the literature is that a target’s awareness of the tactical purposes behind ingratiation is an ethical concern which triggers suspicions of ulterior motives and casts the actor as distrustful. However, this assumption fails to consider alternative explanations in that ingratiation may also be perceived as occurring for authentic purposes. This alternative view (...) may cause targets to cast the actor differently, and thus presents an intriguing ethical paradox where actors could be recognized by targets as trustful, distrustful, or some level in-between. This research draws on behavioral ethics and attributional models to investigate supervisor trust of employees who engage in ingratiation. We report two studies that examine perceived tactical ingratiation, perceived authentic ingratiation, and their interaction as predictors of supervisor trust using multisource data from two field samples. Across the two studies, we find positive interactions between tactical and authentic ingratiation as predictors of trust and trustworthiness. Study 2 also shows that combined tactical and authentic ingratiation predicts the trustworthiness dimensions of benevolence and integrity, but not ability. The results suggest that ingratiation is portrayed somewhat bleaker than necessary in the literature, and that when actors engage in tactical ingratiation that is also deemed authentic, targets respond with less concern than the literature would suggest. (shrink)

This long-awaited book sets out the implications of Habermas's theory of communicative action for moral theory. "Discourse ethics" attempts to reconstruct a moral point of view from which normative claims can be impartially judged. The theory of justice it develops replaces Kant's categorical imperative with a procedure of justification based on reasoned agreement among participants in practical discourse.Habermas connects communicative ethics to the theory of social action via an examination of research in the social psychology of moral and interpersonal (...) development. He aims to show that our basic moral intuitions spring from something deeper and more universal than contingent features of our tradition, namely from normative presuppositions of social interaction that belong to the repertoire of competent agents in any society. Jürgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. (shrink)

A curious and comparatively neglected element of death penalty jurisprudence in America is my target in this paper. That element concerns the circumstances under which severely mentally disabled persons, incarcerated on death row, may have their sentences carried out. Those circumstances are expressed in a part of the law which turns out to be indefensible. This legal doctrine—competence-for-execution —holds that a condemned, death-row inmate may not be killed if, at the time of his scheduled execution, he lacks an awareness of (...) his impending death or the reasons for it. I argue that the law of CFE should be abandoned, along with the notion that it is permissible to kill the deeply disturbed just so long as they meet some narrow test of readiness to die. By adopting CFE, the courts have been forced to give independent conceptual and moral significance to a standard for competence that simply cannot bear the weight placed upon it. To be executable, CFE requires that a condemned prisoner meet a standard demonstrating an awareness of certain facts about his death. Yet this standard both leads to confusing and counter-intuitive results and is unsupported either by the reasons advanced by the courts on its behalf or by any of the standard theoretical justifications of criminal punishment. If executing the profoundly psychotic or delusional is wrong the law needs a better account of the wrong done when prisoners like Ford are killed. I suggest wherein that wrong might be located. (shrink)

This paper presents methods to visualize the structure of trees that occur in genetic programming. These methods allow for the inspection of structure of entire trees even though several thousands of nodes may be involved. The methods also scale to allow for the inspection of structure for entire populations and for complete trials even though millions of nodes may be involved. Examples are given that demonstrate how this new way of “seeing” can afford a potentially rich way of understanding dynamics (...) that underpin genetic programming. The examples indicate further studies that might be enabled by visualizing structure at these scales. (shrink)

This article opens with a discussion of incarceration in the time of Covid 19. The story of one of the inmates in the high-security prison of Puente Grande leads us back to the beginning of the fifteen-year-long imprisonment of an innocent and, with it, to a complex narrative. The story concerns the use of the juridical concepts of delincuencia organizada, racketeering, and kidnapping. As a charge it has been repeatedly implemented in what has come to be called la fabricaciόn (...) de culpables in Mexico, Columbia, Argentina, and Brazil. Although the legal terminology changes, false incarceration is hardly limited to Central and South America. This is therefore a cautionary tale about how charges – and people – are framed, and how the latter are tried on social and corporate media, even before their official trials begin. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to identify the main factors of the current crisis of the nation-state and to demonstrate how many of the voids left by this crisis are filled by religions. The main characteristic of the nation-state is the principle of sovereignty. The apogee of the nation-state is the political form of industrialization. National identity is possible only when the state proves to its citizens that the fact of being a member of it carries benefits and privileges (...) and will always bring more. Today, the majority of nation-states, in particular the oldest great powers, no longer have this capability. The weakening of the nation-state began at the end of the 19th century. The first wave of globalization multiplied the cases of reciprocal interferences and trespassed on the theoretical impermeability of the sovereign states. The outcome of the First World War, with the creation of the first supranational body, and much more the outcome of the Second World War, were two important steps of this crisis. The birth of the United Nations, and of other supranational bodies, as well as the creation of the first court called to judge an entire political class, were an assault on the principle of sovereignty. The second wave of globalization, characterized by the free circulation of goods, money, people and cultures, did the rest. Moreover, the countries that ‘invented’ the principle of sovereignty are today in relative decline as new powers are emerging. The nation-state is no longer able to keep its promises. The less effective states become at offering their citizens both meaning and social services, the more do religions tend to reoccupy the public stage. The less national and political legitimacy they have, the more powers use the religious tool against one another. (shrink)

The pragmatic turn away from epistemology could mean a number of things for the definition of the future of political theory. First, political liberalism would mark a distinct departure from comprehensive liberalism that is based solely on epistemological justification of fundamental liberal notions. Second, the pragmatic turn would cause Rawls to modify his long-time emphasis on constructivism, moving from Kantian constructivism to political constructivism, and implicitly adopting more substantive approach. Third, the fact of pluralism would radically open up the (...) question of the foundation for consensus, which would lead to an emphasis on constitutionalism. Fourth, this move, innovative as it was, would lead to the establishment of an association between constitutional interpretation and public reason. Finally, this set of moves associated with the pragmatic turn would essentially set up a series of constraints when it comes to evaluating public reason from an international perspective. (shrink)

George Stigler défendit deux revendications importantes. 1) Ce que disent les gens à propos des choix n’a pas d’importance. 2) Toutes les institutions sociales sont efficientes à long terme. Je démontre que la seconde proposition découle d’une considération pour la rationalité économique à laquelle s’ajoute une préférence nulle pour le temps.Il est important de constater que la désapprobation d’une préférence positive pour le temps est un aspect de la moralité traditionnelle. Cela suggère que la seconde revendication de Stigler est (...) tributaire de la proposition selon laquelle ce que disent le gens à propos des choix est extrèmement important.George Stigler defended two important claims. 1) What people say about choice does not matter. 2) All social institutions are in the long run efficient. I demonstrate that the second proposition follows from considerations of economic rationality plus zero time discounting. It is important to note that disapproval of positive time preference is an aspect of traditional morality. Thus suggests that Stigler’s second claim depends upon the proposition that what people say about choice does matter very much. (shrink)

Richard Wolin questions the connection between the philosophy and politics of Paul Ricoeur to make three charges: 1) Ricoeur's version of hermeneutics slides into a relativism of incommensurable perspectives; 2) Ricoeur's "covert agenda" in his recent work, Memory, History, Forgetting is to come to terms with the regrettable choices he made in his youth; 3) Ricoeur left us a written record of his pro-Vichy sympathies that raise questions about the political implications of hermeneutics. Each claim is, however, far from true. (...) Ricoeur's hermeneutics is particularly sensitive to the charge of relativistic incommensurability and avoids it assiduously; his philosophical motivations in writing Memory, History, Forgetting are well known and are more important with respect to the work's merit than his personal motivations; and his early political writings need to be read in light of a broader, life-long attempt to find a balance between the universal and particular in hermeneutics, ethics, and politics. (shrink)

Roman Catholics have a long tradition of evaluating medical treatment at the end of life to determine if proposed interventions are proportionate and morally obligatory or disproportionate and morally optional. There has been significant debate within the Catholic community about whether artificially delivered nutrition and hydration can be appreciated as a medical intervention that may be optional in some situations, or if it should be treated as essentially obligatory in all circumstances. Recent statements from the teaching authority of the (...) church have attempted to clarify this issue, especially for those with a condition known as the persistent vegetative state. I argue that these recent teachings constitute a “general norm” whereby artificial nutrition and hydration are considered obligatory for most patients, but that these documents allow for exception in cases of complication from the means used to deliver nutrition and hydration, progressive illness, or clear refusal of such treatment by patients. While the recent clarifications do not constitute a major deviation from traditional understanding and will rarely conflict with advance directives or legal statutes, there may be rare instances in which remaining faithful to church teaching may conflict with legally enshrined patient prerogatives. Using the Texas Advance Directives Act as an example, I propose ways in which ethics committees can remain faithful to their Roman Catholic identity while respecting patient autonomy and state law pertaining to end of life health care. (shrink)

Abstract:Over the past quarter century, charter schools have evolved from a fringe educational philosophy to a prominent academic option for American school children and their families. While the history and political positioning of charter schools have been well documented, the tenet of choice continues to be central in the debate regarding the merit of the charter alternative to traditional public schools. In this essay, I seek to dispel the notion that choice is a simple selection between binary opportunities, but rather (...) a complex exchange between stakeholders. I present how educational options such as charters present a different paradigm of values when compared to precedents of the common schools of the mid-nineteenth century and established public education policy. Although some practices in charter schools may challenge the comforts of long-standing educational traditions, I assert that within these choices there may be opportunity for the music education community to truly reimagine its practices. I conclude with a call to music educators to make important decisions regarding charter schools and music education. Thoughtful steps can be taken to develop this curricular conversation and music educators have a professional duty to begin the dialogue. Failing to do so will be, by default, a choice to limit music education to traditional venues, thereby ignoring one of the fastest growing educational enterprises of our generation and an opportunity to provide a music education for all. (shrink)

Criticisms of patent laws for technological innovations in the United States reveal a multifaceted milieu of problems centered around the protection of short-term economic gain and individual property rights. In this article, we consider this a conflict between current patent laws and the innovation capabilities of organizations. We propose a solution that enables the company to assure its long-term survival in the face of these restrictions. This presumes that the firm will at least maintain its innovation capacities while preserving (...) the company's ethical values and those of its social environment. We offer a theoretical model that is designed to help managers and policymakers reorient their governance strategies for managing the innovation process, using the “ethics of responsibility,” which establishes the link to individual moral values at the beginning of a governance process as well as the consequences of a decision. Our integrated causal model of ethical innovation for patents is presented and implications for global organizations and possible solutions for patent law process failure are offered. (shrink)

This article answers several calls—coming as well from corporate governance practitioners as from corporate governance researchers—concerning the possibility of complying simultaneously with requirements of innovation and ethics. Revealing the long-term orientation as the variable which permits us to link the principal goal of organization, being “survival,” with innovation and ethic, the article devises a framework for incorporating ethics into a company’s processes and strategies for innovation. With the principal goal of organizations being “survival” in the long-term, it is (...) assumed that innovation is necessary in order to realize a going concern. Firms that do not innovate and adapt to rapidly changing business environments are less likely to be sustainable. Thus, it is in a business’ best interests to adopt an innovation process for long-term success. We posit that there are two simultaneous sources of innovation and change that are unavoidable and embedded in the corporate landscape. First, we argue for genetically embedded, Darwinian explanations for adaptations that enable an entity’s survival. This view is combined with more conventional, social science explanations for change. Our new, comprehensive model of the governance of innovation processes hinges on the one hand on an organization’s long-term orientation, which we argue, is not possible without a consideration of an ethical dimension. On the other hand, the model employs, for the first time, the concept of duality, in order to make the positive coexistence of innovation and ethic analytically visible. Guided by this concept the roots of the ethic within innovation are traced from both natural science forces for change, and cultural pressures operating on members of an organization. We present our Integrated Causal Model of Innovation and propose theoretical relationships that will generate numerous avenues for future research in the field, and help managers to reorient their governance strategies. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders the event in International Relations (IR) through the writings of Hannah Arendt. The event has for too long been neglected in IR; international events are overwhelmingly conceived as mere happenings that have meaning only within the process and temporal structure of the theory from which they are understood, and as holding no or only limited meaning in and of themselves. In her work on political theory and her reflections on totalitarianism, however, Arendt elaborates a rich view (...) of the event and its relationship to history, one that offers an alternative way of thinking about international relations. Arendt urges us to remain open to the possibility, however difficult, of conceiving of the event as meaningful outside of the processes within which our established mode of thoughts would have us subsume it. This requires on the part of the historian a commitment to judgement, to a recognition of the importance of imagination and impartiality that gives meaning to the event for others. In explicating Arendt's complex notion of the genuine political event, the paper aims not merely to demonstrate the intrinsic interest of this conception of the event to her thought, but to add to the small but growing number of works in IR that have found fruitful new avenues of thought in Arendt's various writings, and also to recent discussions on the proper relationship between history and IR theory. (shrink)

This article answers several calls—coming as well from corporate governance practitioners as from corporate governance researchers—concerning the possibility of complying simultaneously with requirements of innovation and ethics. Revealing the long-term orientation as the variable which permits us to link the principal goal of organization, being “survival,” with innovation and ethic, the article devises a framework for incorporating ethics into a company’s processes and strategies for innovation. With the principal goal of organizations being “survival” in the long-term, it is (...) assumed that innovation is necessary in order to realize a going concern. Firms that do not innovate and adapt to rapidly changing business environments are less likely to be sustainable. Thus, it is in a business’ best interests to adopt an innovation process for long-term success. We posit that there are two simultaneous sources of innovation and change that are unavoidable and embedded in the corporate landscape. First, we argue for genetically embedded, Darwinian explanations for adaptations that enable an entity’s survival. This view is combined with more conventional, social science explanations for change. Our new, comprehensive model of the governance of innovation processes hinges on the one hand on an organization’s long-term orientation, which we argue, is not possible without a consideration of an ethical dimension. On the other hand, the model employs, for the first time, the concept of duality, in order to make the positive coexistence of innovation and ethic analytically visible. Guided by this concept the roots of the ethic within innovation are traced from both natural science forces for change, and cultural pressures operating on members of an organization. We present our Integrated Causal Model of Innovation and propose theoretical relationships that will generate numerous avenues for future research in the field, and help managers to reorient their governance strategies. (shrink)

In this article, we resituate a long-standing duality of (Western) narrative tradition over living story emergence and more linear narrative. Narrative, with its focus on linear beginning, middle and end coherence, retrospection and monologic, is too easily appropriated into managerialist projects. We focus on the web of living stories as a Derridian deconstructive move, which allows us to say something important about their relation to narrative and to develop a storytelling ethics. Our thesis is that resituating the relationship between (...) narrative and living story invites exploration of the plurality of narratives that treat living stories as supplementary. We claim that this deconstructive move allows us to rethink politics and ethics anew. Storytelling ethics opens new spaces for marginalized other(s) voices and creates an awareness of our complicity and responsibility for others. Further, storytelling ethics allows for a more nuanced and varied understanding of business ethics and its inherent exclusionary truth and morality claims and paves the way for a more reflexive ethics. (shrink)

Curiously, while the efficacy of the arts for the development of multicultural understandings has long been theorized, empirical studies of this effect have been lacking. This essay recounts our combined empirical and philosophical study of this issue. We explicate the philosophical considerations that shaped the development of the arts course we studied, which was grounded in rather traditional humanist educational thought, informed by Deweyan considerations for pedagogy and multiculturalism. We also provide an overview of the course and of the (...) study design: the ways in which the course worked to teach aesthetic theory through a combination of popular and canonical works, and the ways in which it sought to instill a sense of cross-cultural appreciation and solidarity among students through the inclusion of art from different cultures and generations. We then share our research findings and our return to the realm of philosophy to interpret them. Our postcolonial analysis incorporates emerging discussions of the arts as a tool for resistance and dialogue within the system of public education, and revisit and reconsider the very concept of education for pluralistic democracy. This approach problematizes traditional conceptions of pluralism, in which an attempt is made to dissolve difference in a common understanding, and instead advocates that works from among the contemporary popular arts and works drawn from the artistic “canon” alike must be considered and employed for their instrumental value to the educational process—especially for their ability to prompt an intersubjectivity that is accompanied by a heightened awareness of difference. (shrink)

Watching another person in pain activates brain areas involved in the sensation of our own pain. Importantly, this neural mirroring is not constant; rather, it is modulated by our beliefs about their intentions, circumstances, and group allegiances. We investigated if the neural empathic response is modulated by minimally-differentiating information (e.g., a simple text label indicating another’s religious belief), and if neural activity changes predict ingroups and outgroups across independent paradigms. We found that the empathic response was larger when participants viewed (...) a painful event occurring to a hand labeled with their own religion (ingroup) than to a hand labeled with a different religion (outgroup). Counterintuitively, the magnitude of this bias correlated positively with the magnitude of participants’ self-reported empathy. A multivariate classifier, using mean activity in empathy-related brain regions as features, discriminated ingroup from outgroup with 72% accuracy; the classifier’s confidence correlated with belief certainty. This classifier generalized successfully to validation experiments in which the ingroup condition was based on an arbitrary group assignment. Empathy networks thus allow for the classification of long-held, newly-modified and arbitrarily-formed ingroups and outgroups. This is the first report of a single machine learning model on neural activation that generalizes to multiple representations of ingroup and outgroup. The current findings may prove useful as an objective diagnostic tool to measure the magnitude of one’s group affiliations, and the effectiveness of interventions to reduce ingroup biases. (shrink)

Curiously, while the efficacy of the arts for the development of multicultural understandings has long been theorized, empirical studies of this effect have been lacking. This essay recounts our combined empirical and philosophical study of this issue. We explicate the philosophical considerations that shaped the development of the arts course we studied, which was grounded in rather traditional humanist educational thought, informed by Deweyan considerations for pedagogy and multiculturalism. We also provide an overview of the course and of the (...) study design: the ways in which the course worked to teach aesthetic theory through a combination of popular and canonical works, and the ways in which it sought to instill a sense of cross-cultural appreciation and solidarity among students through the inclusion of art from different cultures and generations. We then share our research findings and our return to the realm of philosophy to interpret them. Our postcolonial analysis incorporates emerging discussions of the arts as a tool for resistance and dialogue within the system of public education, and revisit and reconsider the very concept of education for pluralistic democracy. This approach problematizes traditional conceptions of pluralism, in which an attempt is made to dissolve difference in a common understanding, and instead advocates that works from among the contemporary popular arts and works drawn from the artistic “canon” alike must be considered and employed for their instrumental value to the educational process—especially for their ability to prompt an intersubjectivity that is accompanied by a heightened awareness of difference. (shrink)

The academic literature reveals the need to undertake more in-depth field studies in order to discover the organisational culture, the difficulties and the perceptions surrounding CSR in SMEs. This study presents the results of analysis of four case studies on Catalan companies that stand out for their social and environmental practices. The conclusions of this paper are the result of dialogue with the main actors – four medium-sized companies – focusing on their actions, understandings and resistance with regard to CSR. (...) The methodological perspective used was Grounded Theory, with the aim of the study being to contribute towards formalising CSR in SMEs, in their daily practices, by analysing some primary data. The results obtained show how difficult it is for SMEs to understand CSR, beyond the explanation of the specific practices carried out by the companies. They highlight the role played by the values of the founding director in the implementation of CSR programmes; they reveal that SMEs still have a long way to go towards learning how to inform both internal and external stakeholders of their best practices, and; finally, they show the interesting links that SMEs establish between responsible practices, improved competitiveness and economic results. Finally, the text points out the implications that the results of this analysis may have on creating ways of promoting CSR in SMEs. We believe that, in light of the opinions expressed by the companies, public organisations should try to concentrate on creating a favourable framework for responsible competitiveness, as a way to deal with CSR when addressing SMEs. (shrink)

Originally conceived as a forty-page conclusion to Hacker’s twenty years of work on the monumental four-volume Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations, this book “rapidly assumed a life of its own”. A major contribution to the history of analytic philosophy, this substantial volume delivers even more than the title promises. The eight chapters are best approached as a six-chapter book, itself some 220 pages long, on Wittgenstein’s contribution to twentieth-century philosophy, followed by a two-chapter, 120-page epilogue about how and (...) why his influence has waned. The first six chapters provide an encyclopedic summary of the fruits of Hacker’s research on Wittgenstein’s writing, an immensely learned account of British philosophy from the turn of the century to the 1970s, and a detailed account of Wittgenstein’s reception by Oxford, Cambridge, and the Vienna Circle. The book’s closing chapters, “Post-positivism in the United States and Quine’s Apostasy” and “The Decline of Analytic Philosophy,” polemically argue that Quine’s philosophy, and the post-Quinean naturalism prevalent in Anglo-American philosophy today, amount to such a decisive break with the analytic tradition, as Hacker conceives of it, that they should not be counted as “analytic.”. (shrink)

This book reassesses the contribution to international thought of some of the most important thinkers of the inter-war period. It takes as its starting point E.H. Carr's famous critique which, more than any other work, established the reputation of the period as the "utopian" or "idealist" phase of international relations theorizing. This characterization of inter-war thought is scrutinized through ten detailed studies of such writers as Norman Angell, J.A. Hobson, J.M. Keynes, David Mitrany, and Alfred Zimmern. The studies demonstrate (...) the diversity of perspectives within so-called "idealism" and call into question the descriptive and analytical value of the entire notion. It is concluded that "idealism" is an overly general term, useful for scoring debating points rather than providing a helpful category for analysis. (shrink)

In many European countries, the explicit discussion of race as a biological phenomenon has long been avoided. This has not meant that race has become obsolete or irrelevant all together. Rather, it is a slippery object that keeps shifting and changing. To understand its slippery nature, we suggest that race in Europe is best viewed as an absent presence, something that oscillates between reality and nonreality, which appears on the surface and then hides underground. In this special issue, we (...) explore how race has been configured in different practices and how race-based identities and technologies are entwined in various European settings. (shrink)

The aim of this virtual special issue is to bring together philosophical and historical perspectives to address long-standing issues in the interpretation, utility, and impacts of quantitative genetics methods and findings. Methodological approaches and the underlying scientific understanding of genetics and heredity have transformed since the field's inception. These advances have brought with them new philosophical issues regarding the interpretation and understanding of quantitative genetic results. The contributions in this issue demonstrate that there is still work to be done (...) integrating old and new methodological and conceptual frameworks. In some cases, new results are interpreted using assumptions based on old concepts and methodologies that need to be explicitly recognised and updated. In other cases, new philosophical tools can be employed to synthesise historical quantitative genetics work with modern methodologies and findings. This introductory article surveys three general themes that have dominated philosophical discussion of quantitative genetics throughout history: (1) how methodologies have changed and transformed our knowledge and interpretations; (2) whether or not quantitative genetics can offer explanations relating to causation and prediction; and (3) the importance of defining the phenotypes under study. We situate the contributions in this virtual special issue within a historical framework addressing these three themes. (shrink)

From young children, with their guileless, searching questions, to the recently bereaved, trying to make sense of tragic loss, humans wrestle with our relationship to God--and with God's essence, motivations, and power--throughout our lives: Why does God permit catastrophe and senseless tragedy, again and again? Is God's power limited in any way? Can He change the past? Does He know the future? Why does God require prayer? Why does He not provide stronger evidence of His presence? Whom does God consign (...) to hell, and why? Does God change? Suffer? What can we make of the conflicting diversity within world religions, of the many gods of different religious traditions? Such questions engage, confront, and perplex us on a daily basis. In this rich, concise volume, leading philosophers who have long pondered God's nature and ways take on these core problems and present their findings in a manner likely to engage believer and non-believer, general reader and specialist alike. (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss the conceptual structure of cocktail recipes. This topic involves engaging questions for philosophers and food theorists due to some peculiar characteristics of cocktail recipes, such as the fact that they are standardised by international associations but, nonetheless, vagueness in some elements of the recipes introduces a degree of variability between cocktails of the same type. Our proposal is that a classical theory of concepts is unable to account for such peculiar features. Thus, only a hybrid (...) theoretical approach, combining definitional and prototypical aspects, can capture how cocktail recipes are usually conceptualised among bartenders and mixologists: while the spirit is usually a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for establishing whether an individual cocktail falls under a specific cocktail concept, all the other ingredients and procedures listed in recipes may vary to a certain extent. In order to assess whether variability in prototypical elements of cocktail recipes has any limitations, we exploit the notion of conceptual scheme applied to cocktail recipes and argue that, as long as the quality dimensions of a specific cocktail are respected, its identity remains unchanged regardless of changes in the ingredients or in its preparation. (shrink)

Pancreatitis is a complex, progressively destructive inflammatory disorder. Alcohol was long thought to be the primary causative agent, but genetic contributions have been of interest since the discovery that rare PRSS1, CFTR and SPINK1 variants were associated with pancreatitis risk. We now report two associations at genome-wide significance identified and replicated at PRSS1-PRSS2 and X-linked CLDN2 through a two-stage genome-wide study. The PRSS1 variant likely affects disease susceptibility by altering expression of the primary trypsinogen gene. The CLDN2 risk allele (...) is associated with atypical localization of claudin-2 in pancreatic acinar cells. The homozygous CLDN2 genotype confers the greatest risk, and its alleles interact with alcohol consumption to amplify risk. These results could partially explain the high frequency of alcohol-related pancreatitis in men. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

A sample of 460 low-income women completed a mate preference questionnaire and surveys that assessed family background, life history, conscientiousness, sexual motives, self-ratings (e.g., looks), and current circumstances (e.g., income). A cluster analysis revealed two groups of women: women who reported a strong preference for looks and money in a short-term mate and commitment in a long-term mate, and women who reported smaller differences across mating context. Group differences were found in reported educational levels, family background, sexual development, number (...) of children, and motives for having sex. Implications for understanding individual differences in women’s mate-preference trade-offs are discussed. (shrink)

Chater & Loewenstein (C&L) ignore the long history by which social scientists have developed more nuanced and ultimately more helpful ways to understand the relationship between persons and situations. This tradition is reflected and advanced in a large literature on “wise” social–psychological or mindset interventions, which C&L do not discuss yet mischaracterize.

Despite advances in medical knowledge regarding pain management, pain continues to be significantly undertreated in the United States. There are many drug and nondrug treatments, but the use of controlled substances, particularly the opioid analgesics, is universally accepted for the treatment of pain from cancer. Although opioid analgesics are safe and effective in treating chronic pain, there is continued research and discussion about patient selection and long-term effects. A number of barriers in the health care and drug regulatory systems (...) account for the gap between what is known about pain management and what is practiced. Among the barriers are physicians’ fears of being disciplined by state regulatory boards for inappropriate prescribing.State medical boards are in a unique position not only to address physicians’ concerns about being investigated, but also to encourage pain management. Prior to 1989, a few state medical boards had policies relating to controlled substances or pain. Subsequently, state medical boards began adopting policies regarding the prescribing of opioids for the treatment of pain; many of these specifically addressed physicians’ fear of regulatory scrutiny. (shrink)

Despite advances in medical knowledge regarding pain management, pain continues to be significantly undertreated in the United States. There are many drug and nondrug treatments, but the use of controlled substances, particularly the opioid analgesics, is universally accepted for the treatment of pain from cancer. Although opioid analgesics are safe and effective in treating chronic pain, there is continued research and discussion about patient selection and long-term effects. A number of barriers in the health care and drug regulatory systems (...) account for the gap between what is known about pain management and what is practiced. Among the barriers are physicians’ fears of being disciplined by state regulatory boards for inappropriate prescribing.State medical boards are in a unique position not only to address physicians’ concerns about being investigated, but also to encourage pain management. Prior to 1989, a few state medical boards had policies relating to controlled substances or pain. Subsequently, state medical boards began adopting policies regarding the prescribing of opioids for the treatment of pain; many of these specifically addressed physicians’ fear of regulatory scrutiny. (shrink)

Clonal disease is often regarded as almost synonymous with cancer. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that our bodies harbor numerous mutant clones that are not tumors, and mostly give rise to no disease at all. Here we discuss three somatic mutations arising within the hematopoietic system: BCR‐ABL, characteristic of chronic myeloid leukemia; mutations of the PIG‐A gene, characteristic of paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria; the V617F mutation in the JAK2 gene, characteristic of myeloproliferative diseases. The population frequencies of these three blood (...) disorders fit well with a hierarchical model of hematopoiesis. The fate of any mutant clone will depend on the target cell and on the fitness advantage, if any, that the mutation confers on the cell. In general, we can expect that only a mutation in a hematopoietic stem cell will give long‐term disease; the same mutation taking place in a cell located more downstream may produce just a ripple in the hematopoietic ocean. (shrink)

BackgroundRandomized controlled trials (RCTs) are often complex and expensive to perform. Less than one third achieve planned recruitment targets, follow-up can be labor-intensive, and many have limited real-world generalizability. Designs for RCTs conducted using cohorts and routinely collected health data, including registries, electronic health records, and administrative databases, have been proposed to address these challenges and are being rapidly adopted. These designs, however, are relatively recent innovations, and published RCT reports often do not describe important aspects of their methodology in (...) a standardized way. Our objective is to extend the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement with a consensus-driven reporting guideline for RCTs using cohorts and routinely collected health data.MethodsThe development of this CONSORT extension will consist of five phases. Phase 1 (completed) consisted of the project launch, including fundraising, the establishment of a research team, and development of a conceptual framework. In phase 2, a systematic review will be performed to identify publications (1) that describe methods or reporting considerations for RCTs conducted using cohorts and routinely collected health data or (2) that are protocols or report results from such RCTs. An initial “long list” of possible modifications to CONSORT checklist items and possible new items for the reporting guideline will be generated based on the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) and The REporting of studies Conducted using Observational Routinely-collected health Data (RECORD) statements. Additional possible modifications and new items will be identified based on the results of the systematic review. Phase 3 will consist of a three-round Delphi exercise with methods and content experts to evaluate the “long list” and generate a “short list” of key items. In phase 4, these items will serve as the basis for an in-person consensus meeting to finalize a core set of items to be included in the reporting guideline and checklist. Phase 5 will involve drafting the checklist and elaboration-explanation documents, and dissemination and implementation of the guideline.DiscussionDevelopment of this CONSORT extension will contribute to more transparent reporting of RCTs conducted using cohorts and routinely collected health data. (shrink)

Functional imaging studies of neurologically intact adults have demonstrated that the right posterior cerebellum is activated during verb generation, semantic processing, sentence processing, and verbal fluency. Studies of patients with cerebellar damage converge to show that the cerebellum supports sentence processing and verbal fluency. However, to date there are no patient studies that investigated the specific importance of the right posterior cerebellum in language processing, because: case studies presented patients with lesions affecting the anterior cerebellum, and group studies combined patients (...) with lesions to different cerebellar regions, without specifically reporting the effects of right posterior cerebellar damage. Here we investigated whether damage to the right posterior cerebellum is critical for sentence processing and verbal fluency in four patients with focal stroke damage to different parts of the right posterior cerebellum. We examined detailed lesion location by going beyond common anatomical definitions of cerebellar anatomy, and employed a recently proposed functional parcellation of the cerebellum. All four patients experienced language difficulties that persisted for at least a month after stroke but three performed in the normal range within a year. In contrast, one patient with more damage to lobule IX than the other patients had profound long-lasting impairments in the comprehension and repetition of sentences, and the production of spoken sentences during picture description. Spoken and written word comprehension and visual recognition memory were also impaired, however, verbal fluency was within the normal range, together with object naming, visual perception and verbal short-term memory. This is the first study to show that focal damage to the right posterior cerebellum leads to language difficulties after stroke; and that processing impairments persisted in the case with most damage to lobule IX. We discuss these results in relation to current theories of cerebellar contribution to language processing. Overall, our study highlights the need for longitudinal studies of language function in patients with focal damage to different cerebellar regions, with functional imaging to understand the mechanisms that support recovery. (shrink)

Horizontal transfer (HT) is the transmission of genetic material between non‐mating species, a phenomenon thought to occur rarely in multicellular eukaryotes. However, many transposable elements (TEs) are not only capable of HT, but have frequently jumped between widely divergent species. Here we review and integrate reported cases of HT in retrotransposons of the BovB family, and DNA transposons, over a broad range of animals spanning all continents. Our conclusions challenge the paradigm that HT in vertebrates is restricted to infective (...) class='Hi'>long terminal repeat (LTR) retrotransposons or retroviruses. This raises the possibility that other non‐LTR retrotransposons, such as L1 or CR1 elements, believed to be only vertically transmitted, can horizontally transfer between species. Growing evidence indicates that the process of HT is much more general across different TEs and species than previously believed, and that it likely shapes eukaryotic genomes and catalyses genome evolution. (shrink)

What holds together the various fields that are supposed to consititute the general intellectual discipline that people now call cognitive science? In this book, Erneling and Johnson identify two problems with defining this discipline. First, some theorists identify the common subject matter as the mind, but scientists and philosophers have not been able to agree on any single, satisfactory answer to the question of what the mind is. Second, those who speculate about the general characteristics that belong to cognitive science (...) tend to assume that all the particular fields falling under the rubric--psychology, linguistics, biology, and son on--are of roughly equal value in their ability to shed light on the nature of mind. This book argues that all the cognitive science disciplines are not equally able to provide answers to ontological questions about the mind, but rather that only neurophysiology and cultural psychology are suited to answer these questions. However, since the cultural account of mind has long been ignored in favor of the neurophysiological account, Erneling and Johnson bring together contributions that focus especially on different versions of the cultural account of the mind. (shrink)

IntroductionExcitability of the primary motor cortex measured with TMS has been associated with cognitive dysfunctions in patient populations. However, only a few studies have explored this relationship in healthy adults, and even fewer have considered the role of biological sex.MethodsNinety-seven healthy middle-aged adults completed a TMS protocol and a neuropsychological assessment. Resting Motor Threshold and Long-Interval Intracortical Inhibition were assessed in the left motor cortex and related to attention, episodic memory, working memory, reasoning, and global cognition composite scores to (...) evaluate the relationship between cortical excitability and cognitive functioning.ResultsIn the whole sample, there was a significant association between LICI and cognition; specifically, higher motor inhibition was related to better working memory performance. When the sample was broken down by biological sex, LICI was only associated with working memory, reasoning, and global cognition in men. No associations were found between RMT and cognitive functions.ConclusionGreater intracortical inhibition, measured by LICI, could be a possible marker of working memory in healthy middle-aged adults, and biological sex plays a critical role in this association. (shrink)

If stem cell-based therapies are developed, we will likely confront a difficult problem of justice: for biological reasons alone, the new therapies might benefit only a limited range of patients. In fact, they might benefit primarily white Americans, thereby exacerbating long-standing differences in health and health care.

Distant Views of the Holy Land. By Felicity Cobbing and David M. Jacobson. Bristol, CT: Equinox, 2015. Pp. vi + 321, illus. $200. [Distributed by ISD, Bristol, CT].

The ability to sequence individual genomes is leading to the identification of an increasing number of genetic risk factors for serious diseases. Knowledge of these risk factors can often provide significant medical and psychological benefit, but also raises complex ethical and social issues. This paper focuses on one area of rapid progress: the identification of mutations causing long QT syndrome and other cardiac channel disorders, which can explain some previously unexplained deaths in infants (SIDS) and children and adults (SUDS) (...) and prevent others from occurring. This genetic knowledge, discovered posthumously in many cases, has implications for clinical care for surviving family members who might carry the same mutations. The information obtained from genetic testing, in the context of personal and family history, can guide individually tailored interventions that reduce risk and save lives. At the same time, obtaining and disclosing genetic information raises difficult issues about confidentiality and decision making within families. We draw on the experience of the Montefiore-Einstein Center for Cardiogenetics, which has played a leading role in the genetic diagnosis and clinical management of cardiac channel diseases, to explore some of the challenging ethical questions arising in affected families with adolescent children. We focus on the related issues of (1) family confidentiality, privacy and disclosure and (2) adolescent decision making about genetic risk, and argue for the value of interdisciplinary dialogue with affected families in resolving these issues. (shrink)