To speak of being religious lucky certainly sounds odd. But then, so does “My faith holds value in God’s plan, while yours does not.” This book argues that these two concerns — with the concept of religious luck and with asymmetric or sharply differential ascriptions of religious value — are inextricably connected. It argues that religious luck attributions can profitably be studied from a number of directions, not just theological, but also social scientific and philosophical. There is a (...) strong tendency among adherents of different faith traditions to invoke asymmetric explanations of the religious value or salvific status of the home religion vis-à-vis all others. Attributions of good/bad religious luck and exclusivist dismissal of the significance of religious disagreement are the central phenomena that the book studies. Part I lays out a taxonomy of kinds of religious luck, a taxonomy that draws upon but extends work on moral and epistemic luck. It asks: What is going on when persons, theologies, or purported revelations ascribe various kinds of religiously-relevant traits to insiders and outsiders of a faith tradition in sharply asymmetric fashion? “I am saved but you are lost”; “My religion is holy but yours is idolatrous”; “My faith tradition is true, and valued by God, but yours is false and valueless.” Part II further develops the theory introduced in Part I, pushing forward both the descriptive/explanatory and normative sides of what the author terms his inductive risk account. Firstly, the concept of inductive risk is shown to contribute to the needed field of comparative fundamentalism by suggesting new psychological markers of fundamentalist orientation. The second side of what is termed an inductive risk account is concerned with the epistemology of religious belief, but more especially with an account of the limits of reasonable religious disagreement. Problems of inductively risky modes of belief-formation problematize claims to religion-specific knowledge. But the inductive risk account does not aim to set religion apart, or to challenge the reasonableness of religious belief tout court. Rather the burden of the argument is to challenge the reasonableness of attitudes of religious exclusivism, and to demotivate the “polemical apologetics” that exclusivists practice and hope to normalize. Lexington Books Pages: 290 978-1-4985-5017-8 • Hardback • December 2018 • $95.00 • (£65.00) 978-1-4985-5018-5 • eBook • December 2018 • $90.00 • (£60.00) ISBN 978-1-4985-5018-5 (pbk: alk. paper) (coming 2020) [Download the 30% personal use Discount Order Form I uploaded for hardcover or e-book, and please ask your library to purchase a copy for their collection.]. (shrink)

A good surgeon knows how to perform a surgery; a good architect knows how to design a house. We value their know-how. We ordinarily look for it. What makes it so valuable? A natural response is that know-how is valuable because it explains success. A surgeon’s know-how explains their success at performing a surgery. And an architect’s know-how explains their success at designing houses that stand up. We value know-how because of its special explanatory link to success. But in virtue (...) of what is know-how explanatorily linked to success? This essay provides a novel argument for the thesis that know-how’s special link to success is to be explained at least in part in terms of its being, or involving, a doxastic attitude that is epistemically alike propositional knowledge. It is argued that the role played by know-how in explaining intentional success shows that the epistemic differences between know-how and knowledge, if any, are less than usually thought; and that "revisionary intellectualism", the view that know-how is true belief that might well fall short of knowledge, is not really a stable position. If its explanatory link to success is what makes know-how valuable, an upshot of my argument is that the value of know-how is due, to a considerable extent, to its being, or involving, a kind of propositional knowledge. (shrink)

As we have seen in the transition form Part I to Part II of this book, the inductive riskiness of doxastic methods applied in testimonial uptake or prescribed as exemplary of religious faith, helpfully operationalizes the broader social scientific, philosophical, moral, and theological interest that people may have with problems of religious luck. Accordingly, we will now speak less about luck, but more about the manner in which highly risky cognitive strategies are correlated with psychological studies of (...) bias studies and human cognitive ecology. Chapter Four is concerned with connections between psychological study of biases and heuristics, and the comparative study of fundamentalism. The first section looks at work by psychologists and philosophers on our bias blind spot. Later sections ask, ‘In what ways might biases and heuristics play a special role in aiding our understanding of, and response to, fundamentalist orientation?’. The judgments we make in ignorance of our own biases Montaigne calls our importunate presumptions, and he suggests a host of practical factors that make them appealing. Montaigne, as I discuss in the first section, associates many of our errors with one or another kind of presumption, often about our similarity or differences from others, or from God. Our obvious psychographic diversity, and the polemical ground dynamics involved in our ‘culture wars’ are compounded on the agential side by the invisibility of our biases to ourselves. A number of person and social biases are described that plausibly affect all of our beliefs in domains of controversial views, religious views included. The second section continues to study of how etiological symmetry (similar patterns of belief-uptake) gives rise to religious contrariety (diverse narratives and theologies) in testimonial faith traditions, and what the implications of this are for philosophy of religion, generally, and for an improved comparative study of fundamentalism, in particular. Utilizing the work of philosophers such as Rachel Fraser and psychologists such as Emily Pronin and her co-authors, I offer a four-step genealogical account for how etiological symmetry so easily gives rise to religious contrariety. This account begins with the narrative nature of testimony in the Abrahamic family of religions, and how narrative content confounds our “source monitoring.” My genealogy also introduces what I term biased-closure inferences (BCI) as one of the key enablers of religious exclusivism and absolutism. These are the seemingly ‘logical’ but actually very self-serving inferences people often make, inferences from their own belief being true, to any belief contrary to it being false. Those who claim unique truth, epistemic access, and/or virtue and religious value for the home religion are no exception to the broad pertinence of bias studies across domains of controversial view. The proximate causes of belief are all that we can study, and in these there may be significant etiological symmetries. Yet those groups themselves, especially to the extent that they are exclusivist, are tunnel-visioned on claims of doctrinal uniqueness: on content differences of a theological sort. Comparative philosophy is met with the puzzlement that symmetric or essentially similar doxastic strategies should give rise not just to cognitive diversity, but to what we can call polarized or polemical contrariety, contrariety of a kind where each view adamantly rejects all others. Arguably, the more that theologies offer explanations of a counter-inductive sort, or profess counter-inductive thinking as exemplary of faith, the better evidential ground there for inferring that bias involved in the acquisition or maintenance of beliefs. This provides more substance to the question of when censure, and etiological challenges to faith-based beliefs are philosophically well-motivated. (shrink)

This book has argued that problems of religious luck, especially when operationalized into concerns about doxastic risk and responsibility, can be of shared interest to theologians, philosophers, and psychologists. We have pointed out counter-inductive thinking as a key feature of fideistic models of faith, and examined the implications of this point both for the social scientific study of fundamentalism, and for philosophers’ and theologians’ normative concerns with the reasonableness of a) exclusivist attitudes to religious multiplicity, and b) theologically-cast (...) but bias-mirroring trait-ascriptions to religious insiders and outsiders. It is important to keep the descriptive/explanatory and normative concerns properly separated, but philosophy of luck and risk are relevant to both. More specifically, inductive risky theological strategies,we have argued, are a relevant concern both descriptively and normatively. The descriptive/explanatory relevance of measures of high inductive risk connects it with cognitive and social psychology of religion, while its normative relevance connects with critical concerns with epistemology of testimony, the epistemology of disagreement, and the ethics of belief. A research program to examine fideistic orientation and its relation to epistemically risky doxastic strategies is one of potentially numerous research programs on which philosophers and psychologists might work collaboratively. So this concluding chapter of our study culminates with the outline of a proposed research program at the intersection of shared concerns. I term this research program CICI, because it examines what lies at the intersection of CSR’s standing interest in the appeal of counter-intuitive ideas, and our own study’s focus on the fideistic penchant for counter-inductive thinking. Religious Studies scholars typically focus on particular traditions and teachings, while CSR scholars tend to eschew such content-focused approaches in favor of a study of evolutionary and hence generic or trans-religious functions and processes. I argue that CICI has the added benefit of effectively mediating this generic-specific contrast between CSR and Religious Studies, allowing CSR research to be more closely connected with and relevant to comparative fundamentalism. (shrink)

This chapter sharpens the book’s criticism of exclusivist responsible to religious multiplicity, firstly through close critical attention to arguments which religious exclusivists provide, and secondly through the introduction of several new, formal arguments / dilemmas. Self-described ‘post-liberals’ like Paul Griffiths bid philosophers to accept exclusivist attitudes and beliefs as just one among other aspects of religious identity. They bid us to normalize the discourse Griffiths refers to as “polemical apologetics,” and to view its acceptance as the only viable form of (...) pluralism. This reasoning may seem initially plausible, but on closer examination his and other’s defence of the reasonableness of exclusivist responses to religious multiplicity fall apart. Informed by our study of luck-leaning theological explanations of religious difference and the counter-inductive thinking they exemplify, I argue that exclusivist responses to religious multiplicity are best explained by personal and group bias, and that a discourse between exclusivist authors or sects is beyond the pale of reasonable disagreement. Our study of descriptive (psychological) and prescriptive (religious) fideism in the first sections of Chapter Five suggests that we turn back to formal features of doxastic methods (i.e., of how people process), features that may be straightforwardly tested for in studies utilizing scales of religious orientation. These formal features allow us to better recognize not only the multiplicity of models of faith that religious adherents adhere to, but also that the relationship between forms of fideism is scalar: there is a spectrum of views running from rationalism to fideism, and at the fideistic end from moderate to strong forms of religious fideism. I further explain why developing tests and markers for a high degree of fideistic orientation is important to all those who study religion. The second half of the chapter turns to criticism or censure of exclusivist attitudes to religious multiplicity, in contrast to apologetic defenses of exclusivism. While we have examined the close connections between fideism and fundamentalism, and again between fundamentalism and exclusivism in earlier chapters, a sharper focus reveals an important but little-recognized distinction reflected in the literature: the distinction between religion-specific (or particularist) and mutualist exclusivism. The mutualist doesn’t talk just about the right of adherents of one specific religion to assert exclusivism, but the adherents of any and all “home” religions. I argue that some previously unrecognized problems for the reasonableness of exclusivist responses to religious multiplicity are brought to light when we make the distinction between the two basic ways to understand the claim that exclusivists are making. I put particularist (Barth, Lindbeck, Plantinga) and mutualist (Griffiths, Gellman, Margalit, D’Costa) defenses of exclusivism on the horns of a dilemma, and argue that despite the popularity it presently enjoys among post-liberal theologians, a close examination reveals that the very conceptual coherence of mutualist exclusivism is in serious doubt. (shrink)

Theories of knowledge as credit for true belief, or as cognitive achievement, have to face the following objection: in the famous Barn façades case, it seems that the truth of Barney's belief that he is in front of a barn is to be explained by the correct functioning of his cognitive capacities, although we are reluctant to say that he knows he is in front of a barn. Duncan Pritchard concludes from this that a safety clause, irreducible to the conditions (...) a true belief must satisfy in order to be credited to the believer, constitutes a necessary condition of knowledge. Because those who define knowledge as a cognitive achievement have not convincingly answered this objection, I intend, in the first section of this paper, to refute it by showing how practical and doxastic achievements differ. Then I defend the idea that we should also distinguish two kinds of environmental epistemic luck, and, correlatively, two kinds of safety, that are not equally incompatible with knowledge. Finally, I argue that this distinction is inevitably vague and I indicate some consequences of this vagueness for our knowledge‐intuitions. (shrink)

Explores the embodied aspects of ownership and private property as these emerge in a range of American literary texts across the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

Explores the embodied aspects of ownership and private property as these emerge in a range of American literary texts across the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

We prove that forp-optimal fields a cell decomposition theorem follows from methods going back to Denef’s paper [7]. We derive from it the existence of definable Skolem functions and strongp-minimality. Then we turn to stronglyp-minimal fields satisfying the Extreme Value Property—a property which in particular holds in fields which are elementarily equivalent to ap-adic one. For such fieldsK, we prove that every definable subset ofK×Kdwhose fibers overKare inverse images by the valuation of subsets of the value group is semialgebraic. Combining (...) the two we get a preparation theorem for definable functions onp-optimal fields satisfying the Extreme Value Property, from which it follows that infinite sets definable over such fields are in definable bijection iff they have the same dimension. (shrink)

We study finitely generated free Heyting algebras from a topological and from a model theoretic point of view. We review Bellissima’s representation of the finitely generated free Heyting algebra; we prove that it yields an embedding in the profinite completion, which is also the completion with respect to a naturally defined metric. We give an algebraic interpretation of the Kripke model used by Bellissima as the principal ideal spectrum and show it to be first order interpretable in the Heyting algebra, (...) from which several model theoretic and algebraic properties are derived. In particular, we prove that a free finitely generated Heyting algebra has only one set of free generators, which is definable in it. As a consequence its automorphism group is the permutation group over its generators. (shrink)

In this paper a new resolution to the gamer’s dilemma is presented. The first part of the paper is devoted to strictly formulating the dilemma, and the second to establishing its resolution. The proposed resolution, the grave resolution, aims to resolve not only the gamer’s dilemma, but also a wider set of analogous paradoxes – which together make up the paradox of treating wrongdoing lightly.

Most people agree that murder is wrong. Yet, within computer games virtual murder scarcely raises an eyebrow. In one respect this is hardly surprising, as no one is actually murdered within a computer game. A virtual murder, some might argue, is no more unethical than taking a pawn in a game of chess. However, if no actual children are abused in acts of virtual paedophilia (life-like simulations of the actual practice), does that mean we should disregard these acts with the (...) same abandon we do virtual murder? In this paper I shall outline several arguments which attempt to permit virtual murder, whilst prohibiting virtual paedophilia. (shrink)

Journal of Mathematical Logic, Volume 22, Issue 02, August 2022. Motivated by results of Bagaria, Magidor and Väänänen, we study characterizations of large cardinal properties through reflection principles for classes of structures. More specifically, we aim to characterize notions from the lower end of the large cardinal hierarchy through the principle [math] introduced by Bagaria and Väänänen. Our results isolate a narrow interval in the large cardinal hierarchy that is bounded from below by total indescribability and from above by subtleness, (...) and contains all large cardinals that can be characterized through the validity of the principle [math] for all classes of structures defined by formulas in a fixed level of the Lévy hierarchy. Moreover, it turns out that no property that can be characterized through this principle can provably imply strong inaccessibility. The proofs of these results rely heavily on the notion of shrewd cardinals, introduced by Rathjen in a proof-theoretic context, and embedding characterizations of these cardinals that resembles Magidor’s classical characterization of supercompactness. In addition, we show that several important weak large cardinal properties, like weak inaccessibility, weak Mahloness or weak [math]-indescribability, can be canonically characterized through localized versions of the principle [math]. Finally, the techniques developed in the proofs of these characterizations also allow us to show that Hamkin’s weakly compact embedding property is equivalent to Lévy’s notion of weak [math]-indescribability. (shrink)

Let k be an infinite cardinal. A subset of $(^k k)^n $ is a $\Sigma _1^1 $ -subset if it is the projection p[T] of all cofinal branches through a subtree T of $(lt;kk)^{n + 1} $ of height k. We define $\Sigma _k^1 - ,\Pi _k^1 $ - and $\Delta _k^1$ subsets of $(^k k)^n $ as usual. Given an uncountable regular cardinal k with k = k (...) there is a shrink)

In this paper I will evaluate Ali’s dissolution of the gamer’s dilemma. To this end the dilemma will be summarized and Ali’s dissolution formulated. I conclude that Ali has not dissolved the dilemma (at least not fully).

We study the influence of the existence of large cardinals on the existence of wellorderings of power sets of infinite cardinals κ with the property that the collection of all initial segments of the wellordering is definable by a Σ1‐formula with parameter κ. A short argument shows that the existence of a measurable cardinal δ implies that such wellorderings do not exist at δ‐inaccessible cardinals of cofinality not equal to δ and their successors. In contrast, our main result shows that (...) these wellorderings exist at all other uncountable cardinals in the minimal model containing a measurable cardinal. In addition, we show that measurability is the smallest large cardinal property that imposes restrictions on the existence of such wellorderings at uncountable cardinals. Finally, we generalise the above result to the minimal model containing two measurable cardinals. (shrink)

Russell and Walker proposed different ways of constructing instants from events. For an explanation of "time as a continuum," Thomason favored Walker's construction. The present article shows that Russell's construction fares as well. To this end, a mathematical characterization problem is solved which corresponds to the characterization problem that Thomason solved with regard to Walker's construction. It is shown how to characterize those event structures (formally, interval orders) which, through Russell's construction of instants, become linear orders isomorphic to a given (...) (or, deriving, to some—nontrivial ordered) real interval. As tools, separate characterizations for each of resulting (i) Dedekind completeness, (ii) separability, (iii) plurality of elements, (iv) existence of certain endpoints are provided. Denseness is characterized to replace Russell's erroneous attempt. Somewhat minimal nonconstructive principles needed are exhibited, and some alternative approaches are surveyed. (shrink)

Let [Formula: see text] be an expansion of either an ordered field [Formula: see text], or a valued field [Formula: see text]. Given a definable set [Formula: see text] let [Formula: see text] be the ring of continuous definable functions from [Formula: see text] to [Formula: see text]. Under very mild assumptions on the geometry of [Formula: see text] and on the structure [Formula: see text], in particular when [Formula: see text] is [Formula: see text]-minimal or [Formula: see text]-minimal, or (...) an expansion of a local field, we prove that the ring of integers [Formula: see text] is interpretable in [Formula: see text]. If [Formula: see text] is [Formula: see text]-minimal and [Formula: see text] is definably connected of pure dimension [Formula: see text], then [Formula: see text] defines the subring [Formula: see text]. If [Formula: see text] is [Formula: see text]-minimal and [Formula: see text] has no isolated points, then there is a discrete ring [Formula: see text] contained in [Formula: see text] and naturally isomorphic to [Formula: see text], such that the ring of functions [Formula: see text] which take values in [Formula: see text] is definable in [Formula: see text]. (shrink)

Let p be prime number, K be a p‐adically closed field, a semi‐algebraic set defined over K and the lattice of semi‐algebraic subsets of X which are closed in X. We prove that the complete theory of eliminates quantifiers in a certain language, the ‐structure on being an extension by definition of the lattice structure. Moreover it is decidable, contrary to what happens over a real closed field for. We classify these ‐structures up to elementary equivalence, and get in particular (...) that the complete theory of only depends on m, not on K nor even on p. As an application we obtain a classification of semi‐algebraic sets over countable p‐adically closed fields up to so‐called “pre‐algebraic” homeomorphisms. (shrink)

Given an uncountable regular cardinal κ, we study the structural properties of the class of all sets of functions from κ to κ that are definable over the structure 〈H,∈〉 by a Σ1-formula with parameters. It is well known that many important statements about these classes are not decided by the axioms of ZFC together with large cardinal axioms. In this paper, we present other canonical extensions of ZFC that provide a strong structure theory for these classes. These axioms are (...) variations of the Maximality Principle introduced by Stavi and Väänänen and later rediscovered by Hamkins. (shrink)

I argue that there exists a proportional relationship between degrees of moral culpability and degrees of probability, where the more an agent believes her actions will result in certain consequences, the more morally culpable she is for these consequences. I assert that this degree of probability is necessarily diminished by the existence of active supernatural powers. Consequently, agents who believe in such powers are less morally culpable than agents who do not.

In this paper we consider whether Christopher Bartel has resolved the gamer’s dilemma. The gamer’s dilemma highlights a discrepancy in our moral judgements about the permissibility of performing certain actions in computer games. Many gamers have the intuition that virtual murder is permissible in computer games, whereas virtual paedophilia is not. Yet finding a relevant moral distinction to ground such intuitions can be difficult. Bartel suggests a relevant moral distinction may turn on the notion that virtual paedophilia harms women in (...) a way that virtual murder does not. We argue that this distinction is only in a position to provide a partial solution to the dilemma. (shrink)

Montefiore and Formosa (Ethics Inf Technol 24:31, 2022) provide a useful way of narrowing the Gamer’s Dilemma to cases where virtual murder seems morally permissible, but not virtual child molestation. They then resist the dilemma by theorising that the intuitions supporting it are not moral. In this paper, I consider this theory to determine whether the dilemma has been successfully resisted. I offer reason to think that, when considering certain variations of the dilemma, Montefiore and Formosa’s theory may not be (...) the most likely theory available to us. (shrink)

There is currently little empirical information about attitudes towards cognitive enhancement - the use of pharmaceutical drugs to enhance normal brain functioning. It is claimed this behaviour most commonly occurs in students to aid studying. We undertook a qualitative assessment of attitudes towards cognitive enhancement by conducting 19 semi-structured interviews with Australian university students. Most students considered cognitive enhancement to be unacceptable, in part because they believed it to be unethical but there was a lack of consensus on whether it (...) was similar or different to steroid use in sport. There was support for awareness campaigns and monitoring of cognitive enhancement use of pharmaceutical drugs. An understanding of student attitudes towards cognitive enhancement is important in formulating future policy. (shrink)

Topological developmental models with local (position of internodes) and global (branch lengths) characteristics are proposed to investigate the relationships between fundamental branching patterns of plants such as acrotony, mesotony, and basitony, including the coincidence of different patterns on the same plant. Modification of the basic acrotony during the development by means of, (1) the final expected main axis length results in either basitony or an extension of acrotony over a shortened main axis, (2) the final expected lateral branch length yields (...) either lateral unlimited sympodial branching or the absence of proximal branches. Combinations of these schemes can have variable quantitative expressions on main and lateral axes.As applications, progressive morphological changes introduced by monotonic variations of parameter values give an insight into the relationships between determinate and indeterminate growth, using Lycopersicon as an example. - A theoretical framework is proposed as a possible aid for formalizing plant typology. (shrink)

We study closure properties of measurable ultrapowers with respect to Hamkin's notion of freshness and show that the extent of these properties highly depends on the combinatorial properties of the underlying model of set theory. In one direction, a result of Sakai shows that, by collapsing a strongly compact cardinal to become the double successor of a measurable cardinal, it is possible to obtain a model of set theory in which such ultrapowers possess the strongest possible closure properties. In the (...) other direction, we use various square principles to show that measurable ultrapowers of canonical inner models only possess the minimal amount of closure properties. In addition, the techniques developed in the proofs of these results also allow us to derive statements about the consistency strength of the existence of measurable ultrapowers with non-minimal closure properties. (shrink)

Let \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\fancyscript{L}}$$\end{document} be a finite first-order language and \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\langle{\fancyscript{M}_n} \,|\, {n < \omega}\rangle}$$\end{document} be a sequence of finite \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\fancyscript{L}}$$\end{document}-models containing models of arbitrarily large finite cardinality. If the intersection of less than continuum-many dense open subsets of Cantor Space ω2 is non-empty, then there is a non-principal ultrafilter \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} (...) \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\fancyscript{U}}$$\end{document} over ω such that the corresponding ultraproduct \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\prod_\fancyscript{U}\fancyscript{M}_n}$$\end{document} has an automorphism that is not induced by an element of \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\prod_{n<\omega}{\rm Aut}(\fancyscript{M}_n)}$$\end{document}. (shrink)

A determined division wall positioning in each plant cell with respect to the last formed division wall leads to autoreproductive configurations which can simulate plant-like meristems as such with 2/5 phyllotactic patterns. L-map systems are used to generate the corresponding topological wall nets. But in these patterns cells are not six-sided as mostly found in layers. It is shown that wall staggering cannot be a determinate device of the cell itself, nor a randomized dissociation of the cross walls, but results (...) from a physical control with interaction between adjacent cells. It is independent of the cellular program responsible for the appearance of patterns like 2/5 phyllotaxis which is of a pentameric nature. (shrink)

The development of the typical cladomothallus of the red algae Antithaminion plumula (Ellis) Le Jolis [= Pterothamnion plumula (Ellis) Nägcli], (Rhodophyceae, Ceramiales) is simulated with the help of a formal language called L-systems. Two types of uniseriate filaments are distinguished: axial filaments of cladomes with indefinite growth and branching and pleuridia with definite growth and branching. The rythmical acropetal formation of secondary axes with basitonic arrangement contrasts with the intercalary basitonic formation of pleuridia, resulting in an acrotonic arrangement within an (...) axial segment. Five types of cells and two types of cell divisions intervene in the system. In addition, for the graphical representations, some morphological particularities of A. plumula are taken into account: the curvature of axial filaments, the extension of growth zones, variable cell generation times, and segment length variability along an axis. The incidence of these variables on the generated thallus form is emphasized, pointing to the singularities of A. plumula. (shrink)

In this paper I reconstruct Hegel’s famous critique of irony by drawing on present-day vice epistemology. I argue that the categories of contemporary theories of epistemic vices are sufficient to classify a type of irony as a vicious stance. Yet they fail to grasp the property in virtue of which irony deserves criticism. I show that, for Hegel, this feature is intellectual pride. In the remainder of the paper, I specify the axiological, metaphysical, and epistemological background assumptions which guide the (...) self-assessment of proud persons according to Hegel. Finally, I throw some light on the theoretical presuppositions of Hegel’s account of irony and pride. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel view of the concept of cognitive enhancement by taking a population health perspective. We propose four main modifiable healthy lifestyle factors for optimal cognitive functioning across the population for which there is evidence of safety and efficacy. These include i) promoting adequate sleep, ii) increasing physical activity, iii) encouraging a healthy diet, including minimising consumption of stimulants, alcohol and other drugs including nicotine, iv) and promoting good mental health. We argue that it is not ethical (...) to promote or sanction the use of pharmaceutical drugs as putative cognitive enhancers without acknowledging the adverse effects on population cognitive health of failing to encourage the pursuit of healthy behaviours. We conclude with recommendations to increase the public health relevance of bioethical analyses of the cognitive enhancement debate. (shrink)

Purpose This paper aims to evaluate a potential resolution to the gamer’s dilemma that arises from Gary Young’s metaethical theory of constructive ecumenical expressivism. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, the gamer’s dilemma is reformulated as a paradox and the potential resolution is evaluated in light of this new formulation. Findings The author argues that this resolution does resolve the dilemma, but CEE itself has limited appeal. Originality/value This paper contributes to the growing scholarship dedicated to resolving the gamer’s dilemma.