The rise of appeals to intuitive theories in many areas of cognitive science must cope with a powerful fact. People understand the workings of the world around them in far less detail than they think. This illusion of knowledge depth has been uncovered in a series of recent studies and is caused by several distinctive properties of explanatory understanding not found in other forms of knowledge. Other experimental work has shown that people do have skeletal frameworks of expectations that constrain (...) richer ad hoc theory construction on the fly. These frameworks are supplemented by an ability to evaluate and rely on the division of cognitive labour in one's culture, an ability shown to be present even in young children. (shrink)

Leeuwenhoek's observations relating to animal population, though scattered through many letters written during a period of over forty years, when seen in toto, were important contributions to the subject now known as animal demography. He maintained enough contact with other scientists to have received encouragement and some helpful suggestions, but the language barrier and the novelty of doing microscopic work forced him to be resourceful, inventive, and original. His multifarious investigations impinged upon population biology before he discovered a direct interest (...) in it. He devised methods for estimating numbers of animalcules, and then he went on to estimate the population of the world. His interest in reproduction was an important avenue by which he approached the subject of reproductive capacity. Other important approaches were his studies of growth, longevity, and life histories. He discovered relationships between aspects of the life history, longevity, and reproductive capacity of several species of insects, notably calanders, scavenger flies, crane flies, aphids, and lice. An important feature of these investigations were the arithmetical calculations which he made of reproductive potentials. In spite of several limitations, these calculations were an important innovation to the study of animal population. In his later years, his investigations came more and more within the sphere of ecology. He made the first significant observations on food chains. It is especially interesting that fish were the subject of these observations, because it was not until the latter half of the nineteenth century that scientists realized that fish ultimately depend upon phytoplankton.These accomplishments did not pass unnoticed. Although Leeuwenhoek never synthesized his scattered observations concerning population, his originality and perception were appreciated by outstanding biologists of the eighteenth century. The important discussions of population biology by Réaumur, Buffon, and Bonnet all derived inspiration and assistance from the writings of Leeuwenhoek.73 This ingenious Fellow of the Royal Society, “by detecting through diligent application and scrutiny the mysteries of Nature and the secrets of natural philosophy,”74 became one of the founders of animal demography. (shrink)

1. Introduction. Cultural relativity is one of the most important conceptions to which anthropology and sociology have devoted much attention in recent years. It is a theory of human conduct based upon observational studies of different cultures and different societies. Many of the leaders in the various social sciences are currently among the advocates of this viewpoint. The burden of these pages, however, is that cultural relativity is flying under false colors: it claims to be empirical but is illogical; it (...) claims to be objective but is surreptitiously moral; it claims to be reasonable but elevates irrationalism; it claims to be scientific but prevents the development of an experimental science of sociocultural conduct. These are serious charges to lodge against leading social scientists; to detail them all would require much more space than is here available. Therefore this paper will be devoted to an incomplete exposition of only two points, namely, that cultural relativity is surreptitiously moral, and, that it deprives man of rational grounds for decision in certain crucial areas. To put the matter bluntly, the advocates of cultural relativity, while they allege themselves to be scientifically amoral, sneak in through the back door a peculiarly crude form of ethnocentric morality which is clearly contrary to the observable facts of human behavior; and, while presenting a presumably scientific analysis of human conduct, leave us only with personal taste as the basis for making certain important decisions.2. Cultural Relativity Defined. Cultural relativity, briefly stated, asserts that any set of customs and institutions, or way of life, is as valid as any other. It may be well to let some representative cultural relativists speak for themselves at this point, in order to show that the summary statement of their position, just given, is correct. The author of an excellent and widely adopted textbook in cultural anthropology stresses the dignity inherent in every body of custom, and abjures us to be tolerant of the ways of other people:… cultural relativism is a philosophy which … lays stress on the dignity inherent in every body of custom, and on the need for tolerance of conventions though they may differ from one's own … the relativistic point of view brings into relief the validity of every set of norms for those people whose lives are guided by them, and the values these represent. … The very core of cultural relativism is the social discipline that comes of respect for differences—of mutual respect. Emphasis on the worth of many ways of life, not one, is an affirmation of the values of each culture. Such emphasis seeks to understand and to harmonize goals, not to judge and destroy those that do not dovetail with our own,. (shrink)

David Lewis has complained about the truthmaker theory as a version of the correspondence theory of truth (Lewis 2001a; Lewis 2001b). His main criticism is that the truthmaker theory, if combined with the redundancy theory, is not a theory about truth, but only »about the existential grounding of all manner of other things: the flying of pigs, or what-have-you« (Lewis 2001a: 279; Lewis 2001b: 603-4). In his view, to call such a truthmaker theory a theory of truth is a »misnomer« (...) (Lewis 2001a: 279). Lewis does not claim that the truthmaker theory is false, nor does he reject it. Indeed, he expresses agreement with its spirit. But of course it would be an embarrassment to any defender of the truthmaker theory to find out that it is not about truth at all. Indeed, if it were not about truth we should »forget about the ´correspondence theory of truth´«, as the title of Lewis´ paper suggests. Therefore, it is highly desirable for any adherent of the truthmaker theory to look for an understanding of the truthmaker theory which will let it be about truth, and to see whether anything of what Lewis has said provides an argument against it. We will argue that there is such an understanding and that Lewis has not provided any material for an argument against it. (shrink)

Contemporary health care often lacks generosity of spirit, even when treatment is most efficient. Too many patients are left unhappy with how they are treated, and too many medical professionals feel estranged from the calling that drew them to medicine. Arthur W. Frank tells the stories of ill people, doctors, and nurses who are restoring generosity to medicine--generosity toward others and to themselves. The Renewal of Generosity evokes medicine as the face-to-face encounter that comes before and after diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, (...) and surgeries. Frank calls upon the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin to reflect on stories of ill people, doctors, and nurses who transform demoralized medicine into caring relationships. He presents their stories as a source of consolation for both ill and professional alike and as an impetus to changing medical systems. Frank shows how generosity is being renewed through dialogue that is more than the exchange of information. Dialogue is an ethic and an ideal for people on both sides of the medical encounter who want to offer more to those they meet and who want their own lives enriched in the process. The Renewal of Generosity views illness and medical work with grace and compassion, making an invaluable contribution to expanding our vision of suffering and healing. (shrink)

Die Idee zu der in diesem Band dokumentierten Tagung ist im Rahmen des disziplinübergreifenden Nachwuchswissenschaftsnetzwerkes THESIS entstanden. Der Dialog über die fachlichen und disziplinären Grenzen hinweg hat bei THESIS seit dessen Gründung im Jahre 1990 stets einen großen Raum eingenommen. Anderen Fächern Respekt und Interesse entgegenzubringen und sich nicht von stereotypen Vorurteilen leiten zu lassen, ist konstitutiver Bestandteil im Selbstverständnis des Netzwerkes. Selbstverständlich gibt es in einem solchen Verbund eine Reihe von Gelegenheiten (darunter auch den einen oder anderen entwicklungsfördernden Konflikt), (...) das eigene Bild vom Anderen und das andere Bild vom Eigenen zur Sprache zu bringen und zu hinterfragen. Auf der Basis dieser bestehenden Kommunikationsstrukturen trafen sich am 11. Oktober 2003 in Göttingen 12 junge Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler zwischen, über und auch auf den Grenzen ihrer eigenen Herkunftsdisziplinen, um den Trendbegriff [alpha]Transdisziplinarität" auf seine Substanz zu prüfen. (shrink)

In At the Will of the Body , Arthur Frank told the story of his own illnesses, heart attack and cancer. That book ended by describing the existence of a "remission society," whose members all live with some form of illness or disability. The Wounded Storyteller is their collective portrait. Ill people are more than victims of disease or patients of medicine they are wounded storytellers. People tell stories to make sense of their suffering when they turn their diseases (...) into stories, they find healing. Drawing on the work of authors such as Oliver Sacks, Anatole Broyard, Norman Cousins, and Audre Lorde, as well as from people he met during the years he spent among different illness groups, Frank recounts a stirring collection of illness stories, ranging from the well-known--Gilda Radner's battle with ovarian cancer--to the private testimonials of people with cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome, and disabilties. Their stories are more than accounts of personal suffering: they abound with moral choices and point to a social ethic. Frank identifies three basic narratives of illness in restitution, chaos, and quest. Restitution narratives anticipate getting well again and give prominence to the technology of cure. In chaos narratives, illness seems to stretch on forever, with no respite or redeeming insights. Quest narratives are about finding that insight as illness is transformed into a means for the ill person to become someone new. (shrink)

A defense of material implication as implication.

Does the universe embody beautiful ideas? Artists as well as scientists throughout human history have pondered this "beautiful question." With Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek as your guide, embark on a voyage of related discoveries, from Plato and Pythagoras up to the present. Wilczek's groundbreaking work in quantum physics was inspired by his intuition to look for a deeper order of beauty in nature. In fact, every major advance in his career came from this intuition: to assume that the universe (...) embodies beautiful forms, forms whose hallmarks are symmetry--harmony, balance, proportion--and economy. There are other meanings of "beauty," but this is the deep logic of the universe--and it is no accident that it is also at the heart of what we find aesthetically pleasing and inspiring. As he reveals here, this has been the heart of scientific pursuit from Pythagoras, the ancient Greek who was the first to argue that "all things are number," to Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, and into the deep waters of twentieth-century physics. Gorgeously illustrated, A Beautiful Question is a mind-shifting book that braids the age-old quest for beauty and the age-old quest for truth into a thrilling synthesis. Yes: the world is a work of art, and its deepest truths are ones we already feel, as if they were somehow written in our souls.--From publisher description. (shrink)

One of our great contemporary scientists presents ten insights that illuminate what every thinking person needs to know about what the world is and how it works. Nobel Prize winner Frank Wilczek's Fundamentals is built around a simple but profound idea: the models of the world we construct as children are practical and adequate for everyday life, but they do not bring in the surprising and mind-expanding revelations of modern science. To do that, we must look at the world (...) anew, combining clear thinking with an openness to wonder. This "born again" world is in many ways larger, fuller, and much stranger than it appears. Through an exploration of space, time, matter, and ideas--and equipped with facts, questions, and brilliant speculations--Wilczek guides us through the past, present, and future of fundamental science. Readers will emerge with an expanded vision of our universe. Author Bio: Frank Wilczek won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 for work he did as a graduate student. He was among the earliest MacArthur fellows, and has won many awards both for his scientific work and his writing. He is the author of A Beautiful Question, The Lightness of Being, Fantastic Realities, Longing for the Harmonies, and hundreds of articles in leading scientific journals. His "Wilczek's Universe" column appears regularly in the Wall Street Journal. Wilczek is the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founding director of the T. D. Lee Institute and chief scientist at the Wilczek Quantum Center in Shanghai, China, and a distinguished professor at Arizona State University and Stockholm University. (shrink)

A complete collection of Frank Sibley's articles on philosophical aesthetics, this volume includes five, remarkable, hitherto unpublished papers written in Sibley's later years. It addresses many topics, among them the nature of aesthetic qualities versus non-aesthetic qualities, the relation of aesthetic description to aesthetic evaluation, the different levels of evaluation, and the objectivity of aesthetic judgement. The later papers constitute both a significant development of Sibley's individual approach to aesthetics, such as his discussion of the distinction between attributive and (...) predicative uses of adjectives and of the aesthetic significance of tastes and smells, a topic Sibley considered to be much neglected. (shrink)

This article rebuts Ramsey's earlier theory, in 'Universals of Law and of Fact', of how laws of nature differ from other true generalisations. It argues that our laws are rules we use in judging 'if I meet an F I shall regard it as a G'. This temporal asymmetry is derived from that of cause and effect and used to distinguish what's past as what we can know about without knowing our present intentions.

In this book, Frank Griffel presents the most comprehensive examination to date of the life and thought of this important figure.

In this book, Frank Griffel presents the most comprehensive examination to date of the life and thought of this important figure.

This book takes up the central themes of Aristotle's metaphysical theory and the various transformations they undergo prior to their full expression in the Metaphysics. Aristotle's metaphysics is bedevilled by classic puzzles involving such notions as form, predication, universal, and substance, which result from his attempt to adapt the various requirements on primary substance developed in his earlier works so that they fit the very different metaphysical picture in his later work. Professor Lewis argues that Aristotle is himself aware of (...) most if not all of these difficulties and in the Metaphysics works hard to ensure the coherence of his theory. He presents Aristotle's views as a formal theory complete with axioms, definitions, and theorems. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed intensive efforts to specify which requirements ethical artificial intelligence (AI) must meet. General guidelines for ethical AI consider a varying number of principles important. A frequent novel element in these guidelines, that we have bundled together under the term explicability, aims to reduce the black-box character of machine learning algorithms. The centrality of this element invites reflection on the conceptual relation between explicability and the four bioethical principles. This is important because the application of general ethical (...) frameworks to clinical decision-making entails conceptual questions: Is explicability a free-standing principle? Is it already covered by the well-established four bioethical principles? Or is it an independent value that needs to be recognized as such in medical practice? We discuss these questions in a conceptual-ethical analysis, which builds upon the findings of an empirical document analysis. On the example of the medical specialty of radiology, we analyze the position of radiological associations on the ethical use of medical AI. We address three questions: Are there references to explicability or a similar concept? What are the reasons for such inclusion? Which ethical concepts are referred to? (shrink)

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Dr Anne Merriman is the founder of Hospice Africa and Hospice Africa Uganda. She is presently Director of Policy and International Programmes. Here she tells the story of how HAU was founded. Dr Richard Harding is an academic researcher working on palliative care in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper described Dr Merriman's experience in pioneering palliative care provision. In particular it examines the steps to achieving wider availability of opioids for pain management for those with far advanced disease. Hospice (...) Africa Uganda has been a model facility in achieving high quality clinical care embedded in a strategy of advocacy and education, using a multifaceted approach that has addressed logistical, policy and legislative barriers. Until 1990 control of severe pain in Sub-Saharan Africa was non-existent except in Zimbabwe and S Africa. Oral affordable morphine was brought to Kenya through Nairobi Hospice that year, and to Uganda through Hospice Africa Uganda in 1993. This paper offers an example of a highly effective and cost efficient model of care that has transformed the ability to humanely manage the problems of those with terminal illness, and to offer a culturally appropriate. (shrink)

The Metaphysical Club, a gathering of intellectuals in the 1870s associated with Harvard, is widely recognized as the crucible where pragmatism, America's distinctively original philosophy, was refined and proclaimed. Louis Menand's bestseller about the group was a dramatic publishing success. However, only three actual members - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Charles S. Peirce, and William James - appear in this book, alongside other thinkers such as John Dewey who were never in the Club. The Real Metaphysical Club tells the full (...) story of how this influential group shifted the course of philosophy in America. In addition to pioneering pragmatism, the group explored radical empiricism and idealism, and formulated personalism and process philosophy, equally important developments. This volume contains thirty-seven important writings dating from 1870 to 1885 by the real members of the Metaphysical Club. The first section centers on pragmatism and science; the second part collects writings of the lawyers; and the third part covers idealist and personalist philosophers. Many of these writings have never been reprinted before, and nothing like this impressive collection has ever been attempted. A general introduction provides a narrative history, and the editors' three introductions to the volume's sections vividly bring to life the intense meetings, sustained debates, and pioneering thought from the Metaphysical Club. (shrink)

This conceptual paper revisits the concept of equality as a base of distributive justice and contends that it is underspecified, both theoretically and in terms of its ethical and pragmatic application to human resource management (HRM) within organizations. Prior organizational literature focuses primarily upon distributive equality of remunerative outcomes within small groups and implicitly employs an equity-based conception of inputs to define equality. In contrast, through exposition of the philosophical roots of equality principles, we reconceptualize inputs as de facto equal (...) and consider the systemic application of distributive equality in the form of status leveling practices. Ethical ramifications of distributive equality so viewed are explored. We conclude by arguing that, to implicitly insert a stronger ethics focus into the study and practice of HRM, perhaps there should be "equality theory" competing with equity theory for recognition in managerial and scholarly discourse. (shrink)

The Jewish Philosophy Reader is the first comprehensive anthology of classic writings on Jewish philosophy from the Bible to postmodernism. The Reader is clearly divided into four separate parts: Foundations and First Principles, Medieval and Renaissance Jewish Philosophy, Modern Jewish Thought, and Contemporary Jewish Philosophy. Each part is clearly introduced by the editors. The readings featured are representative writings of each era listed above and are from the following major thinkers: Abrabanel, Baeck, Bergman, Borowitz, Buber, Cohen, Crescas, Fackenheim, Geiger, Gersonides, (...) Goodman, Graetz, Halevi, Hartman, Heschel, Hess, Hirsch, Ibn Ezra, Ibn Gabirol, Ibn Paquda, Kellner, Kook, Krochmal, Leibowitz, Levinas, Maimonides, Maybaum, Mendelssohn, Novak, Philo, Plaskow, Rosenzweig, Saadia, Scholem, Seeskin, Soloveitchik, Spinoza, Strauss, Wolf, Zunz. (shrink)

Als »Subjektphilosophie« hat man das neuzeitliche Denken insgesamt charakterisiert. Diese Auszeichnung verdankt das Subjekt der verwegenen Hoffnung, es eigne sich zum ultimativen Prinzip der Wissensbegründung. Das Interesse an einer Aufklärung seiner Struktur wurde dadurch jedoch in den Hintergrund gedrängt. Diese Struktur steht im Zentrum von Manfred Franks jüngstem Buch, das einen Blick auf die moderne Geschichte der Subjekttheorien mit Analysen der inneren Beschaffenheit und der Zeitlichkeit des Subjekts sowie seines Verhältnisses zur Intersubjektivität und einer Auseinandersetzung mit klassischen und neuesten analytischen (...) Theoriebildungen verbindet. Dem Begriff der Präreflexivität kommt dabei die Schlüsselrolle zu. (shrink)

In this article I provide a critical account of the ‘placing’ of England’s M1 motorway. I start by critiquing Marc Augé’s anthropological writings on ‘non-places’ which have provided a common point of reference for academics discussing spaces of travel, consumption and exchange in the contemporary world. I argue that Augé’s ethnology of supermodernity results in a rather partial account of these sites, that he overstates the novelty of contemporary experiences of these spaces, and that he fails to acknowledge the heterogeneity (...) and materiality of the social networks bound up with the production of non-places/places. I suggest that, rather than focusing on the presences and absences associated with the polarities of place and non-place, academics should examine the multiple, partial, dynamic and relational ‘placings’ which arise through the diverse performances and movements associated with travel, consumption and exchange. I then trace the topologies of England’s M1 motorway, examining some of the different ways in which the motorway has been assembled, performed and placed over the past 45 years. (shrink)

English summary: »Selbstbestimmung« is a basic concept in the German ethical discourse, similar to »autonomy«, »liberty«, or »human dignity«. Even though this term is clearly in need of further definition, it has been barely addressed in the theological discourse. The contributions to this volume take a variety of approaches to the question of how we have to understand and interpret the concept of »self-determination« within the framework of theological ethics. In order to achieve this, the authors resort to the orientation (...) and perspectives of reality fostered by reformatory theology. Apart from a fundamental essay that in tracing the different facets of the term »self-determination« refers back to the theology of Martin Luther, the anthology contains a number of contributions from the field of applied ethics. German description: Der Begriff »Selbstbestimmung« gehort zu den Grundbegriffen der Ethik. Er begegnet in vielen aktuellen ethischen Diskursen Ahnlich haufig wie die Begriffe »Autonomie«, »Freiheit« oder »Menschenwuerde«. Trotz eines offensichtlichen Klarungsbedarfs hat sich die Theologie dieses Begriffs bisher noch kaum angenommen. Die Beitrage des vorliegenden Sammelbandes stellen sich in unterschiedlicher Perspektive der Frage, wie das Konzept »Selbstbestimmung« im Rahmen theologischer Ethik verstanden und inhaltlich gefuellt werden kann. Dafuer wird die Orientierungsleistung des von der reformatorischen Theologie gepragten Wirklichkeitsverstandnisses fruchtbar gemacht. Neben einem grundlegenden Aufsatz, der den Begriff »Selbstbestimmung« mit Hilfe von Impulsen aus der Theologie Martin Luthers entfaltet, stehen Aufsatze aus dem Bereich der angewandten Ethik. (shrink)

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

We attempt to extend the nominalistic project initiated in Hartry Field's Science Without Numbers to modern physical theories based in differential geometry.

Ubiquitous news, global information access, instantaneous reporting, interactivity, multimedia content, extreme customization: Journalism is undergoing the most fundamental transformation since the rise of the penny press in the nineteenth century. Here is a report from the front lines on the impact and implications for journalists and the public alike. John Pavlik, executive director of the Center for New Media at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, argues that the new media can revitalize news gathering and reengage an increasingly distrustful and (...) alienated citizenry. The book is a valuable reference on everything from organizing a new age newsroom to job hunting in the new media. (shrink)

When the first edition of Semantics appeared in 1976, the developments in this aspect of language study were exciting interest not only among linguists, but among philosophers, psychologists and logicians. Professor Palmer's straightforward and comprehensive book was immediately welcomed as one of the best introductions to the subject. Interest in Semantics has been further stimulated recently by a number of significant, and often contriversial, theoretical advances; and the publication of this second edition has enabled Professor Palmer to bring his survey (...) thoroughly up to date. There is also an important new chapter on 'Semantics and logic', showing clearly and simply the influence that logical models have had on the study of meaning. Professor Palmer always illustrates his argument with helpful examples, and his non-technical explanations will be readily intelligible to the interested layman as well as to beginning students of language and linguistics. (shrink)

Frank Ramsey was the greatest of the remarkable generation of Cambridge philosophers and logicians which included G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Maynard Keynes. Before his tragically early death in 1930 at the age of twenty-six, he had done seminal work in mathematics and economics as well as in logic and philosophy. This volume, with a new and extensive introduction by D. H. Mellor, contains all Ramsey's previously published writings on philosophy and the foundations of mathematics. The (...) latter gives the definitive form and defence of the reduction of mathematics to logic undertaken in Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica; the former includes the most profound and original studies of universals, truth, meaning, probability, knowledge, law and causation, all of which are still constantly referred to, and still essential reading for all serious students of these subjects. (shrink)

The first to use Edmund Burke's ideas to directly tie politics with administration.

The dominant social scientific approach to studying judicial behavior treats judges as strategic actors pursuing their political preferences under institutional constraint. The intellectual roots of this rational choice approach are in American law’s long but sporadic engagement with pragmatist ideas. This article challenges that approach: a fully pragmatist account of judicial action provides a better description of the intellectual and social work of judging, and better explains how judges reach a decision in difficult cases that most affect the development of (...) law and its relationship to society. The article argues that the foundational intellectual problem for appellate judges is how to define the legal questions presented in a case. Definitions of legal questions arise from the interplay of habitual and creative action in the local social context of an appeals court. Professional and local interpretive habits and legal forms ordinarily do a great deal to define the key questions, which are not strictly determined when a case comes before a court. Unscripted small group interactions at oral arguments also figure in question definition; oral arguments are most important in the rare but legally important cases where habitual practices alone are insufficient to delimit the legal question judges must answer. Supported by extensive interviews with federal appeals judges and clerks, the article illustrates judges’ creative, interactional efforts to define an answerable question in a major asylum case decided in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Building from this case, the article describes the factors that shape judicial question definition, and describes the conditions when creative judicial action is likely to be most prominent. (shrink)

Historicism -- Time -- Interpretation -- Representation -- Reference -- Truth -- Meaning -- Presence -- Experience (I) -- Experience (II) -- Subjectivity -- Politics.