Problems of climate change present new challenges for social theory. In this article we focus on the task of understanding and analyzing car dependence, using this as a case through which to introduce and explore what we take to be central but underdeveloped questions about how infrastructures and complexes of social practice connect across space and time. In taking this approach we work with the proposition that forms of energy consumption, including those associated with automobility, are usefully understood as outcomes (...) of interconnected patterns of social practices, including working, shopping, visiting friends and family, going to school, and so forth. We also acknowledge that social practices are partly constituted by, and always embedded in material arrangements. Linking these two features together, we suggest that forms of car dependence emerge through the intersection of infrastructural arrangements that are integral to the conduct of many practices at once. We consequently explore the significance of professional – and not only ‘ordinary’ – practices, especially those of planners and designers who are involved in reconfiguring infrastructures of different scales, and in the practice dynamics that follow. (shrink)

We propose a formal framework for interpretable machine learning. Combining elements from statistical learning, causal interventionism, and decision theory, we design an idealised explanation game in which players collaborate to find the best explanation for a given algorithmic prediction. Through an iterative procedure of questions and answers, the players establish a three-dimensional Pareto frontier that describes the optimal trade-offs between explanatory accuracy, simplicity, and relevance. Multiple rounds are played at different levels of abstraction, allowing the players to explore overlapping causal (...) patterns of variable granularity and scope. We characterise the conditions under which such a game is almost surely guaranteed to converge on a optimal explanation surface in polynomial time, and highlight obstacles that will tend to prevent the players from advancing beyond certain explanatory thresholds. The game serves a descriptive and a normative function, establishing a conceptual space in which to analyse and compare existing proposals, as well as design new and improved solutions. (shrink)

In this paper we provide a critical review of research concerned with social/environmental mechanisms that modulate human neuroendocrine function. We survey research in four behavioral systems that have been shaped through evolution: competition, partnering, sex, and pregnancy/parenting. Generally, behavioral neuroendocrine research examines how hormones affect behavior. Instead, we focus on approaches that emphasize the effects of behavioral states on hormones (i.e., the “reverse relationship”), and their functional significance. We focus on androgens and estrogens because of their relevance to sexually selected (...) traits. We conclude that the body of research employing a reversed or bidirectional perspective has an incomplete foundation: participants are mainly heterosexual men, and the functionality of induced shifts in neuroendocrine factors is generally unknown. This area of research is in its infancy, and opportunities abound for developing and testing intriguing research questions. (shrink)

Necessity and sufficiency are the building blocks of all successful explanations. Yet despite their importance, these notions have been conceptually underdeveloped and inconsistently applied in explainable artificial intelligence, a fast-growing research area that is so far lacking in firm theoretical foundations. In this article, an expanded version of a paper originally presented at the 37th Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence, we attempt to fill this gap. Building on work in logic, probability, and causality, we establish the central role of (...) necessity and sufficiency in XAI, unifying seemingly disparate methods in a single formal framework. We propose a novel formulation of these concepts, and demonstrate its advantages over leading alternatives. We present a sound and complete algorithm for computing explanatory factors with respect to a given context and set of agentive preferences, allowing users to identify necessary and sufficient conditions for desired outcomes at minimal cost. Experiments on real and simulated data confirm our method’s competitive performance against state of the art XAI tools on a diverse array of tasks. (shrink)

The thoughts and writings of this important fifth century B.C. political and social thinker -- and formidable rival of the Confucianists -- are presented here in English translation.

This review essay provides a critical discussion of Linda Zagzebski’s Exemplarist Moral Theory. We agree that emt is a book of impressive scope that will be of interest to ethical theorists, as well as epistemologists, philosophers of language, and philosophers of religion. Throughout the critical discussion we argue that exemplarism faces a number of important challenges, firstly, in dealing with the fallibility of admiration, which plays a central role in the theoretical framework, and secondly, in serving as a practical guide (...) for moral development. Despite this, we maintain that emt points the way for significant future theoretical and empirical research into some of the most well-established questions in ethical theory. (shrink)

He then proceeds with an examination of the picture theory developed by Wittgenstein, Carnap, and Goodman, and concludes with an examination of Patricia Churchland, Ruth Millikan, Robert Cummins, and Mark Rollins. The use of the historical development of representationalism to pose a central problem in contemporary cognitive science is unique.

Public health and service delivery programmes, interventions and policies are typically developed and implemented for the primary purpose of effecting change rather than generating knowledge. Nonetheless, evaluations of these programmes may produce valuable learning that helps determine effectiveness and costs as well as informing design and implementation of future programmes. Such studies might be termed ‘opportunistic evaluations’, since they are responsive to emergent opportunities rather than being studies of interventions that are initiated or designed by researchers. However, current ethical guidance (...) and registration procedures make little allowance for scenarios where researchers have played no role in the development or implementation of a programme, but nevertheless plan to conduct a prospective evaluation. We explore the limitations of the guidance and procedures with respect to opportunistic evaluations, providing a number of examples. We propose that one key missing distinction in current guidance is moral responsibility: researchers can only be held accountable for those aspects of a study over which they have control. We argue that requiring researchers to justify an intervention, programme or policy that would occur regardless of their involvement prevents or hinders research in the public interest without providing any further protections to research participants. We recommend that trial consent and ethics procedures allow for a clear separation of responsibilities for the intervention and the evaluation. (shrink)

A popular critique of the kalām cosmological argument is that one argument for its second premise illicitly assumes a finite starting point for the series of past temporal events, thereby begging the question against opponents. Rejecting this assumption, opponents say, eliminates any objections to the possibility that the past is infinitely old and undermines the IFA’s ability to support premise 2. I contend that the plausibility of this objection depends on ambiguities in extant formulations of the IFA and that we (...) may resolve these ambiguities in a way that does not presuppose a finite staring point. I also argue that this disambiguation allows us to construct an argument demonstrating that the concept of an infinite past entails a contradiction. (shrink)

Summary The need for education in moral values is increasingly being recognised today, but how is it to be conducted in schools? In particular we consider the appropriateness or otherwise of a teacher assuming the role of a neutral chairperson in discussion. Advocacy of such a stance is especially associated with Lawrence Stenhouse who saw neutrality as a procedural device in order to empower students? own involvement. We point out many of the insights of Stenhouse's approach, but also some of (...) its disadvantages which subtly encourage a popularist form of relativism. We suggest the substitution of procedural neutrality with a different approach, that of critical affirmation. Here the teacher advocates a stance alongside everyone else. This, however, is done in a way that affirms pupils, and their right to personal views, whilst subjecting all views, including the teacher's own, to a close scrutiny, especially regarding implications for the views of others. (shrink)

This study compares involuntary and voluntary autobiographical memories in depressed and never depressed individuals. Twenty depressed and twenty never depressed individuals completed a memory diary; recording their reactions to 10 involuntary and 10 voluntary memories over 14–30 days. Psychiatric status , psychopathology, rumination and avoidance were assessed. For both groups, involuntary memories more frequently lead to strong reactions than voluntarily memories. For both modes of retrieval, depressed individuals reported more frequent negative reactions than never depressed individuals and rated memories as (...) more central to identity with higher levels of rumination and avoidance. Depressed individuals retrieved both positive and negative memories during involuntary retrieval. These findings support the view that involuntary memory retrieval represents a basic mode of retrieval during healthy and disordered cognition, and that during depression, both involuntary and voluntary memories are central to identity and associated with rumination and avoidance. (shrink)

In Sect. 1 an argument for Yogācāra Buddhist Idealism, here understood as the view that everything in the universe is of the nature of consciousness / cognition, is laid out. The prior history of the argument is also recounted. In Sect. 2 the role played in this argument by light as an analogy for cognition is analyzed. Four separate aspects of the light analogy are discerned. In Sect. 3, I argue that although light is in some ways a helpful analogy (...) for the Buddhist Idealist, in other ways it is thoroughly inappropriate. At the end of the article I ask whether the lack of fit between light and cognition is unavoidable, or whether the Buddhist Idealists could have chosen a better analogy. (shrink)

With the development of the Healthcare Ethics Consultant Certification offered through the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, the practice of clinical ethics has taken a decisive step into professionalization. Like other clinical consulting services that have trod this path—chaplaincy, genetic counseling, social work, case management, and so on1—clinical ethics started with academic and fellowship training programs and has identified a set of standards of practice....

This article aims to present “the state of the question” concerning prostitution. The “state of the question” has a double meaning. On the one hand, it can mean the state of the debate. Treating it as such, one might be inclined to describe and evaluate the various positions by the conclusions they offer, e.g. for or against decriminalization, for or against the Nordic Model, etc. On the other hand, a deeper sense of “the state of the question” concerns what question (...) is it that people are asking and attempting to answer concerning prostitution. This paper is framed around this second sense. By analyzing the orienting question(s) which theorists think they are answering when they defend decriminalization, some form of legalization, or the Nordic model, we gain a powerful basis for understanding and critiquing the various positions on offer. In the end, I argue that the Nordic Model is superior in both its orienting method and its solution. (shrink)

This paper examines the role of metalinguistic negotiation in lawyers’ and judges’ speech about the law. A speaker engages in metalinguistic negotiation when the speaker uses a term to advocate for what that term should mean or how it should be used relative to context. While I doubt that legal practitioners employ metalinguistic negotiation in the ways that David Plunkett and Tim Sundell have proposed, it is plausible that practitioners do so in another way. Specifically, I contend that lawyers and (...) judges sometimes use key terms in legal interpretation – e.g., ‘plain’, ‘meaning’, or ‘holding’ – to advocate for what those terms should mean or how courts should use them in adjudication. This suggests an intriguing role for metalinguistic negotiation in legal argumentation, one that could shed light on practitioners’ disputes in a range of cases dealing with constitutional, statutory, or common-law interpretation. (shrink)

Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito. In this book, the author adds choruses to the Dialogues in order to make the Dialogues suitable for presentation as a three-act drama.

:Masculinity studies recognizes that masculinity is culturally variable, historically specific, multidimensional, and multiple. This mutability is reflected in concepts like hegemonic masculinity, hybrid masculinity, mosaic masculinities, personalized masculinities, sensual masculinity, and inclusive masculinity. Building on this idea of mutating masculinity, this paper addresses a theoretical problem acknowledged by many scholars: how to account for both the singular intimacy of lived experience and the commonality of shared social norms. In order to build a mutable model that encompasses both experience and norms (...) the paper borrows from Félix Guattari's technique of schizoanalytic cartography, which maps assemblages. This new approach to theorizing masculinity is illustrated by diagrams which map its institutional, discursive, cultural, existential, bodily, and biological aspects. (shrink)

Background: The role of nurses as patient advocates is one which is well recognised, supported and the subject of a broad body of literature. One of the key impediments to the role of the nurse as patient advocate is the lack of support and legislative frameworks. Within a broad range of activities constituting advocacy, whistleblowing is currently the subject of much discussion in the light of the Mid Staffordshire inquiry in the United Kingdom and other instances of patient mistreatment. As (...) a result steps to amend existing whistleblowing legislation where it exists or introduce it where it does not are underway. Objective: This paper traces the development of legislation for advocacy. Conclusion: The authors argue that while any legislation supporting advocacy is welcome, legislation on its own will not encourage or enable nurses to whistleblow. (shrink)

While classical interpretations of hermeneutics have often identified themselves with Montaigne, others have contested not only whether Montaigne is committed to an account of a hermeneutic self, but whether a hermeneutics of traditional or self-identity is either possible or desirable. This article will investigate the continuing viability of hermeneutics through contested interpretations of Montaigne undertaken from the varying standpoints of phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and critical theory. These interpretations have shed significant light on Montaigne's work and have in turn been further illuminated (...) by it; they reveal not only something about the hermeneutics of Montaigne's work, but about consciousness, and the timeliness of hermeneutics itself. (shrink)

This article is a response to Nancy Bauer's How To Do Things with Pornography. The main argument of the book is presented and evaluated. In particular, Bauer's criticisms of Catharine MacKinnon's work on pornography are considered and a defense of MacKinnon's views offered.

Preface: A different kind of meditation -- Part I: Introductory -- A polemical clearing of the ground : Harris, Hitchens and Dawkins' lack of scruple : the unimpressive face of atheism -- Why we need to rethink religion -- Part II: The outside -- Shifting focus from the "outsider" to the "outside" -- Thought from the outside : Lawrence, Levinas and Derrida : at the firing line and into the unknown -- Thought from the outside : Abraham and Isaac : (...) hospitality, the messianic turn and the religious suspension of the ethical -- Balancing as we go : slave or noble, Abrahamic or Hellenic? -- Conclusion : "Driv[ing] on to the edge of the unknown and beyond". (shrink)

This paper investigates the role of literature and, in particular, Proust in Merleau-Ponty’s late works’ rehabilitation of the ontology of the sensible. First, I trace Proust’s role in Phenomenology of Percpetion, contrasting it with the somewhat more paradigmatic status as a model it plays in the late works. Second, I compare this with the role of the novel as partial myth in Schelling, who also played an essential role in Merleau-Ponty’s refiguration of the sensible. I briefly trace his examination of (...) the historical or “sociological meaning” of literature through works of the fifties, beginning with his Collège de France candidacy proposal and continuing through his examination of the rationality of modern disenchantment or dépoétization in the Adventures of the Dialectic. Finally, discussing the late analysis of Proust against this backdrop, I conclude with considerations concerning the relevance of Merleau-Ponty’s overall analysis of Proust both in his thought and contemporary literary criticism and philosophy more generally. Cet article examine le rôle de la littérature et, en particulier, celui de Proust, dans la réhabilitation ontologique du sensible qui se trame dans les derniers écrits de Merleau-Ponty. En premier lieu, je retracerai le rôle de Proust dans la Phénoménologie de la perception, en l’opposant au statut quelque peu plus paradigmatique, comme s’il s’agissait d’un modèle, qu’il joue dans le dernier Merleau-Ponty. Deuxièmement, je comparerai cela avec la fonction du roman conçu comme un mythe incomplet chez Schelling, qui a aussi joué un rôle essentiel dans la reconfiguration du sensible chez Merleau-Ponty. Je décrirai brièvement son analyse de la « signification sociologique » ou historique de la littérature à travers des oeuvres des années ’50, en me penchant, d’abord, sur sa candidature au Collège de France, et, ensuite, sur son étude de la rationalité du désenchantement moderne ou dépoétisation dans les Aventures de la dialectique. Finalement, en examinant les dernières analyses de Proust à partir de ces prémisses, je conclurai avec des considérations sur l’intérêt de l’ensemble de l’analyse que Merleau-Ponty fait de Proust à la fois pour sa pensée, pour la critique littéraire contemporaine et, plus généralement, pour la philosophie.Il presente articolo indaga il ruolo della letteratura e, in particolare, di Proust nella riabilitazione ontologica del sensibile negli ultimi scritti di Merleau-Ponty. In primo luogo, si delinea il ruolo di Proust nella Fenomenologia della percezione, contrapponendolo, in qualche modo, allo statuto paradigmatico di modello che l’autore riveste nei lavori dell’ultimo Merleau-Ponty. In secondo luogo, si confronta questo con il ruolo del romanzo come mito parziale in Schelling, che pure ha giocato una parte essenziale nella rifigurazione del sensibile in Merleau-Ponty. Si articolerà brevemente il significato storico o sociologico della letteratura attraverso gli scritti degli anni Cinquanta, a partire dalla proposta di candidatura di Merleau-Ponty al Collège de France e proseguendo mediante il suo esame della razionalità del disincanto moderno o depoetizzazione ne Le avventure della dialettica. Infine, esaminando l’ultima lettura di Proust a partire da queste analisi, propongo una considerazione riguardo alla rilevanza complessiva dell’autore della Recherche nella riflessione di Merleau-Ponty e, più in generale, nella critica letteraria e nella filosofia contemporanee. (shrink)

For many citizens, public services are the most direct and tangible output of the democratic process, and yet in the past thirty years policymakers have privatized a broad swath of these services. This article asks whether privatization of state services changes citizens’ willingness to use the ballot box to hold governments to account for service performance. It argues that citizens can hold governments to account for privatization, but only if they have genuine political alternatives. Where quality falls with privatization and (...) citizens can vote for an anti-privatization party, what we call a clear signal, privatization can mobilize citizens to sanction incumbents. By contrast, where quality falls but there are few anti-privatization alternatives, a mixed signal, privatization reduces sanctioning behavior. To test this theory, the article draws on a panel difference-in-differences analysis of disability reform from the United Kingdom, leveraging a geographically varied introduction of private provision across two political contexts. (shrink)

Schwinger’s algebra of microscopic measurement, with the associated complex field of transformation functions, is shown to provide the foundation for a discrete quantum phase space of known type, equipped with a Wigner function and a star product. Discrete position and momentum variables label points in the phase space, each taking \(N\) distinct values, where \(N\) is any chosen prime number. Because of the direct physical interpretation of the measurement symbols, the phase space structure is thereby related to definite experimental configurations.