The Price equation is currently considered one of the fundamental equations —or even the fundamental equation— of evolution. In this article, we explore the role of this equation within cultural evolutionary theory. More specifically, we use it to account for the explanatory power and the theoretical structure of a certain generalised version of dual-inheritance theory. First, we argue that, in spite of not having a definite empirical content, the Price equation offers a suitable formalisation of the processes of cultural evolution, (...) and provides a powerful heuristic device for discovering the actual causes of cultural change and accumulation. Second, we argue that, as a consequence of this, a certain version of the Price equation is the fundamental law of cultural evolutionary theory. In order to support this claim, we sketch the ideal structure of dual-inheritance theory and we stress the unificatory role that the Price equation plays in it. (shrink)

The functional basis of disgust in disease avoidance is widely accepted; however, there is disagreement over what disgust is. This is a significant problem, as basic questions about disgust require...

The academic literature in research ethics has been marked in the past decade by a much broader focus on the need for the protection of developing communities subjected to international clinical trials. Because of the proximity of the revision of the Declaration of Helsinki, completed in October 2008, most papers have addressed the issue of a double standard of care following the use of placebo. However, other no less important issues, such as interactions between the lifestyles structures of low-income communities (...) and the efficiency of risk-minimising procedures also deserve attention. The purpose of this paper is to discuss forms of uncertainty involved in clinical trials in poor and low-income countries that are not addressed by conventional methods of risk assessment. Furthermore, the increase in size of risks that are identified by conventional assessment methods will be addressed. Besides, the difficulty in properly applying risk-minimising procedures will be discussed. Finally, this paper proposes the involvement of research ethics committees in the risk evaluation process and the establishment of national ethics evaluation systems. (shrink)

The acceleration of the market globalisation process over the last three decades has internationalised clinical research and influenced both the way in which it is funded and the development and application of research practices. In addition, in recent years international multicentre randomised clinical trials have become the model par excellence for research on new medicines. The neoliberal model of globalisation has induced a decline in state power, both with regard to establishing national research for health priorities and to influencing the (...) development of adequate ethical guidelines to protect human beings that participate in multinational research. In this respect, poor and low-income countries, which lack sustainable control and review systems to deal with the ethical and methodological challenges of complex studies conducted by researchers from affluent countries and funded by large multinational pharmaceutical companies, are particularly vulnerable. The aim of the present paper is to explore critically some of the actual and possible ethical pitfalls of globalisation of clinical research and propose mechanisms for turning transnational clinical research into a more cooperative and fairer enterprise. (shrink)

The field of genetics has seen major advances in recent decades, particularly in research, prevention and diagnosis. One of the most recent developments, the genomic editing technique Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-Cas9, has opened the possibility for genetic therapies through genome modification. The technique marks an improvement on previous procedures but poses some serious ethical conflicts. Bioethics is the discipline geared at finding answers to ethical challenges posed by progress in medicine and biology and examining their repercussions for (...) society. It can also offer a conceptualization of these ethical dilemmas. The aim of this paper is to offer a map of the ethical dilemmas associated with this technique by way of a critical analysis of current literature. The main issues can be grouped in four areas: efficacy and security; the types of cells which can be targeted by the technique (somatic, embryonic and gametes); the goal of the therapy; and accessibility and justice. (shrink)

Emergence of the novel pathogenic coronavirus SARS‐CoV‐2 and its rapid pandemic spread presents challenges that demand immediate attention. Here, we describe the development of a semi‐quantitative high‐content microscopy‐based assay for detection of three major classes (IgG, IgA, and IgM) of SARS‐CoV‐2 specific antibodies in human samples. The possibility to detect antibodies against the entire viral proteome together with a robust semi‐automated image analysis workflow resulted in specific, sensitive and unbiased assay that complements the portfolio of SARS‐CoV‐2 serological assays. Sensitive, specific (...) and quantitative serological assays are urgently needed for a better understanding of humoral immune response against the virus as a basis for developing public health strategies to control viral spread. The procedure described here has been used for clinical studies and provides a general framework for the application of quantitative high‐throughput microscopy to rapidly develop serological assays for emerging virus infections. (shrink)

Using an experiment with corporate financial managers, we find that when red flags are present in the financial statements under their review, managers identify those red flags and, in turn, have greater concerns over earnings quality. In addition, when pressure to meet a financial target is high, managers are more concerned about earnings quality when red flags are present. We also document that when red flags are present, managers are more likely to report both internally to their CEO and, if (...) their concerns are not resolved internally, externally to their auditor. Pressure to meet a financial target increases the likelihood managers report internally, but decreases their likelihood of reporting externally when red flags are present. Additional analyses document reporting differences between CFOs and controllers, and examine the important roles that short-term personal costs, job tenure, and a non-accounting background play in the ethical dilemma managers face when deciding whether to report externally. (shrink)

Due to its high degree of complexity and its historical nature, evolutionary biology has been traditionally portrayed as a messy science. According to the supporters of such a view, evolutionary biology would be unable to formulate laws and robust theories, instead just delivering coherent narratives and local models. In this article, our aim is to challenge this view by showing how the Price equation can work as the core of a general theoretical framework for evolutionary phenomena. To support this claim, (...) we outline some unnoticed structural similarities between physical theories and evolutionary biology. More specifically, we shall argue that the Price equation, in the same way as fundamental formalisms in physics, can serve as a heuristic principle to formulate and systematise different theories and models in evolutionary biology. (shrink)

Worldwide, vulnerable neighbourhoods of large cities are often the scene of collective violent conflicts linked with migration and ethnic minorities’ struggles for social justice. However, urban conflicts of this kind have not taken place in Spanish cities with high immigration rates, even though the country has been deeply affected by two recent socioeconomic crises (2009 and 2020). This article reports findings of a study aimed at understanding what lies behind this apparent social peace. The research methodology was based on an (...) analysis of secondary socio-economic and socio-relational data from the Spanish Institute of Statistics and from key national surveys and reports. Results confirmed that immigrant population living in the country are strongly segregated in the lower strata of the labour and socioeconomic structure and have been disproportionately affected by the crises. However, research findings also pointed to the existence of strong closed support networks where social capital has been effective at palliating members’ disadvantage and unrest. Drawing on the Theory of Rupture Frames, we argue that this is a fragile and unsustainable social peace, rooted in social injustice, and anticipate that unless actively prevented, uncontrolled conflict will eventually emerge in main cities’ neighbourhoods in Spain. (shrink)

Tobacco mosaic virus has served as a model organism for pathbreaking work in plant pathology, virology, biochemistry and applied genetics for more than a century. We were intrigued by a photograph published in Phytopathology in 1934 showing that Tabasco pepper plants responded to TMV infection with localized necrotic lesions, followed by abscission of the inoculated leaves. This dramatic outcome of a biological response to infection observed by Francis O. Holmes, a virologist at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, was used (...) to score plants for resistance to TMV infection. Our objective was to gain a better understanding of early to mid-twentieth century ideas of genetic resistance to viruses in crop plants. We investigated Holmes’ observation as a practical exercise in reworking an experiment, having been inspired by Pamela Smith’s innovative Making and Knowing Project. We had a great deal of difficulty replicating Holmes’ experiment, finding that biological materials and experimental customs change over time, in ways that ideas do not. Using complementary tools plus careful study and interpretation of the original text and figures, we were able to rework, yet only partially replicate, this experiment. Reading peer-reviewed manuscripts that cited Holmes’ 1934 report provided an additional level of insight into the interpretation and replication of this work in the decades that followed. From this, we touch on how experimental reworking can inform our strategies to address the reproducibility “crisis” in twenty-first century science. (shrink)

In this study, we explore the sincerity of the rhetorical tone of 664 annual letters to shareholders (CEO letters). Prior studies adopt Impression Management theory to predict that firms obfuscate failures and emphasize successes to unfairly enhance their image and maintain organizational legitimacy. Yuthas et al. (J Bus Ethics 41:141–157, 2002) challenged such a view, showing that firms reporting earnings surprises engage in ethical discourse with shareholders. We adopt the methodology of Yuthas et al. (J Bus Ethics 41:141–157, 2002) to (...) explore the association between firm performance and the rhetorical features of CEO letters in a large sample of Fortune 500 firms in the wake of the global economic crisis. In contrast to most prior research, we find that optimistic tone is congruent with both past and future performance. We conclude that under tough macroeconomic conditions, incentives to distort public information strategically are low. Rather, firms tend to engage in communicative action aimed at dialoguing with shareholders through sincere disclosure. However, in our conclusions, we warn about the impact of accounting and rhetorical manipulation on the congruence between optimistic tone and financial performance. (shrink)

En Una Teoría de la Justicia (A Theory of Justice, 1971), la justicia —sus dos principios— viene a regular los intereses, fundamento y motor de la sociedad y del individuo ralwsianos. No obstante, tal regulación —individualista— preserva y favorece la libertad máxima individual, de modo que ésta, sin embargo, no llegue a alterar el orden social. Sobre la moralidad que Rawls propone, ante todo, hay que saber que la justicia como imparcialidad (Justice as fairness como él llama a su teoría) (...) no pretende la completa especificación de la conducta, sino más bien aproximarse a unos límites, a un marco dentro de los cuales los individuos y asociaciones son libres de perseguir sus fines (Rawls, 1978: 566). Acaso sean la indefinición o la poca importancia de pensar acerca de dichos fines los que hagan considerar a Rawls la moralidad como una simple preferencia (1978: 244), rasgo común en las tradiciones con las que se relaciona (utilitarismo y contractualismo). El concepto de bien se halla implícito en toda la teoría de la justicia de Rawls y sus conceptos (sociedad, individuo, deber, etc.), y, por tanto, en muchos debates que Rawls ha generado, aunque, a nuestro juicio, no ha sido examinado con suficiente detenimiento. El análisis que se propone discurre por tres temas distintos: el contexto del concepto de bien, la teoría específica (del bien) y la teoría general (del bien), para terminar con la conclusión. (shrink)

Le volume offre huit articles sur le scepticisme pyrrhonien. Les essais, de la plume de M. Bonazzi, T. O’Keefe, J. Warren, F. Grgić, H. Thorsrud, S. Marchand, D. E. Machuca et O. Bueno, sont tous en anglais. Précédés d’une préface, d’une notice sur les auteurs et d’une brève introduction, ils sont suivis d’index des noms propres, des passages et des sujets. Chaque contribution est munie d’une bibliographie. Les deux premiers articles sont consacrés à la section des Esquisses Pyrrhoniennes (PH...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:IntroductionWilliam J. ConnellOne of the more unusual works in the corpus of the Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla is the Oratio in principio sui studii, on the relation between Latin letters and the Christian faith. The speech was written and delivered in October 1455, toward the end of Valla’s life, as a lecture to inaugurate the academic year at the University of Rome where he had held the chair (...) in rhetoric since 1450. It was traditional at Rome to hold such an address each year not only to encourage the assembled students and faculty in their studies but also to thank the papacy for its support of the university, the Studium Urbis. For this reason Valla’s speech ends with customary words praising Pope Calixtus III for having increased the stipends of the lecturers in the university, even though, notwithstanding some remarkable kindnesses to Valla himself, Calixtus’s reputation was not that of a friend to scholarship. Valla’s Schoolyear Inaugural was not lengthy: it can only have lasted fifteen minutes. Nor is there indication that anyone was displeased with it. In fact, that is precisely what is oddest about the Inaugural, for throughout his career Valla had shown himself to be the sort of person who seized on such occasions to make polemical arguments. We read the speech—and it is possible that his audience also listened to it this way—expecting with each step that Valla will let fly a critical or unorthodox statement, but that never happens. 1Beginning with his earliest formal work, a comparison of Cicero and Quintilian written in 1428 and now lost, in which the humanist argued against Cicero on behalf of Quintilian, Valla seemed to delight in challenging established authorities. 2 His next important work, an attack on Bartolus of [End Page 1] Sassoferrato and the scholastic method of contemporary jurists, resulted in his forced departure from the University of Pavia. 3 A continuing combativeness is illustrated in subsequent writings, reaching an apogee in the work on the Donation. Even when Valla was developing another writer’s idea, he had a consistent way of pushing the argument to a daring extreme. This, as Riccardo Fubini argues below, is what Valla did in the De donatione, a work Fubini suggests relied more heavily on Nicholas of Cusa’s De concordantia catholica than hitherto realized, but written to promote an agenda far more radical than that of Cusanus. One of the surest indications of Valla’s brilliance as a polemicist is the fact that seventy years after his death humanists of the caliber of Agostino Steuco, the subject of Ronald K. Delph’s essay in this number, were still eager to take up cudgels against him.Valla paid a price for initiating so many disputes. In 1444, when he was called before the Inquisition in Naples after the attack on the Donation of Constantine, Valla was made to answer charges against not only that work, but also against the De vero bono for its Epicureanism, the De libero arbitrio for its determinism, the De professione religiosorum for its criticism of religious orders, and the Repastinatio totius dialectice et philosophie for various unorthodox statements, especially concerning the Trinity. This last work was the humanist’s most ambitious project, and he seems to have been aware of its explosive quality, since he alluded to a “peril to his life” should it be published. 4The 1455 Schoolyear Inaugural shows no trace of the risks that Valla took in his other writings, of his polemical temperament, or of his past disagreements with the Church. With style and vigor the speech argues that the Church deserves great thanks and praise for having ensured the survival [End Page 2] of Latin letters after the collapse of the Empire. This may seem a notable change of heart in the author who had written the oration On the Falsely Believed and Forged Donation of Constantin—a text which always seems to be lurking in the background of the Inaugural but which finds no explicit reference there. Given the proximity of Valla’s argument to the well-worn medieval theme of the translatio studii, his argument could hardly have been... (shrink)

In this article I will take advantage of the logical and cognitive studies I have illustrated in my recent book The Abductive Structure of Scientific Creativity. An Essay on the Ecology of Cognition, in which the process of building new hypotheses is clarified thanks to my eco-cognitive model of abduction. Also resorting to a new interpretation of Aristotle’s seminal work on abduction, I will emphasize the crucial role played in abductive cognition by the so-called “optimization of eco-cognitive openness and situatedness”. (...) Indeed, in the chapter B25 of Prior Analytics concerning, we can see some of the current well-known distinctive characters of abductive cognition already expressed, which are in tune with the EC-Model: Aristotle is still pointing to the fundamental inferential role in reasoning of those externalities that substantiate the process of “leading away” (). Hence, we can gain a new positive perspective about the “constitutive” eco-cognitive character of abduction, just thanks to Aristotle himself. Situatedness is related to eco-cognitive aspects: to favor the solution of the abductive problem input and output of the formula Λ1,…,Λi,?I⊩LXΥ1,…,.Υj\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\begin{aligned} \Lambda _1,\ldots,\Lambda _i,?_I\Vdash _L^X\Upsilon _1,\ldots,.\Upsilon _j \end{aligned}$$\end{document}have to be thought as optimally positioned: indeed I also contend than a disregarded issue concerning abduction is related to the current lack of knowledge about what I call “discoverability” and “diagnosticability”. In the formula above ⊩LX\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\Vdash _L^X$$\end{document} indicates that inputs and outputs do not stand each other in an expected relation and that the modification of the inputs?I\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$?_I$$\end{document} can provide the abductive solution. In general, in this characterization the direction is not from evidence/premises to abductive result but the forward fashion is adopted, where the inferential parameter ⊩\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\Vdash $$\end{document} sets some appropriate logical relationship between an input which consists in both the abductive guess to be found and a background theory, and an output—for example an evidence, a novel phenomenon to be abductively “explained” through facts, rules, or even new theories. Further, in the case of scientific settings, this optimality is made possible by a maximization of changeability of both input and output: not only inputs have to be enriched with the possible solution but, to do that, other inputs have usually to be changed and/or modified. This changeability first of all refers to a wide epistemological openness. (shrink)

Este artículo pretende analizar la teoría moral que J. Rawls propuso en su famosa obra A Tbeory of Justice (1971). Este análisis se hace tratando tres conceptos básicos de la moral, como son bien, deber y virtud. Tales conceptos muestran que la visión del hombre y de la ética que Rawls propone es individualista, rasgo que dificulta seriamente la pretensión de universalidad que el autor dio a su teoría moral y política.

To commemorate 40 years since the founding of the Journal of Business Ethics, the editors-in-chief of the journal have invited the editors to provide commentaries on the future of business ethics. This essay comprises a selection of commentaries aimed at creating dialog around the theme Bringing Excitement to Empirical Business Ethics Research (inspired by the title of the commentary by Babalola and van Gils). These editors, considering the diversity of empirical approaches in business ethics, envisage a future in which quantitative (...) business ethics research is more bold and innovative, as well as reflexive about its techniques, and dialog between quantitative and qualitative research nourishes the enrichment of both. In their commentary, Babalola and van Gils argue that leadership research has stagnated with the use of too narrow a range of perspectives and methods and too many overlapping concepts. They propose that novel insights could be achieved by investigating the lived experience of leadership (through interviews, document analysis, archival data); by focusing on topics of concern to society; by employing different personal, philosophical, or cultural perspectives; and by turning the lens on the heroic leader (through “dark-side” and follower studies). Taking a provocative stance, Bal and Garcia-Lorenzo argue that we need radical voices in current times to enable a better understanding of the psychology underlying ethical transformations. Psychology can support business ethics by not shying away from grander ideas, going beyond the margins of “unethical behaviors harming the organization” and expanding the range of lenses used to studying behavior in context. In the arena of finance and business ethics, Guedhami, Liang, and Shailer emphasize novel data sets and innovative methods. Significantly, they stress that an understanding the intersection of finance and ethics is central to business ethics; financial equality and inclusion are persistent socio-economic and political concerns that are not always framed as ethics issues, yet relevant business policies and practices manifest ethical values. Finally, Charles Cho offers his opinion on the blurry line between the “ethical” versus “social” or “critical” aspects of accounting papers. The Journal of Business Ethics provides fertile ground for innovative, even radical, approaches to quantitative methods (see Zyphur and Pierides in J Bus Ethics 143(1):1–16, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-017-3549-8, 2017), as part of a broad goal of ethically reflecting on empirical research. (shrink)

Anachronistic values A value becomes anachronistic when it no longer fits current historical conditions (institutions, technology, culture, etc.). From an ‘idealist’ perspective, this fact does not tell against the old value (accepted as true), but rather against the new conditions. However, from a ‘naturalist’ perspective which takes values to be the product of human interests and (therefore) as interconnected with a given historical context, such a conflict seems to make a value obsolete. But this is neither an empirical law nor (...) a normative rule. A defence of anachronistic values might still be perfectly reasonable. It is argued that such reasonableness depends mainly on three criteria: (un)certainty, scope and weight. (shrink)

This article discusses a number of metaphors about the nature of science, in connection with three types of metaphysical realism: minimal, moderate and essentialistic realism. From the beginning, Kuipers accepts the first and rejects the third type of realism, but it is only later on that he endorses the second type. It is argued that this makes his remarks on essentialistic realism somewhat misleading; and his moderate realism is compared with some realist positions taken by other philosophers. It is further (...) argued that the metaphors of the mirror, the net and the map correspond to essentialistic, minimal and moderate realism, respectively. This explains why the map metaphor is by far the most suitable one in the context of Kuipers' theory of science. This does not imply, however, that it is the (only) true one and that the others are false. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Bridge From Analysis to Action:Psychodynamic Analyses of Religion and Michael S. Hogue's American ImmanenceAJ Turner (bio)I. IntroductionThe purpose of this essay is to work constructively with Michael S. Hogue's groundbreaking American Immanence: Democracy for an Uncertain World to demonstrate how psychodynamic analyses of religion are essential theoretical allies in the fight for resilient democracy. The "revolution in mind"1 that psychodynamic approaches contribute, especially in their analyses of religion, (...) both complements and complicates socio-political theory as a whole. In the improvisational spirit of "yes-and," the goal here is not to identify and decry the failures and shortcomings of Hogue's theopolitical vision but rather to inspire the recovery of a sibling discourse—a kind of "rebirth of a forgotten alternative"2—that also draws deeply from the American immanental tradition in order to add psychodynamic depth to Hogue's timely and important analysis. Psychodynamic theories of religion shed light on how symbolic identifications, including and especially ultimate concerns, structure personal and collective experience. By engaging religion and theology sympathetically, constructively, and creatively, theorists such as Rollo May, Gordon Allport, Karen Horney, Erich Fromm, and Ernest Becker departed from the skepticism, reductionism, and dismissal that characterized psychoanalytic analyses of religion in the wake of Freud.3 Each of these figures, and especially Becker whose work will be a focus in this essay, are noteworthy interlocutors for extending Hogue's theopolitical theorizing of resilient democracy, particularly in how they drew unique inspiration from the American immanental tradition [End Page 44] in their social analyses. In this respect, they provide a more robust theorization of the psychosocial conditions of the associational ethos needed to connect Hogue's conception of resilient democracy with forms of agonistic organization and democratic activism. Briefly stated, psychodynamic approaches are a helpful bridge for connecting these proposals to strategies of organization, their impediments, and collective action.In this way, both psychodynamic analyses of religion and Hogue's theopolitical innovation insist that no revolutionary political change is possible, and certainly not of the kind or scale needed to counter our wickedly entangled global crises, without a deep engagement with theological imaginaries. They differ, however, in their theoretical aims. Whereas Hogue compellingly argues for the political upshot of a theology deriving from the American immanental tradition, psychodynamic analysts of religion focus on the function of ultimate concerns in individual and collective life. In other words, American Immanence rests on a methodology of analyzing the philosophical and theological assumptions that have contributed to our climate crises and then presenting clear and compelling articulation of an alternative paradigm meant to open up new ways of being. In contrast psychodynamic analyses leverage conceptual clarity of psychic reality for the fundamentally therapeutic aim of transformation. At their best, both approaches share what could be called an etiological orientation to ontological questions in order to provide liberative alternatives through rational understanding and clarification, but the terrain, and thus the problems they hope to mitigate in their analyses are focused differently. Extending the visual metaphor, they are different lenses highlighting different areas of the same landscape. Furthermore, it must be said that neither are sufficient in themselves, but the psychodynamic theorists of religion to be highlighted in this essay share deeply with Hogue's heading in American Immanence.II. A Problematic AssumptionIn emphasizing and attempting to explain4 the role of non-rational processes in the both individual and social processes of perception and organization of experience, psychodynamic theories confound a widely held and problematic assumption that the triumph of rational analysis is the hallmark for building the society to which we should aspire. Political theory in general, [End Page 45] especially as it has taken its cues from a rationalist legacy about the inherently liberating force of Reason, has been weighted toward an assumption that its task of exposing the mystifications of power would suffice in inspiring more "rational" and therefore necessarily equitable social organization. This speaks to the longstanding socio-political interest in "consciousness raising" tactics, which are often meant to dispel "false consciousness." It even comes across in the emphases of Deweyan pragmatists on education. Psychologists of all stripes point out that this approach... (shrink)

Although this note is prompted by the recent exchange between Gellner [2], [3] and Needham [4], I shall ignore the issues raised by Gellner's specification for an ideal language. I am concerned here only with Needham's statement that ‘biology is one matter and descent is quite another, of a different order’ which, it will be remembered, Gellner treats as Needham's first error. I write under a sense of obligation, for I discussed this matter with Gellner in 1955 while he was (...) preparing his first article and my arguments then were phrased similarly to those advanced by Needham. It appears that I did not make myself clear to Gellner and I shall try again. I do not wish to attack or defend either protagonist; each is quite able to look after himself. Therefore I propose neither to examine where they have misunderstood each other, nor to discuss the difference between kinship and descent, but simply to state the connexion, as I see it, between physical and social kinship. (shrink)

Moral education requires interdisciplinary engagement across philosophy, psychology, and education. Positive psychologists regularly acknowledge the breadth and depth of wisdom regarding the cultivation of virtues present in philosophical and religious texts and consult such writings when creating constructs, but they are less prone to integrate scientific findings with historical texts as inquiry proceeds. Thus, we provide a comparative analysis of the advice given in Lorenzo Scupoli’s The Spiritual Combat, from traditional Christian moral wisdom literature and the research findings from (...) positive psychology on the cultivation of the virtue of patience. Points of convergence relate to the utility of engaging activities that include cognitive reappraisal, habit formation through daily practice, activating positive motivation, prayer, mantra/transcendental meditation, and cultivating elevation through meditation on moral exemplars. Areas of divergence include the advisability of suppression, the role of motivation, and necessity of spiritual intervention, which suggest areas for future inquiry in moral education. (shrink)

The author deals with the meaning of metamerism. Two contrary points of view may serve to clear the problem. From the morphological point of view probably outgrowth of the organism in longitudinal direction has led to the development of metameres. So the first segmentation is due to a functional differentiation. In Phylogeny this segmentation has been maintained and the originally developed metameres remain the primary morphotic units of the organisms. Further specialising of function and organ-concentration destroyed the original absolute metamerism (...) and only left a rest of the original.The functional point of view renounces an original absolute metamerism for the present moment. It only asks for the functional meaning of the segmentation in organisms, showing this segmentation. From the functional point of view it is possible that metamerism may be the morphological expression of quite different functional requirements and that in one organism the metamerism starts from another system of organs than in another.Es wird gefragt welche Bedeutung die Metamerie haben kann. Zur Erläuterung des Problems werden zwei extremen Betrachtungsweisen einander gegenübergestellt. Nach der morphologischen Betrachtungsweise hat Wachstum der Organismen in die Länge wahrscheinlich zur Ausbildung der Metamerie geführt. Diese erste Metamerie ist wahrscheinlich ein funktioneller Differenzierungsprozess gewesen.In der Phylogenese hat sich diese Metamerie behauptet und die ursprünglich entstandene Metamere sind die primären morphotischen Einheiten der Organismen geblieben. Weitergehende Funktionsspezialisierung und Organkonzentration hat die ursprüngliche absolute Metamerie vernichtet. Was davon übrig blieb sind die Reste der ursprünglichen.Die funktioneile Betrachtungsweise verzichtet vorläufig auf eine ursprüngliche absolute Metamerie. Sie fragt bloss nach der funktionellen Bedeutung, welche die Metamerie besitzt bei denjenigen Organismen, wo diese gefunden wird. Sie achtet es möglich, dass Metamerie der Ausdruck sein kann von ganz verschiedenen funktionellen Anforderungen und dass somit die Metamerie bei der einen Tiergruppe von einem ganz anderen Organsystem ausgeht wei bei einer anderen. (shrink)

In his recent paper Gellner singles me out for special comment and some reply is called for. He attributes to me several propositions which he says I made in my note on ‘Physical and social kinship’ in this journal, and he then refutes them. Reading his paper I cannot avoid thinking that he exaggerates the differences between us, thereby apparently strengthening his argument. Some substantial differences there are, but others are fictional. A line-by-line analysis of what he says about me (...) in his paper might be amusing but would be of only ephemeral interest. In this reply I confine myself to a few important issues. (shrink)