The extreme length of chromosomal DNA requires organizing mechanisms to both promote functional genetic interactions and ensure faithful chromosome segregation when cells divide. Microscopy and genome‐wide contact frequency analyses indicate that intra‐chromosomal looping of DNA is a primary pathway of chromosomal organization during all stages of the cell cycle. DNA loop extrusion has emerged as a unifying model for how chromosome loops are formed in cis in different genomic contexts and cell cycle stages. The highly conserved family of SMC complexes (...) have been found to be required for DNA cis‐looping and have been suggested to be the enzymatic core of loop extruding machines. Here, the current body of evidence available for the in vivo and in vitro action of SMC complexes is discussed and compared to the predictions made by the loop extrusion model. How SMC complexes may differentially act on chromatin to generate DNA loops and how they could work to generate the dynamic and functionally appropriate organization of DNA in cells is explored. -/- . (shrink)

The black hole information problem provides important clues for trying to piece together a quantum theory of gravity. Discussions on this topic have generally assumed that in a consistent theory of gravity and quantum mechanics, quantum theory is unmodified. In this review, we discuss the black hole information problem in the context of generalisations of quantum theory. In this preliminary exploration, we examine black holes in the setting of generalised probabilistic theories, in which quantum theory and classical probability theory are (...) special cases. We are able to calculate the time it takes information to escape a black hole, assuming that information is preserved. In quantum mechanics, information should escape pure state black holes after half the Hawking photons have been emitted, but we find that this get’s modified in generalisations of quantum mechanics. Likewise the black-hole mirror result of Hayden and Preskill, that information from entangled black holes can escape quickly, also get’s modified. We find that although information exits the black hole as predicted by quantum theory, it is fairly generic that it fails to appear outside the black hole at this point—something impossible in quantum theory due to the no-hiding theorem. The information is neither inside the black hole, nor outside it, but is delocalised. (shrink)

Die Übernahme des KI-Unternehmens DeepMind durch Google für rund eine halbe Milliarde US-Dollar signalisierte vor einem Jahr, dass von der KI-Forschung vielversprechende Ergebnisse erwartet werden. Spätestens seit bekannte Wissenschaftler wie Stephen Hawking und Unternehmer wie Elon Musk oder Bill Gates davor warnen, dass künstliche Intelligenz eine Bedrohung für die Menschheit darstellt, schlägt das KI-Thema hohe Wellen. Die Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus (EAS, vormals GBS Schweiz) hat mit der Unterstützung von Experten/innen aus Informatik und KI ein umfassendes Diskussionspapier zu den Chancen (...) und Risiken der künstlichen Intelligenz verfasst und geht darin auf aktuelle, mittel- und langfristige Herausforderungen im Bereich der KI-Entwicklung ein. (shrink)

We present a formal semantics for epistemic logic, capturing the notion of knowability relative to information (KRI). Like Dretske, we move from the platitude that what an agent can know depends on her (empirical) information. We treat operators of the form K_AB (‘B is knowable on the basis of information A’) as variably strict quantifiers over worlds with a topic- or aboutness- preservation constraint. Variable strictness models the non-monotonicity of knowledge acquisition while allowing knowledge to be intrinsically stable. Aboutness-preservation models (...) the topic-sensitivity of information, allowing us to invalidate controversial forms of epistemic closure while validating less controversial ones. Thus, unlike the standard modal framework for epistemic logic, KRI accommodates plausible approaches to the Kripke-Harman dogmatism paradox, which bear on non-monotonicity, or on topic-sensitivity. KRI also strikes a better balance between agent idealization and a non-trivial logic of knowledge ascriptions. (shrink)

Theories of discourse bring to realism new ideas about how knowledge develops and how representations of reality are influenced. We gain an understanding of the conceptual aspect of social life and the processes by which meaning is produced. This collection reflects the growing interest realist critics have shown towards forms of discourse theory and deconstruction. The diverse range of contributions address such issues as the work of Derrida and deconstruction, discourse theory, Eurocentrism and poststructuralism. What unites all of the contributions (...) is a sense that it is essential to provide a realist alternative to the hitherto dominance of social constructionism, hermeneutics and postmodernism, over many of the issues discussed. By developing a realist perspective the different authors attempt to embed discourse within the structured nature of the reality of the world. Realism can situate language, discourse and ideology within context specific, or 'causally efficacious' circumstances. Realism can help to uncover issues of power, representation, and subjectivity and how discursive and other social practices produce real effects. This can help us understand the manner in which social structures are reproduced through various forms of ideology and discourse. And by knowing this, we can start to address questions concerning human emancipation and how the world is to be transformed. (shrink)

What does ‘Smith knows that it might be raining’ mean? Expressivism here faces a challenge, as its basic forms entail a pernicious type of transparency, according to which ‘Smith knows that it might be raining’ is equivalent to ‘it is consistent with everything that Smith knows that it is raining’ or ‘Smith doesn’t know that it isn’t raining’. Pernicious transparency has direct counterexamples and undermines vanilla principles of epistemic logic, such as that knowledge entails true belief and that something can (...) be true without one knowing it might be. I re-frame the challenge in precise terms and propose a novel expressivist formal semantics that meets it by exploiting (i) the topic-sensitivity and fragmentation of knowledge and belief states and (ii) the apparent context-sensitivity of epistemic modality. The resulting form of assertibility semantics advances the state of the art for state-based bilateral semantics by combining attitude reports with context-sensitive modal claims, while evading various objectionable features. In appendices, I compare the proposed system to Beddor and Goldstein’s ‘safety semantics’ and discuss its analysis of a modal Gettier case due to Moss. (shrink)

In the wake of the Scientific Revolution, the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the complete demolition of traditional structures of authority, scientific thought, and belief by the new philosophy and the philosophes, including Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. The Radical Enlightenment played a part in this revolutionary process, which effectively overthrew all justification for monarchy, aristocracy, and ecclesiastical power, as well as man's dominance over woman, theological dominance of education, and slavery. Despite the present day interest in the revolutions of (...) the eighteenth century, the origins and rise of the Radical Enlightenment have received limited scholarly attention. The greatest obstacle to the movement finding its proper place in modern historical writing is its international scope: the Racial Enlightenment was not French, British, German, Italian, Jewish or Dutch, but all of these at the same time. In this wide-ranging volume, Jonathan Israel offers a novel interpretation of the Radical Enlightenment down to La Mettie and Diderot, two of its key exponents. Particular emphasis is placed on the pivotal role of Spinoza and the widespread underground international philosophical movement known before 1750 as Spinozism. (shrink)

A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes is a popular-science book on cosmology (the study of the origin and evolution of the universe) by British physicist Stephen Hawking. It was first published in 1988. Hawking wrote the book for readers who have no prior knowledge of the universe and people who are interested in learning.

Dr. Stephen Hawking was the most renowned scientist since Einstein, known both for his groundbreaking work in physics and cosmology and for his mischievous sense of humor. He educated millions of readers about the origins of the universe and the nature of black holes, and inspired millions more by defying a terrifying early prognosis of ALS, which originally gave him only two years to live. In later life he could communicate only by using a few facial muscles, but he continued (...) to advance his field and serve as a revered voice on social and humanitarian issues. Hawking not only unraveled some of the universe's greatest mysteries but also believed science plays a critical role in fixing problems here on Earth. Now he turns his attention to the most urgent issues facing us. Will humanity survive? Should we colonize space? Does God exist? These are just a few of the questions Hawking addresses in this wide-ranging, passionately argued final book from one of the greatest minds in history. Featuring a foreword by Eddie Redmayne, who won an Oscar playing Stephen Hawking, an introduction by Nobel Laureate Kip Thorne, and an afterword from Hawking's daughter, Lucy. (shrink)

In this book Jonathan Adler offers a strengthened version of evidentialism, arguing that the ethics of belief should be rooted in the concept of belief--that...

This book provides a clear, concise description of medical law; but it does more than that. It also provides an introduction to the ethical principles that can be used to challenge or support the law. It also provides a range of perspectives from which to analyse the law: feminist, religious and sociological perspectives are all used.

The Oxford Translation of Aristotle was originally published in 12 volumes between 1912 and 1954. It is universally recognized as the standard English version of Aristotle. This revised edition contains the substance of the original Translation, slightly emended in light of recent scholarship three of the original versions have been replaced by new translations and a new and enlarged selection of Fragments has been added. The aim of the translation remains the same: to make the surviving works of Aristotle readily (...) accessible to English speaking readers. (shrink)

When one thinks—knows, believes, imagines—that something is the case, one’s thought has a topic: it is about something, towards which one’s mind is directed. What is the logic of thought, so understood? This book begins to explore the idea that, to answer the question, we should take topics seriously. It proposes a hyperintensional account of the propositional contents of thought, arguing that these are individuated not only by the set of possible worlds at which they are true, but also by (...) their topic: what they are about. The book then builds epistemic, doxastic, probabilistic, and conditional logics based on this view. It applies them to issues ranging from dogmatism, scepticism, and epistemic fallibilism, to imagination and suppositional reasoning, belief revision, framing effects, and the acceptability of indicative conditionals. (shrink)

From mitochondria to meerkats, the natural world is full of spectacular examples of social behaviour. In the early 1960s W. D. Hamilton changed the way we think about how such behaviour evolves. He introduced three key innovations - now known as Hamilton's rule, kin selection, and inclusive fitness - and his pioneering work kick-started a research program now known as social evolution theory. This is a book about the philosophical foundations and future prospects of that program. [Note: only the Introduction (...) is available to download.]. (shrink)

In debates about animal sentience, the precautionary principle is often invoked. The idea is that when the evidence of sentience is inconclusive, we should “give the animal the benefit of the doubt” or “err on the side of caution” in formulating animal protection legislation. Yet there remains confusion as to whether it is appropriate to apply the precautionary principle in this context, and, if so, what “applying the precautionary principle” means in practice regarding the burden of proof for animal sentience. (...) Here I construct a version of the precautionary principle tailored to the question of animal sentience together with a practical framework for implementing it. I explain and defend the key features of this framework, argue that it is well-aligned with current practice in animal welfare science, and consider and reject a number of influential counterarguments to the use of precautionary reasoning in this area. (shrink)

The fall of the Berlin Wall had enormous symbolic resonance, marking the collapse of Marxist politics and economics. Indeed, Marxist regimes have failed miserably, and with them, it seems, all reason to take the writings of Karl Marx seriously. Jonathan Wolff argues that if we detach Marx the critic of current society from Marx the prophet of some never-to-be-realized worker's paradise, he remains the most impressive critic we have of liberal, capitalist, bourgeois society. The author shows how Marx's main (...) ideas still shed light on wider concerns about culture and society and he guides the reader through Marx's notoriously difficult writings. Wolff also argues that the value of a great thinker does not depend on his or her views being true, but on other features such as originality, insight, and systematic vision. From this perspective, Marx still richly deserves to be read. Why Read Marx Today? reinstates Marx as an important critic of current society, and not just a figure of historical interest. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 62.1 (2001) 141-160 [Access article in PDF] The Politics of Character in John Milton's Divorce Tracts David Hawkes nunquam privatum esse sapientum --Cicero I. There has recently been a great deal of debate over the relative influence on Milton's politics of two discordant revolutionary ideologies: classical republicanism and radical Protestant theology. 1 In the mid-seventeenth century the search for intellectual precedents and (...) rationalizations of the English revolution brought these two traditions into an uneasy alliance, and Milton, like many other revolutionary apologists, drew on both of them. Of course the two schools of thought are not necessarily incompatible. J. G. A. Pocock notes one point of connection between them: The context in which men attain their final end--or recover their prima forma, though this concept might not have been antinomian enough for the radical saints of the New Model--is that of apocalypse; the "end" of Aristotelian teleology is still united with the eschatological "end" of prophetic time. 2The Aristotelian "end" of man is the good, defined as "an activity of soul in accordance with virtue," and the belief that one can or has fulfilled that end is [End Page 141] certainly amenable to Protestant antinomianism. 3 Furthermore, as Sharon Achinstein points out, Milton's "conception of virtue... melds the religious notion of conscience with a classical sense of civic duty." 4 On the other hand there are significant differences between the classical and the Christian notions of "virtue" and the "good," which dictate that, as Nigel Smith puts it, "[c]lassical republicanism, properly conceived, would in many ways be in conflict with the millenarian, chiliastic and perfectionist Protestantism of the sects." 5 The problem faced by Milton as a Protestant Republican is that the definition of the "good" offered by millennial sanctification and that attainable through Aristotelian virtue are in many ways mutually exclusive and contradictory. They have been characterized as such ever since Augustine's City of God asserted that pagan ethics are incompatible with true, Christian virtue. 6 Millennialism relies on faith; civic humanist virtue relies on works. Antinomianism abolishes the law; republicanism institutes the rule of law. The saints are sanctified by grace; the virtuous are distinguished by their own strength of character. Radical Protestant freedom is negative and private--it is the ability to speak and worship according to the dictates of conscience; civic humanist liberty is positive and public, the ability to participate fully in the government of the res publica. While daunting, however, these contradictions are not quite insuperable. I believe that Milton finds a common denominator in the accounts given by these two traditions of psychological objectification and that the agreement of Roman and Christian morality on this point leads him to make the tendency to objectification (or rather the ability to resist that tendency) the central issue of his mature political theory.The political ideas of the classical republicans and their descendants, the Renaissance civic humanists, were based upon Aristotle's Politics and Nico-machean Ethics, while the intellectual sources of radical Protestantism can be traced to Luther's commentaries on Paul's epistles. During the English revolution the Pauline exegesis of the relationship between the old and the new covenants provided intellectual ammunition against custom and tradition, as well as inspiring the antinomianism of the radical fringe to which Milton was falsely accused of adhering during the divorce controversy. In the divorce tracts Milton points out that Aristotle and Paul share one fundamental tenet: they argue that interior and exterior slavery are of the same nature and therefore concomitant [End Page 142] and inseparable. Furthermore, Milton notes, Aristotle and Paul both claim that exterior and interior slavery consist in "carnality," the subjection of the spirit to the flesh. This identification of carnality with servility becomes a constant strain which runs throughout Milton's career and provides the consistent element in his apparently vacillating theories of politics and religion.II. Although this argument recurs throughout Milton's career, it is first hammered into shape during the divorce controversy... (shrink)

Sentience is the capacity to have feelings, such as feelings of pain, pleasure, hunger, thirst, warmth, joy, comfort and excitement. It is not simply the capacity to feel pain, but feelings of pain, distress or harm, broadly understood, have a special significance for animal welfare law. Drawing on over 300 scientific studies, we evaluate the evidence of sentience in two groups of invertebrate animals: the cephalopod molluscs or, for short, cephalopods (including octopods, squid and cuttlefish) and the decapod crustaceans or, (...) for short, decapods (including crabs, lobsters and crayfish). We also evaluate the potential welfare implications of current commercial practices involving these animals. (shrink)

Practical Reality is a lucid original study of the relation between the reasons why we do things and the reasons why we should. Jonathan Dancy maintains that current philosophical orthodoxy bowdlerizes this relation, making it impossible to understand how anyone can act for a good reason. By giving a fresh account of values and reasons, he finds a place for normativity in philosophy of mind and action, and strengthens the connection between these areas and ethics.

The goal of the current paper is to provide an introduction to and survey of the diverse landscape of relevant alternatives theories of knowledge. Emphasis is placed throughout both on the abstractness of the relevant alternatives approach and its amenability to formalization through logical techniques. We present some of the important motivations for adopting the relevant alternatives approach; briefly explore the connections and contrasts between the relevant alternatives approach and related developments in logic, epistemology and philosophy of science; provide a (...) schema for classifying and studying relevant alternatives theories at different levels of abstraction; and present a sample of relevant alternatives theories (contrasting what we call question-first and topic-first theories) that tie our discussion to on-going debates in the philosophical literature, as well as showcasing techniques for formalizing some of the important positions in these debates. (shrink)

My topic is moderate modal skepticism in the spirit of Peter van Inwagen. Here understood, this is a conservative version of modal empiricism that severely limits the extent to which an ordinary agent can reasonably believe “exotic” possibility claims. I offer a novel argument in support of this brand of skepticism: modal skepticism grounds an attractive (and novel) reply to Humean skepticism. Thus, I propose that modal skepticism be accepted on the basis of its theoretical utility as a tool for (...) dissolving philosophical paradox. (shrink)

Timely and provocative essays on bioethical questions brought to the forefront by the bioterrorist threat.

Conditional sentences are among the most intriguing and puzzling features of language, and analysis of their meaning and function has important implications for, and uses in, many areas of philosophy. Jonathan Bennett, one of the world's leading experts, distils many years' work and teaching into this Philosophical Guide to Conditionals, the fullest and most authoritative treatment of the subject. An ideal introduction for undergraduates with a philosophical grounding, it also offers a rich source of illumination and stimulation for graduate (...) students and professional philosophers. (shrink)

What makes fast, cumulative cultural evolution work? Where did it come from? Why is it the sole preserve of humans? We set out a self-assembly hypothesis: cultural evolution evolved culturally. We present an evolutionary account that shows this hypothesis to be coherent, plausible, and worthy of further investigation. It has the following steps: (0) in common with other animals, early hominins had significant capacity for social learning; (1) knowledge and skills learned by offspring from their parents began to spread because (...) bearers had more offspring, a process we call CS1 (or Cultural Selection 1); (2) CS1 shaped attentional learning biases; (3) these attentional biases were augmented by explicit learning biases (judgements about what should be copied from whom). Explicit learning biases enabled (4) the high-fidelity, exclusive copying required for fast cultural accumulation of knowledge and skills by a process we call CS2 (or Cultural Selection 2), and (5) the emergence of cognitive processes such as imitation, mindreading and metacognition – ‘cognitive gadgets’ specialised for cultural learning. This self-assembly hypothesis is consistent with archaeological evidence that the stone tools used by early hominins were not dependent on fast, cumulative cultural evolution, and suggests new priorities for research on ‘animal culture’. (shrink)

Liberalism without Perfection offers an introduction to the debate between liberal perfectionism and political liberalism. This book is a new account and defence of Rawlsian political liberalism, one of the most discussed, but widely misunderstood and criticized theories in contemporary political theory.

We propose a solution to the problem of logical omniscience in what we take to be its fundamental version: as concerning arbitrary agents and the knowledge attitude per se. Our logic of knowledge is a spin-off from a general theory of thick content, whereby the content of a sentence has two components: an intension, taking care of truth conditions; and a topic, taking care of subject matter. We present a list of plausible logical validities and invalidities for the logic of (...) knowledge per se for arbitrary agents, and isolate three explanatory factors for them: the topic-sensitivity of content; the fragmentation of knowledge states; the defeasibility of knowledge acquisition. We then present a novel dynamic epistemic logic that yields precisely the desired validities and invalidities, for which we provide expressivity and completeness results. We contrast this with related systems and address possible objections. (shrink)

There is no agreement on whether any invertebrates are conscious and no agreement on a methodology that could settle the issue. How can the debate move forward? I distinguish three broad types of approach: theory-heavy, theory-neutral and theory-light. Theory-heavy and theory-neutral approaches face serious problems, motivating a middle path: the theory-light approach. At the core of the theory-light approach is a minimal commitment about the relation between phenomenal consciousness and cognition that is compatible with many specific theories of consciousness: the (...) hypothesis that phenomenally conscious perception of a stimulus facilitates, relative to unconscious perception, a cluster of cognitive abilities in relation to that stimulus. This “facilitation hypothesis” can productively guide inquiry into invertebrate consciousness. What is needed? At this stage, not more theory, and not more undirected data gathering. What is needed is a systematic search for consciousness-linked cognitive abilities, their relationships to each other, and their sensitivity to masking. (shrink)

Einstein said that the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. But was he right? Can the quantum theory of fields and Einstein's general theory of relativity, the two most accurate and successful theories in all of physics, be united in a single quantum theory of gravity? Two of the world's most famous physicists - Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose - disagree. Here they explain their positions in a work based on six lectures with a final (...) debate, all originally presented at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge. (shrink)

How does consciousness vary across the animal kingdom? Are some animals ‘more conscious’ than others? This article presents a multidimensional framework for understanding interspecies variation in states of consciousness. The framework distinguishes five key dimensions of variation: perceptual richness, evaluative richness, integration at a time, integration across time, and self-consciousness. For each dimension, existing experiments that bear on it are reviewed and future experiments are suggested. By assessing a given species against each dimension, we can construct a consciousness profile for (...) that species. On this framework, there is no single scale along which species can be ranked as more or less conscious. Rather, each species has its own distinctive consciousness profile. (shrink)

This editorial introduces the Journal of Consciousness Studies special issue on "Animal Consciousness". The 15 contributors and co-editors answer the question "How should we study animal consciousness scientifically?" in 500 words or fewer.

Our topic is the theory of topics. My goal is to clarify and evaluate three competing traditions: what I call the way-based approach, the atom-based approach, and the subject-predicate approach. I develop criteria for adequacy using robust linguistic intuitions that feature prominently in the literature. Then I evaluate the extent to which various existing theories satisfy these constraints. I conclude that recent theories due to Parry, Perry, Lewis, and Yablo do not meet the constraints in total. I then introduce the (...) issue-based theory—a novel and natural entry in the atom-based tradition that meets our constraints. In a coda, I categorize a recent theory from Fine as atom-based, and contrast it to the issue-based theory, concluding that they are evenly matched, relative to our main criteria of adequacy. I offer tentative reasons to nevertheless favour the issue-based theory. (shrink)

This title presents a comprehensive guide to interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) which is an increasingly popular approach to qualitative inquiry taught to undergraduate and postgraduate students today.

We are all guided by thousands of norms, but how did our capacity for normative cognition evolve? I propose there is a deep but neglected link between normative cognition and practical skill. In modern humans, complex motor skills and craft skills, such as toolmaking, are guided by internally represented norms of correct performance. Moreover, it is plausible that core components of human normative cognition evolved as a solution to the distinctive problems of transmitting complex motor skills and craft skills, especially (...) skills related to toolmaking, through social learning. If this is correct, the expansion of the normative domain beyond technique to encompass more abstract norms of fairness, reciprocity, ritual and kinship involved the elaboration of a basic platform for the guidance of skilled action by technical norms. This article motivates and defends this “skill hypothesis” for the origin of normative cognition and sets out various ways in which it could be empirically tested. (shrink)

Logics of joint strategic ability have recently received attention, with arguably the most influential being those in a family that includes Coalition Logic (CL) and Alternating-time Temporal Logic (ATL). Notably, both CL and ATL bypass the epistemic issues that underpin Schelling-type coordination problems, by apparently relying on the meta-level assumption of (perfectly reliable) communication between cooperating rational agents. Yet such epistemic issues arise naturally in settings relevant to ATL and CL: these logics are standardly interpreted on structures where agents move (...) simultaneously, opening the possibility that an agent cannot foresee the concurrent choices of other agents. In this paper we introduce a variant of CL we call Two-Player Strategic Coordination Logic (SCL2). The key novelty of this framework is an operator for capturing coalitional ability when the cooperating agents cannot share strategic information. We identify significant differences in the expressive power and validities of SCL2 and CL2, and present a sound and complete axiomatization for SCL2. We briefly address conceptual challenges when shifting attention to games with more than two players and stronger notions of rationality. (shrink)

Jonathan Dancy aims to establish the possibility of reasoning to action, by showing how similar it is to reasoning to belief. He offers a general theory of reasoning, which smoothly admits the differences there may be between the two types, while also considering the possibility of reasoning to hope, to fear, to doubt, and to intention.

Jonathan Y. Tsou examines and defends positions on central issues in philosophy of psychiatry. The positions defended assume a naturalistic and realist perspective and are framed against skeptical perspectives on biological psychiatry. Issues addressed include the reality of mental disorders; mechanistic and disease explanations of abnormal behavior; definitions of mental disorder; natural and artificial kinds in psychiatry; biological essentialism and the projectability of psychiatric categories; looping effects and the stability of mental disorders; psychiatric classification; and the validity of the (...) DSM's diagnostic categories. The main argument defended by Tsou is that genuine mental disorders are biological kinds with harmful effects. This argument opposes the dogma that mental disorders are necessarily diseases that result from biological dysfunction. Tsou contends that the broader ideal of biological kinds offers a more promising and empirically ascertainable naturalistic standard for assessing the reality of mental disorders and the validity of psychiatric categories. (shrink)

" Here Jonathan Lear argues that irony is one of the tools we use to live seriously, to get the hang of becoming human.

Over the past two decades, Ginsburg and Jablonka have developed a novel approach to studying the evolutionary origins of consciousness: the Unlimited Associative Learning framework. The central idea is that there is a distinctive type of learning that can serve as a transition marker for the evolutionary transition from non-conscious to conscious life. The goal of this paper is to stimulate discussion of the framework by providing a primer on its key claims and a clear statement of its main empirical (...) predictions. (shrink)

This article explores the notion of gender overdetermination in relation to a community of criminalised women in Massachusetts. Re-examining classic writings on overdetermination by Louis Althusser, Sigmund Freud, Frantz Fanon and Jean-Paul Sartre, we query the notion of gender overdetermination and posit it as an effective lens for thinking about the persistence of gender as a social construct. The combination of the structural processes of overdetermination with the discursive and ideological power of overdetermination complicates and reduces possibilities and effectiveness of (...) sustained acts of resistance. The criminalised women of our study permanently inhabit a space in which aetiology, practice, discipline and interpretation are all hyper-gendered, meaning that acts of resistance are construed as more evidence of inescapable and essential gender identity. (shrink)

The twentieth-century Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd left behind an impressive canon of philosophical works and has continued to influence a scholarly community in Europe and North America, which has extended, critiqued, and applied his thought in many academic fields. Jonathan Chaplin introduces Dooyeweerd for the first time to many English readers by critically expounding Dooyeweerd's social and political thought and by exhibiting its pertinence to contemporary civil society debates. Chaplin begins by contextualizing Dooyeweerd's thought, first in relation to present-day (...) debates and then in relation to the work of the Dutch philosopher Abraham Kuyper. Chaplin outlines the distinctive theory of historical and cultural development that serves as an essential backdrop to Dooyeweerd's substantive social philosophy; examines Dooyeweerd's notion of societal structural principles; and sets forth his complex classification of particular types of social structure and their various interrelationships. Chaplin provides a detailed examination of Dooyeweerd's theory of the state, its definitive nature, and its proper role vis-a-vis other elements of society. Dooyeweerd's contributions, Chaplin concludes, assist us in mapping the ways in which state and civil society should be related to achieve justice and the public good. "This superb study simultaneously introduces and critically engages the work of one of the most important and neglected Christian thinkers of the twentieth century, while showing its connection to the pluralist tradition and bringing it to bear on the contemporary debate about civil society. More than just providing an overview of Dooyeweerd's thought, it seeks to advance his intellectual project and show its contemporary relevance. It is essential reading not only for those interested in the neo-Calvinist tradition, but for anyone interested in Christian social thought, structural pluralism, or the nature and fate of civil society." --_Kenneth L. Grasso, Texas State University _ "The subtlety, scope, and insightfulness of Dooyeweerd's social philosophy were unparalleled among Protestant thinkers in the past century. Yet his contributions are not well known. Jonathan Chaplin promises to remedy this neglect. His lucid and masterful study brings a new and transformative voice to contemporary debates about the future of a democratic society." --_Lambert Zuidervaart, Institute for Christian Studies and University of Toronto_ "Finally, an authoritative book that brings to brilliant light and life Herman Dooyeweerd's Christian philosophy of law, politics, and society. For the past half century, the profound and original teachings of this prolific Dutch sage have been lost on most readers. Jonathan Chaplin has rescued Dooyeweerd from his own obscure prose, poor translations, and cultic mystique to reveal his astonishing and engaging insights into our lives as persons and peoples, rulers and citizens, preachers and parishioners, parents and children. This will be the go-to book on Dooyeweerd for many years to come." --_John Witte, Jr., Emory University_ "Herman Dooyeweerd was both deep and original. Much of his writing is an articulation of rather undeveloped lines of thought in his Dutch predecessor, Abraham Kuyper. In the course of his exposition, Chaplin effectively highlights Dooyeweerd's significance for a theory of civil society and for present-day social theory in general." --_Nicholas Wolterstorff, Yale University and the Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Virginia_. (shrink)