The presence and role of microbes in human cancers has come full circle in the last century. Tumors are no longer considered aseptic, but implications for cancer biology and oncology remain underappreciated. Opportunities to identify and build translational diagnostics, prognostics, and therapeutics that exploit cancer's second genome—the metagenome—are manifold, but require careful consideration of microbial experimental idiosyncrasies that are distinct from host‐centric methods. Furthermore, the discoveries of intracellular and intra‐metastatic cancer bacteria necessitate fundamental changes in describing clonal evolution and selection, (...) reflecting bidirectional interactions with non‐human residents. Reconsidering cancer clonality as a multispecies process similarly holds key implications for understanding metastasis and prognosing therapeutic resistance while providing rational guidance for the next generation of bacterial cancer therapies. Guided by these new findings and challenges, this Review describes opportunities to exploit cancer's metagenome in oncology and proposes an evolutionary framework as a first step towards modeling multispecies cancer clonality. Also see the video abstract here: https://youtu.be/-WDtIRJYZSs. (shrink)

Published just after the Second World War, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages is a sweeping exploration of the remarkable continuity of European literature across time and place, from the classical era up to the early nineteenth century, and from the Italian peninsula to the British Isles. In what T. S. Eliot called a "magnificent" book, Ernst Robert Curtius establishes medieval Latin literature as the vital transition between the literature of antiquity and the vernacular literatures of later centuries. (...) The result is nothing less than a masterful synthesis of European literature from Homer to Goethe. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages is a monumental work of literary scholarship. In a new introduction, Colin Burrow provides critical insights into Curtius's life and ideas and highlights the distinctive importance of this wonderful book. (shrink)

There are four broad grounds upon which the intelligibility of quantification over absolutely everything has been questioned—one based upon the existence of semantic indeterminacy, another on the relativity of ontology to a conceptual scheme, a third upon the necessity of sortal restriction, and the last upon the possibility of indefinite extendibility. The argument from semantic indeterminacy derives from general philosophical considerations concerning our understanding of language. For the Skolem–Lowenheim Theorem appears to show that an understanding of quanti- fication over absolutely (...) everything (assuming a suitably infinite domain) is semantically indistinguishable from the understanding of quantification over something less than absolutely everything; the same first-order sentences are true and even the same first-order conditions will be satisfied by objects from the narrower domain. From this it is then argued that the two kinds of understanding are indistinguishable tout court and that nothing could count as having the one kind of understanding as opposed to the other. (shrink)

Kit Fine develops a Fregean theory of abstraction, and suggests that it may yield a new philosophical foundation for mathematics, one that can account for both our reference to various mathematical objects and our knowledge of various mathematical truths. The Limits ofion breaks new ground both technically and philosophically.

La spécialisation sans l'universalisme est aveugle mais l'universalisme sans la spécialisation est inconsistant. Pour avoir su concilier l'une avec l'autre, l'ouvrage de E. R. Curtius sur "La littérature européenne et le Moyen âge latin" demeure l'une des sources fondamentales de la réflexion littéraire contemporaine. Il le doit tout d'abord à la rigueur d'une méthode dont l'intransigeante précision ne le cède en rien à celle des sciences de la nature car pour Curtius "la philologie démontre à l'aide des textes, (...) tout comme la géométrie démontre à l'aide des figures." C'est dire que dans cette œuvre l'étude des faits littéraires n'est altérée par aucun présupposé doctrinal étranger à son objet. Il le doit surtout à, l'ampleur de la perspective adoptée qui, de Virgile à Dante et de Vico à Goethe, reconstitue magistralement l'unité de la tradition culturelle latine. (shrink)

A short intellectual biography of Kit Fine, provided by himself.

In the early seventies, several logicians developed a semantics for propositional systems of relevance logic. The essential ingredients of this semantics were a privileged point o, an ‘accessibility’ relation R and a special operator * for evaluating negation. Under the truth- conditions of the semantics, each formula A(Pl,…,Pn) could be seen as expressing a first order condition A+(pl,…,pn, o, R,*) on sets p1,…,pn and o, R, *, while each formula-scheme could be regarded as expressing the second-order condition ∀p1,…,∀pn A+(p1,…,pn, o, (...) R, *). It could then be shown that many standard systems of propositional relevance logic were complete in the sense that their theorems were just those formulas true in all models whose components o, R and * conformed to the second-order conditions expressed by the axioms of the system. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes two kinds of realist issue -- the issue of whether the propositions of a given domain are factual and the issue of whether they are fundamental. It criticizes previous accounts of what these issues come to and suggests that they are to be understood in terms of a basic metaphysical concept of reality. This leaves open the question of how such issues are to be resolved; and it is argued that this may be done through consideration of (...) what grounds the facts of a given domain, when fundamentality is in question, and what grounds our engagement with the putative facts, when factuality is in question. (shrink)

Revenge has been a subject of concern in most intellectual traditions throughout history, and even when social norms regard it as permissible or even obligatory, it is commonly recognised as being more counterproductive than beneficial. In this book, Kit R. Christensen explores this provocative issue, offering an in-depth account of both the nature of revenge and the causes and consequences of the desire for this kind of retaliatory violence. He then develops a version of eudaimonistic consequentialism to argue that vengeance (...) is never morally justified, and applies this to cases of intergroup violence where the lust for revenge against a vilified 'Them' is easily incited and often exploited. His study will interest a wide range of readers in moral philosophy as well as social philosophers, legal theorists, and social/behavioural scientists. (shrink)

This book is collection of the the author’s previously published papers on the philosophy of modality and tense and it also includes three unpublished papers. The author provides an exposition and defence of certain positions for which he is well-known: the intelligibility of modality de re; the primitiveness of the modal; and the primacy of the actual over the possible. He also argues for some less familiar positions: the existence of distinctive forms of natural and normative necessity, not reducible to (...) any form of metaphysical necessity; the need to make a distinction between the worldly and unworldly, analogous to the distinction between the tensed and the tenseless; and the viability of a nonstandard form of realism about tense, which recognizes the tensed character of reality without conceding there is any privileged standpoint from which it is to be viewed. (shrink)

There is a common form of problem, to be found in many areas of philosophy, concerning the relationship between our perspective on reality and reality itself. We make statements (or form judgements) about how things are from a given standpoint or perspective. We make the statement ‘it is raining’ from the standpoint of the present time, for example, or the statement‘it is here’ from the standpoint of where we are, or the statement ‘I am glad’ from the standpoint of a (...) subject. In each of these cases, the statement has a certain ‘aspect’ or perspectival character in virtue of which its truth is capable of varying from one standpoint to another. Thus the statement ‘it is raining’ is tensed, the statement ‘it is here’ is ‘spatiocentric’ and the statement ‘I am glad’ is first-personal. The problem we then face is to determine whether this aspect is a feature of the reality which is described or merely a feature of the statement by which it is described. Is reality itself somehow tensed or spatiocentric or firstpersonal or is it merely that we describe a tenseless or spatially uncentered or impersonal reality from a tensed or spatiocentric or first-personal point of view? (shrink)

I describe some paradoxes of ground and relate them to the semantic paradoxes.

There is a common form of problem, to be found in many areas of philosophy, concerning the relationship between our perspective on reality and reality itself. We make statements (or form judgements) about how things are from a given standpoint or perspective. We make the statement ‘it is raining’ from the standpoint of the present time, for example, or the statement‘it is here’ from the standpoint of where we are, or the statement ‘I am glad’ from the standpoint of a (...) subject. In each of these cases, the statement has a certain ‘aspect’ or perspectival character in virtue of which its truth is capable of varying from one standpoint to another. Thus the statement ‘it is raining’ is tensed, the statement ‘it is here’ is ‘spatiocentric’ and the statement ‘I am glad’ is first-personal. The problem we then face is to determine whether this aspect is a feature of the reality which is described or merely a feature of the statement by which it is described. Is reality itself somehow tensed or spatiocentric or firstpersonal or is it merely that we describe a tenseless or spatially uncentered or impersonal reality from a tensed or spatiocentric or first-personal point of view? (shrink)

Explores the possibilities and limitations of a "virtue ethics" relevant to our times, within the theoretical framework provided by historical materialism and the critique of ideology.

This book takes a philosophical approach to questions concerning violence, war, and justice in human affairs. It offers the reader a broad introduction to underlying assumptions, values, concepts, theories, and the historical contexts informing much of the current discussion worldwide regarding these morally crucial topics. It provides brief summaries and analyses of a wide range of relevant belief systems, philosophical positions, and policy problems. While not first and foremost a book of advocacy, it is clearly oriented throughout by the ethical (...) preference for nonviolent strategies in the achievement of human ends and a belief in the viability of a socially just—and thus peaceful—human future. It also maintains a consistently skeptical stance towards the all-too-easily accepted apologies, past and present, for violence, war, and the continuation of injustice. (shrink)

In this paper I shall present some of the results I have obtained on modal theories which contain quantifiers for propositions. The paper is in two parts: in the first part I consider theories whose non-quantificational part is S5; in the second part I consider theories whose non-quantificational part is weaker than or not contained in S5. Unless otherwise stated, each theory has the same language L. This consists of a countable set V of propositional variables pl, pa, ... , (...) the operators v (or), ~ (not) and □ (necessarily), the universal quantifier (p), p a propositional variable, and brackets ( and ). The formulas of L are then defined in the usual way. (shrink)

In this thesis, I deal with the notions of a condition holding for some proposition and a proposition being true in a certain number of possible worlds. These notions are called propositional quantifiers and numerical modalizers respectively. In each chapter, I attempt to dispose of a system. A system consists of: a language; axioms and rules of inference; and an interpretation. To dispose of a system is to prove its decidability and its consistency and completeness for the given interpretation. I (...) shall, in passing, make applications to de definability, translatability and other topics. In Chapter 1, I consider the system 5SQ. Its language is that of 55 with Q as a fresh unary operator. Its axioms and rules of inference are those for 85 plus the following special axiom-schemes for Q: 1) QA::>MA 2) Q A ::> L V L 3) L ::> 4) Q A ::> L Q A. 'QA' is interpreted as 'A is true in exactly one possible world.' I dispose of the system by showing that every formula in it is equivalent to one in normal form. In Chapter 2 I consider the system S5n. Its language is that of S5 but with the unary operators Qk for each non-negative integer k. Its axioms and rules are those of S5 plus the following special axiom-schemes for Qk: 1) Qk A>~Q1 A, 1˂K 2) Qk A ≡ Vki≡oQi ˄ Qk-I 3) L ˂ 4) Qk A ˂ L Qk A 5) Qo A ≡ L ~ A, 1 ≥ 0, k ≥ 1 ‘Qk A’ is interpreted as 'A is true in exactly k possible worlds.' I dispose of this system by generalising the normal forms of S5Q. In the chapters 3-5, I consider three systems which result from adding propositional quantifiers to S5. The first two systems, S5╥+ and S5╥, contain the usual axioms and rules for quantifiers. The first contains, in addition, the axiom-scheme G = )). The last, S5╥-, results from S5╥ by restricting the Scheme of Specification, viz., A > A, B free for P in A, to formulas B of the propositional calculus. To interpret these systems we must specify which propositions the variable P ranges over. For St╥-, we merely require that if p and q are propositions, then and are also propositions. For S5╥+, we also require that each possible world be describable i.e. that there be a proposition which is true in that world alone. And for S5╥, we require not that each possible world be describable but that there be a proposition which is true in just those possible worlds which are describable. Again, we dispose of the systems by normal forms. This requires that we eliminate quantifiers and nested occurrences of L by adding new symbols to the language. For S5╥+, the operators Qk suffice. For S5╥, the operators Qk suffice. For S5╥, we also require the constant g and a fresh unary operator N. For S5╥-, even greater additions are required. In the last two chapters, 6 and 7, I turn to systems which have essentially the same language as S5╥. However, ‘Qk A' is now interpreted as 'A is true in exactly k possible worlds accessible from the given world.' Different conditions on R, the relation of accessibility, lead to different axioms. In chapter 6 I consider the conditions of reflexivity, symmetry and transitivity, and in Chapter 7 the conditions of being a partial, convergent, total or dense order. I prove consistency and completeness by the method of maximally consistent systems. The method can yield decidability results, but I do not go into the matter. I have, as a rule, not given acknowledgements for well-established results or terminology. The main references are at the end of each chapter. Fuller references are in the bibliography. (shrink)

There is a standard view of relations, held by philosophers and logicians alike, according to which we may meaningfully talk of a relation holding of several objects in a given order. Thus it is supposed that we may meaningfully—indeed, correctly—talk of the relation loves holding of Anthony and Cleopatra or of the relation between holding of New York, Washington, and Boston. But innocuous as this view might appear to be, it cannot be accepted as applying to all relations whatever. For (...) there is an important class of metaphysical and linguistic contexts which call for an alternative conception of relation, one for which the order of the relata plays no role and in which the application of the relation to its relata is achieved by other means. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: One‐way Coordination Indexicals Types, Tokens, and Occurrences Complex Expressions Empty Names Semantics as Reflexive Semantics as the Product of Stipulation Mates' Puzzle Moore's Paradox of Analysis.