The grounds of justice -- "Un pouvoir ordinaire": shared membership in a state as a ground of -- Justice -- Internationalism versus statism and globalism: contemporary debates -- What follows from our common humanity? : the institutional stance, human rights, and nonrelationism -- Hugo Grotius revisited : collective ownership of the Earth and global public reason -- "Our sole habitation" : a contemporary approach to collective ownership of the earth -- Toward a contingent derivation of human rights -- Proportionate use (...) : immigration and original ownership of the Earth -- "But the earth abideth for ever" : obligations to future generations -- Climate change and ownership of the atmosphere -- Human rights as membership rights in the global order -- Arguing for human rights : essential pharmaceuticals -- Arguing for human rights : labor rights as human rights -- Justice and trade -- The way we live now -- "Imagine there's no countries" : a reply to John Lennon -- Justice and accountability : the state -- Justice and accountability : the World Trade Organization. (shrink)

This book provides a formal ontology of senses and the belief-relation that grounds the distinction between de dicto, de re, and de se beliefs as well as the opacity of belief reports. According to this ontology, the relata of the belief-relation are an agent and a special sort of object-dependent sense (a "thought-content"), the latter being an "abstract" property encoding various syntactic and semantic constraints on sentences of a language of thought. One bears the belief-relation to a thought-content T just (...) in case one (is disposed as one who) inwardly affirms a certain sentence S of one’s language of thought that satisfies what T encodes, which in turn requires that S’s non-logical parts stand in appropriate semantical relations to items specified by T. Since these items may include other senses as well as ordinary objects, beliefs of arbitrary complexity are automatically accommodated. Within the framework of the formal ontology, a context-dependent compositional semantics is then provided for a fragment of regimented English capable of formulating ascriptions of belief—a semantics that treats substitutional opacity as a genuine semantic datum. Finally, the resulting picture of belief and its attribution is defended by showing how it solves standard puzzles, avoids objections to rival accounts, and satisfies certain adequacy conditions not fulfilled by traditional theories. Along the way, clarification and defense is offered for the ingredient conception of object-dependent senses, and it is shown how adoption of the language of thought hypothesis permits Bertrand Russell’s obscure doctrine of logical forms to be understood in a way that not only vindicates his Multiple Relation theory of de re belief but also reveals the connection between these logical forms and thought-contents. (shrink)

Priority setting in health care is ubiquitous and health authorities are increasingly recognising the need for priority setting guidelines to ensure efficient, fair, and equitable resource allocation. While cost-effectiveness concerns seem to dominate many policies, the tension between utilitarian and deontological concerns is salient to many, and various severity criteria appear to fill this gap. Severity, then, must be subjected to rigorous ethical and philosophical analysis. Here we first give a brief history of the path to today’s severity criteria in (...) Norway and Sweden. The Scandinavian perspective on severity might be conducive to the international discussion, given its long-standing use as a priority setting criterion, despite having reached rather different conclusions so far. We then argue that severity can be viewed as a multidimensional concept, drawing on accounts of need, urgency, fairness, duty to save lives, and human dignity. Such concerns will often be relative to local mores, and the weighting placed on the various dimensions cannot be expected to be fixed. Thirdly, we present what we think are the most pertinent questions to answer about severity in order to facilitate decision making in the coming years of increased scarcity, and to further the understanding of underlying assumptions and values that go into these decisions. We conclude that severity is poorly understood, and that the topic needs substantial further inquiry; thus we hope this article may set a challenging and important research agenda. (shrink)

Phillips argues that blindsight is due to response criterion artefacts under degraded conscious vision. His view provides alternative explanations for some studies, but may not work well when one considers several key findings in conjunction. Empirically, not all criterion effects are decidedly non-perceptual. Awareness is not completely abolished for some stimuli, in some patients. But in other cases, it was clearly impaired relative to the corresponding visual sensitivity. This relative dissociation is what makes blindsight so important and interesting.

The associative theory of creativity states that creativity is associated with differences in the structure of semantic memory, whereas the executive theory of creativity emphasises the role of top-down control for creative thought. For a powerful test of these accounts, individual semantic memory structure was modelled with a novel method based on semantic relatedness judgements and different criteria for network filtering were compared. The executive account was supported by a correlation between creative ability and broad retrieval ability. The associative account (...) was independently supported, when network filtering was based on a relatedness threshold, but not when it was based on a fixed edge number or on the analysis of weighted networks. In the former case, creative ability was associated with shorter average path lengths and higher clustering of the network, suggesting that the semantic networks of creative people show higher small-worldness. (shrink)

This article highlights the continuing relevance of a classic bioethical text, “Bioethics as a Discipline,” published by the Hastings Center’s cofounder Daniel Callahan in 1973. Connecting the text’s programmatic recommendations with later reflections and interventions Callahan wrote about the development of bioethics illuminates how the vision Callahan established and the reality this vision helped create were interrelated—just not in the way Callahan had hoped for. Although this portrait relies on an individual perception of the development of bioethics, it might nevertheless, (...) through its unique linkage of different bioethical temporalities, contribute to a broader reassessment of what bioethics became and why. (shrink)

In a recent extended essay, philosopher Daniel Hausman goes a long way towards dismissing severity as a morally relevant attribute in the context of priority setting in healthcare. In this response, we argue that although Hausman certainly points to real problems with how severity is often interpreted and operationalised within the priority setting context, the conclusion that severity does not contain plausible ethical content is too hasty. Rather than abandonment, our proposal is to take severity seriously by carefully mapping the (...) possibly multiple underlying accounts to well-established ethical theories, in a way that is both morally defensible and aligned with the term’s colloquial uses. (shrink)

Poly(ADP‐ribosyl)ation is a post‐translational modification occurring in the nucleus. The most abundant and best‐characterized enzyme catalyzing this reaction, poly(ADP‐ribose) polymerase 1 (PARP1), participates in fundamental nuclear events. The enzyme functions as molecular “nick sensor”. It binds with high affinity to DNA single‐strand breaks resulting in the initiation of its catalytic activity. Activated PARP1 promotes base excision repair. In addition, PARP1 modifies several transcription factors and thereby precludes their binding to DNA. We propose that a major function of PARP1 includes the (...) silencing of transcription preventing expression of damaged genes. Concomitant stimulation of DNA repair suggests that PARP1 acts as a switch between transcription and DNA repair. Another PARP‐type enzyme, tankyrase, is involved in the regulation of telomere elongation. Tankyrase modifies a telomere‐associated protein and thereby prevents it masking telomeric repeats providing access of telomerase for telomere elongation. Therefore, poly(ADP‐ribosyl)ation reactions may act as molecular switches in DNA metabolism. BioEssays 23:543–548, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

This chapter examines the role of parameterParametercalibrationCalibration in the confirmation and validation of complex computer simulation models. I examine the question to what extent calibration data can confirm or validate the calibrated model, focusing in particular on Bayesian approaches to confirmation. I distinguish several different Bayesian approaches to confirmation and argue that complex simulation models exhibit a predictivist effect: Complex computer simulation models constitute a case in which predictive success, as opposed to the mere accommodation of evidence, provides a more (...) stringent test of the model. DataData used in tuning do not validate or confirm a model to the same extent as data successfully predicted by the model do. (shrink)

This essay reconstructs the place of utopia in realist political theory, by examining the ways in which the literary genre of critical utopias can productively unsettle ongoing discussions about “how to do political theory.” I start by analyzing two prominent accounts of the relationship between realism and utopia: “real utopia” and “dystopic liberalism”. Elaborating on Raymond Geuss’s recent reflections, the essay then claims that an engagement with literature can shift the focus of these accounts. Utopian fiction, I maintain, is useful (...) for comprehending what is and for contemplating what might be. Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel The Dispossessed deploys this double function in an exemplary fashion: through her dynamic and open-ended portrayal of an Anarchist community, Le Guin succeeds in imagining a utopia that negates the status quo, without striving to construct a perfect society. The book’s radical, yet ambiguous, narrative hence reveals a strategy for locating utopia within realist political theory that moves beyond the positions dominating the current debate. Reading The Dispossessed ultimately demonstrates that realism without utopia is status quo–affirming, while utopia without realism is wishful thinking. (shrink)

Der Philosoph Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) gilt mit seiner sogenannten ›Wissenschaftslehre‹ als einer der bedeutendsten Vertreter einer transzendentalen Theorie über – modern gesprochen – Wissenschaftstheorie. Könnten so seine Entdeckungen nicht auch für die Theologie systematische Bedeutung haben, insbesondere in der Frage, ob diese selber eine Wissenschaft sein kann? Mathias Müller versucht anhand einer systematischen Konstruktionsanalyse von Fichtes Schrift »Die Principien der Gottes- Sitten- u. Rechtslehre. Februar und März 1805« zu zeigen, dass und wie in der Wissenschaftslehre diese selber eine (...) Grundlegung bildet, die als eine Grundlagentheorie der Theologie eingesehen werden kann. Mittels des Modells des ›Transzensus‹ wird versucht, einen für das transzendentale Ich gangbaren Weg nachzuzeichnen und anzubieten, um so – performativ erlebbar – die Wissenschaftlichkeit einer Theologie als transzendentale Fundamentaltheologie zu erschliessen. (shrink)

In recent years, researchers and practitioners have increasingly paid attention to food waste, which is seen as highly unethical given its negative environmental and societal implications. Waste recovery is dependent on the creation of connections along the supply chain, so that actors with goods at risk of becoming waste can transfer them to those who may be able to use them as inputs or for their own consumption. Such waste recovery is, however, often hampered by what we call ‘circularity holes’, (...) i.e., missing linkages between waste generators and potential receivers. A new type of actor, the digital platform organization, has recently taken on a brokerage function to bridge circularity holes, particularly in the food supply chain. Yet, extant literature has overlooked this novel type of brokerage that exploits digital technology for the transfer and recovery of discarded resources between supply chain actors. Our study investigates this actor, conceptualized as a ‘circularity broker’, and thus unites network research and circular supply chain research. Focusing on the food supply chain, we adopt an interpretive inductive theory-building approach to uncover how platform organizations foster the recovery of waste by bridging circularity holes. We identify and explicate six brokerage roles, i.e., connecting, informing, protecting, mobilizing, integrating and measuring, and discuss them in relation to extant literature, highlighting novelties compared to earlier studies. The final section reflects on contributions, implications, limitations and areas for further research. (shrink)

Potential speech abilities constitute a key component in the description of the Neandertals and their relations with modern Homo Sapiens. Since Lieberman & Crelin postulated in 1971 the theory that “Neanderthal man did not have the anatomical prerequisites for producing the full range of human speech” their speech capability has been a subject of hot debate for over 30 years, and remains a controversial question. In this study, we first question the methodology adopted by Lieberman and Crelin, and we point (...) out articulatory and acoustic flaws in the data and the modeling. Then we propose a general articulatory-acoustic framework for testing the acoustic consequences of the trade-off between oral and pharyngeal cavities. Specifically, following Honda & Tiede, we characterize this trade-off by a Laryngeal Height Index corresponding to the length ratio of the pharyngeal cavity to the oral cavity. Using an anthropomorphic articulatory model controlled by lips, jaw, tongue and larynx parameters, we can generate the Maximal Vowel Space, which is a triangle in the F1 / F2 plane, the three point vowels /a/, /i/, and /u/ being located at its three extremities. We sample the evolution of the position of the larynx from birth to adulthood with four different LHI values, and we show that the associated MVS are very similar. Therefore, the MVS of a given vocal tract does not depend on the LHI: gestures of the tongue body, lips and jaw allow compensations for differences in the ratio between the dimensions of the oral cavity and pharynx. We then infer that the vowel space of Neandertals was potentially no smaller than that of a modern human and that Neandertals could produce all the vowels of the world’s languages. Neandertals were no more vocally handicapped than children at birth are. Therefore, there is no reason to believe that the lowering of the larynx and a concomitant increase in pharynx size are necessary evolutionary pre-adaptations for speech. However, since our study is strictly limited to the morphological and acoustic aspects of the vocal tract, we cannot offer any definitive answer to the question of whether Neandertals could produce human speech or not. (shrink)

Speech planning is a sophisticated process. In dialog, it regularly starts in overlap with an incoming turn by a conversation partner. We show that planning spoken responses in overlap with incoming turns is associated with higher processing load than planning in silence. In a dialogic experiment, participants took turns with a confederate describing lists of objects. The confederate’s utterances (to which participants responded) were pre‐recorded and varied in whether they ended in a verb or an object noun and whether this (...) ending was predictable or not. We found that response planning in overlap with sentence‐final verbs evokes larger task‐evoked pupillary responses, while end predictability had no effect. This finding indicates that planning in overlap leads to higher processing load for next speakers in dialog and that next speakers do not proactively modulate the time course of their response planning based on their predictions of turn endings. The turn‐taking system exerts pressure on the language processing system by pushing speakers to plan in overlap despite the ensuing increase in processing load. (shrink)

In diesem Buch werden die zwei Grundsäulen der "Kritischen Patriarchatstheorie" - die Matriarchale Naturphilosophie und die Patriarchatskritische Geschichtsphilosophie - vorgestellt und im Rahmen einer kritischen Auseinandersetzung mit der Naturphilosophie Giordano Brunos sowie der Geschichtsphilosophie Martin Heideggers erläutert.

After critical appraisal of mathematical and biological characteristics of the model, we discuss how a classical hippocampal neural network expresses functions similar to those of the chaotic model, and then present an alternative stimulus-driven chaotic random recurrent neural network (RRNN) that learns patterns as well as sequences, and controls the navigation of a mobile robot.

Mathias Frisch provides the first sustained philosophical discussion of conceptual problems in classical particle-field theories. Part of the book focuses on the problem of a satisfactory equation of motion for charged particles interacting with electromagnetic fields. As Frisch shows, the standard equation of motion results in a mathematically inconsistent theory, yet there is no fully consistent and conceptually unproblematic alternative theory. Frisch describes in detail how the search for a fundamental equation of motion is partly driven by pragmatic considerations (...) (like simplicity and mathematical tractability) that can override the aim for full consistency. The book also offers a comprehensive review and criticism of both the physical and philosophical literature on the temporal asymmetry exhibited by electromagnetic radiation fields, including Einstein's discussion of the asymmetry and Wheeler and Feynman's influential absorber theory of radiation. Frisch argues that attempts to derive the asymmetry from thermodynamic or cosmological considerations fail and proposes that we should understand the asymmetry as due to a fundamental causal constraint. The book's overarching philosophical thesis is that standard philosophical accounts that strictly identify scientific theories with a mathematical formalism and a mapping function specifying the theory's ontology are inadequate, since they permit neither inconsistent yet genuinely successful theories nor thick causal notions to be part of fundamental physics. (shrink)

Much has been written on the role of causal notions and causal reasoning in the so-called 'special sciences' and in common sense. But does causal reasoning also play a role in physics? Mathias Frisch argues that, contrary to what influential philosophical arguments purport to show, the answer is yes. Time-asymmetric causal structures are as integral a part of the representational toolkit of physics as a theory's dynamical equations. Frisch develops his argument partly through a critique of anti-causal arguments and (...) partly through a detailed examination of actual examples of causal notions in physics, including causal principles invoked in linear response theory and in representations of radiation phenomena. Offering a new perspective on the nature of scientific theories and causal reasoning, this book will be of interest to professional philosophers, graduate students, and anyone interested in the role of causal thinking in science. (shrink)

In this paper we present applications of the ACGT Master Ontology (MO) which is a new terminology resource for a transnational network providing data exchange in oncology, emphasizing the integration of both clinical and molecular data. The development of a new ontology was necessary due to problems with existing biomedical ontologies in oncology. The ACGT MO is a test case for the application of best practices in ontology development. This paper provides an overview of the application of the ontology within (...) the ACGT project thus far. (shrink)

Christians, and those of the Roman Catholic Church, have made significant adjustments to their participation in Sunday liturgy in the wake of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This is especially the case for Catholic Christians at the ‘Our Lady of Loreto’ (OLL) Church in Kempton Park in South Africa. Sunday Church services that used to be compulsory for most Catholic families and community members, are now attended by few and in some cases none from staunch Catholic families and communities. (...) However, this is not a new phenomenon in the Catholic Church. It signals the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic has altered and continues to affect Christian families and their commitment to the Sunday liturgy. Drawing from qualitative interviews conducted with eight staunch Catholic community leaders of OLL Church in Kempton Park, Johannesburg, this paper explores the motivations for their continuous participation and/or non-participation in the Sunday liturgy in the wake of the pandemic. The findings reveal that certain behavioural patterns or activities associated with the COVID-19 pandemic motivate Catholic Christians and families to continue to participate and/or not participate in the Sunday liturgy. Contribution: The article explored and examined the way in which COVID-19 has affected Catholic Christians’ ability to attend Sunday liturgy. It discovered that while some Christians returned to church after the pandemic, others have continued to worship from home because of the influence of changes adopted during the pandemic. (shrink)

Volume 52, Issue 6, June - July 2020, Page 602-612.

Richard Matheson seeded several weird fish in the deep and dark waters of the American myth pool, not least as a prominent screenwriter for the legendary 1960s TV series The Twilight Zone. I Am Legend, a post-apocalyptic science fiction/horror novel, published in 1954 and set in 1976, remains one of his best known works.1 It shows up persistently on "Best of Horror" lists and is generally regarded as a milestone in modern Gothic fiction. What is it about this novel that (...) has invested it with canonical status? It tells a surpassingly bleak story, one that seems to encode very specific and largely outdated cultural anxieties. And as prophecy, it falls rather flat: Matheson depicts a vampire holocaust, and the .. (shrink)

Dans cet ouvrage, l'auteur se livre à une comparaison conceptuelle entre le principe de précaution et le principe responsabilité. Il combat la démarche tendancieuse des penseurs de la précaution qui, à l'image de Corinne Lepage, dont la conception a été reprise par le chef de l'Etat français lors du " Grenelle de l'Environnement ", assimilent précaution et responsabilité, réduisant la seconde à la première. Précaution et responsabilité ne sont en réalité absolument pas réductibles, et le principe responsabilité tel que défini (...) par Hans Jonas contient les germes d'une remise en question du mode de développement occidental, dont la notion de développement durable est actuellement le fer de lance, que le principe de précaution ne permet pas - et qu'il interdit même. Politique de Cassandre dévoile ainsi l'escroquerie politico-intellectuelle dont le principe de précaution est la manifestation, et dont le " Grenelle de l'environnement " est le dernier avatar. La responsabilité politique ne consiste à intervenir ni en aval de la catastrophe comme nous y oblige le développement techno-scientifique, ni en amont de la catastrophe et en aval des causes de cette catastrophe comme nous y incite le principe de précaution, mais en amont des causes de la catastrophe. Cet essai, à la fois philosophique, politique et poétique, tente d'allier la rigueur de la démarche intellectuelle, le souci moral de la pratique et la sensibilité humaine. (shrink)

Vor dem Hintergrund der Debatte um nichtbegriffliche Vorstellungsinhalte sucht diese Arbeit ein adäquates Verständnis von Kants Lehre der Erkenntnisquellen, Sinnlichkeit und Verstand, und der Ungleichartigkeit der anschaulichen und begrifflichen Vorstellungsweise, speziell bezüglich der Transzendentalen Ästhetik, der Lehre der transzendentalen Synthesis der Einbildungskraft (Selbstaffektion) und der Theorie des transzendentalen Schematismus. -/- Engaging in the Kantian debate on the existence of non-conceptual content, this work attempts to provide an adequate understanding of Kant’s doctrine of the two sources of human knowledge, sensibility and (...) understanding, and of their heterogeneous ways of representing, through intuitions and concepts. It elaborates on a consistent reading of this dualism in relation to the Transcendental Aesthetic, the synthesis of imagination, and the schematism. (shrink)

Der Band setzt sich mit den Bedingungen und Möglichkeiten internationalen oder globalen Regierens in einer sozialen Umwelt (Weltgesellschaft) unter drei Perspektiven auseinander: der Perspektive von Theorien globaler Ordnung, der Perspektive spezifischer Formen globaler Ordnungsbildung und der Perspektive die Normativität globaler Ordnung. Die Beiträge des Bandes besetzen Schnittstellen in einer Reihe von Diskussionen, die in den Internationalen Beziehungen zu Ordnung und Ordnungsbildung in der internationalen Politik, zum Regieren jenseits des Nationalstaates, sowie zur Stellung internationaler Politik in der Weltgesellschaft geführt werden.

This book assesses the impact of the work of Chris Brown in the field of International Political Theory. The volume engages with general issues of IPT as well as basic issues such as the use and role of practical reasoning and presents a nuanced understanding about issues regarding the legitimacy of war and violence. It explores questions that pertain to human rights, morality, and ethics, and generally an outlook for devising a ‘better’ world. The project is ideal for audiences with (...) interest in International Relations, Ethics and Morality Studies and International Political Theory. (shrink)