In his Truth and Probability (1926), Frank Ramsey provides foundations for measures of degrees of belief in propositions and preferences for worlds. Nonquantitative conditions on preferences for worlds, and gambles for worlds and certain near-worlds, are formulated which he says insure that a subject's preferences for worlds are represented by numbers, world values. Numbers, for his degrees of belief in propositions, probabilities, are then defined in terms of his world values. Ramsey does not also propose definitions of desirabilities for propositions, (...) though he is in a position to do this. Given his measures for probabilities of propositions and values of worlds, he can frame natural definitions for both evidential and causal desirabilities that would measure respectively the welcomeness of propositions as items of news, and as facts. His theory is neutral with respect to the evidential/causal division. In the present paper, as Ramsey's foundations are explained, several problems and limitations are noted. Their distinctive virtue – their evidential/causal neutrality – is demonstrated. Comparisons are made with other foundational schemes, and a perspective is recommended from which nonquantitative foundations are not the be all for quantitative theories of ideal preferences and credences. (shrink)

This article maintains that an important class of scientific generalizations should be reinterpreted: they have typically been understood as ceteris paribus laws, but are, in fact, generics. Four arguments are presented to support this thesis. One argument is that the interpretation in terms of ceteris paribus laws is a historical accident. The other three arguments draw on similarities between these generalizations and archetypal generics: they come with similar inferential commitments, they share a syntactic form, and the existing theories to make (...) sense of them are alike. Once these generalizations are properly understood as generics, the recent cognitive approach to generics can be extended to the study of the relevant sciences. The last section indicates ways in which this extension is fruitful for the two strands of research that we combine: the philosophy of science literature on generalizations and the semantics literature on generics. (shrink)

Bioethicists tend to focus on the individual as the relevant moral subject. Yet, in highly complex and socially differentiated healthcare systems a number of social groups, each committed to a common cause, are involved in medical decisions and sometimes even try to influence bioethical discourses according to their own agenda. We argue that the significance of these collective actors is unjustifiably neglected in bioethics. The growing influence of collective actors in the fields of biopolitics and bioethics leads us to pursue (...) the question as to how collective moral claims can be characterized and justified. We pay particular attention to elaborating the circumstances under which collective actors can claim ‘collective agency.’ Specifically, we develop four normative-practical criteria for collective agency in order to determine the conditions that must be given to reasonably speak of ‘collective autonomy’. For this purpose, we analyze patient organizations and families, which represent two quite different kinds of groups and can both be conceived as collective actors of high relevance for bioethical practice. Finally, we discuss some practical implications and explain why the existence of a shared practice of trust is of immediate normative relevance in this respect. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 6, June 2020, Page 28-30.

Avrupa felsefe tarihinin en ünlü mistik düşünürlerinden olan Meister Eckhart‘ın burada çevirisi sunulan vaaz Kitab-ı Mukaddes‘te İsa ile Mecdelli Meryem arasındaki bir anlatının Meister Eckhart tarafından yapılan yorumuna dayanır. Bu yorum, daha sonra 20. Yüzyıl felsefesi içinde özellikle Derrida, Heidegger, Jean-Luc Nancy gibi düşünürler arasında fenomenoloji açısından sorunsallaştırılan ten, beden, dokunma gibi öğeleri merkeze alan güncel felsefi tartışmalara yeni bir bakış açısı getirme olasılığı açısından önemlidir.

Similar to parasites, cancer cells depend on their hosts for sustenance, proliferation and reproduction, exploiting the hosts for energy and resources, and thereby impairing their health and fitness. Because of this lifestyle similarity, it is predicted that cancer cells could, like numerous parasitic organisms, evolve the capacity to manipulate the phenotype of their hosts to increase their own fitness. We claim that the extent of this phenomenon and its therapeutic implications are, however, underappreciated. Here, we review and discuss what can (...) be regarded as cases of host manipulation in the context of cancer development and progression. We elaborate on how acknowledging the applicability of these principles can offer novel therapeutic and preventive strategies. The manipulation of host phenotype by cancer cells is one more reason to adopt a Darwinian approach in cancer research. -/- . (shrink)

Merrill, Booker and Fivush examine the social functions associated with transmitting intergenerational narratives to adolescents and emerging adults and how these family stories affect identity formation in early adulthood. Merrill et al. observed that the intergenerational stories of parents’ transgression and proud moments told by adolescents and emerging adults operate as a way to transmit life lessons, strengthen relationships with the parent and give insights into their parents and their self.

Experientialist semantics has contributed to a broader notion of linguistic meaning by emphasizing notions such as construal, perspective, metaphor, and embodiment, but has suffered from an individualist concept of meaning and has conflated experiential motivations with conventional semantics. We argue that these problems can be redressed by methods and concepts from phenomenology, on the basis of a case study of sentences of non-actual motion such as “The mountain range goes all the way from Mexico to Canada.” Through a phenomenological reanalysis (...) of proposals of Talmy, Langacker, and Matlock, we show that non-actual motion is both experientially and linguistically non-unitary. At least three different features of human consciousness—enactive perception, visual scanning, and imagination—constitute experiential motivations for non-actual motion sentences, and each of these could be related to phenomenological analyses of human intentionality. The second problem is addressed by proposing that the experiential motivations of non-actual motion sentences can be viewed as sedimented through “passive” processes of acquisition and social transmission and that this implies an interactive loop between experience and language, yielding losses in terms of original experience, but gains in terms of communal signification. Something that is underestimated by phenomenology is that what is sedimented are not only intentional objects such as states of affairs, but aspects of how they are given, i.e., the original, temporal, bodily experiences themselves. Since cognitive semantics has emphasized such aspects of meaning, we suggest that phenomenology can itself benefit from experientialist semantics, especially when it turns its focus from prepredicative to predicative, linguistic intentionality. (shrink)

Through 1886 to 1889 understanding of the mechanism of telephone transmission was transformed from an electrostatic and traditional view to an electrodynamic one conforming with Maxwell's scheme. Observed at the level of commercial application this painful adjustment occurred via a sequence of controversies connected with self-induction—on techniques of telephony, on electrical measurement, on lightning conductors and on matters of professional ethics—in which the parts played by evidence, by theory, and by authority were strangely mixed. The well-known confrontation of O. Heaviside (...) and W. H. Preece was at the centre of the debate. An open division between traditionalists and progressives amongst electrical engineers was provoked, and the effectiveness of mathematical theory as against pure pragmatism at the practical level had in the end to be conceded. (shrink)

St. Augustine's understanding of time is such that it makes time a problem not of physics nor of cosmology, although there are cosmological implications too, but of moral philosophy. And since moral philosophy, for Augustine, is inseparable from the problem of the ultimate destiny of the soul, his conception of time is a part of his conception of the religious life of man. Accordingly, I propose to summarize Augustine's theory of the nature of time in the first part of the (...) paper, treating it, so far as possible, as a separate topic of a theoretical nature. However, since the whole problem is a practical one in the Platonic sense, I propose, in the second part of the paper, to interpret this theory in Augustinian terms in an effort to show the significance of the whole question of time and eternity and limited being for Augustine's theory of man. This is an immense subject. Consequently, in order to impose some boundary upon it, I have restricted myself to the contrast of "the Unlimited" and "the Limited," "the Unchangeable" and "the Changeable" as a means of giving the interpretation a single accent. (shrink)

BackgroundAn editorial expression of concern (EEoC) is issued by editors or publishers to draw attention to potential problems in a publication, without itself constituting a retraction or correction.MethodsWe searched PubMed, PubMed Central (PMC), and Google Scholar to identify EEoCs issued for publications in PubMed and PMC up to 22 August 2016. We also searched the archives of the Retraction Watch blog, some journal and publisher websites, and studies of EEoCs. In addition, we searched for retractions of EEoCs and affected articles (...) in PubMed up to 8 December 2016. We analyzed overall historical trends, as well as reported reasons and subsequent editorial actions related to EEoCs issued between August 2014 and August 2016.ResultsAfter screening 5076 records, we identified 230 EEoCs that affect 300 publications indexed in PubMed, the earliest issued in 1985. Half of the primary EEoCs were issued between 2014 and 2016 (52%). We found evidence of some EEoCs that had been removed by the publisher without leaving a record, and some were not submitted for PubMed or PMC indexing. A minority of publications affected by EEoCs had been retracted by early December 2016 (25%). For the subset of 92 EEoCs issued between August 2014 and August 2016, affecting 99 publications, the rate of retraction was similar (29%). The majority of EEoCs were issued because of concerns with validity of data, methods, or interpretation of the publication (68%), and 31% of cases remained open. Issues with images were raised in 40% of affected publications. Ongoing monitoring after the study identified another 17 EEoCs to year’s end in 2016, increasing the number of EEoCs to 247 and publications in PubMed known to be affected by EEoCs to 320 at the end of 2016.ConclusionsEEoCs have been rare publishing events in the biomedical literature, but their use has been increasing. Most have not led to retractions, and many remain unresolved. Lack of prominence and inconsistencies in management of EEoCs reduce the ability of these notices to alert the scientific community to potentially serious problems in publications. EEoCs will be made identifiable in PubMed in 2017. (shrink)

Alternative schools are popular interventions for marginalized students, including students with disabilities, but little research has focused on professionals in these settings. Today, close to 11,000 public alternative schools or programs are believed to exist in the United States education system (Foley & Pang, 2006) and as many as one million students are currently attending alternative learning programs in the United States (Lehr, Tan, & Ysseldyke, 2009). While public alternative schools can vary from one another in many ways, they exist (...) to serve youth marginalized in traditional public settings. In this study, we explore the ways teachers, administrators, and nurses in alternative settings collaborate to support mentally healthy school environments for marginalized student populations. Drawing on the process of rationale development ( Hawley & Crowe, 2016 ; Hawley & Jordan, 2014 ; Shaver, 1977 ; Shaver & Strong, 1982) as rooted in social studies education, we explore the perceived purposes of these professionals as they work with some of the nation's most marginalized children. Through focus groups and one-on-one interviews, the data bridge social studies themes rooted in democracy and equity with special education themes of inclusiveness. This work offers insight into the rationales of teachers and professionals engaged in critical work, and provides a platform for helping professionals undergo the rationale development process. (shrink)

Phenomenology of practice is a useful, rigorous way of deeply understanding human phenomena. Therefore, it allows research to be conducted into nursing's most sensitive and decisive aspects. While it is a widely used research approach and methodology in nursing, it is seldom addressed and made use of in its practical and applied value. This article aimed to approach the global outlook of van Manen's hermeneutic‐phenomenological method to better understand its theoretical background and to address and support the contribution this method (...) can make to nursing, if rigorously applied. For a professional discipline like nursing, van Manen's approach is especially interesting because, in addition to contributing to the body of knowledge of nursing, it provides a special kind of knowledge that allows nurses to act in a more reflective manner, and with tact and skill, in certain situations and relationships that arise in their daily practice. A more in‐depth understanding of this research methodology may help nurse‐researchers make good use of it and also harness knowledge derived from this type of research. This comes as a result of assuming that phenomenological texts, the final product of the research, have tremendous educational potential for people who read them carefully. (shrink)

The place of play in the education of young children has been the focus of much interest in the past. But the findings from this research project demonstrate that there remains a significant amount of confusion about the role that play has in young children's education. In particular we found that there is a clear distinction between the rhetoric and reality of play in the reception class. Further, there was evidence of real anguish for some early years workers who were (...) failing to offer the play activities that they knew should be provided. These findings are particularly interesting at present, since the debate on the role of play has once again emerged as fundamental in the attempt to define a curriculum appropriate to the needs of the 3-6 year olds who, from the year 2000, will be required to work within the highly contentious Foundation Stage of the National Curriculum. (shrink)

Diese Festschrift versammelt Texte zu den vielfältigen Forschungsinteressen von Alfred Schmidt, emeritierter Professor für Philosophie und Soziologie an der Universität Frankfurt am Main. Die philosophiehistorischen Betrachtungen versuchen jeweils, das Konzept eines realen Humanismus ins Bewusstsein gegenwärtiger praktischer Philosophie zu rufen. Verbindendes Motiv der Beiträge ist dabei ein kritisch verstandener Materialismus, der ohne weltanschauliche Versicherungen auskommt und den leibhaftigen Menschen in den Fokus der Betrachtung rückt. So verstandene Gesellschaftskritik orientiert sich an Gewährsmännern Kritischer Theorie wie etwa Hegel und Marx sowie Schopenhauer, (...) Nietzsche und Freud. Charakteristisch für die hier versammelten Texte ist unter anderem, dass sie eine subjektgerechte Einrichtung der Welt einfordern. (shrink)

Diese Festschrift versammelt Texte zu den vielfältigen Forschungsinteressen von Alfred Schmidt, emeritierter Professor für Philosophie und Soziologie an der Universität Frankfurt am Main. Die philosophiehistorischen Betrachtungen versuchen jeweils, das Konzept eines realen Humanismus ins Bewusstsein gegenwärtiger praktischer Philosophie zu rufen. Verbindendes Motiv der Beiträge ist dabei ein kritisch verstandener Materialismus, der ohne weltanschauliche Versicherungen auskommt und den leibhaftigen Menschen in den Fokus der Betrachtung rückt. So verstandene Gesellschaftskritik orientiert sich an Gewährsmännern Kritischer Theorie wie etwa Hegel und Marx sowie Schopenhauer, (...) Nietzsche und Freud. Charakteristisch für die hier versammelten Texte ist unter anderem, dass sie eine subjektgerechte Einrichtung der Welt einfordern. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Spheres of Philosophical Inquiry and the Historiography of Medieval Philosophy by John InglisMark D. JordanJohn Inglis. Spheres of Philosophical Inquiry and the Historiography of Medieval Philosophy. Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History, volume 81. Leiden, Boston, Köln: Brill, 1998. Pp. x + 324. Cloth, $99.50.Modern philosophers have shown themselves quite unphilosophical about the academic history of their own discipline. Content with grand stories that move from Plato to themselves, (...) they have treated institutional histories, recent histories, and bibliographical histories as unworthy of attention. John Inglis sets out to change all that for the study of medieval philosophy. He demonstrates by the book’s end that we have failed to recognize our historiographical procedures as conventions—with very particular histories of their own.The first part of the book traces the genealogy of the dominant (one might say, hegemonic) model in recent studies of medieval philosophy. The genealogy is prefaced with two chapters that show how various were the motives for reconstructions of medieval thought before 1850 in authors such as Billuart, Goudin, and Brucker or Hegel, Ritter, and Hauréau. These chapters might be dismissed by contemporary scholars as so much antiquarianism. There can be no dismissing the relevance to contemporary work of Inglis’s main genealogy, which runs with surprising directness from Joseph Kleutgen (1811–1883) and Albert Stöckl (1823–1895) to Norman Kretzmann and Anthony Kenny.It adds to the piquancy of Inglis’s argument that most specialists in medieval philosophy will not even recognize the names of Kleutgen and Stöckl, much less feel kinship with them. But Inglis shows convincingly what Kleutgen and Stöckl did to make the study of medieval philosophy possible in modern universities. Kleutgen mapped the medieval texts onto a system of “spheres,” of fields or topics, recognizable to professors of philosophy. This means that he necessarily privileged epistemology, as he necessarily connected a medieval thinker’s views across the “spheres” into a system—or a failed attempt at one. Kleutgen then emphasized the reason/revelation dichotomy and an allegiance to what he understood as the system of Thomas Aquinas. Put these elements together and you have a surprisingly familiar story. It remained for Stöckl to write it up as an erudite and monumental narration.Inglis follows this „Kleutgen-Stöckl model” through a number of more familiar authors, including De Wulf, Gilson, Boehner, Weinberg, and the editors of the Cambridge [End Page 530] History of Later Medieval Philosophy. Of course, in reducing the genealogy to a list of famous names I ignore two of its great virtues. The first is the detail with which it retells the institutional circumstances and the forgotten intermediaries of the scholarly tradition. Behind the genealogy, around its borders, there stands Inglis’s enormous effort of original research, much of it archival. The genealogy’s second virtue is the dialectical subtlety with which it locates continuities under contradictions. Gilson is usually touted as the antithesis of De Wulf, and Kretzmann of Gilson. Inglis makes such antitheses seem superficial by comparing them with an abiding if tacit agreement about how medieval texts can be appropriated within modern philosophy. To seal the comparison, Inglis suggests in the book’s second part what a real antithesis to the Kleutgen-Stöckl model might be. He reconstructs, in his last two chapters, Thomas’s accounts of human knowledge and of theology’s relations to philosophy in opposition to that model’s prescriptions.No review can represent—or even adequately praise—the enormous learnedness of this book. Moreover, since the book already discusses so much, it must seem ungrateful to suggest that it ought to discuss anything else. Let me end then rather by posing two questions beyond the book’s end. First, does Inglis’s genealogy mean to suggest that the Kleutgen-Stöckl model is now chiefly received in English-speaking philosophy departments? I wonder, for example, how far Inglis might judge Alain de Libera’s Penser au Moyen Age (Paris: Éds. de Seuil, 1991) an alternative to that model. Certainly de Libera shows more self-consciousness about the culturally determined history behind our historiography. His emphasis on the thirteenth-century recovery... (shrink)

Ballard et al. model eye position as a deictic pointer for spatial perception. Evidence from research on gaze control indicates, however, that shifts in actual eye position are neither necessary nor sufficient to produce shifts in spatial perception. Deictic context is instead provided by the interaction between two deictic pointers; one representing actual eye position, and the other, intended eye position.

Efforts to address child trafficking require intensive collaboration among professionals of varied disciplines. Healthcare professionals have a major role in this multidisciplinary approach. Training is essential for all professionals, and policies and protocols may assist in fostering an effective, comprehensive response to victimization.

Inhibition, an executive function, is critical for achieving goals that require suppressing unwanted behaviours, thoughts, or distractions. One hypothesis of the emotion and goal compatibility theory is that emotions of sadness and fear enhance inhibitory control. Across Experiments 1–4, we tested this hypothesis by inducing a happy, sad, fearful, and neutral emotional state prior to completing an inhibition task that indexed a specific facet of inhibition (oculomotor, resisting interference, behavioural, and cognitive). In Experiment 4, we included an anger induction to (...) examine whether valence or motivational-orientation best-predicted performance. We found support that fear and sadness enhanced inhibition except when inhibition required resisting interference. We argue that sadness and fear enhance inhibitory control aiding the detection and analysis of problems (i.e. sadness) or threats (i.e. fear) within one’s environment. In sum, this work highlights the importance of identifying how negative emotions can be beneficial for and interact with specific executive functions influencing down-stream processing including attention, cognition, and memory. (shrink)

One approach to applied AI is to automate business processes and remove people from the system. Another approach is to use AI methods to model how work actually gets done, so we can understand the essential role of knowledge people have about each other ("social knowledge") in allocating resources, assigning jobs, and forming teams.

Some individuals devalue positivity previously associated with negativity (Winer & Salem, 2016). Positive emotions (e.g. happiness) may be seen as threatening and result in active avoidance of futu...

Gauge symmetries play a central role, both in the mathematical foundations as well as the conceptual construction of modern (particle) physics theories. However, it is yet unclear whether they form a necessary component of theories, or whether they can be eliminated. It is also unclear whether they are merely an auxiliary tool to simplify (and possibly localize) calculations or whether they contain independent information. Therefore their status, both in physics and philosophy of physics, remains to be fully clarified. In this (...) overview we review the current state of affairs on both the philosophy and the physics side. In particular, we focus on the circumstances in which the restriction of gauge theories to gauge invariant information on an observable level is warranted, using the Brout-Englert-Higgs theory as an example of particular current importance. Finally, we determine a set of yet to be answered questions to clarify the status of gauge symmetries. (shrink)

El espacio ultraterrestre es cada vez más relevante para la conducción de las operaciones militares. Este artículo contextualiza la importancia que le conceden Estados Unidos, China, Rusia e India en el marco de las teorías estratégicas del poder espacial y en los nuevos conceptos militares relacionados con las operaciones en todos los dominios.

Since the dawn of molecular biology, cancer therapy has focused on druggable targets. Despite some remarkable successes, cell‐level evolution remains a potent antagonist to this approach. We suggest that a deeper understanding of the breakdown of cooperation can synergize the evolutionary and druggable‐targets approaches. Complexity requires cooperation, whether between cells of different species (symbiosis) or between cells of the same organism (multicellularity). Both forms of cooperation may be associated with nutrient scarcity, which in turn may be associated with a chemiosmotic (...) metabolism. A variety of examples from modern organisms supports these generalities. Indeed, mammalian cancers—unicellular, glycolytic, and fast‐replicating—parallel these examples. Nutrient scarcity, chemiosmosis, and associated signaling may favor cooperation, while under conditions of nutrient abundance a fermentative metabolism may signal the breakdown of cooperation. Manipulating this metabolic milieu may potentiate the effects of targeted therapeutics. Specific opportunities are discussed in this regard, including avicins, a novel plant product. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo ofrecemos una metodología docente para mejorar la competencia comunicativa y las habilidades digitales de los estudiantes de lenguas extranjeras por medio de la traducción audiovisual de canciones con la ayuda de herramientas de traducción automática seguida de la posedición de los textos. Esta metodología se ha implementado de manera satisfactoria en la asignatura de inglés 3 de los grados de Estudios Ingleses y Traducción y Mediación Interlingüística de la Universitat de València.

As of September 2005, the co-founders of Waste Concern, an organisation dedicated to improving waste recycling in Bangladesh, are considering making a change to their model in order to get approval from the municipal government for a large-scale composting site. Since its inception in 1995, Waste Concern has followed a decentralised composting model whereby each composting site is a small-scale operation processing 3 tons of organic waste per day. In this model, they have relied on land and waste supply from (...) the Dhaka City Council (DCC) municipal government. Now, they are working with Dutch-based World Wide Recycling BV (WWR) to set up a 700-ton per day composting plant, which will enable them to earn tradable certificates for US$11 per ton of reduced methane gas, making it the first in the world to garner credits through composting waste under the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). To launch the composting site, they face the hurdle of getting DCC’s approval. They have three alternatives: (1) follow through with the original plan whereby the municipality would supply both the land and waste, which entails waiting for DCC’s approval; (2) purchase the land for the composting site and rely on the municipality for a waste supply; or, (3) purchase the land and take on the responsibility of waste collection themselves. In their considerations, they need to weigh the financial and social aspects and determine an appropriate structure for their organisation. (shrink)

The inculcation of academic integrity among post-graduate students is an ongoing concern for universities across the world. While various researchers have focused on causal relations between forms of instruction, student characteristics, and possession of academic integrity, there is need for an increased examination of the role of supervisors in shaping student perceptions of academic integrity. Unlike the undergraduate level, where student interaction with professors is often limited, post-graduate students have an ongoing relationship with their supervisors, whether at the Masters or (...) Doctorate level. In some ways like masters over apprentices, rather than teachers over students, supervisors engage in continued interaction with post-graduate students, shaping these students views not only on the substance of their research, but also in how researchers “should” act. As part of a larger project in examining post-graduate student opinions on academic integrity and research ethics, we conducted surveys to investigate the relationship between student perceptions of their supervisors and student perceptions of academic integrity. We use survey data from a population of post-graduate students at a comprehensive research university in Hong Kong to analyze student perceptions of academic integrity and how students might be influenced by their supervisors’ service as mentors and/or ethic exemplars. (shrink)

Drawing on the recent discussion about the role information intermediaries play in affecting corporate responsibility adoption, we analyze the representation of CR issues in a business infomediary distributed by a leading business organization. The explicit task of the business infomediary is to promote a competitive national business environment. This paper contributes to research on CR, by providing new knowledge on the current CR discourse within the business community, and research on infomediaries, by introducing a distinction between watchdog-oriented and business-oriented infomediaries. (...) The findings show that the business infomediary promotes green practices and constructs a national business identity in terms of environmental business when responsible practices are voluntary. We argue that as business-oriented infomediaries shape the meaning of CR according to their own interests, signifiers that refer to the positive contributions of business become preferred in the articles. (shrink)