With the rapid development of biotechnology, the physician is now more able to keep a patient's life going indefinitely on a life support system. The question of whether we should switch off the machine often arises when, according to the medical prognosis, there is no hope of recovery, or in a no-win situation where you are 'damned if you do and damned if you don't'. In a case which seems without hope, the dilemma of whether to prolong a life or (...) let it go disturbs many people, including health professionals as well as the family of the patient. In this painful situation, an ethics consultant who has received intensive training can help the concerned parties to arrive at what may be the best decision. How do Asians, especially those living in countries influenced by Confucian teachings, reach their answers? Three aspects are usually considered: (1) motivation and situation; (2) reasonableness and propriety; and (3) lawfulness and legality. More specifically, three questions are deliberated, as follows. (1) Where an action has already been taken, what motivated it and in what situation? Or, where a decision has still to be made, what should motivate it, and what are the relevant features of the situation? (2) Was the attempted resolution of the dilemma, or is its prospective resolution, reasonable and in accordance with traditional principles of ethical behaviour? (3) Was the action taken lawful, or would the intended action be lawful? This approach to finding an answer has been practised for centuries in Confucian society. But what is legal may not always be reasonable, what is reasonable may not always be compassionate, and what is compassionate may not always be either legal or reasonable. Principles to guide decision-making are therefore called for. This article, written by Michael Cheng-tek Tai in collaboration with Donald Hill, discusses the Confucian method of solving a problem and examines its principal features and how they are applied in ethics consultations. The article is followed by a series of questions and answers and a commentary by Donald Hill. (shrink)

First published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In this article, it is claimed that it is not possible to find a modern capitalist order in Ancient Greece. This claim is supported by the economic activities and historical findings of the ancient period and it is also shaped by reference to the 'primitivist-modernist debate'. In this context, firstly, Mosses I. Finley's primitivist views that claim capitalism cannot be possible in ancient Greece will be explained by taking into consideration the accounting system, commercial activity, social status, labor usages, and (...) land treatments. Secondly, the article will analyze Michael I. Rostovtzeff’s objection to primitivist ideas, and reveal his thoughts by supporting modernist ideas on the existence of capitalism in ancient Greek. Based on these analyses, it is concluded that it is unreasonable to talk about the existence of capitalism in ancient Greece. (shrink)

After briefly outlining the fine-tuning argument (FTA), I explain how it relies crucially on the claim that it is not improbable that God would design a fine-tuned universe. Against this premise stands the divine psychology objection: the contention that the probability that God would design a fine-tuned universe is inscrutable. I explore three strategies for meeting this objection: (i) denying that the FTA requires any claims about divine psychology in the first place, (ii) defining the motivation and intention to design (...) a fine-tuned universe into the theistic hypothesis, and (iii) providing arguments that the relevant probability is not terribly low. While I reject the first two, I conclude, in line with the third, that considerations about life's objective value establish that it is not absurdly improbable that God would design a fine-tuned universe, whether one regards the FTA as an inference merely to a cosmic designer, or to theism proper. Accordingly, the divine psychology objection fails. (shrink)

Conditionalists say that the value something has as an end—its final value—may be conditional on its extrinsic features. They support this claim by appealing to examples: Kagan points to Abraham Lincoln’s pen, Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen to Lady Diana’s dress, and Korsgaard to a mink coat. They contend that these things may have final value in virtue of their historical or societal roles. These three examples have become familiar: many now merely mention them to establish the conditionalist position. But the widespread (...) faith in such cases is, I believe, unjustified. This is because, surprisingly, the pen, the dress, and the coat cannot have final value. I argue that the problem is internal: these cases are ruled out by every conditionalist account of final value. Further, the problem with these well-known cases applies to most other supposed examples of extrinsic, final goods. Thus nearly all cases given to support the conditionalist view cannot succeed. I suggest a kind of diagnosis: I claim that these examples are best seen as instances of sentimental value, rather than final value. I close by providing a brief account of sentimental value and explain how it relates to instrumental, intrinsic, and final goodness. (shrink)

This paper presents a preliminary analysis of homeopathy from the perspective of the demarcation problem in the philosophy of science. In this context, Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend’s solution to the problem will be given respectively and their criteria will be applied to homeopathy, aiming to shed some light on the controversy over its scientific status. It then examines homeopathy under the lens of demarcation criteria to conclude that homeopathy is regarded as science by Feyerabend and is considered as pseudoscience by (...) Popper and Kuhn. By offering adequate tools for the analysis of the foundations, structure and implications of homeopathy, demarcation issue can help to clarify this medical controversy. The main argument of this article is that a final decision on homeopathy, whose scientific status changes depending on the criteria of the philosophers mentioned, cannot be given. (shrink)

Now in a new edition, this volume updates Davidson's exceptional Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (1984), which set out his enormously influential philosophy of language. The original volume remains a central point of reference, and a focus of controversy, with its impact extending into linguistic theory, philosophy of mind, and epistemology. Addressing a central question--what it is for words to mean what they do--and featuring a previously uncollected, additional essay, this work will appeal to a wide audience of philosophers, linguists, (...) and psychologists. (shrink)

Dusky groupers (Epinephelus marginatus) are characterized by a complex sex allocation strategies and overexploitation of bigger individuals. We developed an individual based model to investigate the long-term effects of density dependence on grouper population dynamics and to analyze the variabilities of extinction probabilities as a result of interacting mortalities at different life stages. We conduct several simulations with different forms of sex allocation functions and different combinations of mortality rates. The model was parametrized using data on dusky grouper populations from (...) the literature. The most important insights produced by this simulation study are that density dependence of sex allocation is an evolutionarily stable strategy, increases the population biomass, mitigates the effect of the removal of large male and indicates a need for protection of females and flexible stages. (shrink)

Bilime ve bilimsel bilgiye yönelik yaygın görüş, bilimin objektif bir faaliyet olduğudur. Bu görüş bilimsel bilginin elde edilmesinde, bilim insanlarının nesnel bir tavır sergilediğini ve onların sosyal faktörlerden etkilenmediğini varsaymaktadır. Yirminci yüzyılın ikinci çeyreğinde, Viyana Çevresi ve Karl Popper'ın düşünceleri ile bilimde sosyolojik ve psikolojik unsurların keşif bağlamı içerisinde görülebileceği, bilimsel kuramların ve araştırmaların gerekçelendirilmesine yönelik girişimlerin ise yalnızca nesnel, epistemik çalışmalardan oluştuğu ileri sürülmektedir. Keşif bağlamı ve gerekçelendirme bağlamı adı altında yapılan bu ayrıma ilişkin iddialar, Thomas Kuhn'un 1962 yılında (...) yayımlanmış olan 'Bilimsel Devrimlerin Yapısı' adlı kitabında vurguladığı argümanlar ile sekteye uğramaktadır. Kuhn, sosyal ve psikolojik etkenlerin her iki bağlamda da yer aldığını ifade etmekte ve bu sebeple keşif ve gerekçelendirme ayrımına karşı çıkmaktadır. Bu çerçevede makalede, Kuhn'un ulaşmış olduğu sonuçlar Güçlü Program'ın öne sürmüş olduğu argümanlar çerçevesinde desteklenerek ortaya konulmaktadır. -/- ABSTRACT That science is an objective activity is the common view towards science and scientific knowledge. This view assumes that scientists have an objective attitude isolated from social factors in the process of obtaining scientific knowledge. In the second quarter of the twentieth century, the Vienna Circle and Popper argued that sociological and psychological elements can be seen in the context of discovery and that attempts to justify scientific theories and research are merely objective, epistemic studies. The claims regarding this distinction made under the context of discovery and the context of justification are interrupted by the arguments emphasized by Kuhn in his "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" published in 1962. Kuhn opposes the distinction between discovery and justification by stating that social and psychological factors are present in both contexts. In this respect, Kuhn's conclusions are supported by the arguments put forward by the Strong Programme. (shrink)

In this paper we take a close look at current interdisciplinary modeling practices in the environmental sciences, and suggest that closer attention needs to be paid to the nature of scientific practices when investigating and planning interdisciplinarity. While interdisciplinarity is often portrayed as a medium of novel and transformative methodological work, current modeling strategies in the environmental sciences are conservative, avoiding methodological conflict, while confining interdisciplinary interactions to a relatively small set of pre-existing modeling frameworks and strategies (a process we (...) call crystallization). We argue that such practices can be rationalized as responses in part to cognitive constraints which restrict interdisciplinary work. We identify four salient integrative modeling strategies in environmental sciences, and argue that this crystallization, while contradicting somewhat the novel goals many have for interdisciplinarity, makes sense when considered in the light of common disciplinary practices and cognitive constraints. These results provide cause to rethink in more concrete methodological terms what interdisciplinarity amounts to, and what kinds of interdisciplinarity are obtainable in the environmental sciences and elsewhere. (shrink)

The importation of computational methods into biology is generating novel methodological strategies for managing complexity which philosophers are only just starting to explore and elaborate. This paper aims to enrich our understanding of methodology in integrative systems biology, which is developing novel epistemic and cognitive strategies for managing complex problem-solving tasks. We illustrate this through developing a case study of a bimodal researcher from our ethnographic investigation of two systems biology research labs. The researcher constructed models of metabolic and cell-signaling (...) pathways by conducting her own wet-lab experimentation while building simulation models. We show how this coupling of experiment and simulation enabled her to build and validate her models and also triangulate and localize errors and uncertainties in them. This method can be contrasted with the unimodal modeling strategy in systems biology which relies more on mathematical or algorithmic methods to reduce complexity. We discuss the relative affordances and limitations of these strategies, which represent distinct opinions in the field about how to handle the investigation of complex biological systems. (shrink)

Research on interdisciplinary science has for the most part concentrated on the institutional obstacles that discourage or hamper interdisciplinary work, with the expectation that interdisciplinary interaction can be improved through institutional reform strategies such as through reform of peer review systems. However institutional obstacles are not the only ones that confront interdisciplinary work. The design of policy strategies would benefit from more detailed investigation into the particular cognitive constraints, including the methodological and conceptual barriers, which also confront attempts to work (...) across disciplinary boundaries. Lessons from cognitive science and anthropological studies of labs in sociology of science suggest that scientific practices may be very domain specific, where domain specificity is an essential aspect of science that enables researchers to solve complex problems in a cognitively manageable way. The limit or extent of domain specificity in scientific practice, and how it constrains interdisciplinary research, is not yet fully understood, which attests to an important role for philosophers of science in the study of interdisciplinary science. This paper draws upon two cases of interdisciplinary collaboration; those between ecologists and economists, and those between molecular biologists and systems biologists, to illustrate some of the cognitive barriers which have contributed to failures and difficulties of interactions between these fields. Each exemplify some aspect of domain specificity in scientific practice and show how such specificity may constrain interdisciplinary work. (shrink)

Bu makalede Milet Okulu Filozofları ve ilk materyalistler olarak anılan Thales, Anaksimandros ve Anaksimenes’in ontolojileriyle ilişkili olarak arkhe arayışı içerisinde tanrıyla ilgili görüşlerine yer verilecektir. Bazı düşünürler tarafından tanrı tanımaz olarak nitelendirilen Miletli filozofların evrenin ilk maddesi nedir sorusuna vermiş oldukları yanıtların aslında o dönemki Antik Yunan din anlayışıyla bazı önemli noktalarda bağdaştığı gösterilecektir. Makalenin sonunda bu düşünürlerin kendilerine ait bir teoloji ve tanrı düşüncesine sahip oldukları sonucuna varılacaktır. -/- In this article, ideas of the Milesian philosophers; Thales, Anaximandros and (...) Anaximes known as the first materialists will be included in this article with regards to their search for arkhe in relation to their search for god. It will also be shown that the answer to the question of arkhe by the Milesian philosophers who were accepted as atheist philosophers by some thinkers, is compatible with the Ancient Greece’s understanding of religion at some important aspects. At the end of the article, it will be concluded that these scholars have their own idea with regards to theology and god. (shrink)

In this article, we provide a case study examining how integrative systems biologists build simulation models in the absence of a theoretical base. Lacking theoretical starting points, integrative systems biology researchers rely cognitively on the model-building process to disentangle and understand complex biochemical systems. They build simulations from the ground up in a nest-like fashion, by pulling together information and techniques from a variety of possible sources and experimenting with different structures in order to discover a stable, robust result. Finally, (...) we analyze the alternative role and meaning theory has in systems biology expressed as canonical template theories like Biochemical Systems Theory. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: Essay 1.

British writers of the eighteenth century such as Shaftesbury and Hutcheson are widely thought to have used the notion of disinterestedness to distinguish an aesthetic mode of perception from all other kinds. This historical view originates in the work of Jerome Stolnitz. Through a re-examination of the texts cited by Stolnitz, I argue that none of the writers in question possessed the notion of disinterestedness that has been used in later aesthetic theory, but only the ordinary, non-technical concept, and that (...) they did not use this notion to define a specifically aesthetic mode of perception or a specifically aesthetic mode of anything else. The nearest thing that they had to the Stolnitzian conception of “the aesthetic” was their conception of taste, which differs from the former in some essential respects. (shrink)

It is a standing temptation for philosophers to find anticipations of their own views in the great thinkers of the past, but few have been so bold in the search for precursors, and so utterly mistaken, as Berkeley when he claimed Plato and Aristotle as allies to his immaterialist idealism. InSiris: A Chain of Philosophical Reflexions and Inquiries Concerning the Virtues of Tar-Water, which Berkeley published in his old age in 1744, he reviews the leading philosophies of antiquity and finds (...) them on the whole a good deal more sympathetic to his own ideas than the ‘modern atheism’, as he calls it, of Hobbes and Spinoza or the objectionable principles of ‘the mechanic and geometrical philosophers’ such as Newton. But his strongest and, I think, his most interesting claim is that neither Plato nor Aristotle admitted ‘an absolute actual existence of sensible or corporeal things’. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the topic of skepticism is central to Hegel’s philosophical work. However, I contend that in returning to the subject of skepticism throughout his career, Hegel does not treat skepticism simply as an epistemological challenge to be overcome on the way to truth, as some commentators suggest, but as part of the very truth which it is philosophy’s task to explain. I make this case by considering three texts through which Hegel develops the connection between (...) skepticism and the ‘negative’ or ‘dialectical’ dimension of reality: “Relationship of Skepticism to Philosophy” (1802), the Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), and the Encyclopedia Logic (1817). In this, I also demonstrate how the topic of skepticism informs the development of Hegel’s speculative metaphysics throughout his career and, thus, present a problematic that sheds light on the important continuity between these different phases of Hegel’s project. (shrink)

Mooreans claim that intrinsic goodness is a conceptual primitive. Fitting-attitude theorists object: they say that goodness should be defined in terms of what it is fitting for us to value. The Moorean view is often considered a relic; the fitting-attitude view is increasingly popular. I think this unfortunate. Though the fitting-attitude analysis is powerful, the Moorean view is still attractive. I dedicate myself to the influential arguments marshaled against Moore’s program, including those advanced by Scanlon, Stratton-Lake and Hooker, and Jacobson; (...) I argue that they do not succeed. (shrink)

Modern integrative systems biology defines itself by the complexity of the problems it takes on through computational modeling and simulation. However in integrative systems biology computers do not solve problems alone. Problem solving depends as ever on human cognitive resources. Current philosophical accounts hint at their importance, but it remains to be understood what roles human cognition plays in computational modeling. In this paper we focus on practices through which modelers in systems biology use computational simulation and other tools to (...) handle the cognitive complexity of their modeling problems so as to be able to make significant contributions to understanding, intervening in, and controlling complex biological systems. We thus show how cognition, especially processes of simulative mental modeling, is implicated centrally in processes of model-building. At the same time we suggest how the representational choices of what to model in systems biology are limited or constrained as a result. Such constraints help us both understand and rationalize the restricted form that problem solving takes in the field and why its results do not always measure up to expectations. (shrink)

Narrative analysis is well established as a means of examining the subjective experience of those who suffer chronic illness and cancer. In a study of perceptions of the outcomes of treatment of cancer of the colon, we have been struck by the consistency with which patients record three particular observations of their subjective experience: the immediate impact of the cancer diagnosis and a persisting identification as a cancer patient, regardless of the time since treatment and of the presence or absence (...) of persistent or recurrent disease; a state of variable alienation from social familiars, expressed as an inability to communicate the nature of the experience of the illness, its diagnosis and treatment; and a persistent sense of boundedness, an awareness of limits to space, empowerment and available time. These subjectivities were experienced in varying degree by all patients in our study. Individual responses to these experiences were complex and variable. The experiences are best understood under the rubric of a category we call “liminality”. We believe that all cancer patients enter and experience liminality as a process which begins with the first manifestations of their malignancy. An initial acute phase of liminality is marked by disorientation, a sense of loss and of loss of control, and a sense of uncertainty. An adaptive, enduring phase of suspended liminality supervenes, in which each patient constructs and reconstructs meaning for their experience by means of narrative. This phase persists, probably for the rest of the cancer patient’s life. The experience of liminality is firmly grounded in the changing and experiencing body that houses both the disease and the self. Insights into the nature of the experience can be gained from the Existentialist philosophers and from the history of attitudes to death. Understanding liminality helps us to understand what it is that patients with cancer seek from the system to which they turn for help. Its explication should therefore be important for those who provide health care, those who educate health care workers and those concerned to study and use outcomes as administrative and policy making instruments. (shrink)

High-dose chemotherapy and autologous stem cell transplantation is used to treat some advanced malignancies. It is a traumatic procedure, with a high complication rate and significant mortality. ASCT patients and their carers draw on many sources of information as they seek to understand the procedure and its consequences. Some seek information from beyond orthodox medicine. Alternative beliefs and practices may conflict with conventional understanding of the theory and practice of ASCT, and ‘contested understandings’ might interfere with patient adherence to the (...) strict and demanding protocols required for successful ASCT.The present study, conducted in Sydney, Australia, examines narrative-style interviews with 10 sequentially recruited ASCT patients and nine of their carers conducted at the time of transplant and three months later. Transcripts were read for instances of mention of alternative advice, and for instances of contested understanding of information relevant to the transplant.Patients and carer pairs expressed closely concordant views about alternative advice. Five pairs were consulting alternative practitioners. Contested understanding was expressed in four domains—understandings of the transplant itself and its underlying theory, of the relationship between the components of the ‘transplant’, of the nature and role of stem cells, and of beliefs about bodily function and life-style. Contested understandings of the transplant treatment were expressed as predominantly personal interpretations of orthodox informationPatients and carers seemed to recognise that alternative and conventional systems were discordant, yet they were able to separate the two, and adhere to each practice without prejudicing their medical treatment. A single case of late, post-transplant repudiation of Western medicine is discussed to emphasise some of the possible determinants of dissonance when it does occur. (shrink)

I present and evaluate three interpretations of methodological naturalism (MN), the principle that scientific explanations may only appeal to natural phenomena: as an essential feature of science, as a provisional guideline grounded in the historical failure of supernatural hypotheses, and as a synthesis of these two approaches. In doing so, I provide both a synoptic overview of current scholarship on MN, as well a contribution to that discussion by arguing in favor of a restricted version of MN, placing it on (...) a firmer theoretical foundation than that supplied by previous studies, and replying to recent objections. (shrink)

Integrative systems biology is an emerging field that attempts to integrate computation, applied mathematics, engineering concepts and methods, and biological experimentation in order to model large-scale complex biochemical networks. The field is thus an important contemporary instance of an interdisciplinary approach to solving complex problems. Interdisciplinary science is a recent topic in the philosophy of science. Determining what is philosophically important and distinct about interdisciplinary practices requires detailed accounts of problem-solving practices that attempt to understand how specific practices address the (...) challenges and constraints of interdisciplinary research in different contexts. In this paper we draw from our 5-year empirical ethnographic study of two systems biology labs and their collaborations with experimental biologists to analyze a significant problem-solving approach in ISB, which we call adaptive problem solving. ISB lacks much of the methodological and theoretical resources usually found in disciplines in the natural sciences, such as methodological frameworks that prescribe reliable model-building processes. Researchers in our labs compensate for the lack of these and for the complexity of their problems by using a range of heuristics and experimenting with multiple methods and concepts from the background fields available to them. Using these resources researchers search out good techniques and practices for transforming intractable problems into potentially solvable ones. The relative freedom lab directors grant their researchers to explore methodological options and find good practices that suit their problems is not only a response to the complex interdisciplinary nature of the specific problem, but also provides the field itself with an opportunity to discover more general methodological approaches and develop theories of biological systems. Such developments in turn can help to establish the field as an identifiably distinct and successful approach to understanding biological systems. (shrink)

There is more than one way to say that composition is identity. Yi has distinguished the Weak Composition thesis from the Strong Composition thesis and attributed the former to David Lewis while noting that Lewis associates something like the latter with me. Weak Composition is the thesis that the relation between the parts collectively and their whole is closely analogous to identity. Strong Composition is the thesis that the relation between the parts collectively and their whole is identity. Yi is (...) right that Strong Composition does not fully reflect my view. We must recognize further what, borrowing Lewis's characterization, could be called the "stronger, and stranger" Composition thesis, or what I'll call the Stronger Composition thesis for short. On Strong Composition, it is only collectively that the parts are identical with the whole. On Stronger Composition, they are individually identical with it as well. I will explain and motivate this thesis. (shrink)

David Hume is famous as a sceptical philosopher but the nature of his scepticism is difficult to pin down. Hume's True Scepticism provides the first sustained interpretation of Part 4 of Book 1 of Hume's Treatise: his deepest engagement with sceptical arguments, in which he notes that, while reason shows that we ought not to believe the verdicts of reason or the senses, we do so nonetheless. Donald C. Ainslie addresses Hume's theory of representation; his criticisms of Locke, Descartes, (...) and other predecessors; his account of the imagination; his understanding of perceptions and sensory belief; and his bundle theory of the mind and his later rejection of it. (shrink)

Kant’s argument in § 38 of the *Critique of Judgment* is subject to a dilemma: if the subjective condition of cognition is the sufficient condition of the pleasure of taste, then every object of experience must produce that pleasure; if not, then the universal communicability of cognition does not entail the universal communicability of the pleasure. Kant’s use of an additional premise in § 21 may get him out of this difficulty, but the premises themselves hang in the air and (...) have no independent plausibility. What Kant offers as a proof of our right to make judgments of taste is more charitably construed as an indirect argument for the adequacy of a speculative explanation of a *presumed* right to make judgments of taste. (shrink)

Discourse communities are groups of people who share common ideologies, and common ways of speaking about things. They can be sharply or loosely defined. We are each members of multiple discourse communities. Discourse can colonize the members of discourse communities, taking over domains of thought by means of ideology. The development of new discourse communities can serve positive ends, but discourse communities create risks as well. In our own work on the narratives of people with interests in health care, for (...) example, we find that patients speak of their illness experiences as victims of circumstance; policy makers construct adverse experiences and challenges as opportunities to be taken; health care workers speak from a mixed perspective, seeing themselves as both victims and opportunists depending on context. To be trapped within the discourse of a particular community is to put at risk the ability to communicate across discourses. Membership of a discourse community can impair the habit of critique, and deny opportunities for heteroglossic discourse. Privileging critique as a mode of discourse perhaps might define the ethical community, suggesting that ethical community may be an antidote to the constraining effects of conventional discourse community. (shrink)

As our interactions with nature occur increasingly within urban landscapes, there is a need to consider how 'mundane nature' can be valued as a route for people to connect to nature. The content of a three good things in nature intervention, written by 65 participants each day for five days is analysed. Content analysis produced themes related to sensations, temporal change, active wildlife, beauty, weather, colour, good feelings and specific aspects of nature. The themes describe the everyday good things in (...) nature, providing direction for those seeking to frame engaging conservation messages, plan urban spaces and connect people with nearby nature. (shrink)