The anthology Unpacking Normativity, edited by Kenneth Einar Himma, Miodrag Jovanović, and Bojan Spaić, follows the international conference ‘Legal Normativity and Language’ which took place at the...

Journal of the History of Biology provides a fifty-year long record for examining the evolution of the history of biology as a scholarly discipline. In this paper, we present a new dataset and preliminary quantitative analysis of the thematic content of JHB from the perspectives of geography, organisms, and thematic fields. The geographic diversity of authors whose work appears in JHB has increased steadily since 1968, but the geographic coverage of the content of JHB articles remains strongly lopsided toward the (...) United States, United Kingdom, and western Europe and has diversified much less dramatically over time. The taxonomic diversity of organisms discussed in JHB increased steadily between 1968 and the late 1990s but declined in later years, mirroring broader patterns of diversification previously reported in the biomedical research literature. Finally, we used a combination of topic modeling and nonlinear dimensionality reduction techniques to develop a model of multi-article fields within JHB. We found evidence for directional changes in the representation of fields on multiple scales. The diversity of JHB with regard to the representation of thematic fields has increased overall, with most of that diversification occurring in recent years. Drawing on the dataset generated in the course of this analysis, as well as web services in the emerging digital history and philosophy of science ecosystem, we have developed an interactive web platform for exploring the content of JHB, and we provide a brief overview of the platform in this article. As a whole, the data and analyses presented here provide a starting-place for further critical reflection on the evolution of the history of biology over the past half-century. (shrink)

This paper traces the background to R. A. Fisher's multi-factorial theory of inheritance. It is argued that the traditional account is incomplete, and that Karl Pearson's well-known pre-Fisherian objections to the theory were in fact overcome by Pearson himself. It is further argued that Pearson's stated reasons for not accepting his own achievement has to be seen as a rationalization, standing in for deeper-seated metaphysical objections to the Mendelian paradigm of a type not readily discussed in a formal scientific paper. (...) The apparent, post-Fisherian, continued acceptance of Pearson's objections is presented as an interesting problem for the historian and sociologist. (shrink)

Bridging the gap between the world of science and the realm of the spiritual, B. Alan Wallace introduces a natural theory of human consciousness that has its roots in contemporary physics and Buddhism. Wallace's "special theory of ontological relativity" suggests that mental phenomena are _conditioned_ by the brain, but do not _emerge_ from it. Rather, the entire natural world of mind and matter, subjects and objects, arises from a unitary dimension of reality that is more fundamental than these dualities, as (...) proposed by Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung. To test his hypothesis, Wallace employs the Buddhist meditative practice of _samatha_, refining one's attention and metacognition, to create a kind of telescope to examine the space of the mind. Drawing on the work of the physicist John Wheeler, he then proposes a more general theory in which the participatory nature of reality is envisioned as a self-excited circuit. In comparing these ideas to the Buddhist theory known as the Middle Way philosophy, Wallace explores further aspects of his "general theory of ontological relativity," which can be investigated by means of _vipasyana_, or insight, meditation. Wallace then focuses on the theme of symmetry in reference to quantum cosmology and the "problem of frozen time," relating these issues to the theory and practices of the Great Perfection school of Tibetan Buddhism. He concludes with a discussion of the general theme of complementarity as it relates to science and religion. The theories of relativity and quantum mechanics were major achievements in the physical sciences, and the theory of evolution has had an equally deep impact on the life sciences. However, rigorous scientific methods do not yet exist to observe mental phenomena, and naturalism has its limits for shedding light on the workings of the mind. A pioneer of modern consciousness research, Wallace offers a practical and revolutionary method for exploring the mind that combines the keenest insights of contemporary physicists and philosophers with the time-honored meditative traditions of Buddhism. (shrink)

In the paper I offer a brief sketch of one of the sources of utilitarianism. Our biological ancestry is a matter of fact that is not altered by the way we describe ourselves. With philosophical theories it is otherwise. Utilitarianism can be described in ways that make it look as if it is as old as moral philosophy – as J. S. Mill thought it was. For my historical purposes, it is more useful to have an account that brings out (...) what is specific about Benthamism and its descendants. Let us try to make do with the following. First, utilitarianism asserts that the fundamental requirement of morality is that we are to maximize good, for everyone and not just for the agent. This basic principle presupposes that it makes sense to think of aggregating goods to make a total, and of comparing amounts of good thus aggregated. Second, the good to be brought about is located in feelings of pleasure, and the evil to be avoided in feelings of pain. These feelings have inherent value or disvalue regardless of how they are caused to exist and regardless of their own consequences. Third, all moral principles can be derived from the requirement that good be maximized. The principles involved in evaluating agents as well as in giving moral direction to action are nothing but applications of the basic principle. (shrink)

[opening paragraph]: Our sense of free will depends upon a balance between reliability and flexibility in relation to cause-and-effect. Without the former, all outcomes would be arbitrary; without the latter, all outcomes would be predetermined. In neither case would there be any way of putting one's will into effect. So much is clear, yet establishing that precarious balance has proved so difficult that Kant himself declared ‘freedom of the will’ to be one of only three metaphysical problems which lie beyond (...) the powers of the human intellect . Western debate on this topic reflects a complex ethical and religious inheritance. Insights from Greek philosophy and Hebrew scripture were combined and filtered through Christian and Jewish traditions which developed in late antiquity and through the middle ages. These formed the context for the Enlightenment, whose dominant thinkers in turn provide the backdrop against which today's scholars act and react. (shrink)

Business theory and management practices are outgrowths of basic economic principles. To evaluate the proper place of ethics in business, the meaning of ethics as defined by economic theory must be assessed. This paper contends that classical economic thought advocates a nonethical decision-making context and is not functional for a modern complex, interdependent environment.

Char et al. describe an interesting and useful approach in their paper, “Identifying ethical considerations for machine learning healthcare applications.” Their proposed framework, which see...

Denne artikkelen tar utgangspunkt i et skille mellom samfunnsstrukturer som avgrenser legers skjønnsmessige utfoldelse på den ene siden, og profesjonens tilrettelegging for kultiveringen av erkjennelsesmessige ferdigheter på den annen. Ved å videreføre H. Grimen og A. Molanders anvendelse av S.E. Toulmins modell for praktisk resonnering i en klinisk kontekst redegjør jeg for legeskjønnets multidimensjonale, epistemiske struktur. Gjennomgangen viser hvordan skjønnsanvendelse i legerollen kan analyseres i henhold til en fagteknisk, en distributiv og en relasjonell dimensjon. Mot denne bakgrunnen diskuterer jeg så (...) spenninger som oppstår i skjæringspunktet mellom strukturering og kultivering av skjønnets ulike dimensjoner. Diskusjonen tydeliggjør at den medisinske profesjonen ikke kan betraktes som en selvtilstrekkelig premissleverandør når det gjelder å sikre adekvat kultivering av medlemmenes skjønnsutøvelse i en klinisk kontekst. Ved å synliggjøre og vektlegge de relevante profesjonseksterne bidragene i profesjonens pågående selvregulering kan befolkningens berettigete tillit til profesjonen styrkes ytterligere.Nøkkelord: strukturelt skjønn, epistemisk skjønn, profesjon, selvregulering, tillitEnglish summary: In Between Structures of Society and Profession: On Delimitation, Cultivation and Premises for Adequately Exercising Judgment in the Role as PhysicianThe point of departure of this article is a distinction between societal structures that delimit the discretion of the physician on the one hand and the profession's arrangements for the cultivation of the physician's judgment on the other. By developing H. Grimen and A. Molander's application of S.E. Toulmin's model for practical reasoning in a clinical context, the multi-dimensional epistemic structure of the physician's judgment in terms of technical, distributive, and relational judgment is accounted for. Against this backdrop, tensions emerging in the intersection between delimitation and cultivation of professional judgment in its various dimensions are discussed. The discussion clarifies that the medical profession is not a self-sufficient provider when it comes to ensuring an adequate cultivation of its members' judgment in a clinical context. It is argued that by emphasising and implementing the relevant external contributions to the profession's ongoing self-regulation, the public's justified trust in the medical profession can be strengthened. (shrink)

Modern science developed in the interflow of culture between west and east. Combing of pratice technology with philosophic thoughts formed experimental method. Holistic views contacting atomism produced system theory. System thoughts are applicated in the science and engineering of biosystems, and the cencepts of system biomedicine (Kamada T.1992), systems biology (Zieglgansberger W, Tolle TR.1993), system bioengineering and system genetics (Zeng BJ. 1994) were established. From positive to synthetic thoughts, philosophy have been developed ontology, cosmology, organism theories. Structurity is structure logic (...) system founded on entity, develop, exist axioms, tolerance, adaptation, fluctuate, interweave, transform theorems and integrate, adaptation, construct laws. Structurity be discussed on the cosmos, life, culture system, creation, hologram theories of structure ontology, construct mutation, simi-structure organism and entity emergence, symbol implication. From the relation of structure, function and development, the structurity put forward the cycle, spiral, triangle structure stability patterns of self-organization in structure complement each other and stratification, functional couple and interflow bounds growth, coordinativetransformation and holographic symmetry. (shrink)

Addictive behaviour has qualities that make it ideal for study using implicit techniques. Addictive behaviours are mediated in part by automatic responses to drug cues, and there is sometimes social pressure to distort self-reports. However, relationships between implicit attitudes and addictive behaviours have been inconsistent. Using a new implicit measure, the affect misattribution procedure (AMP), we found consistent evidence that drinking-related behaviours are systematically related to implicit attitudes. The procedure predicted a behavioural choice to drink beer and self-reported typical drinking (...) tendencies, including hazardous drinking and alcohol-related problems. The AMP showed larger relationships with drinking behaviour than other implicit measures, and explained unique variance in drinking beyond those measures and beyond explicit measures. Though self-presentation distorted self-reports, it did not affect AMP scores. These studies highlight the importance of automatic affective responses in addictive behaviour and suggest a useful means for measuring those responses. (shrink)

In a spirit of critical appreciation, this essay challenges several core aspects of the critique of secular morality and the defense of Orthodox Christianity offered by H. Tristram Engelhardt in After God. First, I argue that his procedurally driven approach to a binding morality based solely on a principle of permission leaves morality without any substantive definition in general terms, in ways that are both conceptually problematic and also at odds with Engelhardt’s long-standing distinction between non-malevolence and beneficence. Second, I (...) question the accuracy or adequacy of Engelhardt’s critique of the Enlightenment project for his unwarranted privileging of a particular version of Enlightenment thinking at the expense of other Enlightenment perspectives less amenable to Engelhardt’s working generalizations. Third, I challenge the theoretical cogency of Engelhardt’s insistence on the ubiquity and intractability of moral controversies and his depiction of moral strangers and moral friends as, in effect, mutually exclusive terms. Finally, I question Engelhardt’s embrace of a divine command model of ethics as the appropriate resolution of Euthyphro’s dilemma and suggest that there may be intermediate approaches to the usual starkly drawn contrasts between divine command and naturalist accounts. (shrink)

Nanay (2015; 2016) revives manner or attitude accounts of aesthetic experience. While manner-based accounts are promising, Nanay's claim that certain kinds of aesthetic experiences require attention to be focused on one object, but distributed across many properties of that object, that 'aesthetic attention' is necessary for 'Proustian experience', is false. Attention to objects of aesthetic experience frequently involves attention to intra-objects, objects that are proper perceptual parts of the attended objects.

Professor Kemp Smith in providing a new edition of Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion , embodying all the author’s additions and corrections, has given expression to the perennial interest and fascination which this work has possessed for many minds during the odd one hundred and fifty years since it was first published by Hume’s nephew. The editor himself has performed a great service by contributing an Introduction and a clear and concise summary of the Dialogues , in both of which (...) he expounds his own view as to how Hume’s discussion is to be interpreted. Hume employs three characters—Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes; and. (shrink)

This paper considers two of the most prominent kinds of evidence that have been used to argue that certain embedded questions receive weakly exhaustive interpretations. The first kind is exemplified by judgments of consistency for declarative sentences that attribute knowledge of a wh-question and ignorance of the negation of that question to the same person, and the second concerns asymmetries between the role of positive and negative information in validating question-embedding surprise ascriptions, and similar judgments for other attitudes. I argue (...) that neither type suffices to show weak exhaustivity. The first can be analyzed in terms of strong exhaustivity in combination with domain restriction effects, while the second can be analyzed in terms of a mention-some interpretation. These kinds of evidence have served as the empirical basis for many claims about weakly exhaustive readings, so the observation that they are unreliable calls into questions a large body of established work on the semantics of question embedding. (shrink)

Reading Kevin Hart’s creative hermeneutic of the ‘basileic’ reduction in his latest book, Kingdoms of God, naturally leads me to consider another eminent linguistic phenomenologist who continually occupies my thoughts. Although I have been reading Hart now for about 25 years, I have been reading Paul Ricoeur for a decade longer than that, and it is his theory of poetic discourse that my mind keeps tenaciously associating with Hart’s perspectives on parable. Granted, Hart never mentions Ricoeur in Kingdoms of God—unless (...) my careful reading is not so careful and I missed it! In Trespass of the Sign, however, he does note Ricoeur’s significance as a hermeneutical philosopher, specifically his emphasis on the distinction between the hermeneutics of faith and the hermeneutics of suspicion. Also, in an article on John Caputo’s postsecular philosophy of ‘religion without religion,’ Hart makes a brief comment on Ricoeur’s apparent Hegelianism with reference to a general theory of revelation as nonreligious and nontheistic. Still, nowhere that I know of does he extensively address Ricoeur’s fascinating discourse theory regarding metaphor, mimesis, narrative, and parable. If great minds think alike, then Hart and Ricoeur are, indeed, great minds, for, truly, Ricoeur’s reflections on parables and the Kingdom offer an intriguing gloss on Hart’s parabolic ‘basileiology.’ Translating Hart into Ricoeur, therefore, is, in my mind, an easy and profitable exercise that may well enhance the provocative character of Hart’s basileic reduction. Such a translation is the central purpose of this essay. (shrink)

There are numerous challenges posed to Roman Catholic health care institutions by recent developments in health care delivery. Some are practical, involving the acceptable limits of accommodation to and collaboration with secular networks of health care delivery. Others, quite often implicated in the first set, are explicitly theological. What does it mean to be a distinctively Roman Catholic health care institution? What are the nature and the scope of Roman Catholic institutional identity? More broadly, what is the moral relevance of (...) themes in Roman Catholic social teaching to the provision of health care? This issue of Christian Bioethics addresses these questions with a spirited exchange among its authors. They offer noticeably different perspectives on the general cogency of Roman Catholic social teaching and different strategic recommendations for Roman Catholic institutions to maintain, or recover, their distinctive presence in health care delivery. (shrink)

Instead, this book employs a philosophy oriented towards the relationship between self and other. The book gives a critical discussion of religion, the Enlightenment and Romanticism.