This paper aims to show that the thought of Aristotle can shed much light on the irksome problems that lurk around the philosophical foundations of neuroscience. First, we will explore the ramifications of Aristotle’s mereological principle, namely, that it is not the eye that sees, but the human person that sees by the eye. Next, we shall draw upon the riches of Maxwell Bennett’s and Peter Hacker’s Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience in order to elucidate how Aristotle’s mereological principle can (...) be of service to contemporary neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers. In the third and fourth parts we aim to complement the project of PFN by showing how Aristotle’s philosophical anthropology and doctrine of pros hen equivocation can strengthen PFN’s response to eliminativists, reductionists, and other critics of “folk psychology.” Finally, our last section will investigate the kinds of correlations involved in brain scanning techniques, such as fMRI, so as to determine whether the most recent empirical discoveries do in fact support various critics’ rejection of “folk psychology.” We will show that the empirical evidence does not in fact favor eliminativist or reductionist views, and that we would do well to turn to the more Aristotelian approaches to neuroscience adopted by PFN and ourselves. (shrink)

Mangroves and seagrasses form extensive and highly productive ecosystems that are both biologically diverse and economically valuable. This book, now in its third edition and fully updated throughout, continues to provide a current and comprehensive introduction to all aspects of the biology and ecology of mangroves and seagrasses. Using a global range of examples and case studies, it describes the unique adaptations of these plants to their exacting environments; the rich and diverse communities of organisms that depend on mangrove forests (...) and seagrass meadows ; the links between mangrove, seagrass, and other habitats; and the evolution, biodiversity, and biogeography of mangroves and seagrasses. The economic value of mangroves and seagrasses is also discussed, including approaches to rational management of these vital resources and techniques for the restoration of degraded habitats. A final chapter, new to this edition, examines the potential effects of global climate change including sea level rise.As with other titles in the Biology of Habitats Series, particular emphasis is placed on the organisms that dominate these fascinating aquatic ecosystems although pollution, conservation, and experimental aspects are also considered. This accessible textbook assumes no previous knowledge of mangrove or seagrass ecology and is intended for senior undergraduate and graduate students, as well as professional ecologists, conservation practitioners, and resource managers. (shrink)

In providing a good foundation for mathematics, set theorists often aim to develop the strongest theories possible and avoid those theories that place undue restrictions on the capacity to possess strength. For example, adding a measurable cardinal to $ZFC$ is thought to give a stronger theory than adding $V=L$ and the latter is thought to be more restrictive than the former. The two main proponents of this style of account are Penelope Maddy and John Steel. In this paper, I’ll offer (...) a third account that is intended to provide a simple analysis of restrictiveness based on the algebraic concept of retraction in the category of theories. I will also deliver some results and arguments that suggest some plausible alternative approaches to analyzing restrictiveness do not live up to their intuitive motivation. (shrink)

This is a personal development book that teaches a powerful tool for self-inquiry embodied through a practice of yoga. This book solves the problem of feeling stuck, lost, or confused. The solution is a powerful inner navigation technique that will help readers find their way.

How does sign language compare with gesture, on the one hand, and spoken language on the other? Sign was once viewed as nothing more than a system of pictorial gestures without linguistic structure. More recently, researchers have argued that sign is no different from spoken language, with all of the same linguistic structures. The pendulum is currently swinging back toward the view that sign is gestural, or at least has gestural components. The goal of this review is to elucidate the (...) relationships among sign language, gesture, and spoken language. We do so by taking a close look not only at how sign has been studied over the past 50 years, but also at how the spontaneous gestures that accompany speech have been studied. We conclude that signers gesture just as speakers do. Both produce imagistic gestures along with more categorical signs or words. Because at present it is difficult to tell where sign stops and gesture begins, we suggest that sign should not be compared with speech alone but should be compared with speech-plus-gesture. Although it might be easier to blur the distinction between sign and gesture, we argue that distinguishing between sign and gesture is essential to predict certain types of learning and allows us to understand the conditions under which gesture takes on properties of sign, and speech takes on properties of gesture. We end by calling for new technology that may help us better calibrate the borders between sign and gesture. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs Steel’s multiverse project in his ‘Gödel’s program’ (Steel [2014]), first by comparing it to those of Hamkins [2012] and Woodin [2011], then by detailed analysis what’s presented in Steel’s brief text. In particular, we reconstruct his notion of a ‘natural’ theory, describe his multiverse axioms and his translation function, and assess the resulting status of the Continuum Hypothesis. In the end, we reconceptualize the defect that Steel thinks CH might suffer from and isolate what it would take (...) to remove it while working within his framework. As our goal is to present as coherent and compelling a philosophical and mathematical story as we can, we allow ourselves to augment Steel’s story in places (e.g., in the treatment of Amalgamation) and to depart from it in others (e.g., the removal of ‘meaning’ from the account). The relevant mathematics is laid out in the appendices. (shrink)

As I write this, in November 1971, people are dying in East Bengal from lack of food, shelter, and medical caxc. The suffering and death that are occurring there now axe not inevitable, 1101; unavoidable in any fatalistic sense of the term. Constant poverty, a cyclone, and a civil war have turned at least nine million people into destitute refugees; nevertheless, it is not beyond Lhe capacity of the richer nations to give enough assistance to reduce any further suffering to (...) very small proportions. The decisions arid actions of human beings can prevent this kind of suffering. Unfortunately, human beings have not made the necessary decisions. At the individual level, people have, with very few exceptions, not responded to the situation in any signihczmt way. Generally speaking, people have not given large sums to relief funds; they have not written t0 their parliamentaxy representatives demanding increased government assistance; they have not demonstrated in the streets, held symbolic fasts, or done anything else directed toward providing thc refugees with the means to satisfy their essential needs. At thc government level, no govcrmmcnt has given the sort of massive aid that would enable the refugees to survive fm: more than a few days. Britain, for instance, has given rather more than most countries. It has, to date, given £14,750,000. For comparative purposes, B1~itain’s share of thc nonreccverabla development costs of the Anglo-French Concorde project is already in excess of £275,000,000, and on present estimates will reach £440,000,¤00. The implication is that the British government values a supersonic transport more than thirty times as.. (shrink)

True stories about people who triumphed over seemingly impossible medical diagnoses using untraditional, inventive therapies and perseverance--and about what scientists are discovering on the psychology of healing and the mind-body connection--from the author of theNew York TimesMagazinearticle about her own son, "The Boy with the Thorn in his Joints," which led to this book about other families.

All languages, both spoken and signed, make a formal distinction between two types of terms in a proposition – terms that identify what is to be talked about (nominals) and terms that say something about this topic (predicates). Here we explore conditions that could lead to this property by charting its development in a newly emerging language – Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL). We examine how handshape is used in nominals vs. predicates in three Nicaraguan groups: (1) homesigners who are not (...) part of the Deaf com- munity and use their own gestures, called homesigns, to communicate; (2) NSL cohort 1 signers who fashioned the first stage of NSL; (3) NSL cohort 2 signers who learned NSL from cohort 1. We compare these three groups to a fourth: (4) native signers of American Sign Language (ASL), an established sign language. We focus on handshape in predicates that are part of a productive classifier system in ASL; handshape in these predicates varies sys- tematically across agent vs. no-agent contexts, unlike handshape in the nominals we study, which does not vary across these contexts. We found that all four groups, including home- signers, used handshape differently in nominals vs. predicates – they displayed variability in handshape form across agent vs. no-agent contexts in predicates, but not in nominals. Variability thus differed in predicates and nominals: (1) In predicates, the variability across grammatical contexts (agent vs. no-agent) was systematic in all four groups, suggesting that handshape functioned as a productive morphological marker on predicate signs, even in homesign. This grammatical use of handshape can thus appear in the earliest stages of an emerging language. (2) In nominals, there was no variability across grammatical con- texts (agent vs. no-agent), but there was variability within- and across-individuals in the handshape used in the nominal for a particular object. This variability was striking in homesigners (an individual homesigner did not necessarily use the same handshape in every nominal he produced for a particular object), but decreased in the first cohort of NSL and remained relatively constant in the second cohort. Stability in the lexical use of handshape in nominals thus does not seem to emerge unless there is pressure from a peer linguistic community. Taken together, our findings argue that a community of users is essential to arrive at a stable nominal lexicon, but not to establish a productive morpholog- ical marker in predicates. Examining the steps a manual communication system takes as it moves toward becoming a fully-fledged language offers a unique window onto factors that have made human language what it is. (shrink)

This paper argues that a set of questioning attitudes are among the foundations of human and animal minds. While both verbal questioning and states of curiosity are generally explained in terms of metacognitive desires for knowledge or true belief, I argue that each is better explained by a prelinguistic sui generis type of mental attitude of questioning. I review a range of considerations in support of such a proposal and improve on previous characterizations of the nature of these attitudes. I (...) then broaden their explanatory scope to include a number of forms of exploratory search. The paper has three main goals: to characterize the nature of the questioning attitudes, outlining their causal role and type of content; to argue that they are fundamental components of the mind, being widespread among animals and not constructed during ontogeny out of other attitudes; and to suggest that they explain a great deal more behavior than one might think. (shrink)

We propose a solution to the problem of logical omniscience in what we take to be its fundamental version: as concerning arbitrary agents and the knowledge attitude per se. Our logic of knowledge is a spin-off from a general theory of thick content, whereby the content of a sentence has two components: an intension, taking care of truth conditions; and a topic, taking care of subject matter. We present a list of plausible logical validities and invalidities for the logic of (...) knowledge per se for arbitrary agents, and isolate three explanatory factors for them: the topic-sensitivity of content; the fragmentation of knowledge states; the defeasibility of knowledge acquisition. We then present a novel dynamic epistemic logic that yields precisely the desired validities and invalidities, for which we provide expressivity and completeness results. We contrast this with related systems and address possible objections. (shrink)

It is difficult to create spoken forms that can be understood on the spot. But the manual modality, in large part because of its iconic potential, allows us to construct forms that are immediately understood, thus requiring essentially no time to develop. This paper contrasts manual forms for actions produced over three time spans—by silent gesturers who are asked to invent gestures on the spot; by homesigners who have created gesture systems over their life spans; and by signers who have (...) learned a conventional sign language from other signers—and finds that properties of the predicate differ across these time spans. Silent gesturers use location to establish co-reference in the way established sign languages do, but they show little evidence of the segmentation sign languages display in motion forms for manner and path, and little evidence of the finger complexity sign languages display in handshapes in predicates representing events. Homesigners, in contrast, not only use location to establish co-reference but also display segmentation in their motion forms for manner and path and finger complexity in their object handshapes, although they have not yet decreased finger complexity to the levels found in sign languages in their handling handshapes. The manual modality thus allows us to watch language as it grows, offering insight into factors that may have shaped and may continue to shape human language. (shrink)

What is ethics? Where do moral standards come from? Are they based on emotions, reason, or some innate sense of right and wrong? For many scientists, the key lies entirely in biology---especially in Darwinian theories of evolution and self-preservation. But if evolution is a struggle for survival, why are we still capable of altruism? In his classic study The Expanding Circle, Peter Singer argues that altruism began as a genetically based drive to protect one's kin and community members but (...) has developed into a consciously chosen ethic with an expanding circle of moral concern. Drawing on philosophy and evolutionary psychology, he demonstrates that human ethics cannot be explained by biology alone. Rather, it is our capacity for reasoning that makes moral progress possible. In a new afterword, Singer takes stock of his argument in light or recent research on the evolution of morality.--Publisher's description. (shrink)

Narrative thinking -- Narrative thinking about one's past -- Grief : a case study -- Narrative thinking about one's future -- Self-forgiveness : a case study -- The narrative sense of self -- Narrative, truth, life, and fiction.

Single-premise epistemic closure is the principle that: if one is in an evidential position to know that P where P entails Q, then one is in an evidential position to know that Q. In this paper, I defend the viability of opposition to closure. A key task for such an opponent is to precisely formulate a restricted closure principle that remains true to the motivations for abandoning unrestricted closure but does not endorse particularly egregious instances of closure violation. I focus (...) on two brands of epistemic theory that naturally incorporate closure restrictions. The first type holds that the truth value of a knowledge ascription is relative to a relevant question. The second holds that the truth value of a knowledge ascription is relative to a relevant topic. For each approach, I offer a formalization of a leading theory from the literature and use this formalization to evaluate the theory’s adequacy in terms of a precise set of desiderata. I conclude that neither theory succeeds in meeting these desiderata, casting doubt on the viability of the underlying approaches. Finally, I offer a novel variant of the topic-sensitive approach that fares better. (shrink)

This chapter provides an introduction to higher-order metaphysics as well as to the contributions to this volume. We discuss five topics, corresponding to the five parts of this volume, and summarize the contributions to each part. First, we motivate the usefulness of higher-order quantification in metaphysics using a number of examples, and discuss the question of how such quantifiers should be interpreted. We provide a brief introduction to the most common forms of higher-order logics used in metaphysics, and indicate a (...) number of questions which can be raised in such systems using logical vocabulary alone. Using a further example, we return to applications of higher-order logics in metaphysics. We also mention key developments in the history of higher-order logic as it pertains to metaphysics. Finally, we mention certain arguments which have been raised against the use of higher-order logic, and some ways of responding to them. (shrink)

Courts play a central role in legal and political processes in many countries in the common law world. Legal actors have a stake in making sure that legal processes and procedures are perceived as legitimate, both by the general population and professionals. Civil procedure, in both common law and civilian legal systems, has been historically known for its complexity. This article presents a body of empirical research about courts and procedural rules, and their role in different societies. It also analyzes (...) research and states how it has been used in policy debates and reforms. In addition, it discusses the question of the demand and supply for empirical research about rules of procedure and courts, and explores the difficulty of carrying out empirical research that goes beyond a focus on the institutional needs of the courts themselves and the reformers interested in their own court-reform agendas. (shrink)

This article introduces the concept of alternate dispute resolution, and discusses its baseline measure and comparison process. Empirical research on ADR falls into two categories, empirically descriptive work and empirically comparative work. Litigation varies across legal systems and changes through time, just as does ADR. Many studies have documented and described patterns of uses of particular forms of dispute resolution. These studies are designed to explore variations of behavior or outcomes within a particular process. Several commentators have observed that formal (...) litigation and various forms of ADR, such as, mediation, private adjudication-arbitration, and other hybrid forms compete with and affect each other. Recent extensions of ADR suggest that the domain of dispute-resolution research is far more capacious than assessing how disputes are managed in lawsuits or courts. (shrink)

Introduction These essays have been written over a period of about ten years and have already been published separately in various places. ...

The transition to a low carbon economy demands new strategies to enable organizations to take advantage of the potential for “green” growth. An organization's environmental stakeholders can provide opportunities for growth and support the success of its low carbon strategies, as well as potentially acting as a constraint on new initiatives. Building environmental capabilities through engagement with environmental stakeholders is conceptualized as an important aspect for the success of organizational low carbon strategies. We examine capability building across a range of (...) sectors affected by the sustainability agenda, including construction, rail, water, and health care. We identify a number of emergent environmental stakeholders and explore their engagement with the development of environmental capabilities in the context of the transition toward a low carbon economy. Our conceptual framework offers a categorization of environmental stakeholders based on their position in relation to a focal organization and the potential for the development of environmental capabilities. (shrink)

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

Since its original publication in 1975, this groundbreaking work has awakened millions of people to the existence of "speciesism"—our systematic disregard of nonhuman animals—inspiring a worldwide movement to transform our attitudes to animals and eliminate the cruelty we inflict on them. In Animal Liberation, author Peter Singer exposes the chilling realities of today’s "factory farms" and product-testing procedures—destroying the spurious justifications behind them, and offering alternatives to what has become a profound environmental and social as well as moral issue. (...) An important and persuasive appeal to conscience, fairness, decency, and justice, it is essential reading for the supporter and the skeptic alike. (shrink)

I lay out the framework for my theory of sensory imagination in “Imagining as a guide to possibility.” Sensory imagining involves mental imagery , and crucially, in describing the content of imagining, I distinguish between qualitative content and assigned content. Qualitative content derives from the mental image itself; for visual imaginings, it is what is “pictured.” For example, visually imagine the Philadelphia Eagles defeating the Pittsburgh Steelers to win their first Super Bowl. You picture the greenness of the field and (...) the football’s brown oblong shape. Some of what you imagine isn’t explicitly pictured, however. That it is Sunday, that it is the Super Bowl: these facts are assigned. (shrink)

Political decisions have the potential to greatly impact our lives. Think of decisions in relation to abortion or climate change, for example. This makes political legitimacy an important normative concern. But what makes political decisions legitimate? Are they legitimate in virtue of having support from the citizens? Democratic conceptions of political legitimacy answer in the affirmative. Such conceptions righly highlight that legitimate political decision-making must be sensitive to disagreements among the citizens. But what if democratic decisions fail to track what (...) there is most reason to do? What if a democratically elected government fails to take measures necessary to protect its population from threats related to climate change? Peter argues that the legitimacy of political decisions doesn't just depend on respect for the citizens' will; and defends a novel hybrid conception of political legitimacy, called the Epistemic Accountability conception. According to this conception, political legitimacy also depends on how political decision-making responds to evidence for what there is most reason to do. Grounds for Political Legitmacy starts with an overview of the main ways in which philosophers have thought about political legitimacy, and identifies the epistemic accountability conception as an overlooked alternative. It then develops the epistemic accountability conception of political legitimacy and discusses its implications for legitimate political decision-making. Considering the norms that should govern political debate, it examines the role of experts in politics, and probes the responsibilities of democratically elected political leaders and as well as of citizens. (shrink)

The commentaries have led us to entertain expansions of our paradigm to include new theoretical questions, new criteria for what counts as a gesture, and new data and populations to study. The expansions further reinforce the approach we took in the target article: namely, that linguistic and gestural components are two distinct yet integral sides of communication, which need to be studied together.

We examined the effects of three different training conditions, all of which involve the motor system, on kindergarteners’ mental transformation skill. We focused on three main questions. First, we asked whether training that involves making a motor movement that is relevant to the mental transformation—either concretely through action or more abstractly through gestural movements that represent the action —resulted in greater gains than training using motor movements irrelevant to the mental transformation. We tested children prior to training, immediately after training, (...) and 1 week after training, and we found greater improvement in mental transformation skill in both the action and move-gesture training conditions than in the point-gesture condition, at both posttest and retest. Second, we asked whether the total gain made by retest differed depending on the abstractness of the movement-relevant training, and we found that it did not. Finally, we asked whether the time course of improvement differed for the two movement-relevant conditions, and we found that it did—gains in the action condition were realized immediately at posttest, with no further gains at retest; gains in the move-gesture condition were realized throughout, with comparable gains from pretest-to-posttest and from posttest-to-retest. Training that involves movement, whether concrete or abstract, can thus benefit children's mental transformation skill. However, the benefits unfold differently over time—the benefits of concrete training unfold immediately after training ; the benefits of more abstract training unfold in equal steps immediately after training and during the intervening week with no additional training. These findings have implications for the kinds of instruction that can best support spatial learning. (shrink)

Most bioethicists and professional medical societies condemn the practice of ?slow codes.? The American College of Physicians ethics manual states, ?Because it is deceptive, physicians or nurses should not perform half-hearted resuscitation efforts (?slow codes?).? A leading textbook calls slow codes ?dishonest, crass dissimulation, and unethical.? A medical sociologist describes them as ?deplorable, dishonest and inconsistent with established ethical principles.? Nevertheless, we believe that slow codes may be appropriate and ethically defensible in situations in which cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is likely (...) to be ineffective, the family decision makers understand and accept that death is inevitable, and those family members cannot bring themselves to consent or even assent to a do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order. In such cases, we argue, physicians may best serve both the patient and the family by having a carefully ambiguous discussion about end-of-life options and then providing resuscitation efforts that are less vigorous or prolonged than usual. (shrink)

This volume explores the use of higher-order logics in metaphysics. Seventeen original essays trace the development of higher-order metaphysics, discuss different ways in which higher-order languages and logics may be used, and consider their application to various central topics of metaphysics.

In the Western world it is usually taken as given that we all want happiness, and our educational arrangements tacitly acknowledge this. Happiness, Hope, and Despair argues, however, that education has an important role to play in deepening our understanding of suffering and despair as well as happiness and joy. Education can be uncomfortable, unpredictable, and unsettling; it can lead to greater uncertainty and unhappiness. Drawing on the work of Søren Kierkegaard, Miguel de Unamuno, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Simone Weil, Paulo Freire, (...) and others, Peter Roberts shows why these features of educational life need not be feared; to the contrary, they can be seen as a source of hope and human fulfilment. After years of negotiating an education system dominated by the language of competition, performance, and economic advancement, students and teachers often long for something different; they seek not just measurable success but also opportunities to ask searching questions of themselves and the world they encounter. Happiness, Hope, and Despair makes an important contribution toward meeting this need. It fosters a rethinking of the nature, purpose, and value of education, and opens up possibilities for further scholarly and professional inquiry. (shrink)

Peter Anstey presents a thorough and innovative study of John Locke's views on the method and content of natural philosophy. Focusing on Locke's Essay concerning Human Understanding, but also drawing extensively from his other writings and manuscript remains, Anstey argues that Locke was an advocate of the Experimental Philosophy: the new approach to natural philosophy championed by Robert Boyle and the early Royal Society who were opposed to speculative philosophy. On the question of method, Anstey shows how Locke's pessimism (...) about the prospects for a demonstrative science of nature led him, in the Essay, to promote Francis Bacon's method of natural history, and to downplay the value of hypotheses and analogical reasoning in science. But, according to Anstey, Locke never abandoned the ideal of a demonstrative natural philosophy, for he believed that if we could discover the primary qualities of the tiny corpuscles that constitute material bodies, we could then establish a kind of corpuscular metric that would allow us a genuine science of nature. It was only after the publication of the Essay, however, that Locke came to realize that Newton's Principia provided a model for the role of demonstrative reasoning in science based on principles established upon observation, and this led him to make significant revisions to his views in the 1690s. On the content of Locke's natural philosophy, it is argued that even though Locke adhered to the Experimental Philosophy, he was not averse to speculation about the corpuscular nature of matter. Anstey takes us into new terrain and new interpretations of Locke's thought in his explorations of his mercurialist transmutational chymistry, his theory of generation by seminal principles, and his conventionalism about species. (shrink)