Formal axiology is based on the logical nature of meaning, namely intension, and on the structure of intension as a set of predicates. It applies set theory to this set of predicates. Set theory is a certain kind of mathematics that deals with subsets in general, and of finite and infinite sets in particular. Since mathematics is objective and a priori, formal axiology is an objective and a priori science; and a test based on it is an objective test based (...) on an objective standard.1. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bibliography of Resources by and about André E. Hellegers*Compiled by Doris Mueller Goldstein (bio)This bibliography is derived from the holdings of the National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature and the BIOETHICSLINE© database (both of which are at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics and supported by the National Library of Medicine); the archives of Lauinger Library, Georgetown University; the Medline databases of the National Library of Medicine; the WorldCat (...) database of OCLC, Dublin, Ohio, and selected Internet sites.Primarily comprised of writings by Dr. Hellegers, the list also includes interviews and media programs in which he participated, as well as writings about him that were written following his death. The arrangement within each section is by date. The 231 authored pieces reflect the transition from Dr. Hellegers’s early career as a researcher in fetal physiology at Johns Hopkins Medical School, where he published his first research report at the age of 29, to the early years of the Kennedy Institute, where he produced so many provocative columns on bioethical issues that influenced the growth of the field.Due to the diversity of sources and the 40-year time span covered, there are some variations in bibliographic style. Time and availability constraints precluded verifying all of the citations with the original documents. Any additions or corrections should be submitted to the compiler.Works Authored by André E. HellegersNo Date Ethical Issues in Sterilization of the Retarded. Unpublished paper.1956Vitamin B12 Serum Level and Pregnancy. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 4: 440+, 1956. [With Bacon F. Chow and Kunio Okuda] [End Page 89]1957Vitamin B12 Absorption in Pregnancy and in the Newborn. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 5: 327+, 1957. [With Bacon F. Chow, Robert E. L. Nesbitt, Kunio Okuda, and David W. Smith]1958The Effects of Acute Hypoxia on the Osmotic Pressure of the Plasma. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Physiology 43: 197+, 1958. [With Donald H. Barron, Frederick C. Battaglia, and Giacomo Meschia]Studies on the Absorption of Vitamin B12 in Human Pregnancy with Especial Reference to the Effect of D-Sorbitol. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 76: 91+, 1958. [With Bacon F. Chow, Harry Prystowsky, and Vernon Wong]1959The Alveolar PCO2 and PO2 in Pregnant and Nonpregnant Women at Altitude. Proceedings of the Society for Clinical Investigation 38: 1010+, 1959. [With Donald Barron, William Huckabee, Giacomo Meschia, James Metcalfe, and Harry Prystowsky]A Comparison of the Oxygen Dissociation Curves of the Bloods of Maternal and Fetal Goats at Various pHs. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Physiology 44: 215–21, July 1959. [With Donald Barron, Giacomo Meschia, Harry Prystowsky, and A. Stark Wolkoff]Fetal Blood Studies. XII. On the Relationship Between the Position of the Oxygen Dissociation Curve of Human Fetal Blood and Adult Fetal Hemoglobin. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 77: 585+, 1959. [With Paul D. Bruns, Julian Cotter, and Harry Prystowsky]Fetal Blood Studies. XIV. A Comparative Study of the Oxygen Dissociation Curve of Nonpregnant, Pregnant and Fetal Human Blood. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 78: 489–93, September 1959. [With Paul D. Bruns and Harry Prystowsky]Fetal Blood Studies. XVI. On the Changes in Total Osmotic Pressure and Sodium and Potassium Concentration of Amniotic Fluid During the Course of Human Gestation. Surgery, Gynecology and Obstetrics 109: 509–12, October 1959. [With Frederick Battaglia, Paul D. Bruns, Harry Prystowsky, and Clayton Smisson]Further Observations on the Metabolism of Vitamin B12 in Human Pregnancy. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 77: 1+, 1959. [With Bacon F. Chow, Harry Prystowsky, Bruno Ranke, and Elma Ranke]The Oxygen Dissociation Curves of the Bloods of Adult and Fetal Llamas. Federation Proceedings 18, 1959. [With Donald Barron, William Huckabee, Giacomo Meschia, James Metcalfe, and Harry Prystowsky] [End Page 90]Transfer of Oxygen Across the Sheep Placenta at High Altitude. Federation Proceedings 18, 1959. [With Donald Barron, William Huckabee, Giacomo Meschia, and Harry Prystowsky]Uterine Blood Flow and Metabolism in Pregnant Sheep at High Altitude. Federation Proceedings 18, 1959. [With Donald Barron, William Huckabee, Giacomo Meschia, James Metcalfe, and Harry Prystowsky]Uterine Blood Flow and Metabolism in Unanesthetized Pregnant Sheep. Federation Proceedings 18, 1959. [With Donald Barron, William Huckabee, Giacomo... (shrink)

This essay describes how longstanding conceptions of professionalism in American medical care came under attack in the decades since the enactment of Medicare in 1965 and how the reform strategy and core provisions of the 2010 Affordable Care Act illustrate the weakening of those ideas and the institutional practices embodying them.The opening identifies the dominant role of physicians in American medical care in the two decades after World War II. By the time Medicare was enacted in 1965, associations of American (...) physicians were almost completely in charge of medical education, specialist certification, and the enforcement of professional norms on their members. Who could be a doctor, what education and training would be required, and what collegial oversight was operative was first a professional matter and only secondly implicated the state through malpractice or major corporations via the employment of physicians. (shrink)

Autonomy -- Hydrodynamics -- Brownian motion -- From Brownian motion to bending beams -- An engineering approach -- The right variables and natural kinds.

We are living through a new phase in human development where much of everyday life – at least in the most technologically developed parts of the world – has come to depend upon our interaction with “smart” artefacts. Alongside this increasing adoption and ever-deepening reliance on intelligent machines, important changes have been taking place, often in the background, as to how we think of ourselves and how we conceptualize our relationship with technology. As we design, create and learn to live (...) with a new order of artefacts which exhibit behavior that, were it to be carried out by human beings would be seen as intelligent, the ways in which we conceptualize intelligence, minds, reasoning and related notions such as self and agency are undergoing profound shifts. We argue that the basic background assumptions informing our concepts of mind, and the underlying conceptual scheme structuring our reasoning about minds has recently been transformed in the process. This shift has changed the nature and quality of both our folk understanding of mind, our scientific psychology, and the philosophical problems that the interaction of these realms produce. Many of the traditional problems in the philosophy of mind have become reconfigured in the process. This introduction sets the scene for our book that treats this reconfiguration of our concepts of mind and of technology, and the new casting of philosophical problems this reconfiguration engenders. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:When Hyperbole Enters Politics: What Can Be Learned From Antiquity and Our Hyperbolist-In-Chief W. ROBERT CONNOR introduction: an age of hyperbole Everywhere we turn these days we encounter hyperbole—in the colloquialisms of every day speech, advertising, salesmanship, letters of recommendation, sports-casting, and not least in political discourse. This may be a good moment, then, to open a conversation between ancient and modern understandings of verbal “over-shoot,” as the (...) Greek term for exaggeration might be rendered in English. The evidence gathered in H. Lausberg’s Handbook of Literary Rhetoric1 shows that while ancient rhetoricians agreed that hyperbole should be counted among the “figures of speech,” they found much to argue about: was hyperbole a violation of the Aristotelian middle course, hence an extreme to be avoided, or was it a legitimate form of augmentation (auxēsis in Greek, amplificatio in Latin)? Could diminution (meiōsis ) also be regarded as a form of hyperbole? In the interpretation of texts hyperbole poses a further difficulty —unlike simile, alliteration or some other figures of speech, it is “unmarked,” that is, it has no linguistic sign to alert the reader to its presence. Hyperbole likes to disguise itself as if it were going to a masquerade ball, presenting itself as simile or wearing metaphorical dress, or appearing not infrequently as litotes. It can sneak up on you and take you by surprise. The critic Longinus in On the Sublime, ch. 38, and some rhetoricians noted that hyperbole could be most arion 26.3 winter 2019 powerful when least recognized. Many ancient rhetoricians and some modern critics, however, have followed Quintilian, who asserted that “expressions (often hyperbolic), such as “storms of public assemblies, thunderbolts of eloquence, are used merely for ornament” (Institutes 8.6.7). In this view hyperbole is a conspicuous ornament used to embellish speech and make it more elegant and attractive, but today it is more often treated either as an excuse for an outrageous statement (as when the CEO of Cambridge Analytica characterized as “a certain amount of hyperbole” his suggestion of using prostitutes to discredit a political opponent), or as a euphemism for a falsehood (as when a politician promises he will eliminate the national debt—$20 trillion—and his budget director shrugs the claim off as “hyperbole.”) The term seems to extinguish any feeling of embarrassment. None of these understandings of hyperbole is simply wrong, but together they eclipse an alternative view, grounded in one ancient understanding of language, and corroborated by modern experience. In this approach language in general and hyperbole in particular are not simply a set of signs whose meaning is arbitrarily determined by social convention. Instead, they have their own nature (physis, as Isocrates says in Panegyricus 8) and hence their own power to arouse and motivate listeners. Hyperbole, viewed in this light, is a force in its own right, with the ability to give voice to otherwise unarticulated emotions, to intensify them, to push aside doubts and hesitations, and then to turn feelings into action. Language is power, and hyperbole, as an extreme form of language, provides great power to those who use it skillfully. These need not be the docile students of the rhetoricians ; politicians sometimes seem to have an innate understanding of it. The extreme breed among them, the demagogues, are often the ones who know best how to put this extreme of language to use. True, you don’t have to be a politician to put hyperbole to work. It is a favorite mode of speech among lovers, poets, travellers. Holy Men use it, too: Jesus of Nazareth, for exam16 when hyperbole enters politics ple, proclaimed that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God (Matthew 19.24). Almost everyone uses it at some point, except policy wonks whose soulless prose withers before its onslaughts. When people use hyperbole they may be neither lying nor embroidering the truth to make it more ornamental. They exalt and intensify what they see as truth, make it come alive, and thereby rouse their listeners from apathy and distraction. Ordinary people, too, use... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Unmasking the Maxim: An Ancient Genre And Why It Matters Now W. ROBERT CONNOR We live surrounded by maxims, often without even noticing them. They are easily dismissed as platitudes, banalities or harmless clichés, but even in an age of big data and number crunching we put them to work almost every day. A Silicon Valley whiz kid says, Move Fast and Break Things. Investors try to (...) Buy Low and Sell High. Investigative reporters Follow the Money. Others Follow their Bliss. The lavish host thinks, The More the Merrier, while the Modernist architect is sure that Less is More. Captains of Industry whisper to themselves, Me First; captains of sinking ships shout, Women and Children First. Be Prepared was the Boy Scouts’ marching song, while the Proud Boys Stand Down and Stand By, awaiting their marching orders. Maxims are perhaps the smallest members in a large family of speech acts, which among the Greeks included proverbs, oracles, riddles, blessings, curses and lamentations. Not all of these continue in use, but maxims have found companions—mottos, mantras, advertising tag lines and jingles, slogans, political rallying cries, hashtags, three- or four-letter acronyms and 280 character tweets from the goddess Twitter. Familiarity, however, can breed contempt, or at least inattentiveness to the full range of their influence. Sometimes what sounds at first like empty verbiage turns into action. Bruce Lee adapted an old Taoist saying when he said, Be Water, and thereby provided what was for a while a surprisingly effective strategy for protesters in Hong Kong. arion 28.3 winter 2021 6 unmasking the maxim Maxims empower, for good or ill. In the hands of bigots or ideologues, they can turn deadly. Sic Semper Tyrannis shouted John Wilkes Booth after shooting Abraham Lincoln. A manufacturer of assault rifles urged potential customers to Earn Your Man Card. How better to earn it than to obey 8chan, a web site favored by white nationalists, with its own maxim, Embrace Infamy. A devotee of the site did just that, perpetrating a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas. Maxims, then, should not be lightly dismissed. Since the ancient Greeks so relished maxims, they should surely be interrogated to help us better understand the power of these often underestimated speech acts. Before turning to the Greeks, however, the English word maxim needs a closer look. english “maxim” english borrowed maxim from a Latin phrase and boiled it down for everyday use. In Latin writings about logic, the expression maxima propositio, biggest proposition, denoted a statement that did not need to be proved, but could provide the basis for proof of other, lesser propositions. This phraseology goes back at least to Boethius in the sixth century of our era. It’s the equivalent of the generalizations that serve as the major premises in syllogistic logic. If this makes maxims sound like the axioms of geometry, that is historically right. The starting points of plane geometry are propositions that deserve to be accepted; even without proof that they are worthy of belief. That’s the meaning of the term axiōma. No one needs to prove that things equal to the same thing are equal to each other. Think about it; after a while it seems self-evident. It is worthy of assent. We might equally well call such an axiom a maxim; indeed, the earliest (1426) attested use of maxim in English is described in the Oxford English Dictionary as “an axiom; a self-evident proposition assumed as a premise in mathematical, or dialectical reasoning.” W. Robert Connor 7 This usage is now obsolete, but Thomas Jefferson understood the idea behind it, since he believed that there were such truths, waiting to be put to work in building a society where all people were equal and possess certain inalienable rights. He did not feel he had to prove these propositions; they were in his view self-evident. In using these ideas in his draft of the Declaration of Independence, he was, in effect, transferring to politics what Euclid had done in geometry. It was a swift, strategic stroke on his part, for, since self-evident truths require no argument or explanation, they focus discussion not on... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Women Poets and the Origin of the Greek Hexameter W. ROBERT CONNOR A very considerable question has arisen, as to what was the origin of poetry. —Pliny the Elder, Natural History 7.57 i. a road trip with pausanias Tennyson called the dactylic hexameter “the stateliest measure / ever moulded by the lips of man,” but he did not say whose lips first did the moulding. Despite much arguing (...) we do not know for sure where it came from, or who developed it. But some ancient Greeks did, or thought they did. For them, the hexameter came with a personal history, a legendary one to be sure, but no less powerful for that. The legend, moreover, started with a woman poet. The trail that leads to this is a long and devious one, but a good guide presents himself, Pausanias, author of A Greek Guidebook (Hellados Periegesis). Although he is now valued primarily as a quarry cordoned off for topographers and archaeologists, he had a strong interest in poets, especially women ones. These include Sappho, of course, the valiant Telesilla of Argos of whom he tells two stories (2.20.8, and 2.35.2), and Praxilla of Sicyon (3.13.5). In his account of Boeotia he mentions another woman poet of the fifth century before our era, Corinna of Tanagra. She, he says (9.22.3f.), once defeated Pindar in a poetry contest, and was, he thinks, the most beautiful woman of her time, judging by a statue of her he had seen. He also speaks of Myro of Byzantium (9.5.8). Pausanias was confident that she had written epic and elegiac verse. arion 27.2 fall 2019 Pausanias chooses, moreover, to end his work with an enigmatic story about another woman poet, Anyte of Tegea. He had not mentioned her in his lengthy account of her home town in the mountains of Arcadia, but now her story seems to speak to him. It is set at a ruined shrine of Asclepius near the port town of Naupactus. The reason that Anyte had come there was a strange one: She had had, he says, a vision—not a dream, but a real vision—at the end of which she found herself holding a sealed tablet addressed to one Phalysius of Naupactus. He was, it turns out, a prosperous citizen of the town, but was going blind. Anyte made the journey, surely not an easy one, and delivered the tablet. As soon as Phalysius broke its seal, he found he could make out the letters—a wondrous improvement in his vision, which he attributed to the healing god Asclepius. That is why he built the shrine that Pausanias saw many years later. And the content of the message? Give Anyte two thousand gold staters. Phalysius did so. End of story. End of the Guidebook. So, indeed, Pausanias paid attention to women poets, and there were plenty of them to pay attention to. There is good evidence of a vibrant tradition of women’s poetry among the ancient Greeks. Pausanias is not the only writer of his time to note this. In fact, if on his journeys Pausanias had encountered the well-travelled rhetorician Tatian, the two near-contemporaries could have challenged one another to see who could name the largest number of women poets and identify the sculptors of statues honoring them. Tatian might have won, to judge from his Address to the Greeks, ch 33. But then, Tatian had an agenda. As a convert to a “barbarian” cult he wanted to show that his co-religionists had precedents for respecting women’s intellects: “My object in referring to these women is, that you may not regard as something strange what you find among us, and that, comparing the statues which are before your eyes, you may not treat the women with scorn who among us pursue philosophy.” So much for the Christian Tatian. Did Pausanias have an agenda, too? His stories of two women from Delphi, Boio 86 women poets and the origin of the greek hexameter and Phemonoe, help answer that question. ii. boio’s disruptive poetry when pausanias’s work describes Delphi, the plot thickens. In... (shrink)

People high in depressive or anxious symptom severity show repetitive negative thinking, including worry and rumination. They also show various cognitive phenomena, including probability, cost, and interpretation biases. Since there is conceptual overlap between these cognitive biases and repetitive negative thinking – all involve thinking about potential threats and misfortunes – we wondered whether repetitive negative thinking could account for (mediate) these cognitive biases’ associations with depressive and anxious symptom severity. In three studies, conducted in two languages and cultures, cost (...) bias and (in two studies) interpretation bias only predicted symptom severity via worry and repetitive negative thinking; this suggests these biases are actually associated with repetitive negative thinking, rather than with symptoms. In contrast, probability bias showed direct relationships with depressive (all studies) and anxious (two studies) symptom severity, suggesting its relationships with symptoms are partly independent of repetitive negative thinking. These results show the value of studying relationships among the various cognitive features of psychopathology. Furthermore, new interventions which target cognitive biases in depression or anxiety must show that they can improve upon cognitive behavioural therapy, which is already widely available, targets both repetitive negative thinking and probability bias, and is highly effective. (shrink)

The common view is that insider trading is always unethical and illegal. But such is not the case. Some forms of insider trading are legal. Furthermore, applying ethical principles to insider trading causes one to conclude that it is also sometimes ethical. This paper attempts to get past the hype, the press reports, and the political grandstanding to get to the truth of the matter. The author applies two sets of ethical principles – utilitarianism and rights theory – in an (...) attempt to determine when, and in what circumstances, insider trading is ethical. The views of Henry Manne, an early proponent of insider trading, are critically examined, as are the major arguments against insider trading. Is insider trading good for the company if it is used as a form of executive compensation which makes it possible to pay lower salaries than would otherwise be the case? Does insider trading cause the stock market to work more efficiently? If insider trading does increase efficiency, is that sufficient to call for its total legalization, or are there other things to be considered? Several arguments against insider trading have been put forth over the last few decades but there are problems with all of them. One of the main arguments is the fairness argument. The problem with this argument is that different people have different definitions of unfairness. A closely related argument is the level playing field argument, which advocates wider dissemination of information so that it is less asymmetric. One problem with the level playing field argument is that it is better applied to sporting competitions than to trading in information. Some economists argue that forcing the disclosure of nonpublic information can actually result in more harm than good and must necessarily involve the violation of property rights. Other arguments examined in this chapter include the fiduciary duty argument, the problem of outside traders, the misappropriation doctrine and the restrictions that insider trading laws place on freedom of speech and press. The article concludes by setting forth some principles or guidelines to determine when insider trading should be punished and when it should not. (shrink)

The current assessment of behaviors in the inventories to diagnose autism spectrum disorders (ASD) focus on observation and discrete categorizations. Behaviors require movements, yet measurements of physical movements are seldom included. Their inclusion however, could provide an objective characterization of behavior to help unveil interactions between the peripheral and the central nervous systems. Such interactions are critical for the development and maintenance of spontaneous autonomy, self-regulation and voluntary control. At present, current approaches cannot deal with the heterogeneous, dynamic and stochastic (...) nature of development. Accordingly, they leave no avenues for real-time or longitudinal assessments of change in a coping system continuously adapting and developing compensatory mechanisms. We offer a new unifying statistical framework to reveal re-afferent kinesthetic features of the individual with ASD. The new methodology is based on the non-stationary stochastic patterns of minute fluctuations (micro-movements) inherent to our natural actions. Such patterns of behavioral variability provide re-entrant sensory feedback contributing to the autonomous regulation and coordination of the motor output. From an early age, this feedback supports centrally driven volitional control and fluid, flexible transitions between intentional and spontaneous behaviors. We show that in ASD there is a disruption in the maturation of this form of proprioception. Despite this disturbance, each individual has unique adaptive compensatory capabilities that we can unveil and exploit to evoke faster and more accurate decisions. Measuring the kinesthetic re-afference in tandem with stimuli variations we can detect changes in their micro-movements indicative of a more predictive and reliable kinesthetic percept. Our methods address the heterogeneity of ASD with a personalized approach grounded in the inherent sensory-motor abilities that the individual has already developed. (shrink)

Is the mind flat? Chater (2018) has recently argued that it is and that, contrary to traditional psychology and standard folk image, depth of mind is just an illusory confabulation. In this paper, we argue that while there is a kernel of something correct in Chater’s thesis, this does not in itself add up to a critique of mental depth per se. We use Chater’s ideas as a springboard for creating a new understanding of mental depth which builds upon findings (...) in contemporary cognitive science. First, we rely on the predictive processing framework in order to determine a proposed neural contribution to mental depth, specifically in hierarchical predictive knowledge. Second, drawing from an embodied approach to cognition, we argue that mental depth results from the depth of our embodied skills and the situations in which we are embedded. This allows us to introduce to a new realist notion of mental depth, one which can only be explained once we attend to the dense patterns of skillful interaction within a rich artefactual and social environment. (shrink)

With this issue we initiate the policy of expanding the scope of Tulane Studies in Philosophy to include, in addition to the work of members of the department, contributions from philosophers who have earned advanced degrees from Tulane and who are now teaching in other colleges and universities. The Editor THE LOGIC OF OUR LANGUAGE ROBERT L. ARRINGTON Wittgenstein wrote in the Tractatus that "logic is not a body of doctrine, but a mirror-image of the world. " 1 In (...) line with his suggestion that a proposition is a 'picture', Wittgenstein argued that propositions 'show' the logical structure of the real. He was insistent, however, that "the apparent logical form of a proposition need not be its real one. " 2 As a result of this we can misunderstand the structure of fact. Philosophical problems arise just when "the logic of our language is mis understood. " 3 It is common knowledge that much of this view of logic was rejected by Wittgenstein himself in the Philosophical Investi gations. There we are told that language has no ideal or sublime 4 logic which mirrors the structure of the extra-linguistic world. Consequently, inferences from the structure of language to the structure of that extra-linguistic world are invalid. Reality can be 'cut up' in any of a number of ways by language. Wittgenstein adopted a view of philosophy which would render that discipline a non-explanatory, non-critical study of the multiple ways in which language can be used. (shrink)

Proceedings of the Boston Colloquium for the Philosophy of Science 1966/1968.

A worldview that does not involve religion or science seems to be incomplete. However, a worldview that includes both religion and science may arouse concern of incompatibility. This paper looks at the particular religion, Christianity, and proceeds to develop a worldview in which Christianity and Science are compatible with each other. The worldview may make use of some ideas of Christianity and may involve some author’s own ideas on Christianity. It is thought that Christianity and Science are in harmony in (...) the sense that science can support beliefs in Christianity and in turn beliefs in Christianity can support science. To avoid future unnecessary conflicts between science and religion, it is suggested that a core faith Christianity worldview should be taken. However, this does not mean that certain parts of scripture are abandoned. (shrink)

This study examined the relationship between individual differences in executive functions (EF; assessed by measures of working memory, Stroop, trail making, and verbal fluency) and ability to down-regulate and up-regulate responses to emotionally evocative film clips. To ensure a wide range of EF, 48 participants with diverse neurodegenerative disorders and 21 older neurologically normal ageing participants were included. Participants were exposed to three different movie clips that were designed to elicit a mix of disgust and amusement. While watching the films (...) they were either instructed to watch, down-regulate, and up-regulate their visible emotional responses. Heart rate and facial behaviours were monitored throughout. Emotion regulatory ability was operationalised as changes in heart rate and facial behaviour in the down- and up-regulation conditions, controlling for responses in the watch condition. Results indicated that higher verbal fluency scores were related to greater ability to regulate emotion in both the down-regulation and up-regulation conditions. This finding remained significant even after controlling for age and general cognitive functioning. No relationships were found between emotion regulation and the other EF measures. We believe these results derive from differences among EF measures, with verbal-fluency performance best capturing the complex sequence of controlled planning, activation, and monitoring required for successful emotion regulation. These findings contribute to our understanding of emotion–cognition interaction, suggesting a link between emotion-regulatory abilities and individual differences in complex executive functions. (shrink)

In recent years, the idea of mind uploading has left the genre of science fiction. Uploading our minds as a form of immortality, or so it has been argued, is now within our reach. Of course, this depends on the assumption that our mind is nothing more than some sort of computer software running on the brain as hardware paving the way for a standard procedure of mind uploading, namely instantaneous destructive uploading – where the brain is simulated on a (...) computer - or gradual destructive uploading – where brain regions are gradually replaced by micro-chips. Lately, however, there has been sustained doubts that things are so simple. In this volume alone Susan Schneider & Joe Corabi and Gualtiero Piccinini argue that a person cannot survive standard procedures of mind uploading. The main reasons are that the uploading process violates identity criteria for the person and that it is unclear that conscious mental states can be uploaded. In this article, we argue that while the sceptics about the standard methods of uploading are probably right, there are more options to be evaluated. We introduce what we call slow continuous mind uploading as an alternative procedure. Slow continuous uploading is based on the extended mind thesis which claims that artefacts can under specific circumstances come to count as part of the realization basis for an individual’s mind. In this context, we explore a form of mind uploading which may already be being innovated today through our deep reliance upon cognitive incorporation of “smart” internet technologies. We will argue that this process may give us the right kind of tools to survive mind uploading, or more minimally, to create an agent that can be considered a psychological continuity of an individual. We think that, at least, the objections so far developed in the literature do not rule this out. (shrink)

Some experiments are risky in that they cannot repeatedly produce certain phenomenon at will for study because the scientific knowledge of the process generating the uncertain phenomenon is poorly understood or may directly contradict with existing scientific knowledge. These experiments may have great impact not just to the scientific community but to mankind in general. Banning them from study may incur societies a great opportunity cost but accepting them runs the risk that scientists are doing junk science. How to make (...) an informed decision to accept/reject such study scientifically for the mainstream scientific community is of great importance to mankind. Here, we propose a statistical methodology to handle the situation. Specifically, we consider the likelihood of not observing the phenomenon after n trails so that it is statistically significant to have nil result. Consequently, we reject the hypothesis that there is some probability that we observe the phenomenon. (shrink)

Canid and human barks and growls were examined in videotapes of 24 humans (Homo sapiens) and 24 dogs (Canis familiaris) playing with familiar and unfamiliar cross-species play partners. Barks and growls were exhibited by 9 humans and 9 dogs. Dogs barked and (less often) growled most frequently when being frustrated by humans and/or engaged in competitive games, and less often when being chased or inviting chase, and being instigated or captured. Dogs never growled when playing with an unfamiliar human, and (...) humans did so rarely when playing with an unfamiliar dog. Humans growled and (less often) barked most frequently when chasing and capturing the dog, less often when engaging in competitive games, being frustrated by the dog, and/or instigating the dog, and rarely when showing or throwing an object. Dog barks were most often requests for the human to make an object available to the dog. Dog growls were often pretend threats when competing for an object or being frustrated by the human’s actions. Human barks and growls were typically pretend threats, and were sometimes used to emphasize simultaneous behaviors. Human barks and growls allow humans to connect with their canid partner. (shrink)

"...this two-volume systematic theology is a great achievement. Drawn from learning that is both vast and profound, the rich details and frequently exciting flashes of insight provided by this work confirm the stature of Robert Jenson among contemporary theologians..."--First Things.

Systematic Theology is the capstone of Robert Jenson's long and distinguished career as a theologian, being a full-scale systematic/dogmatic theology in the classic format. This is the second and concluding volume of the work. Here, Jenson considers the works of God, examining such topics as the nature and role of the Church, and God's works of creation.

1 The Zero-Force Evolutionary Law 2 Randomness, Hierarchy, and Constraint 3 Diversity 4 Complexity 5 Evidence, Predictions, and Tests 6 Philosophical Foundations 7 Implications.

Academic freedom and tenure, both cherished institutions of higher education, are currently under attack by many both outside and within the academy. Richard DeGeorge argues that they can be defended on ethical grounds only if they are joined with appropriate accountability, publicly articulated and defended standards, and conscientious enforcement of these standards by academic institutions and the members of the academic community.

Several facts about organ donation and transplantation are not in dispute: (1) there is a shortage of available organs; (2) many potential organ donors die after authorized withdrawal of life-susta...

St. Thomas Aquinas envisaged theology to be a kind of scientia which was considered as a kind of first cause science. However, science of that time is different from “modern” science. Recently, a theory of scientific study is developed, which outlines science by a theory and some models similar to knowledge in physics. According to this theory, sciences organize their knowledge consisting of theories, models and experiments interacting with physical situations. Perhaps, it is possible to organize knowledge of Christian theology (...) in a similar way as science (from the perspective of Christian belief). Doing this requires extensive and deep knowledge of both science and Christian theology. This paper only attempts to sketch such a theology, which is coined scientia theology to distinguish it from the existing scientific theology of McGrath. Our theology consists of a theory that is outlined here, several historical event models as well as various experiments that provide us with observations supporting the related models and principles. The theory of our theology interacts with the models which may retrodict or are supported by observations from the experiments that interact with the physical situations. (shrink)

This article explores the process of teaching Christian theological ethics beyond the common focus on European and North American sources. In conversation with moves to decolonise university curricula, the article proposes a theology of listening, an example of a research seminar for master’s and doctoral students at the University of Aberdeen on Christian ethics beyond Europe and North America, and an exploration of broader challenges for the formation of the theologian. The article asks, what can we learn when we give (...) up power and control when teaching and learning theology? How can we shift our methods of knowing and practising theology? We write as theologians from India, Mexico, and the United States living in the United Kingdom. We reflect on forms of exclusion in theological method and formation that arise from colonising, systemic violence, and inequalities. The article considers intercultural challenges when encountering different methods of reflection on the Christian experience. In a search for a more profoundly theological approach, we propose listening to the other as integral to doing theology. In an intercultural move, we draw on Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology of listening, proposing that theology must be an advent of voices from beyond our usual places and methods. (shrink)

Robert Batterman examines a form of scientific reasoning called asymptotic reasoning, arguing that it has important consequences for our understanding of the scientific process as a whole. He maintains that asymptotic reasoning is essential for explaining what physicists call universal behavior. With clarity and rigor, he simplifies complex questions about universal behavior, demonstrating a profound understanding of the underlying structures that ground them. This book introduces a valuable new method that is certain to fill explanatory gaps across disciplines.

The book shows one individual's (the author) experience of the world, through contacts with government officials and scholars in the Middle East and Asia, Europe and Latin America during the post-Second World War years up to the later 1960s; and then that individual's reflections and study during the succeeding decades, up to and including the first decade of the 21st century, concerning the future of the world and the critical choices that confront the world both in inter-state relations and in (...) maintaining the security of the biosphere. (shrink)

Deleuze and Time is a multi-disciplinary analysis of Deleuze’s theory of temporality -/- In this collection, leading international scholars elaborate on Deleuze’s modification of the thought of historical figures, from the ancients - Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Lucretius - through to the moderns – Spinoza Kant, Husserl, Nietzsche, Bergson, Simondon, Negri - as well as his use of scientific fields such as complexity theory and thermodynamics. -/- The book shows that the philosophy of time was central to the development of Deleuze’s (...) work. In addition to discussing how time is conceptualized in Difference and Repetition and The Logic of Sense, this collection stands out for its elucidation of Deleuze’s modification of the concept in his two books on cinema. (shrink)

We examine the following consequentialist view of virtue: a trait is a virtue if and only if it has good consequences in some relevant way. We highlight some motivations for this basic account, and offer twelve choice points for filling it out. Next, we explicate Julia Driver’s consequentialist view of virtue in reference to these choice points, and we canvass its merits and demerits. Subsequently, we consider three suggestions that aim to increase the plausibility of her position, and critically analyze (...) them. We conclude that one of those proposed revisions would improve her account. (shrink)

We discuss the astronomical underpinning of the improved calendar of 1700. Starting from the astronomical motivation of the Gregorian calendar of 1582 and the rejection of this reform in Protestant states in Europe, we describe how the astronomical Easter reckoning based on Kepler’s Rudolphine tables led to the foundation of Berlin Observatory and enabled the founding of the Electoral Brandenburg Society of Sciences, which had to finance itself through a calendar monopoly.

As a transplant surgeon at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, I cannot forget those cases where I faced forks in the road and had to decide whether the right direction lay in the well-charted direction of objective metrics or immeasurable feelings of intuition. I carry those cases with me still.

At the time of his death in the autumn of 2017, Robert W. Jenson was arguably America's foremost theologian. Over the course of a career spanning more than five decades, much of Jenson's thought was dedicated to the theological description of how Scripture should be read-what has come to be called theological interpretation. In this rapidly expanding field of scholarship, Jenson has had an inordinate impact. Despite its importance, study of Jenson's theology of scriptural interpretation has lagged, due in (...) large part to the longevity of his career and volume of his output. In this book, all of Jenson's writings on Scripture and its interpretation have been collected for the first time. Here readers will be able to see the evolution of Jenson's thought on this topic, as well as the scope and intensity of his late-period engagement with it. Where other twentieth-century thinkers rely on non-theological, secular methods of scriptural investigation, Jenson is willing to let go of "respectability" for the sake of a truly Christian theological interpretation. The result is a genuinely free, intellectually invigorating exercise in reading and theory from one of the greatest theologians in the last century. (shrink)