EBM, and the hierarchy of evidence it prescribes, is a controversial model when it comes to research into the effectiveness of psychotherapeutic treatments. This is due in part to the so-called ‘Dodo Bird verdict’, which claims that all psychotherapies are equally effective, and that their effectiveness is largely due to the placebo effect. In response to this controversy, I argue that EBM can nevertheless be made to fit research into the effectiveness of psychotherapy, once a piecemeal approach to conducting RCTs (...) is taken. Such an approach involves studying the contributions made by individual treatment components. (shrink)

Since the appearance of a widely influential book, Self-Knowledge and Self-ldentity, Sydney Shoemaker has continued to work on a series of interrelated issues in the philosophy of mind and metaphysics. This volume contains a collection of the most important essays he has published since then. The topics that he deals with here include, among others, the nature of personal and other forms of identity, the relation of time to change, the nature of properties and causality and the relation between (...) the two, dualism and immortality, and the nature of mental states. All the essays show the same care and precision in argument as the earlier book, but they also reveal a substantial shift in Professor Shoemaker's position to a form of materialism. In fact, a number of papers together constitute what is probably the most subtle and rigourous defence yet of a sophisticated functionalism in the account of the mind. (shrink)

Since the appearance of a widely influential book, Self-Knowledge and Self-ldentity, Sydney Shoemaker has continued to work on a series of interrelated issues in the philosophy of mind and metaphysics. This volume contains a collection of the most important essays he has published since then. The topics that he deals with here include, among others, the nature of personal and other forms of identity, the relation of time to change, the nature of properties and causality and the relation between (...) the two, dualism and immortality, and the nature of mental states. All the essays show the same care and precision in argument as the earlier book, but they also reveal a substantial shift in Professor Shoemaker's position to a form of materialism. In fact, a number of papers together constitute what is probably the most subtle and rigourous defence yet of a sophisticated functionalism in the account of the mind. (shrink)

Classical mereology is a formal theory of the part-whole relation, essentially involving a notion of mereological fusion, or sum. There are various different definitions of fusion in the literature, and various axiomatizations for classical mereology. Though the equivalence of the definitions of fusion is provable from axiom sets, the definitions are not logically equivalent, and, hence, are not inter-changeable when laying down the axioms. We examine the relations between the main definitions of fusion and correct some technical errors in prominent (...) discussions of the axiomatization of mereology. We show the equivalence of four different ways to axiomatize classical mereology, using three different notions of fusion. We also clarify the connection between classical mereology and complete Boolean algebra by giving two "neutral" axiom sets which can be supplemented by one or the other of two simple axioms to yield the full theories; one of these uses a notion of "strong complement" that helps explicate the connections between the theories. (shrink)

Background Diversity in Institutional Review Board (IRB) membership is important for both intrinsic and instrumental reasons, including fairness, promoting trust, improving decision quality, and responding to systemic racism. Yet U.S. IRBs remain racially and ethnically homogeneous, even as gender diversity has improved. Little is known about IRB chairpersons’ perspectives on membership diversity and barriers to increasing it, as well as current institutional efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within IRB membership.Methods We surveyed IRB chairpersons leading U.S. boards registered (...) with the Office for Human Research Protections. Here, we focus exclusively on responses from a subset of 388 chairpersons of IRBs at universities and academic medical centers (AMCs).Results Board chairs were predominantly white and evenly split between men and women. Only about half reported that their boards had at least one member who is Black or African American (51%), Asian (56%), or Hispanic (48%), with 85% of university/AMC boards comprised entirely (15%) or mostly (70%) of white members. Most IRB chairpersons (64%) reported satisfaction with the current diversity of their membership. Participants largely agreed that considering diversity in the selection of IRB members is important (91%), including to improve the quality of IRB deliberation (80%), with an emphasis on racial/ethnic (85%) and gender diversity (74%). Most participants (80%) reported some type of active DEI effort regarding board membership at their university/AMC and just over half (57%) expressed satisfaction with these efforts.Conclusions Our national survey found that although university/AMC IRB chairpersons report valuing diversity in board membership, it may be lacking in key areas. Going forward, it will be important to specify clear reasons for diversity in the IRB context, as well to establish targets for acceptable levels of board diversity and to match DEI efforts to those targets. (shrink)

Dr Sydney Brenner has played a major, and unique, role in biology during the past 40 years. His contributions have ranged from key work on the structure of the genetic code and the existence of mRNA through the development of Caenorhabditis elegans as a key model system in developmental biology to genomic analysis and function in vertebrates. BioEssays went to interview Dr Brenner at his home in the cathedral city of Ely, England, on the significance of the genome projects (...) for human biology, in particular, and for biology, in general. (shrink)

Classical mereology (CM) is usually taken to be formulated in a tenseless language, and is therefore associated with a four-dimensionalist metaphysics. This paper presents three ways one might integrate the core idea of flat plenitude, i.e., that every suitable condition or property has exactly one mereological fusion, with a tensed logical setting. All require a revised notion of mereological fusion. The candidates differ over how they conceive parthood to interact with existence in time, which connects to the distinction between endurance (...) and perdurance. Similar issues arise for the integration of mereology with modality, and much of our discussion applies to this project as well. (shrink)

The concept of weak emergence is a refinement or specification of the intuitive, general notion of emergence. Basically, a fact about a system is said to be weakly emergent if its holding both (i) is derivable from the fundamental laws of the system together with some set of basic (non-emergent) facts about it, and yet (ii) is only derivable in a particular manner, called “simulation.” This essay analyzes the application of this notion Conway’s Game of Life, and concludes that a (...) modification of the notion would provide a better refinement of the general notion of emergence. It is proposed that emergence be taken as a matter of degree, defined in terms of the amount of simulation required to derive a fact. (shrink)

Francisco Suárez Sometimes called the "Eminent Doctor" after Paul V’s designation of him as doctor eximius et pius, Francisco Suárez was the leading theological and philosophical light of Spain’s Golden Age, alongside such cultural icons as Miguel de Cervantes, Tomás Luis de Victoria, and El Greco. Although initially rejected on grounds of deficient health … Continue reading Suárez, Francisco →.

Cet article examine les enjeux des théories de la Bildung chez Kant et Schiller, et leur confrontation mutuelle avec la philosophie de l’autre. On propose une voie interprétative médiane qui ne part pas de l’opposition trop réductrice entre la morale et l’esthétique, ni ne lit Schiller comme étant foncièrement opposé à Kant pour des raisons soit morales, soit éducatives, mais situe plutôt la principale contribution de Schiller dans la sphère de la moralisation. Cette approche éclaire plus adéquatement la manière dont (...) la théorie schillérienne de la Bildung répond aux questions fondamentales laissées ouvertes par les conceptions de Kant. (shrink)

I suggest that the core ideas of Kit Fine’s Semantic Relationism are the notion of semantic requirement and the notion of manifest consequence, the non-classical logical relation associated with semantic requirement. Surrounding this core are novel “relational” systems of coordinated sequences of expressions, relational (as opposed to intrinsic) semantic values, coordinated propositions, and coordinated content. I take Fine to take the periphery to be reducible to the core (but see below). I will make some primarily exegetical remarks about the two (...) core ideas, and then make more critical remarks about the periphery. I should say that I find the book, as a whole, illuminating and, for the most part, convincing. I hesitantly suggest that the core constitutes an important and novel model for thinking about semantics (and representation in general), while the periphery might result from an attempt to force the new model into the old mold. (shrink)

The dissertation considers both metaphysical and logical issues related to the vagueness of natural language. The principle metaphysical claim is that the vagueness of language is, at least in some cases, a direct result of indeterminacy in the subject matter of the language, rather than any sort of flaw of the language. A limited defense of this claim is given, as well as criticism of alternative views. ;A number of logical issues are addressed. First, the relationship between the notion of (...) determinacy and the idea of an unsharp line is considered, and it is suggested that the relationship is not as simple as it may at first seem, and that the idea of the unsharp line may be irreducible. Next, it is urged that there is a methodological fork in the road for the systematic treatment of vague language, including formal semantics. On one path, we accept certain intuitively puzzling propositions, exemplified by "This is red or it is not the case that this is red, though it is indeterminate which." On the other path, we reject classical principles of reasoning in our own reasoning both in and about vague language. Some limited arguments are given for taking the former path, and a formal system relevant to this path is motivated and discussed. Finally, both the metaphysical and logical work of the prior parts of the dissertation are brought to bear on the subject of the indeterminacy of identity. (shrink)

Ontological innocence You can undertake two commitments, once to object x and once to object y; or you could commit yourself to them all at once by committing yourself to the mereological fusion of x and y. It’s the same commitment either way. So once you have committed to some things, commitment to objects composed of those things is not a further commitment. (Cf. Lewis, Parts of Classes.).

Despite the importance of Suárez’s defense of the freedom of the will at the threshold of early modern philosophy, his account has received scant recent attention. This paper aims partially to redress that neglect. Suárez’s position can be understood as a balancing act between desiring to attribute libertarian freedom to agents and desiring to maintain the will’s status as a rational appetite. Hence, he rejects an intellectualism that says that choices are necessitated by the intellect’s judgements (since he does not (...) think that the judgements themselves can be directly free), but affirms that only what is judged good can be chosen. (shrink)

Thanks to Barbeyrac, Pufendorf and others, there is a long-familiar picture of Grotius as offering a groundbreaking account of natural law. By now there is also a familiar observation that there is no agreement what makes Grotius’s account innovative. Sometimes this leads to skepticism about how innovative Grotius’s account of natural law really is. Some scholars suggest that Grotius’s account of natural law resembles Suárez’s account. But others continue to argue that Barbeyrac is right to see Grotius as breaking the (...) ice of previous philosophy and laying the groundwork for a distinctively modern moral philosophy. I plan to contribute to the debate by arguing that, properly understood, Grotius’s position is similar to Suárez’s on a range of fundamental questions, and, furthermore, that seeing Grotius as making a radical break with the past violates his own self-conception. 1. (shrink)

Covering nearly 300 years of American religious writing, this anthology compiles selections from thirteen notable thinkers--including Thomas Hooker, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Hodge, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Josiah Royce, William James and H. Richard Niebuhr--to reveal the vital and creative history of Protestant theology in America. In his substantial Introduction, Sydney Ahlstrom relates the history of American theology in broad and accessible terms, tackling his subject with characteristic clarity, passion, and intellectual rectitude.

In Physical Realization, Sydney Shoemaker considers the question of how physicalism can be true: how can all facts about the world, including mental ones, be constituted by facts about the distribution in the world of physical properties? Physicalism requires that the mental properties of a person are 'realized in' the physical properties of that person, and that all instantiations of properties in macroscopic objects are realized in microphysical states of affairs. Shoemaker offers an account of both these sorts of (...) realization, one which allows the realized properties to be causally efficacious. He also explores the implications of this account for a wide range of metaphysical issues, including the nature of persistence through time, the problem of material constitution, the possibility of emergent properties, and the nature of phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

Adultcentrism is an inherent feature of the social fabrics comprising most resource-rich countries in the twenty-first century that undermines the capacities, value, and voices of young people in various ways. In the context of COVID-19, we are confronted with the question of whose voice matters and must ask: is adultcentrism ethically permissible during a pandemic? This Critical Controversy examines this question in relation to evolving concepts of childhood, children’s rights, and the capacities of young people, to highlight areas of tension, (...) future research, and potential for critical dialogue. (shrink)