Those familiar with Whitehead's thought may wish to skim Part One: Background and Foundations and pass on to Part Two: Value Theory in General and in Particular, which is Weisenbeck's main contribution to the literature on Whitehead. In discussing the general theory, Weisenbeck calls attention to the relational character of value. He argues that Whitehead's worlds of possible and realized values are essentially related; neither has value apart from the other. Similarly, value is neither wholly in subjects nor wholly in (...) objects; it is a relationship between the valuing subject and the valuable object. The author divides Whitehead's value theory into three principal species: aesthetic, religious, and moral. The chapter on aesthetic values contains a careful examination of Whitehead's distinction between appearance and reality and an analysis of beauty as the highest value. In the section on religious values he discusses man's relationship to God and man's emotional and volitional response to the religious vision of unity and perfection. Of special interest is the section on moral values where Weisenbeck shows the connection between morality and the aesthetic ideals to be attained. In view of his emphasis on ideals and the role of love in human action Weisenbeck would presumably side against those who have attributed a private interest theory to Whitehead. The author has performed an important service in sorting out the various senses of value terms in Whitehead and in tracing their relationships.--T. P. A. (shrink)
Objectives To investigate empirically the motivations for not consenting to DNA biobanking in a Swedish population-based study and to discuss the implications. Design Structured questionnaires and semistructured interviews. Setting A longitudinal epidemiological project (PART) ongoing since 1998 in Stockholm, Sweden. The DNA-collection wave took place during 2006–7. Participants 903 individuals completed the questionnaire (participation rate 36%) and 23 were interviewed. All individuals had participated in both non-genetic waves of the project, but refused to contribute saliva samples during the DNA-collection wave. (...) Main outcome measures Motivations behind refusing to consent to DNA biobanking, with subsequent focus on participants' explanations regarding this unwillingness. Results Public refusal to consent to DNA biobanking, as revealed by the questionnaire, was mainly explained by a lack of personal relevance of DNA contribution and feelings of discomfort related to the DNA being used for purposes other than the respective study. Interviews of individuals representing the second motivation, revealed a significant mistrust of DNA biobank studies. The underlying beliefs and attitudes were associated with concerns about integrity, privacy, suspiciousness and insecurity. However, most interviewees were supportive of genetic research per se and interpreted their mistrust in the light of distressing environmental influences. Conclusion The results suggest a need for guidelines on benefit sharing, as well as trustworthy and stable measures to maintain privacy, as a means for increasing personal relevance and trust among potential participants in genetic research. Measures taken from biobanks seem insufficient in maintaining and increasing trust, suggesting that broader societal measures should be taken. (shrink)
Social evolution theory conventionally takes an externalist explanatory stance, treating observed cooperation as explanandum and the positive assortment of cooperative behaviour as explanans. We ask how the circumstances bringing about this positive assortment arose in the first place. Rather than merely push the explanatory problem back a step, we move from an externalist to an interactionist explanatory stance, in the spirit of Lewontin and the Niche Construction theorists. We develop a theory of ‘social niche construction’ in which we consider biological (...) entities to be both the subject and object of their own social evolution. Some important cases of the evolution of cooperation have the side-effect of causing changes in the hierarchical level at which the evolutionary process acts. This is because the traits that act to align the fitness interests of particles in a collective can also act to diminish the extent to which those particles are bearers of heritable fitness variance, while augmenting the extent to which collectives of such particles are bearers of heritable fitness variance. In this way, we can explain upward transitions in the hierarchical level at which the Darwinian machine operates in terms of particle-level selection, even though the outcome of the process is a collective-level selection regime. Our theory avoids the logical and metaphysical paradoxes faced by other attempts to explain evolutionary transitions. (shrink)
The ethical theory espoused by a philosopher is often dominated by certain implicit epistemological assumptions. These “ways of knowing” may in turn be dominated by personality preferences that give rise to certain preferred worldviews that undergird various philosophies. Such preferred worldviews are seen in We believe positions, stated or unstated. The meaning of these claims about the interconnections of unexamined assumptions and their philosophical implications may be seen through an example. This paper will examine certain crucial aspects of the thought (...) of John Doris, who promotes a form of situationist ethics. This example is intended to be suggestive rather than conclusive. It points to the need for an openness to other epistemological assumptions that might permit a more comprehensive appreciation of what moral agency involves, beyond what arises from the restricted methods of analytical philosophy and a positivist worldview. There have been other efforts to meet the situationist challenge to classical Aristotelian ethics, yet surprisingly little attention has been given to the role of implicit epistemologies and unexamined psychologies. This paper offers a critical examination of these prior We believe positions. (shrink)
We first consider the entailment logic MC, based on meaning containment, which contains neither the Law of Excluded Middle (LEM) nor the Disjunctive Syllogism (DS). We then argue that the DS may be assumed at least on a similar basis as the assumption of the LEM, which is then justified over a finite domain or for a recursive property over an infinite domain. In the latter case, use is made of Mathematical Induction. We then show that an instance of the (...) LEM is intrumental in the proof of Cantor's Theorem, and we then argue that this is based on a more general form than can be reasonably justified. We briefly consider the impact of our approach on arithmetic and naive set theory, and compare it with intuitionist mathematics and briefly with recursive mathematics. Our "Four Basic Logical Issues" paper would provide useful background, the current paper being an application of the some of the ideas in it. (shrink)
Divided into two parts, the first concentrates on the logical properties of propositions, their relation to facts and sentences, and the parallel objects of commands and questions. The second part examines theories of intentionality and discusses the relationship between different theories of naming and different accounts of belief.
These superbly reproduced annotated pages form a profoundly moving human document which certainly ought to appeal to a wider public than those specially interested in St Thomas More’s life and writings. The ‘Prayer Book’ referred to in the title consists of two books, bound together. The first is a Book of Hours, namely the Little Hours of Our Lady, together with a number of occasional prayers, the Seven Penitential Psalms, the Fifteen Gradual Psalms, the Litany of the Saints and the (...) Office of the Dead. The second book is the Psalter, really a one-volume Breviary without the lessons and collects, for as well as the psalms the Psalter contains the dominical and ferial antiphons and hymns. The binding dates from 1530-1540, though it is not possible to determine whether the two books were bound together while in St Thomas More’s possession. The fact that each now lacks a number of pages seems to indicate a later binding. Inside the front cover, on a pasted down leaf which may have been originally a fly-leaf, is written: Liber quondam Thomae Mori militis in multis locis manu sua propria inscriptus. (shrink)
These superbly reproduced annotated pages form a profoundly moving human document which certainly ought to appeal to a wider public than those specially interested in St Thomas More’s life and writings. The ‘Prayer Book’ referred to in the title consists of two books, bound together. The first is a Book of Hours, namely the Little Hours of Our Lady, together with a number of occasional prayers, the Seven Penitential Psalms, the Fifteen Gradual Psalms, the Litany of the Saints and the (...) Office of the Dead. The second book is the Psalter, really a one-volume Breviary without the lessons and collects, for as well as the psalms the Psalter contains the dominical and ferial antiphons and hymns. The binding dates from 1530-1540, though it is not possible to determine whether the two books were bound together while in St Thomas More’s possession. The fact that each now lacks a number of pages seems to indicate a later binding. Inside the front cover, on a pasted down leaf which may have been originally a fly-leaf, is written: Liber quondam Thomae Mori militis in multis locis manu sua propria inscriptus. (shrink)
