In this paper we present a characterization of hyper-connexivity by means of a relating semantics for Boolean connexive logics. We also show that the minimal Boolean connexive logic is Abelardian, strongly consistent, Kapsner strong and antiparadox. We give an example showing that the minimal Boolean connexive logic is not simplificative. This shows that the minimal Boolean connexive logic is not totally connexive.

Totality and Infinity , the title of a well-known work by Emmanuel Levinas, takes up a word which readers of Poetic Intention and of many other texts of Édouard Glissant’s will easily recognize: a term sometimes used in a sense that is clearly positive, sometimes in a sense that is not quite as positive, such as when, for instance, he compares “totalizing Reason” to the “Montaigne’s tolerant relativism.” In his final collection of essays, Traité du tout-monde, Poétique IV , (...) Glissant attempts one more time to clarify the sense in which the reader will have to understand his use of the word “totality,” thinking, and rightfully so, that this word might lead to some confusion: “To write is to say the world. The world as totality, which is so dangerously close to the totalitarian.” Of course, here, it will be necessary to try to ascertain whether or not Levinas’s totality and Glissant’s can peacefully coexist, or, rather, whether this word might, in Glissant, have opposite meanings. Where the second word is concerned, “infinity,” any reader of Glissant will know that he locates its source in those societies he calls atavistic, which are grounded in foundational texts that are the bearers of stories of filiation, of legitimacy, societies whose arrogance and whose errors the author never ceases to decry and whose decomposition, in the very times in which we live, he never ceases to announce (even as Glissant recognizes that there was a time when atavistic cultures undoubtedly must have experienced their own period of creolization, and that, conversely, composite cultures undoubtedly often tend to become atavistic). On this level, “totality” and “infinity,” for him, seem to belong to the same world. Thus, and still in Traité du tout-monde , he proposes that "Hebraism, Christianity, Islam are grounded in the same spirituality of the One and to the same belief in a revealed Truth… The thought of the One that has done so much to magnify, as well as to denature. How can one consent to this thought, which transfigures while neither offending nor de-routing the Diverse?" Moreover, it would be interesting, I think, to know how Levinas might react to these words of Glissant’s: “Totality is not that which has often been called the universal. It is the finite and realized quantity of the infinite detail of the real.” This word, “infinite,” is decidedly dangerous: what is an “infinite detail?” Does this word, “infinite,” not always lead to the unknown, to the non-totalizable, to what Levinas would call an “enigma,” to what Glissant would call an “opacity?&rdquo. (shrink)

New brain-computer interface and neuroimaging techniques are making differentiation less ambiguous and more accurate between unresponsive wakefulness syndrome patients and patients with higher cognitive function and awareness. As research into these areas continues to progress, new ethical issues will face physicians of patients suffering from total locked-in syndrome, characterized by complete loss of voluntary muscle control, with retention of cognitive function and awareness detectable only with neuroimaging and brain-computer interfaces. Physicians, researchers, ethicists and hospital ethics committees should be aware of (...) and prepared to handle ethical issues unique to these totally locked-in patients. Several thought experiments are discussed, to highlight potential ethical dilemmas surrounding surrogate decision-making, autonomy, end-of-life care, and pediatric care, which will be unique to total LIS patients. These, along with other ethical problems especially relevant to total LIS patients, merit further discussion among physicians, researchers, ethicists and hospital ethics committees, to facilitate consensus regarding these issues, and improve patient care. (shrink)

We analyze the representation of binary relations in general, and in particular of functions and of total antisymmetric relations, in monadic third order logic, that is, the simple typed theory of sets with three types. We show that there is no general representation of functions or of total antisymmetric relations in this theory. We present partial representations of functions and of total antisymmetric relations which work for large classes of these relations, and show that there is an adequate representation of (...) cardinality in this theory. The relation of our work to similar work by Henrard and Allen Hazen is discussed. This work can be understood as part of a program of assessing the capabilities of weak logical frameworks: our results are applicable for example, to the framework in David Lewis’s Parts of Classes. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a partial defence of Armstrong’s totality relation as a solution to the problem of so-called “negative existentials”.

There has been a groundswell of interest in the account of modality that Kant sets forth in his pre-Critical Only Possible Argument. Andrew Chignell's reconstruction of Kant's theistic argument in terms of what he calls has a prima facie advantage in that it appears to be able to block the plurality objection (namely, that even if every modal fact presupposes some ground, this does not entail that all modal facts share the same ground). I argue that it is both textually (...) and philosophically problematic to interpret Kant's argument in terms of real harmony. Then, I set forth an alternative response to the plurality objection which does not require the adoption of the problematic notion of real harmony. Instead, I argue that the objection can be overcome by observing that the argument seeks to ground modal facts as a totality and that, according to Kant, such relations can be accounted for only by their schematization in a single intellect. (shrink)

We discuss the total collision singularities of the gravitational N-body problem on shape space. Shape space is the relational configuration space of the system obtained by quotienting ordinary configuration space with respect to the similarity group of total translations, rotations, and scalings. For the zero-energy gravitating N-body system, the dynamics on shape space can be constructed explicitly and the points of total collision, which are the points of central configuration and zero shape momenta, can be analyzed in detail. It turns (...) out that, even on shape space where scale is not part of the description, the equations of motion diverge at (and only at) the points of total collision. We construct and study the stratified total-collision manifold and show that, at the points of total collision on shape space, the singularity is essential. There is, thus, no way to evolve the solutions through these points. This mirrors closely the big bang singularity of general relativity, where the homogeneous-but-not-isotropic cosmological model of Bianchi IX shows an essential singularity at the big bang. A simple modification of the general-relativistic model (the addition of a stiff matter field) changes the system into one whose shape-dynamical description allows for a deterministic evolution through the singularity. We suspect that, similarly, some modification of the dynamics would be required in order to regularize the total collision singularity of the N-body model. (shrink)

We discuss the total collision singularities of the gravitational N-body problem on shape space. Shape space is the relational configuration space of the system obtained by quotienting ordinary configuration space with respect to the similarity group of total translations, rotations, and scalings. For the zero-energy gravitating N-body system, the dynamics on shape space can be constructed explicitly and the points of total collision, which are the points of central configuration and zero shape momenta, can be analyzed in detail. It turns (...) out that, even on shape space where scale is not part of the description, the equations of motion diverge at (and only at) the points of total collision. We construct and study the stratified total-collision manifold and show that, at the points of total collision on shape space, the singularity is essential. There is, thus, no way to evolve the solutions through these points. This mirrors closely the big bang singularity of general relativity, where the homogeneous-but-not-isotropic cosmological model of Bianchi IX shows an essential singularity at the big bang. A simple modification of the general-relativistic model (the addition of a stiff matter field) changes the system into one whose shape-dynamical description allows for a deterministic evolution through the singularity. We suspect that, similarly, some modification of the dynamics would be required in order to regularize the total collision singularity of the N-body model. (shrink)

This is the first of a series of papers devoted to the thorough investigation of refinement based on an underlying partial relational model. In this paper we restrict attention to operation refinement. We explore four theories of refinement based on an underlying partial relation model for specifications, and we show that they are all equivalent. This, in particular, sheds some light on the relational completion operator due to Woodcock which underlies data refinement in, for example, the specification language Z. (...) It further leads to two simple alternative models which are also equivalent to the others. (shrink)

Baxter (Australas J Philos 79: 449-464, 2001) proposes an ingenious solution to the problem of instantiation based on his theory of cross-count identity. His idea is that where a particular instantiates a universal it shares an aspect with that universal. Both the particular and the universal are numerically identical with the shared aspect in different counts. Although Baxter does not say exactly what a count is, it appears that he takes ways of counting as mysterious primitives against which different numerical (...) identities are defined. In contrast, I defend the idea— suggested, though not quite endorsed, by Baxter himself—that counts are independent dimensions of numerical identity. Different ways of counting are explained by the existence of these different sorts of identity (i.e., counts). For the instantiation of a universal by a particular, I propose one dimension concerned with the individuation of particulars (the p-count) and another dimension concerned with the individuation of universals (the u-count). On that basis, I give a clear definition of cross-count identity that explains its asymmetrical nature (i.e., the fact that particulars instantiate universais, but not vice versa). I extend the theory to a third dimension—that of time, or the t-count—and thereby defend Baxter's ideas on change, and the contingency of instantiation. Baxter (Mind 97(388): 575-582, 1988; Australas J Philos 79: 449-464, 2001) proposes the related idea of composition as (cross-count) identity. Parts are individually cross-count identical with the wholes that they constitute, and they collectively share all aspects across counts with those wholes. I propose an innovation by which totality is shared distinctness across counts. The theory applies to both the totality of particulars that instantiate any given universal, and the totality of parts that constitute any given whole. I argue that this has several advantages over Armstrong's view, which is based on a dubious external totalling relation. I also argue that Armstrong's theory of numbers (or quantities) as internal relations ought to be rejected in favour of an account based on identity and distinctness. The paper concludes with a careful analysis of external relations in Baxter's framework. I argue that we must recognise one further dimension of identity in order to differentiate between, e.g., the aspects of Abelard insofar as he loves Heloise and Abelard insofar as he loves Isobel. Each of these aspects is identical with Abelard and identical with loving-by, yet they must be in some way distinct. I therefore propose the r-count, in which multiple distinct relational properties are the very same relation (-part). The existence of these four independent dimensions explains the fact that particulars, universals, relations, and times are fundamentally different sorts of things in the ontology. Each is individuated with respect to a different dimension of identity. (shrink)

In this paper we study applicative theories of operations and numbers with the non-constructive minimum operator in the context of a total application operation. We determine the proof-theoretic strength of such theories by relating them to well-known systems like Peano Arithmetic PA and the system <0 of second order arithmetic. Essential use will be made of so-called fixed-point theories with ordinals, certain infinitary term models and Church-Rosser properties.

According to the Thomistic tradition, the Principle of Totality (TPoT) articulates a secondary principle of natural law which guides the exercise of human ownership or dominium over creation. In its general signification, TPoT is a principle of distributive justice determining the right ordering of wholes to their parts. In the medical field it is traditionally understood as entailing an absolute prohibition of bodily mutilation as irrational and immoral, and an imperfect obligation to use the parts of one’s body for (...) the perfection of the bodily whole. TPoT is thus a key element of the system of principles within which an individual exercises her right to life: it helps specify the nature, scope and limits of those actions by which an agent permissibly acts in order to preserve her life. While the Thomistic tradition and the Catholic Church have drawn clear conclusions from the principle regarding, e.g., direct sterilization and non-therapeutic experimentation on human subjects, less attention has been given to the implications of TPoT for non-therapeutic procedures that may positively impact biological functioning or supra-biological goals–that is, for human “enhancement.” We will explore the degree to which TPoT non-univocally guides our use of both artifacts and bodies. We will argue that a careful analysis of these distinct kinds of totalities suggests that the application of TPoT to artifacts and bodies is strongly isomorphic, which is what tempts advocates of the Principle of Autonomy to invalidly infer the absolute dominium of the individual over her body. The inference is invalid because this isomorphism also includes a principle of intrinsic value whose function is to resist the instrumentalization of both artifacts and bodies in some contexts; we are not even related to artifacts as advocates of absolute autonomy believe we are, let alone to our bodies. Rather, the limits of human dominium are determined by the nature and finalities, inherent or acquired, of the objects in question, and it will be argued that articulating these limits raises important, understudied, and fascinating questions about the permissibility of various kinds of human enhancement. (shrink)

This essay focuses on the spatial organization of the genre of ‘Man.’ In particular, I investigate the spatial attitudes through which the genre of Man emerges as a racialized, geographically determined, and gendered category. There are two main arcs of analysis provided: the first arc follows the relation between the space of exploration and the space of totalization. The second arc focuses on the role of boundary markers such as the ‘Other’ and the ‘Outside,’ in the spatial organization of (...) Man. I argue, overall, that the totalitarian spatial attitude of the Modern State is formed on the basis of the transformation of the cosmogeny of Man from a spatially limited earth to one open to exploration. The racialized ladder of the State rests on such production of a spatial attitude that is at once open and totalitarian. (shrink)

Drawing on Deleuze’s ‘Postscript on Control Societies’, our initial focus in this article will be on the role of institutions within societies of control, an analysis which brings Deleuze into the orbit of Ervin Goffman’s famous ethnographic work on total institutions. This cross-comparative analysis of Deleuze and Goffman will allow us to show how institutions of control function by sequencing ‘dividuals’ across institutional domains in a continual process of totalization. Inspired by James Williams’s recent work on the ‘process philosophy of (...) signs’, we then argue that a critique of totalizing institutions can be positively articulated as a process-oriented challenge to algorithmic technologies and as a counter-sequencing of institutional control. We conclude with some reflections on the emergent modes of resistance that challenge both institutional and technological control, and we will proffer criteria for assessing such practices in relation to the two-sided nature of critique they enact, both processual and counter-sequential. (shrink)

This is an exploration of a cluster of related logical results. Taken together these seem to have something philosophically important to teach us: something about knowledge and truth and something about the logical impossibility of totalities of knowledge and truth. The book includes explorations of new forms of the ancient and venerable paradox of the :Liar, applications and extensions of Kaplan and Montague's paradox of the Knower, generalizations of Godel's work on incompleteness, and new uses of Cantorian diagonalization. Throughout, the (...) concern is with metaphysical and epistemological implications of these results: what such results may have to teach us about knowledge, truth, and possibility. (shrink)

Moral responsibility and morality lie at the heart of how we view the world. In our daily life, we feel responsibility-related emotions: gratitude, pride, love, forgiveness, resentment, indignation, and shame. We love those who freely and reciprocally love us. Also, we feel that people act rightly or wrongly, make the world better or worse, and are virtuous or vicious. These policies are central to our justifying how we see the world and treat others. In this book, I argue that our (...) views on these matters, except love, are false. (shrink)

We tackle the problem of preservation of totality by composition in arena games. We first explain how this problem reduces to a finiteness theorem on what we call pointer structures, similar to the parity pointer functions of Harmer, Hyland and Mélliès and the interaction sequences of Coquand. We discuss how this theorem relates to normalization of linear head reduction in simply-typed lambda-calculus, leading us to a semantic realizability proof à la Kleene of our theorem. We then present another proof (...) of a more combinatorial nature. Finally, we discuss the exact class of strategies to which our theorems apply. (shrink)

We analyze the points of total collision of the Newtonian gravitational system on shape space (the relational configuration space of the system). While the Newtonian equations of motion, formulated with respect to absolute space and time, are singular at the point of total collision due to the singularity of the Newton potential at that point, this need not be the case on shape space where absolute scale doesn’t exist. We investigate whether, adopting a relational description of the system, the shape (...) degrees of freedom, which are merely angles and their conjugate momenta, can be evolved through the points of total collision. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Even without scale, the equations of motion are singular at the points of total collision (and only there). This follows from the special behavior of the shape momenta. While this behavior induces the singularity, it at the same time provides a purely shape-dynamical description of total collisions. By help of this, we are able to discern total-collision solutions from non-collision solutions on shape space, that is, without reference to (external) scale. We can further use the shape-dynamical description to show that total-collision solutions form a set of measure zero among all solutions. (shrink)

The question of whether or not to partition data for the purposes of inferring phylogenetic hypotheses remains controversial. Opinions have been especially divided since Kluge's (1989, Systematic Zoology 38, 7–25) claim that data partitioning violates the requirement of total evidence (RTE). Unfortunately, advocacy for or against the RTE has not been based on accurate portrayals of the requirement. The RTE is a basic maxim for non-deductive inference, stipulating that evidence must be considered if it has relevance to an inference. Evidence (...) is relevant if it has a positive or negative effect on a given conclusion. In the case of ℈partitioned’ phylogenetic inferences, the RTE is violated, and the basis for rational belief in any conclusion is compromised, unless it is shown that the partitions are evidentially irrelevant to one another. The goal of phylogenetic systematics is to hypothesize past causal conditions to account for observed shared similarities among two or more species. Such inferences are non-deductive, necessitating consideration of the RTE. Some phylogeneticists claim the parsimony criterion as justification for the RTE. There is no relation between the two – parsimony is a relation between a hypothesis and causal question(s). Parsimony does not dictate the content of premises prior to an inference. ℈Taxonomic congruence,’ ℈supertrees,’ and ℈conditional combination’ methods violate the RTE. Taxonomic congruence and supertree methods also fail to achieve the intended goal of phylogenetic inference, such that ℈consensus trees’ and ℈supertrees’ lack an empirical basis. ℈Conditional combination’ is problematic because hypotheses derived from partitioned data cannot be compared – a causal hypothesis inferred to account for a set of effects only has relevance to those effects, not any comparative relevance to other causal hypotheses. A similar problem arises in the comparisons of hypotheses derived from different causal theories. (shrink)

The paper studies two fundamentally different forms in which the concept of care makes its comeback in twentieth-century thought. We make use of a distinction made by Peter Sloterdijk, who argues that the ancient and medieval ‘ascetic’ ideal of self-enhancement through practice has re-emerged in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, particularly in the form of a rehabilitation of the Hellenistic notion of self-care (epimeleia heautou) in Michel Foucault’s late ethics. Sloterdijk contrasts this return of self-care with Martin Heidegger’s concept of (...) being-in-the-world as ‘total care’ (Sorge), an utterly ‘secularized’ understanding of the human being as irreducibly world-embedded that rejects the classical ascetic ideal of world-secession. We examine further the historical roots and emergence of these contrasting contemporary reappropriations of care in the Western tradition of thought and show them to be rooted in two different ontologies and ethics of the self as either world-secluded or world-immersed, autonomous or constitutively relational. The historical point of divergence of these two approaches to care, we argue, can be found in the Christian transformation of Hellenistic ethics. (shrink)

Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is a commonly implemented elective surgical treatment for end-stage osteoarthritis of the knee, demonstrating high success rates when assessed by objective medical outcomes. However, a considerable proportion of TKA patients report significant dissatisfaction postoperatively, related to enduring pain, functional limitations, and diminished quality of life. In this conceptual analysis, we highlight the importance of assessing patient-centred outcomes routinely in clinical practice, as these measures provide important information regarding whether surgery and postoperative rehabilitation interventions have effectively remediated (...) patients’ real-world “quality of life” experiences. We propose a novel precision medicine approach to improving patient-centred TKA outcomes through the development of a multivariate machine-learning model. The primary aim of this model is to predict individual postoperative recovery trajectories. Uniquely, this model will be developed using an interdisciplinary methodology involving non-linear analysis of the unique contributions of a range of preoperative risk and resilience factors to patient-centred TKA outcomes. Of particular importance to the model’s predictive power is the inclusion of a comprehensive assessment of modifiable psychological risk and resilience factors that have demonstrated relationships with TKA and other conditions in some studies. Despite the potential for patient psychological factors to limit recovery, they are typically not routinely assessed preoperatively in this patient group, and thus can be overlooked in rehabilitative referral and intervention decision-making. This represents a research-to-practice gap that may contribute to adverse patient-centred outcomes. Incorporating psychological risk and resilience factors into a multivariate prediction model could improve the detection of patients at risk of sub-optimal outcomes following TKA. This could provide surgeons and rehabilitation providers with a simplified tool to inform postoperative referral and intervention decision-making related to a range of interdisciplinary domains outside their usual purview. The proposed approach could facilitate the development and provision of more targeted rehabilitative interventions on the basis of identified individual needs. The roles of several modifiable psychological risk and resilience factors in recovery are summarised, and intervention options are briefly presented. While focusing on rehabilitation following TKA, we advocate for the broader utilisation of multivariate prediction models to inform individually-tailored interventions targeting a range of health conditions. (shrink)

Georges Gurvitch, from the 1920s to the end of his life, was solving the problem of combining unity and plurality in the justification of society. He believed that individualism and collectivism represented social processes in a limited way because they were based on the preconception that the binding power of law derives respectively from a private or corporate actor's will. Gurvitch contrasted individual law with the social one, which was intended to overcome the opposition between individualism and collectivism. Social law (...) bases on legal sociology's assumption that social interactions as such are already legal relations. This conclusion allows Gurvitch to consider any social interaction as a source of law and to assert legal pluralism as a way of constructing society. The integrity of the latter is a condition for the mutual correlation of the multiplicity of legal regulations generated by internal social interactions into the unified structure of social law. In a holistic approach to comprehending social interactions, Gurvitch, in his Russian-language works in the migr period, uses the philosophical-legal interpretation of sobornost to describe society's integrity. In French- and English-language works from the 1930s, Gurvitch uses the term "totality," which he learned from Marcel Mauss, to describe social integrity. This article compares sobornost and totality as variants of denoting social integrity in Gurvitch's social law doctrine. The researcher determines that Gurvitch, using the concepts of sobornost and totality, interpreted society's development differently, 1) as anti-hierarchical sobornost equality, and 2) as a hierarchical inordination of totalities. Having analyzed the peculiarities of the interpretation of sobornost and totality in Gurvitch's works, the author concludes that these concepts should be considered multilingual equivalents in denoting communal unity as sources of law, which reflect changes in the interpretation of society in Gurvitch's social law doctrine. (shrink)

Background:Dignity experience in the daily lives of people living with dementia is influenced by their relational interactions with others. However, literature reviews show that knowledge concerning crucial interactional qualities, preserving their sense of dignity, is limited.Aim:The aim of this study was to explore and describe crucial qualities of relational interactions preserving dignity experience among people with dementia, while interacting with family, social network, and healthcare professionals.Methodology:The study was founded upon Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, and an exploratory design employing qualitative research interviews (...) was conducted.Participants and research context:A total of 11 individuals diagnosed with mild to moderate dementia, living in their own homes, were recruited from two Hospital Memory Clinics in Norway.Ethical considerations:In recruiting persons with dementia as study participants, sensitivity toward their life history, autonomy, integrity, relationships, and dignity is essential. These standards, and the ethical principles of moral sensitivity to their vulnerability, doing no harm, showing justice, and respecting their personal utility, guided our research.Results:Three main interactional qualities preserving the participants’ dignity experience were found: Experiencing love and confirmation; experiencing social inclusion and fellowship; experiencing humane warmth and understanding within a caring culture, while being met as an equal human being. A total of 10 sub-qualities were identified within these 3 main qualities.Discussion and final considerations:Dignity experience among the participants was preserved when certain interactional qualities were present in their interactions with family, social network, and healthcare professionals. While supporting some of the findings of previous studies, this study adds new knowledge on the subject. Knowledge of relational interactions toward preserving dignity experience should be a fundamental part of future dementia care practice. Based on the results of this study, an empirical–theoretical model was developed for this purpose. (shrink)

In 2010, a cluster of suicides at the electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn Technology Group sparked worldwide outcry about working conditions at its factories in China. Within a few short months, 14 young migrant workers jumped to their deaths from buildings on the Foxconn campus, an all-encompassing compound where they had worked, eaten, and slept. Even though the language of workplace dignity was invoked in official responses from Foxconn and its business partner Apple, neither of these parties directly examined workers’ dignity (...) in their ensuing audits. Based on our analysis of media accounts of life at Foxconn, we argue that its total institution structure imposed unique indignities on its workers that both raised questions of their self-respect and self-worth, as well as gave rise to multiple episodes of disrespectful communication. We interpret our findings in light of the larger cultural context and meanings of work in China to understand more fully the experience of dignity of Foxconn’s migrant workforce. (shrink)

How are causal relations between particular states of affairs related to causal laws? There appear to be three main answers to this question, and the choice among those three alternatives would seem to be crucial for any account of causation. In spite of this fact, the question of which view is correct has been all but totally neglected in present-day discussions. Indeed, since the time of Hume, one answer has more or less dominated philosophical thinking about causation. This is the (...) view that causal relations between events/states of affairs logically supervene upon causal laws plus non-causal states of affairs. In this paper, I shall attempt to show that the view in question is exposed to decisive objections. (shrink)

We here present explicit relational theories of a class of geometrical systems (namely, inner product spaces) which includes Euclidean space and Minkowski spacetime. Using an embedding approach suggested by the theory of measurement, we prove formally that our theories express the entire empirical content of the corresponding geometric theory in terms of empirical relations among a finite set of elements (idealized point-particles or events) thought of as embedded in the space. This result is of interest within the general phenomenalist tradition (...) as well as the theory of space and time, since it seems to be the first example of an explicit phenomenalist reconstruction of a realist theory which is provably equivalent to it in observational consequences. The interesting paper "On the Space-Time Ontology of Physical Theories" by Ken Manders, Philosophy of Science, vol. 49, number 4, December 1982, p. 575-590, has significant affinities to this one. We both, in a sense, try to formally vindicate Leibniz's notion of a relational theory of space, by constructing theories of spatial relations among physical objects which are provably equivalent to the standard absolutist theories. The essential difference between our approaches is that Manders retains Leibniz's explicitly modal framework, whereas I do not. Manders constructs a spacetime theory which explicitly characterizes the totality of possible configurations of physical objects, using a modal language in which the notion of a possible configuration occurs as a primitive. There is no doubt that this is a more accurate realization of Leibniz's own conception of space than the embedding-based approach developed here. However, it also remains open to objections (such as those cited here from Sklar) on account of the special appeal to modal notions. Our approach here, by contrast, aims to avoid the special appeal to modal notions by giving directly a set of laws which are satisfied by a configuration individually, if and only if it is one of the allowable ones. One thus avoids the need for reference to possible but not actual configurations or objects, in the statement of the spacetime laws. We may then take this alternative set of laws as the actual geometric theory, and do away with the hypothetical entity called 'space'. Yet at the same time there is no invocation of modality, except in the ordinary sense in which every physical theory constrains what is possible. So that a relationalist is not forced to utilize a modal language (though Leibniz certainly does.). (shrink)

Levinas’s ethics of other‐centered service has been criticized at the theoretical level for failing to offer a conception of moral agency adequate to ground its imperative and at the practical level for encouraging self‐ hatred. Levinas’s explicit resistance to the incorporation of the phrase ”as yourself“ in the Judaeo‐Christian love command might seem to validate the critics’ complaints. The author argues, on the contrary, that Levinas does offer a strong and compelling conception of moral agency and that his ethics, properly (...) understood, does not entail self‐abnegation. Levinas’s attempt to counter excessive and manipulative self‐concern and self‐inflation by insisting on the dependent and situational position of the self has been wrongly overinterpreted as an abandonment of the self and its just claims. The author seeks to establish a more balanced understanding by focusing attention on the “ethics of welcome”, on Levinas’s distinctive conception of passivity, and on the role of the “third” in all human relations. (shrink)

The study reported in this article examines the relationships between nationality, gender, and religiosity and business ethics attitudes in four countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Using a survey approach, university business students in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Singapore were asked about their attitudes regarding business-related ethicality using a six-item scale of ethicality that was reported in the literature. Business students are appropriate for this study as they are “future business leaders.” For nationality significant differences emerged for only two (...) of the six items. There was no significant difference in total ethicality, and the values were positive in all countries. In general, females were reported being more ethical than males, particularly in New Zealand and Singapore. For religiosity, overall, there was a significant difference in ethicality where those respondents reporting being “very religious” also reporting being more ethical. For individual countries, significance did emerge for Australia and New Zealand. (shrink)

Levinas's ethics of other-centered service has been criticized at the theoretical level for failing to offer a conception of moral agency adequate to ground its imperative and at the practical level for encouraging self-hatred. Levinas's explicit resistance to the incorporation of the phrase "as yourself" in the Judaeo-Christian love command might seem to validate the critics' complaints. The author argues, on the contrary, that Levinas does offer a strong and compelling conception of moral agency and that his ethics, properly understood, (...) does not entail self-abnegation. Levinas's attempt to counter excessive and manipulative self-concern and self-inflation by insisting on the dependent and situational position of the self has been wrongly overinterpreted as an abandonment of the self and its just claims. The author seeks to establish a more balanced understanding by focusing attention on the "ethics of welcome," on Levinas's distinctive conception of passivity, and on the role of "the third" in all human relations. (shrink)

Novel methods such as mass‐spectrometry enable a view of the proteomes of cells in unprecedented detail. Recently, these efforts have culminated in quantitative measurements of the number of copies per cell for most expressed proteins in organisms ranging from bacteria to mammalian cells. Here, we estimate the expected total number of proteins per unit of cell volume using known parameters related to the composition of cells such as the fraction of cell mass that is protein, and the average protein length. (...) Using simple arguments, we estimate a range of 2–4 million proteins per cubic micron (i.e. 1 fL) in bacteria, yeast, and mammalian cells. Interestingly, we find that measured values that are reported for fission yeast and mammalian cells are often about 3–10 times lower. We discuss this apparent discrepancy and how to use the estimate as benchmark to recalibrate proteome‐wide quantitative censuses or to revisit assumptions about cell composition. (shrink)

Originally presented to Roy Bhaskar’s postgraduate seminar at the Institute of Education, London, in 2012, this article situates and delineates the concept of totality and the cluster of related concepts in dialectical critical realism.

The view that a possible world is an existing abstract object implies that all nonexistent possible individuals have a principle of individuation in terms of existing objects, properties, and relations. However, some individuals of this kind are totally out of this world both in the subjective sense that nobody in this world can pick them out, and in the ontological sense that they would neither be created by assembling or arranging existing bits of matter nor otherwise be generated by existing (...) items. The only acceptable principle of individuation for such nonexistent possibles is that they are individuated by their unexemplified haecceities. (shrink)

Physical activity is critical for maintaining cognitive and brain health. Previous studies have indicated that the effect of physical activity on cognitive and brain function varies between individuals. The present study aimed to examine whether mind wandering modulated the relations between physical activity and resting-state hippocampal functional connectivity. A total of 99 healthy adults participated in neuroimaging data collection as well as reported their physical activity in the past week and their propensity to mind wandering during typical activities. The results (...) indicated that mind wandering was negatively related to the resting-state functional connectivity between hippocampus and right inferior occipital gyrus. Additionally, for participants with higher level of mind wandering, physical activity was negatively related to hippocampal connectivity at left precuneus and right precentral gyrus. In contrast, such relations were positive at right medial frontal gyrus and bilateral precentral gyrus for participants with lower level of mind wandering. Altogether, these findings indicated that the relations between physical activity and hippocampal functional connectivity vary as a function of mind wandering level, suggesting that individual differences are important to consider when we aim to maintain or improve cognitive and brain health through increasing physical activity. (shrink)

The view that a possible world is an existing abstract object implies that all nonexistent possible individuals have a principle of individuation in terms of existing objects, properties, and relations. However, some individuals of this kind are totally out of this world both in the subjective sense that nobody in this world can pick them out, and in the ontological sense that they would neither be created by assembling or arranging existing bits of matter nor otherwise be generated by existing (...) items. The only acceptable principle of individuation for such nonexistent possibles is that they are individuated by their unexemplified haecceities. (shrink)

The view that a possible world is an existing abstract object implies that all nonexistent possible individuals have a principle of individuation in terms of existing objects, properties, and relations. However, some individuals of this kind are totally out of this world both in the subjective sense that nobody in this world can pick them out, and in the ontological sense that they would neither be created by assembling or arranging existing bits of matter nor otherwise be generated by existing (...) items. The only acceptable principle of individuation for such nonexistent possibles is that they are individuated by their unexemplified haecceities. (shrink)

One very natural dividing line that—for better or worse—is often used to distinguish those who believe in God from those who do not is that between theism and atheism, where ‘theism’ is used to mark the believers and ‘atheism’ the non-believers. Such contrastive labels can serve many practical functions even when the terms in question are not clearly defined. Individuals are often, on the basis of their beliefs and values, attracted toward one such label more so than the other. However, (...) once a clear statement of the substantive difference between theism and atheism is requested, things become more complicated, much more so than our casual use of these terms would suggest. What exactly is the best way to capture the relationship between theism and atheism? To what extent are they opposed to one another, and relatedly, to what extent should they be regarded as exhausting the available theoretical options? §2 will canvass a range of responses to this cluster of questions. In §3, we explore the social-epistemic dimension of the atheism/theism divide, by focusing in particular on the issue of religious disagreements, including those disagreements that take very different assumptions as starting points. (shrink)

Nurses in Ghana believe that training, practise, practitioner and policy reforms are required for total nursing profession reform to be effective. Their views for role reformation in the nursing profession, which is currently needed, are not only academic but also clinically relevant in the pursuit of health equity and quality nursing care. We explored and described nurses’ views on their roles in the profession using data collected from 24 professional nurses in three regional hospitals in Ghana. Using an inductive descriptive (...) qualitative design, data were gathered and analysed using a qualitative content analysis to describe the views of the nurses. Four major themes, namely practise reforms, practitioner reforms, training reforms and policy reforms have emerged in relation to role reformation in the nursing profession. Three strategic areas, practitioner attitudes, new training modalities and policy realignment, must be reviewed and remodelled for better positioning of the nursing profession before its entire role reformation. (shrink)

In this major intellectual history, Ira Katznelson examines the works of Hannah Arendt, Robert Dahl, Richard Hofstadter, Harold Lasswell, Charles Lindblom, Karl Polanyi, and David Truman, detailing their engagement with the larger project of reclaiming the West's moral bearing.

This study examines the effects of demographic characteristics on ethical perceptions. While earlier research has produced conflicting results regarding the predictive power of these variables, significant and definite insights were obtained with proper controls. The following predictors of ethical attitudes are examined: age, gender, marital status, education, dependent children status, region of the country and years in business, while controlling for job status. A nation-wide random sample of employees was used in obtaining a response rate of fifty-three percent (total n (...) of 423). Indices of aspects of business ethical attitudes were constructed using factor analysis. Linear multiple regression analysis indicated the significant predictive variables. Age was found to be a most-significant predictor. Older workers had stricter interpretations of ethical standards. Gender and region predicted attitudes about job-discrimination practices only, with women and persons from the Midwest most strongly opposed to the practice. All the other variables proved to be unreliable ethics predictors. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between language, subjectivity and teaching in Emmanuel Levinas’s Totality and Infinity. It aims to elucidate Levinas’s presentation of language as always already predicated on a relationship of responsibility towards that which is beyond the self and the idea that it is only in this condition of being responsible that we are subjects. Levinas suggests that the relation with the Other through which I am a subject as one uniquely responsible is also the scene (...) of teaching. Through examining these ethical conditions of subjectivity, I suggest that this notion of the self as oriented towards the Other in a relation of passivity presents a challenge to many of the standard topoi of teaching and learning and invites us to consider the nature of teaching in a provocative new manner. (shrink)

Kindergarten teachers' engagement in work is influenced by many factors. Total rewards perceptions, as an individual's evaluation of the rewards provided by the organization, may promote work engagement when it can meet their intrinsic and extrinsic work demands. To explore the relationship between kindergarten teachers' total rewards perceptions and work engagement, and the mediating role of organizational identification, a survey was conducted among 1,014 kindergarten teachers applying the Chinese versions of the Total Rewards Perceptions Scale for Kindergarten Teacher, Kindergarten Teacher (...) Organizational Identification Scale, and Kindergarten Teacher Work Engagement Scale. The results showed that kindergarten teachers' total rewards perceptions and its four factors were positively correlated with organizational identification and work engagement. Organizational identification was positively related to work engagement. Organizational identification partially mediated the relationship between total rewards perception and work engagement among kindergarten teachers. We discussed the result of the relationship between total rewards perceptions, organizational identification, and work engagement among Chinese kindergarten teachers. (shrink)

This study investigates the negative influence of consumer’s perceptions of online retailer’s deceptive practices on consumer’s relational variables. Also, the moderating role of product type, consumer’s attitude toward the Internet, and consumer’s demographics in the deception-relational outcomes link is considered. Data from 398 online consumers revealed that satisfaction totally mediated the influence of deception on loyalty. Furthermore, the deception-satisfaction link was moderated by all the hypothesized variables. Interestingly, a direct effect of deception on loyalty was found among more educated consumers, (...) consumers who had a more positive attitude toward the Internet and consumers who had purchased a physical product. Implications for theory and management are discussed. (shrink)

This study investigated the effect of obstructive sleep apnea on the neural mechanism of visual perception. A preliminary case-control study was conducted. Seventeen patients with moderate to severe OSA in the sleep center of Civil Aviation General Hospital and 20 healthy controls matched for age, sex, and education were recruited. The participants accepted the perceptual contour integration task, compared the differences in behavioral indicators between the two groups, and compared the differences in electroencephalography data between the two groups through event-related (...) potential technology. The groups did not differ significantly in age and gender, but they differed significantly in body mass index. The groups were not statistically different in terms of sleep structure and total sleep time. AHI, sleep efficiency, and minimal SaO2 value in the OSA group were significantly different from those of the control group. The results showed that the average reaction time of the OSA group was significantly longer than that of the healthy control group in the contour integration task. There was no significant difference in the accuracy rate. The results of EEG showed that the amplitudes of N100 of the OSA group were significantly higher than those of the control group at O1, Oz, and O2 electrodes. There was no significant difference in latency between the two groups. At the FCz electrode, the amplitudes of N200 of the OSA group were significantly higher than those of the control group. Therefore, we concluded that in the early stage of the perceptual integration task, although the neural response activity of patients with moderate and severe OSA was not accelerated, they need to call on more psychological resources, activate more neurons in the contour global recognition processing stage, and the compensatory effect of frontal lobe appeared in the stage of visual perception. (shrink)

Most approaches to iterated belief revision are accompanied by some motivation for the use of the proposed revision operator (or family of operators), and typically encode enough information in the epistemic state of an agent for uniquely determining one-step revision. But in those approaches describing a family of operators there is usually little indication of how to proceed uniquely after the first revision step. In this paper we contribute towards addressing that deficiency by providing a formal framework which goes beyond (...) the first revision step in two ways. First, the framework is obtained by enriching the epistemic state of an agent starting from the following intuitive idea: we associate to each world x two abstract objects x⁺ and x⁻, and we assume that, in addition to preferences over the set of worlds, we are given preferences over this set of objects as well. The latter can be considered as meta-information encoded in the epistemic state which enables us to go beyond the first revision step of the revision operator being applied, and to obtain a unique set of preferences over worlds. We then extend this framework to consider, not only the revision of preferences over worlds, but also the revision of this extended structure itself. We look at some desirable properties for revising the structure and prove the consistency of these properties by giving a concrete operator satisfying all of them. Perhaps more importantly, we show that this framework has strong connections with two other types of constructions in related areas. Firstly, it can be seen as a special case of preference aggregation which opens up the possibility of extending the frame-work presented here into a full-fledged framework for preference aggregation and social choice theory. Secondly, it is related to existing work on the use of interval orderings in a number of different contexts. (shrink)

AbstractIn many cultures, interactions between humans and plants are rooted in what is called “relational values”—values that derive from relationships and entail reciprocity. In Mexico, biocultural diversity is mirrored in the knowledge and use of some 6500 plant species and the domestication of over 250 Mesoamerican native crop species. This research explores how different sets of values are attributed to plants and how these influence management strategies to maintain plant resources in wild and anthropogenic environments. We ran workshops in two (...) communities in a highly biodiverse region in western Mexico, to ascertain the values and management activities related to important plant resources. The relationship between values attributed to plants and management activities was examined through redundancy analysis. A total of 180 plant resources were mentioned during the workshops, with a broad spectrum of values attributed to them, including material, non-material, and regulatory dimensions. We divided plant management strategies into three general categories of increasing intensity and complexity. We found that participants in the Indigenous community value and manage more wild plant resources than people in the non-Indigenous community. We also identified relationships between plant resource values and the type of management performed; for example, more intensive forms of management, such as sowing seeds, were used for seasonal plants that had a food value. By valuing and managing different sets of plant resources from forest, agricultural plots, and home gardens, people enabled multi-functional landscapes to form, illustrating a key feature of relational values in agroecosystems, which promotes both conservation and domestication of plants. (shrink)

I defend an interpretation of the first Critique’s category of totality based on Kant’s analysis of totality in the third Critique’s Analytic of the mathematical sublime. I show, firstly, that in the latter Kant delineates the category of totality — however general it may be — in relation to the essentially singular standpoint of the subject. Despite the fact that sublime and categorial totality have a significantly different scope and function, they do share such a (...) singular baseline. Secondly, I argue that Kant’s note (in the first Critique’s metaphysical deduction) that deriving the category of totality requires a special act of the understanding can be seen as a ‘mark’ of that singular baseline. This way, my aesthetical ‘detour’ has the potential of revealing how the subjective aspects of object-constitution might be accounted for in the very system of the categories (of quantity) itself. (shrink)