Cramer et al's proposal to view mental disorders as the outcome of network dynamics among symptoms obviates the need to invoke latent traits to explain co-occurrence of symptoms and syndromes. This commentary considers the consequences of such a network view for genetic association studies.

The European Union Commission’s whitepaper on Artificial Intelligence proposes shaping the emerging AI market so that it better reflects common European values. It is a master plan that builds upon the EU AI High-Level Expert Group guidelines. This article reviews the masterplan, from a culture cycle perspective, to reflect on its potential clashes with current societal, technical, and methodological constraints. We identify two main obstacles in the implementation of this plan: the lack of a coherent EU vision to drive future (...) decision-making processes at state and local levels and the lack of methods to support a sustainable diffusion of AI in our society. The lack of a coherent vision stems from not considering societal differences across the EU member states. We suggest that these differences may lead to a fractured market and an AI crisis in which different members of the EU will adopt nation-centric strategies to exploit AI, thus preventing the development of a frictionless market as envisaged by the EU. Moreover, the Commission aims at changing the AI development culture proposing a human-centred and safety-first perspective that is not supported by methodological advancements, thus taking the risks of unforeseen social and societal impacts of AI. We discuss potential societal, technical, and methodological gaps that should be filled to avoid the risks of developing AI systems at the expense of society. Our analysis results in the recommendation that the EU regulators and policymakers consider how to complement the EC programme with rules and compensatory mechanisms to avoid market fragmentation due to local and global ambitions. Moreover, regulators should go beyond the human-centred approach establishing a research agenda seeking answers to the technical and methodological open questions regarding the development and assessment of human-AI co-action aiming for a sustainable AI diffusion in the society. (shrink)

Rosenberg has rightly argued that fitness is supervenient. But he has wrongly assumed that this makes “The fittest survive” nontautologous. Supervenience makes strict reduction impossible. It sheds light on disputes concerning the testability of evolutionary theory.

Libertarians often bill their theory as an alternative to both the traditional Left and Right. _The Routledge Handbook of Libertarianism_ helps readers fully examine this alternative, without preaching it to them, exploring the contours of libertarian thinking on justice, institutions, interpersonal ethics, government, and political economy. The 31 chapters--all written specifically for this volume--are organized into five parts. Part I asks, what should libertarianism learn from other theories of justice, and what should defenders of other theories of justice learn from (...) libertarianism? Part II asks, what are some of the deepest problems facing libertarian theories? Part III asks, what is the right way to think about property rights and the market? Part IV asks, how should we think about the state? Finally, part V asks, how well can libertarianism deal with some of the major policy challenges of our day, such as immigration, trade, religion in politics, and paternalism in a free market. Among the _Handbook_’s chapters are those from critics who write about what they believe libertarians get right as well as others from leading libertarian theorists who identify what they think libertarians get wrong. As a whole, the _Handbook_ provides a comprehensive, clear-eyed look at what libertarianism has been and could be, and why it matters. (shrink)

" Il faut philosopher " : cette formule se rencontre en diverses oeuvres de l'Antiquité destinées à exhorter un public à pratiquer la sagesse ou la philosophie, et, en particulier, dans certains des rares témoignages sur le Protreptique d'Aristote désormais perdu. Plusieurs philologues, à partir de la fin du me siècle, crurent retrouver un vaste ensemble de " fragments " de celui-ci dans l'ouvrage homonyme du néoplatonicien Jamblique. Cette " découverte " déboucha sur de nombreux travaux autour de l'authenticité aristotélicienne (...) des chapitres V à XII du livre de Jamblique, et sur différentes tentatives, au demeurant hypothétiques, pour " reconstruire " l'original aristotélicien. Le statut des extraits de Jamblique est paradoxal : si leur contenu correspond, en majorité, aux doctrines du corpus aristotélicien et semble formulé dans le cadre d'une exhortation, jamais, toutefois, l'auteur ne se réfère explicitement au Stagirite. La perspective du présent ouvrage tient compte de ce paradoxe : pour désigner l'ensemble comprenant les quelques témoignages et les rares citations de l'ouvrage aristotélicien extérieures à Jamblique, ainsi que les extraits de ce dernier, nous avons donc préféré au titre de Protreptique d'Aristote celui d'Exhortations aristotéliciennes. Cet appel à la prudence est aussi un moyen de déplacer l'intérêt de ces textes. Cet intérêt a été souvent grevé, en effet, par les questions de l'authenticité aristotélicienne, sans doute trop présentes, au détriment de ce que la traduction et le commentaire proposés dans cette édition veulent mettre en évidence : la richesse des réflexions sur le sens et la valeur de la philosophie développées dans ces extraits, source d'inspiration pour de nombreux auteurs de l'Antiquité plus tardive. L'introduction montre ainsi que la philosophie des Exhortations aristotéliciennes se situe au croisement de deux modèles conceptuels fondamentaux : elle est tantôt technique et science, tantôt accomplissement des facultés naturelles de l'homme. Ce qui explique aussi l'attention apportée, dans cette édition, à l'argumentation des Exhortations et aux questions rhétoriques, largement abordées dans une dernière partie de l'introduction. (shrink)

This paper starts from a nonlinear fermion field equation of motion with a strongly coupled self-interaction. Nonperturbative quark solutions of the equation of motion are constructed in terms of a Reggeized infinite component free spinor field. Such a field carries a family of strongly interacting unstable compounds lying on a Regge locus in the analytically continued quark spin. Such a quark field is naturally confined and also possesses the property of asymptotic freedom. Furthermore, the particular field self-regularizes the interactions and (...) naturally breaks the chiral invariance of the equation of motion. We show why and how the existence of such a strongly coupled solution and its particle-family, wave duality forces a change in the field equation of motion such that it conserves C, P, T, although its individual interaction terms are of V-A and thus C, P nonconserving type. (shrink)

I en række afhandlinger beskrives den hollandske ISAF styrkes indsats i Afghanisatn fra 2001-2010. I en fireårig periode fra 2006-2010 var det hollandske kontingent indsat i den afghanske provins Uruzgan og opnåede bemærkelsesværdige resultater. Sikkerhedssituationen blev forbedret, den økonomiske udvikling blev stabiliseret ligesom den offentlige administration, uddannelsen af børn og sundhedsplejen m.v. blev forbedret. Efter 2010 er provinsen overtaget af amerikanske og australske tropper.

Vladimir Solov'ev (1853-1900- is regarded as the most original and systematic of the Russian philosophers in the 19th century. He has once again become the subject of international scholarly attention both in Slavic countries and the West. This volume contains selected papers presented at the international conference on Vladimir Solov'ev held at Nijmegen University, the Netherlands, in September 1998. The scope of this conference was wide-ranging, dealing with theological, metaphysical, philosophical and historical themes. Though Solov'ev's broad intellectual activity defies any (...) strict attempt at categorisation, the editors have classified its major themes under the dual characteristic of reconciliation and polemics. Solov'ev was passionately committed to the reconciliation of all beings under the idea of all-unity, which he attemted to achieve by engaging in uncompromising polemics with his contemporaries, The thirty contributors to this volume are specialists from Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Western Europe and the United States. The volume makes a significant contribution to the intellectual reassesment of Vladimir Solov'ev since the rediscovery of his philosophical heritage in his own homeland in the 1980s. (shrink)

Using positron emission tomography (PET) and regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) measurements, we investigated the cerebral correlates of consciousness in a sequence learning task through a novel application of the Process Dissociation Procedure, a behavioral paradigm that makes it possible to separately assess conscious and unconscious contributions to performance. Results show that the metabolic response in the anterior cingulate / mesial prefrontal cortex (ACC / MPFC) is exclusively and specifically correlated with the explicit component of performance during recollection of a (...) learned sequence. This suggests a significant role for the ACC / MPFC in the explicit processing of sequential material.  2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Dans sa violente charge contre la Révolution française, Edmund Burke avait élevé le débat politique à un niveau philosophique. Son argument le plus profond consistait à reprocher aux révolutionnaires de pécher par apriorisme, en cherchant à déduire, comme des géomètres, une nouvelle constitution à partir des principes abstraits énoncés dans la Déclaration des droits de l’homme. Reprise par les disciples allemands de Burke, cette critique de la méthode adoptée par la Constituante tirait des postulats empiristes des Lumières anglo-écossaises toutes les (...) implications conservatrices que recelaient déjà les textes politiques et historiques de Hume. Or c’est d’emblée sur ce terrain spéculatif que se joue, chez Fichte, la défense du droit de révolution. Reprochant à l’empirisme de réduire l’esprit au « mécanisme aveugle de l’association des idées », passivement déterminé par une extériorité en soi, Fichte entend au contraire fonder l’expérience elle-même sur l’activité d’un « Moi-en-soi », absolument indépendant. Conçu comme causalité libre, pouvant donc s’affranchir des « conjonctions coutumières » humiennes pour commencer une nouvelle série dans l’ordre des phénomènes, l’homme, pour Fichte, n’a pas seulement la « faculté de se perfectionner », mais la loi de sa liberté lui en fait même un devoir. Au regard de cet impératif catégorique de perfectionnement, il n’y a pas de Common Law qui tienne. Aussi Fichte ne recule-t-il pas devant la révolution, si les institutions du passé font obstacle à la destination de l’homme. (shrink)

In this thesis, I investigate realist, anti-realist and pluralist views in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of complexity. The philosophy of science can inform the philosophy of complexity and vice versa because we can consider scientific inquiry to largely involve the study of complex systems. I however find that the relevant realist, anti-realist and pluralist views are problematic in various ways, and that a version of pragmatism suggests a promising alternative. This version of pragmatism incorporates elements of pluralism, (...) but maintains a commitment to epistemic hierarchy, convergence and progress. The way to develop such a version of pragmatism is, I argue, by rebooting William Whewell’s 19th century philosophy of science. Whewell however held to the following two transcendental claims: 1. Empirical inquiry undertaken in science properly practiced can reveal necessary truths. 2. The revelation of such necessary truths grants us a glimpse of the mind of God. Such transcendental claims are obviously at odds with pragmatism. There are however core features of Whewell’s view that are notably pragmatist in nature, features that explicitly inspired Charles Sanders Piece’s convergent pragmatism. These are as follows: 3. Subject and object (or mind and world) are inextricably entwined during scientific inquiry; they are not separated by anything like a correspondence relationship. 4. Science progresses via what Whewell calls the consilience of inductions (an ongoing merging of scientific theories, a merging that increases our understanding of the world over time). I modify Whewell’s view by stripping away its transcendental elements while maintaining its pragmatist elements. What remains is, I argue, a robust and novel kind of pragmatism suitable for being introduced into the contemporary philosophy of science. Whewell suitably-pragmatised can offer new insights into ongoing debates, particularly those around the nature of scientific progress, scientific truth and scientific understanding. (shrink)

Not only trauma, mourning and disease, but also disability has been recognised in the Book of Job in which the body plays an exceptional role. The protagonist is suffering physically, psychically and spiritually. Although the word, •–• [be sick, ill], never occurs in the book, his body is portrayed negatively being afflicted by some unknown illness, which would probably exclude him from the community described in Leviticus 13-14. While •’—’—“ [be silent] occurs several times in the book, it never has (...) the alternative meaning of deaf. Yet, his explicit empathy and sacrificial charity –’–’•’’— [for the blind] and –’–’’–’’•’ [for the lame] in 29:15 resonate with his own plight and undermine the possible discriminatory restrictions of like disabled in Leviticus 21:18. In this way, the Book of Job has a transgressive and yet liberating subtext, subverting the idealised body of his status quo. This subtle and veiled critique by the protagonist and therefore the book can be interpreted from a psychoanalytic perspective on physical disability and illness, where the symptoms and alleged imperfections of the body quietly cry out against social and cultural injustice of which they are the projections and mirrors when the context has silenced a concern for the body because of a lack of compassion as it is in the situation of Job. CONTRIBUTION: The intersection and cross-fertilisation of Biblical Studies, Disability Studies and psychoanalytic theory as interdisciplinary approach widens the horizons and deepens the insight of all three research fields, hopefully for the benefit of those who suffer from their bodies, their psyches and their societies. (shrink)

State legitimacy is often said to have two aspects: an internal and an external one. Internally, a legitimate state has the right to rule over its subjects. Externally, it has a right that outsiders not interfere with its domestic governance. But what is the relation between these two aspects? In this paper, I defend a conception of legitimacy according to which these two aspects are related in an importantly asymmetrical manner. In particular, a legitimate state’s external right to rule affords (...) it protections that include and go beyond what its internal right to rule enables it to do. This asymmetrical view, I argue, is preferable to its two main rivals: the view that a state’s internal and external legitimacy are separate issues, and the view that internal and external legitimacy are mirroring. (shrink)

During the past decennium, one of the main issues discussed in research ethics has been focused on the care that should be provided to the control group in a clinical trial. This discussion is also called the standard of care debate . Current international research ethics guidelines contain a wide variety of standards for the standard of care—including the provision of the highest attainable, the best available, the best current, a proven , and an established effective treatment. In this article, (...) we systematically review the currently used standards and argue that none of the current standards is adequate to serve as a universal standard for the standard of care. Alex London has made a substantial proposal for a universal standard, but universally adopting his standard is problematic. In this article, we propose a revised version of London's standard. (shrink)

The notion of ‘philosophical culture’ can be defined as the totality of conditions of philosophical thought and theory. Among these conditions is an awareness of the historical background of the philosophical culture in question. This awareness, which plays an important cognitive and normative role, often takes the form of a relatively independent discipline: history of philosophy. Over the last decade, Russian historians of philosophy have been attempting to make the repressed past accessible to contemporary philosophy, often modifying their earlier, Soviet (...) work. This can be illustrated with a survey of late Soviet and post-Soviet literature on the Russian philosopher, Vladimir Solov’ëv. (shrink)