Recently, concerns have been raised about the phenomenon of 'overdiagnosis', the diagnosis of a condition that is not causing harm, and will not come to cause harm. Along with practical, ethical, and scientific questions, overdiagnosis raises questions about our concept of disease. In this paper, we analyse overdiagnosis as an epistemic problem and show how it challenges many existing accounts of disease. In particular, it raises questions about conceptual links drawn between disease and dysfunction, harm, and risk. We argue that (...) "disease" should be considered a vague concept with a nonclassical structure. On this view, overdiagnosed cases are 'borderline' cases of disease, falling in the zone between cases that are clearly disease, and cases that are clearly not disease. We then develop a précising definition of disease designed to provide practical help in preventing and limiting overdiagnosis. We argue that for this purpose, we can define disease as dysfunction that has a significant risk of causing severe harm to the patient. (shrink)

The practice of ‘Philosophical Counselling’ (henceforth ‘PC’) is growing. But what exactly is PC? The variety of attempts to define PC can be summarised in terms of three overlapping sets of opposites: practical versus theoretical definitions; monistic versus pluralistic definitions; and substantive versus antinomous definitions. ‘Practical’ definitions of PC include descriptive accounts of its actual practice. ‘Theoretical’ definitions exclude such accounts. ‘Monistic definitions’ refers to definitions of PC that define it in terms of the work of one specific philosopher or (...) approach in philosophy. ‘Pluralistic’ definitions draw on the work of a variety of philosophers or approaches. ‘Substantive’ definitions are definitions that purport to say what PC is, while ‘antinomous’ definitions of PC say what it is not . My aim is not to define PC definitively. The aim of this article is rather to: (i) provide an overview of the wide variety of efforts to define PC; and, (ii) briefly suggest a preliminary understanding of PC that seems to cover most of the other definitions thereof. For David Fourie (1946-2013). (shrink)

Legislatures enact laws and the courts interpret them. Under the doctrine of legislative supremacy, a judge is not free to ignore or modify a statutory provision in order to substitute a rule that seems to him to be better reasoned; thus where the language of a statute is clear and unambiguous, interpretation is unnecessary and it must be enforced according to its terms. Nevertheless, gaps and ambiguities can arise and, in such cases, courts apply interpretive rules, or ‘canons of construction’, (...) to resolve these ambiguities. One frequently invoked rule requires that words that are not defined by a statute be given their ordinary meaning by the interpreting court. In recent years, the United States Supreme Court has increasingly relied upon dictionary definitions in applying this rule. The Court’s use of dictionaries as authority for its interpretations incorporates the assumption that the dictionary is the best source for ascertaining the meaning of statutory texts. This article challenges that assumption on linguistic grounds. I argue that the focus on definitions skews the interpretation of statutory language by isolating words from their semantic context. By comparing two cases in which the Court used dictionary definitions to a third case in which the definition used by the Court was contained in the statute itself, I demonstrate that the ordinary meaning of legal terms cannot be determined by dictionary definitions. (shrink)

The concept of agency is of crucial importance in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, and it is often used as an intuitive and rather uncontroversial term, in contrast to more abstract and theoretically heavy-weighted terms like “intentionality”, “rationality” or “mind”. However, most of the available definitions of agency are either too loose or unspecific to allow for a progressive scientific program. They implicitly and unproblematically assume the features that characterize agents, thus obscuring the full potential and challenge of modeling agency. (...) We identify three conditions that a system must meet in order to be considered as a genuine agent: a) a system must define its own individuality, b) it must be the active source of activity in its environment (interactionalasymmetry) and c) it must regulate this activity in relation to certain norms (normativity). We find that even minimal forms of proto-celular systems can already provide a paradigmatic example of genuine agency. By abstracting away some specific details of minimal models of living agency we define the kind of organization that is capable to meet the required conditions for agency (which is not restricted to living organisms). On this basis, we define agency as an autonomous organization that adaptively regulates its coupling with its environment and contributes to sustaining itself as a consequence. We find that spatiality and temporality are the two fundamental domains in which agency spans at different scales. We conclude by giving an outlook to the road that lies ahead in the pursuit to understand, model and synthesis agents. (shrink)

Despite numerous and increasing attempts to define what life is, there is no consensus on necessary and sufficient conditions for life. Accordingly, some scholars have questioned the value of definitions of life and encouraged scientists and philosophers alike to discard the project. As an alternative to this pessimistic conclusion, we argue that critically rethinking the nature and uses of definitions can provide new insights into the epistemic roles of definitions of life for different research practices. This paper examines the possible (...) contributions of definitions of life in scientific domains where such definitions are used most (e.g., Synthetic Biology, Origins of Life, Alife, and Astrobiology). Rather than as classificatory tools for demarcation of natural kinds, we highlight the pragmatic utility of what we call operational definitions that serve as theoretical and epistemic tools in scientific practice. In particular, we examine contexts where definitions integrate criteria for life into theoretical models that involve or enable observable operations. We show how these definitions of life play important roles in influencing research agendas and evaluating results, and we argue that to discard the project of defining life is neither sufficiently motivated, nor possible without dismissing important theoretical and practical research. (shrink)

The paper deals with polymodal languages combined with standard semantics defined by means of some conditions on the frames. So, a notion of "polymodal base" arises which provides various enrichments of the classical modal language. One of these enrichments, viz. the base £(R,-R), with modalities over a relation and over its complement, is the paper's main paradigm. The modal definability (in the spirit of van Benthem's correspondence theory) of arbitrary and ~-elementary classes of frames in this base and in some (...) of its extensions, e.g., £(R,-R,R-1 ,_R-1), £(R,-R,=I=) etc., is described, and numerous examples of conditions definable there, as well as undefinable ones, are adduced. (shrink)

The first part of this study is devoted to an attempt to provide a systematic philosophical argument for the political movement from Marx to Kant. The second half proposes analyses of the New Left of the 60s and the potential birth of a new New Left in the 80s.

The book uses both environmental movements and political theory to help define what is meant by environmental and ecological justice. It will be attractive to anyone interested in environmental politics, environmental movements, and justice theory.

Despite numerous and increasing attempts to define what life is, there is no consensus on necessary and sufficient conditions for life. Accordingly, some scholars have questioned the value of definitions of life and encouraged scientists and philosophers alike to discard the project. As an alternative to this pessimistic conclusion, we argue that critically rethinking the nature and uses of definitions can provide new insights into the epistemic roles of definitions of life for different research practices. This paper examines the possible (...) contributions of definitions of life in scientific domains where such definitions are used most. Rather than as classificatory tools for demarcation of natural kinds, we highlight the pragmatic utility of what we call operational definitions that serve as theoretical and epistemic tools in scientific practice. In particular, we examine contexts where definitions integrate criteria for life into theoretical models that involve or enable observable operations. We show how these definitions of life play important roles in influencing research agendas and evaluating results, and we argue that to discard the project of defining life is neither sufficiently motivated, nor possible without dismissing important theoretical and practical research. (shrink)

This paper investigates whether different philosophers’ claims about “normativity” are about the same subject or (as recently argued by Derek Parfit) theorists who appear to disagree are really using the term with different meanings, in order to cast disambiguating light on the debates over at least the nature, existence, extension, and analyzability of normativity. While I suggest the term may be multiply ambiguous, I also find reasons for optimism about a common subject-matter for metanormative theory. This is supported partly by (...) sketching a special kind of hybrid view of normative judgment, perspectivism, that occupies a position between cognitivism and noncognitivism, naturalism and nonnaturalism, objectivism and subjectivism, making it more plausible that radically different metanormative theories could be about the same thing. I explore three main fissures: between (i) the “normativity” of language/thought versus that of facts and properties, (ii) abstract versus substantive senses, and (iii) formal versus robust senses. (shrink)

Let M be a short extender mouse. We prove that if $E\in M$ and $M\models $ “E is a countably complete short extender whose support is a cardinal $\theta $ and $\mathcal {H}_\theta \subseteq \mathrm {Ult}(V,E)$ ”, then E is in the extender sequence $\mathbb {E}^M$ of M. We also prove other related facts, and use them to establish that if $\kappa $ is an uncountable cardinal of M and $\kappa ^{+M}$ exists in M then $(\mathcal {H}_{\kappa ^+})^M$ satisfies the (...) Axiom of Global Choice. We prove that if M satisfies the Power Set Axiom then $\mathbb {E}^M$ is definable over the universe of M from the parameter $X=\mathbb {E}^M\!\upharpoonright \!\aleph _1^M$, and M satisfies “Every set is $\mathrm {OD}_{\{X\}}$ ”. We also prove various local versions of this fact in which M has a largest cardinal, and a version for generic extensions of M. As a consequence, for example, the minimal proper class mouse with a Woodin limit of Woodin cardinals models “ $V=\mathrm {HOD}$ ”. This adapts to many other similar examples. We also describe a simplified approach to Mitchell–Steel fine structure, which does away with the parameters $u_n$. (shrink)

Without doubt, terrorism is one of the most vehemently debated subjects in current political affairs as well as in academic discourse. Yet, although it constitutes an issue of general socio-political interest, neither in everyday language nor in professional (political, legal, or academic) contexts does there exist a generally accepted definition of terrorism. The question of how it should be defined has been answered countless times, with as much variety as quantity in the answers. In academic discourse, it is difficult to (...) find two scholars who use the term ‘terrorism’ in the same way. -/- While it is impossible to formulate a definition which satisfies everyone, discussing the definition question is indispensable. The necessity to review existing definitions with a view to improving them is especially obvious in legal and political contexts. How terrorism is defined in these contexts has serious consequences, and if we lack clear definitions we run into problems. How can we have laws or take political measures against something we have not clearly defined? Without doubt, there exists a practical necessity for a definition in these fields. It is important to have clear standards for defining terrorism. -/- In my view, the definition should meet three basic criteria: first, it should cover those cases that we concurrently consider to be instances of terrorism (such as the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in September 2001 or those on commuting trains in Madrid Atocha in March 2004). That is, ideally, our definition of terrorism remains close to uncontroversial usages of the term. Second, the definition should abstain from morally judging the act in question. Later I will say more about so called “moral” definitions of terrorism. For now, it suffices to say that defining an action and evaluating it are distinct tasks and should remain so. Third, the definition must identify characteristics that are specific to terrorism alone, characteristics which clearly distinguish it from other phenomena. (shrink)

Business ethics is a topic receiving much attention in the literature. However, the term 'business ethics' is not adequately defined. Typical definitions refer to the rightness or wrongness of behavior, but not everyone agrees on what is morally right or wrong, good or bad, ethical or unethical. To complicate the problem, nearly all available definitions exist at highly abstract levels. This article focuses on contemporary definitions of business ethics by business writers and professionals and on possible areas of agreement among (...) the available definitions. Then a definition is synthesized that is broad enough to cover the field of management in a sense as full as most managers might conceive of it. (shrink)

It probably should not be surprising, in this time of soaring medical costs and proliferating technology, that an intense debate has arisen over the concept of medical futility. Should doctors be doing all the things they are doing? In particular, should they be attempting treatments that have little likelihood of achieving the goals of medicine? What are the goals of medicine? Can we agree when medical treatment fails to achieve such goals? What should the physician do and not do under (...) such circumstances? Exploring these issues has forced us to revisit the doctor-patient relationship and the relationship of the medical profession to society in a most fundamental way. Medical futility has both a quantitative and qualitative component. I maintain that medical futility is the unacceptable likelihood of achieving an effect that the patient has the capacity to appreciate as a benefit. Both emphasized terms are important. A patient is neither a collection of organs nor merely an individual with desires. Rather, a patient (from the word to suffer ) is a person who seeks the healing (meaning to make whole ) powers of the physician. The relationship between the two is central to the healing process and the goals of medicine. Medicine today has the capacity to achieve a multitude of effects, raising and lowering blood pressure, speeding, slowing, and even removing and replacing the heart, to name but a minuscule few. But none of these effects is a benefit unless the patient has at the very least the capacity to appreciate it. Sadly, in the futility debate wherein some critics have failed or refused to define medical futility an important area of medicine has in large part been neglected, not only in treatment decisions at the bedside, but in public discussions—comfort care—the physician’s obligation to alleviate suffering, enhance well being and support the dignity of the patient in the last few days of life. (shrink)

To support healthcare professionals in dealing with ethically difficult situations, Clinical Ethics Support (CES) services like Moral Case Deliberation (MCD) are increasingly implemented. To assess the impact of CES, it is important to evaluate outcomes. Despite general claims about outcomes from MCD experts and some qualitative research, there exists no conceptual analysis of outcomes yet. Therefore, the aim of this study was to systematically define and categorize MCD outcomes. An additional aim was to compare these outcomes with the outcomes in (...) the Euro-MCD Instrument from 2014, to further validate this Instrument. The concept mapping method was used and involves qualitative and quantitative steps including brainstorming, individual structuring, computation of concept maps (by principal component analysis and cluster analysis), group interpretation and utilization. In total, 12 experienced MCD participants from a variety of professional backgrounds participated in two sessions. The focus group brainstorm resulted in a list of 85 possible MCD outcomes, of which a point map and concept maps were constructed. After a thorough discussion of each cluster, final consensus was reached on the names and position of 8 clusters of MCD outcomes: 1) Organisation and Policy; 2) Team development; 3) Personal development focused on the Other Person; 4) Personal development as Professional, focused on Skills; 5) Personal development as Professional, focused on Knowledge; 6) Personal development as an Individual; 7) Perception and Connection; and 8) Concrete action. This study explored and categorized MCD outcomes in a concept mapping focus group. When comparing the results with the Euro-MCD Instrument, our study confirms that outcomes of MCD can be categorized in clusters referring to the organisational level, team development, personal development (both as an individual and a professional) and the concrete case-level. In developing CES evaluation tools, it is important to be explicit if an outcome refers to the individual or the team, to knowledge or skills, to the organisation or the specific case. The findings will be used in the further validation of the Euro-MCD Instrument. The current study further contributes to the field of evaluating CES in general and defining outcomes of MCD in particular. (shrink)

Overview of the definition of art and its relationship to definitions of the individual art forms, with an eye to clarifying the issues separating dominant institutionalist and skeptical positions from non-skeptical, non-institutional ones. Section 2 indicates some of the key philosophical issues which intersect in discussions of the definition of art, and singles out some important areas of broad agreement and disagreement. Section 3 critically reviews some influential standard versions of institutionalism, and some more recent variations on them. Section 4 (...) discusses some recent reductionist approaches to definitional questions, which advocate a shift of philosophical focus from the macro- to the micro-level —from art to the individual art forms. Section 5 outlines an alternative, non-institutionalist and non-reductionist approach to definitional questions. (shrink)

This collection of original essays, by some of the best known contemporary criminal law theorists, tackles a range of issues about the criminal law's 'special part' - the part of the criminal law that defines specific offences. One of its aims is to show the importance, for theory as well as for practice, of focusing on the special part as well as on the general part which usually receives much more theoretical attention. Some of the issues covered concern the proper (...) scope of the criminal law, for example how far should it include offences of possession, or endangerment? If it should punish only wrongful conduct, how can it justly include so-called 'mala prohibita', which are often said to involve conduct that is not wrongful prior to its legal prohibition? Other issues concern the ways in which crimes should be classified. Can we make plausible sense, for instance, of the orthodox distinction between crimes of basic and general intent? Should domestic violence be defined as a distinct offence, distinguished from other kinds of personal violence? Also examined are the ways in which specific offences should be defined, to what extent those definitions should identify distinctive types of wrongs, and the light that such definitional questions throw on the grounds and structures of criminal liability. Such issues are discussed in relation not only to such crimes as murder, rape, theft and other property offences, but also in relation to offences such as bribery, endangerment and possession that have not traditionally been subjects for in depth theoretical analysis. (shrink)

What is racism? is a timely question that is hotly contested in the philosophy of race. Yet disagreement about racism’s nature does not begin in philosophy, but in the sociopolitical domain. Alberto G. Urquidez argues that philosophers of race have failed to pay sufficient attention to the practical considerations that prompt the question “What is racism?” Most theorists assume that “racism” signifies a language-independent phenomenon that needs to be “discovered” by the relevant science or “uncovered” by close scrutiny of everyday (...) usage of this term. (Re-)Defining Racism challenges this metaphysical paradigm. Urquidez develops a Wittgenstein-inspired framework that illuminates the use of terms like “definition,” “meaning,” “explanation of meaning,” and “disagreement,” for the analysis of contested normative concepts. These elucidations reveal that providing a definition of “racism” amounts to recommending a form of moral representation—a rule for the correct use of “racism.” As definitional recommendations must be justified on pragmatic grounds, Urquidez takes as a starting point for justification the interests of racism's historical victims. (shrink)

The basic task of this book is to explore what, exactly, is meant by 'justice' in definitions of environmental and ecological justice. It examines how the term is used in both self-described environmental justice movements and in theories of environmental and ecological justice. The central argument is that a theory and practice of environmental justice necessarily includes distributive conceptions of justice, but must also embrace notions of justice based in recognition, capabilities, and participation. Throughout, the goal is the development of (...) a broad, multi-faceted, yet integrated notion of justice that can be applied to both relations regarding environmental risks in human populations and relations between human communities and non-human nature. (shrink)

The notion of exemplification is essential for Goodman’s theory of symbols. But Goodman’s account of exemplification has been criticized as unclear and inadequate. He points out two conditions for an object x exemplifying a label y: (C1) y denotes x and (C2) x refers to y. While (C1) is uncontroversial, (C2) raises the question of how “refers to” should be interpreted. This problem is intertwined with three further questions that consequently should be discussed together with it. Are the two necessary (...) conditions (C1) and (C2) conjointly sufficient? Do they amount to a definition of “exemplification”? Which notions of Goodman’s theory are basic, and hence undefined? In this paper, we address these questions and defend a reconstruction of the notion of exemplification that interprets “refers to” in (C2) as exemplificational reference and hence treats “exemplification” as a basic notion of Goodman’s theory. Firstly, we argue that even though the notion of exemplification is not defined, it is still sufficiently clear. This ensures its contribution to Goodman’s theory of symbols. Secondly, we show that our account is plausible as an interpretation of Goodman’s and Elgin’s writings, although it implies that some of Goodman’s theorems about selfreference have to be weakened. Thirdly, we argue that it is the only materially adequate reconstruction of Goodman’s notion of exemplification, whereas the alternative definitional accounts fail. (shrink)

In the paper, I argue that the notion of sensory representation that Pautz defines (via the Ramsey method) has incompatible features. The notion is defined in terms of its ability to explain both the phenomenal character of experience and its ability to give us cognitive access to perceptible properties, all while being existence-neutral. I argue that there is strong reason to conclude that no worldly relation could play all three roles simultaneously.

This essay examines several recent philosophical attempts to define ‘disease’. Two prominent ones are considered in detail, an objective approach by Christopher Boorse and a normative approach by Caroline Whitbeck. Both are found to be inadequate for a variety of reasons, though Whitbeck's is superior because of her careful preliminary distinctions and because of its normative approach which is more nearly in accord with medical and lay usage. The paper concludes with a discussion of the nature of such efforts at (...) definition and suggests that their limitations are due both to the nature of our language and concepts in general, and to the nature of medicine in particular. It is the practical and changing character of medicine and its language that frustrates the efforts of philosophers to formulate such definitions. Keywords: disease, definition CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Bibliographical Note Abstract Explaining things - introductory remarks General attitudes and the standard view Requirements for a definition Life as the natural selection of replicators Life as an autopoietic system Life as a semiotic phenomenon Downward causation Implicitly well-defined general objects Emergence as explanatory strategy: the observer reappears Concluding remarks Acknowledgements Notes References Bibliographical note: Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Princeton History of Science Workshop on "Growing Explanations", Princeton University, February 15, 1997; and at the meeting (...) in the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB) in Seattle, USA, July 16-21, 1997. Different parts were published in a modified form as 1) Emmeche (1997): "Autopoietic systems, replicators, and the search for a meaningful biologic definition of life", Ultimate Reality and Meaning 20 (4): 244-264 [the original title was: "Is the definition of life important?"], and 2) Emmeche (1998): "Defining life as a semiotic phenomenon", Cybernetics & Human Knowing 5 (1): 3-17. The present web version below contains the complete argument of both articles. A further thoroughly rewritten version, accessible also for non-specialists, was made in collaboration with Charbel Niño El-Hani, and translated by him into Portuguese as a contribution to a book (this version can be found at www.nbi.dk/~emmeche/coPubl/99.DefVida.CE.EH.html). (shrink)

Something could be round even if it were the only thing in the universe, unaccompanied by anything distinct from itself. Jaegwon Kim once suggested that we define an intrinsic property as one that can belong to something unaccompanied. Wrong: unaccompaniment itself is not intrinsic, yet it can belong to something unaccompanied. But there is a better Kim-style definition. Say that P is independent of accompaniment iff four different cases are possible: something accompanied may have P or lack P, something unaccompanied (...) may have P or lack P. P is basic intrinsic iff (1) P and not-P are nondisjunctive and contingent, and (2) P is independent of accompaniment. Two things (actual or possible) are duplicates iff they have exactly the same basic intrinsic properties. P is intrinsic iff no two duplicates differ with respect to P. (shrink)

Many critics of dual-process models have mistaken long lists of descriptive terms in the literature for a full-blown theory of necessarily co-occurring properties. These critiques have distracted attention from the cumulative progress being made in identifying the much smaller set of properties that truly do define Type 1 and Type 2 processing. Our view of the literature is that autonomous processing is the defining feature of Type 1 processing. Even more convincing is the converging evidence that the key feature (...) of Type 2 processing is the ability to sustain the decoupling of secondary representations. The latter is a foundational cognitive requirement for hypothetical thinking. (shrink)

In this book, Douglas Walton examines the philosophical nature of two issues currently associated with medical ethics. In order to work towards an analysis of the concept of death that could function as a target towards which the medical criteria of death could be directed, he proposes the foundations for a theory free of logical contradictions, paradoxes, and other perplexities. This is the "superlimiting theory" which introduces the notion of a "possible person." The connection of these philosophical ideas with medico-legal (...) concerns like brain death and the Harvard criteria is discussed. Professor Walton then goes on to examine the difference between killing and letting die. Through a close study of the logic of action sentences, he develops a model that is discussed in the light of the ethical and jurisprudential realities of medical ethics to see if the distinction between bringing something about and letting something happen is one that makes a moral difference in the evaluation of actions. Numerous problematic conceptual snags are dealt with, and the author consistently supports the conceptual clarity and respectability of the distinction. Other relevant discriminations of an action-theoretic sort, such as that between "direct" and "indirect" euthanasia, are studied, and the concluding chapter applies the conceptual analysis to a philosophical discussion of attitudes towards death, asking, "Is it rational to fear death?". (shrink)

In his thesis Para uma Teoria Geral dos Homomorfismos (1944), the Portuguese mathematician José Sebastião e Silva constructed an abstract or generalized Galois theory, that is intimately linked to F. Klein’s Erlangen Program and that foreshadows some notions and results of today’s model theory; an analogous theory was independently worked out by M. Krasner in 1938. In this paper, we present a version of the theory making use of tools which were not at Silva’s disposal. At the same time, we (...) tried to keep in mind, so much as possible, the gist of his standpoint. (shrink)

There is no concept more central to logic and critical thinking than the concept of an argument. I here address the definition of ‘argument’ in the logical sense of the term and defend the claim that many current proposals, once they are interpreted in a way that makes them sufficiently precise, are extensionally inadequate. Definitions found in some contemporary, prominent critical thinking textbooks will serve as a springboard. I claim that each may be interpreted in an absolutist way or a (...) relativistic way, yet all turn out to be objectionable no matter which route is taken. I finish with a proposal on which the definition of ‘argument’ is an absolutist one, yet one that avoids the problems discussed for the earlier proposals. (shrink)

We study the flow of trigonalizable algebraic group acting on its type space, focusing on the problem raised in [17] of whether weakly generic types coincide with almost periodic types if the group has global definable f‐generic types, equivalently whether the union of minimal subflows of a suitable type space is closed. We shall give a description of f‐generic types of trigonalizable algebraic groups, and prove that every f‐generic type is almost periodic.

This article demonstrates that emotion concepts—including the so‐called basic ones, such as anger or sadness—can be defined in terms of universal semantic primitives such as “good”, “bad”, “do”, “happen”, “know”, and “want”, in terms of which all areas of meaning, in all languages, can be rigorously and revealingly portrayed.The definitions proposed here take the form of certain prototypical scripts or scenarios, formulated in terms of thoughts, wants, and feelings. These scripts, however, can be seen as formulas providing rigorous specifications of (...) necessary and sufficient conditions (not for emotions as such, but for emotion concepts), and they do not support the idea that boundaries between emotion concepts are “fuzzy.” On the contrary, the small set of universal semantic primitives employed here (which has emerged from two decades of empirical investigations by the author and colleagues) demonstrates that even apparent synonyms such as sad and unhappy embody different—and fully specifiable—conceptual structures. (shrink)

Due to several socio-political factors, to many psychiatrists only a strictly objective definition of mental disorder, free of value components, seems really acceptable. In this paper, I will explore a variant of such an objectivist approach to defining metal disorder, natural function objectivism. Proponents of this approach make recourse to the notion of natural function in order to reach a value-free definition of mental disorder. The exploration of Christopher Boorse's 'biostatistical' account of natural function (1) will be followed an (...) investigation of the 'hybrid naturalism' approach to natural functions by Jerome Wakefield (2). In the third part, I will explore two proposals that call into question the whole attempt to define mental disorder (3). I will conclude that while 'natural function objectivism' accounts fail to provide the backdrop for a reliable definition of mental disorder, there is no compelling reason to conclude that a definition cannot be achieved. (shrink)

At first glance, atheism seems simple to define. If atheism is the negation of theism, and if theism is the view that at least one god exists, then atheism is the negation of this view. However, the common definitions that follow from this insight suffer from two problems: first, they often leave undefined what “god” means, and, second, they understate the scope of the disagreement between theists and atheists, which often has as much to do with the fundamental character of (...) reality as with the existence of one being in it. Some writers address the second problem by reinterpreting atheism as the logical consequence of particular metaphysical views, such as naturalism or physicalism, which are then taken as the true meaning of atheism. These interpretations, though more satisfactory in some respects, can result in concepts of atheism that are unclear or too narrow, and they often still leave “god” undefined. In this paper, I propose that atheism be defined as the proposition that reality is solely an impersonal order. Theism is the proposition that reality is not solely an impersonal order, being either a personal order, that is, an order founded by at least one person, or an impersonal order plus at least one transcendent person. A god is a person who is not subject to the laws governing that order and thus transcends it. I explain these definitions and briefly discuss some of their implications. First I survey prior definitions of atheism to display the problems they raise. (shrink)

A broad class of inductive logics that includes the probability calculus is defined by the conditions that the inductive strengths [A|B] are defined fully in terms of deductive relations in preferred partitions and that they are asymptotically stable. Inductive independence is shown to be generic for propositions in such logics; a notion of a scale-free inductive logic is identified; and a limit theorem is derived. If the presence of preferred partitions is not presumed, no inductive logic is definable. This no-go (...) result precludes many possible inductive logics, including versions of hypothetico-deductivism. (shrink)

Defining Species: A Sourcebook from Antiquity to Today provides excerpts and commentary on the definition of «species from source material ranging from the ...

It is surprisingly hard to define presentism. Traditional definitions of the view, in terms of tensed existence statements, have turned out not to to be capable of convincingly distinguishing presentism from eternalism. Picking up on a recent proposal by Tallant, I suggest that we need to locate the break between eternalism and presentism on a much more fundamental level. The problem is that presentists have tried to express their view within a framework that is inherently eternalist. I call that framework (...) the Fregean nexus, as it is defined by Frege’s atemporal understanding of predication. In particular, I show that the tense-logical understanding of tense which is treated as common ground in the debate rests on this very same Fregean nexus, and is thus inadequate for a proper definition of presentism. I contrast the Fregean nexus with what I call the original temporal nexus, which is based on an alternative, inherently temporal form of predication. Finally, I propose to define presentism in terms of the original temporal nexus, yielding original presentism. According to original presentism, temporal propositions are distinguished from atemporal ones not by aspects of their content, as they are on views based on the Fregean nexus, but by their form—in particular, by their form of predication. (shrink)

There has been much debate among scientists and philosophers about what it means for interventions invoked in causal inference to be “well-defined” and how considerations of this sort should constrain the choice of causal variables. In this paper, I propose that an intervention is well-defined just in case the effect of interest is well-defined, and that the intervention can serve as a suitable means to identify that effect. Based on this proposal, I identify several types of ambiguous intervention. Implications for (...) variable choice are discussed using case studies drawn from the sciences. (shrink)

We give a definition, in the ring language, of Zp inside Qp and of Fp[[t]] inside Fp), which works uniformly for all p and all finite field extensions of these fields, and in many other Henselian valued fields as well. The formula can be taken existential-universal in the ring language, and in fact existential in a modification of the language of Macintyre. Furthermore, we show the negative result that in the language of rings there does not exist a uniform definition (...) by an existential formula and neither by a universal formula for the valuation rings of all the finite extensions of a given Henselian valued field. We also show that there is no existential formula of the ring language defining Zp inside Qp uniformly for all p. For any fixed finite extension of Qp, we give an existential formula and a universal formula in the ring language which define the valuation ring. (shrink)

We study type-definable subgroups of small index in definable groups, and the structure on the quotient, in first order structures. We raise some conjectures in the case where the ambient structure is o-minimal. The gist is that in this o-minimal case, any definable group G should have a smallest type-definable subgroup of bounded index, and that the quotient, when equipped with the logic topology, should be a compact Lie group of the "right" dimension. I give positive answers to the conjectures (...) in the special cases when G is 1-dimensional, and when G is definably simple. (shrink)

This Special Issue of Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres contains papers based on the contributions presented at the Conference "Defining Life" held in Paris (France) on 4-5 February, 2008. The main objective of this Conference was to confront speakers from several disciplines--chemists, biochemists, biologists, exo/astrobiologists, computer scientists, philosophers and historians of science--on the topic of the definition of life. Different viewpoints of the problem approached from different perspectives have been expounded and, as a result, common grounds as (...) well as remaining diverging arguments have been identified. In addition to individual talks, two large roundtables gave ample room for speakers to discuss their diverging viewpoints. This volume collects almost all the contributions presented during the Conference and provides a rich spectrum of renewed answers to the ever-standing question "What is Life?". Besides the arguments directly regarding this question, more philosophical or historical reflections are also proposed in this issue that were not presented during the Conference. This volume also offers a synthesis written by J. Gayon taking each contribution into account. To conclude this foreword, we would like to thank all the participants and speakers who made this Conference a most stimulating event. Each provided novel ideas to "Defining Life" while highlighting the extreme difficulty to reach a consensus on this topic. We are also very grateful to the French CNRS Interdisciplinary Program Origines des Planètes et de la Vie (Origins of Planets and Life) for its generous support, as well as to the National Museum of Natural History in Paris for hosting the Conference. We also thank Alan W. Schwartz for generously offering this space for publishing the Proceedings of the Conference. (shrink)