The work of Sophocles shows the human suffering which might be caused by evil without the presence of guilt. Within the historic confrontation of the Athenian political stage, the presentation of the tragic conflict opposes the illustrated omnipotence: to present that what is divine as incomprehensible is one of the traditional features of Sophocles’ work and his announcement of anti-modernity. “Not-understanding” is the banner of silence when faced with the limit of natural reason. As a response to sophist thought, which (...) replaced the divine paradigm, the preponderance of the gods in the work of Sophocles might be seen as an affirmation. What is characteristic of the traditional restoration proposed by Sophocles is not only the appearance of the Gods in his works, but the particular way in which they reveal themselves. Knowing that what is divine is not characteristic of men because it is not a feature of the former to be understood to a lesser degree than that of its own nature. That is exactly the stage where the struggle between the reality of knowing and the relative appearance of knowing occurs. Bearing this interpretative intention in mind, the aim of the paper is to highlight the way in which evil reveals itself in Oedipus the King, as a device chosen by the gods to trigger the unfolding of the nature of the hero. (shrink)

In this work, we question the ability of existing ranking-based semantics to capture persuasion settings, emphasising in particular the phenomena of procatalepsis and of fading. Some widely accepted principles of ranking-based semantics are incompatible with a faithful treatment of these phenomena, which means that no existing ranking-based semantics can capture these two principles together. This motivates us to introduce a new parametrized ranking-based semantics based on the notion of propagation which extends the existing propagation semantics 139–150) by adding an additional (...) parameter allowing us to gradually decrease the impact of arguments when the length of the path between two arguments increases. We show that this parameter gives the possibility of choosing if one wants to satisfy the property Void Precedence or not and to control the scope of the impact of the arguments. We also propose an experiment to show that the new semantics remains stable when this parameter varies and an axiomatic evaluation to compare it with existing ranking-based semantics in the literature. (shrink)

1. Argumentation consists in reasoning with conflicting information based on the exchange and evaluation of interacting arguments. It can be used for modelling dialogue (persuasion, negotiation), d...

To study the interaction of forces that produce chest wall motion, we propose a model based on the lever system of Hillman and Finucane :951–961, 1987) and introduce some dynamic properties of the respiratory system. The passive elements are considered as elastic compartments linked to the open air via a resistive tube, an image of airways. The respiratory muscles force is applied to both compartments. Parameters of the model are identified in using experimental data of airflow signal measured by pneumotachography (...) and rib cage and abdomen signals measured by respiratory inductive plethysmography on eleven healthy volunteers in five conditions: at rest and with four level of added loads. A breath by breath analysis showed, whatever the individual and the condition are, that there are several breaths on which the airflow simulated by our model is well fitted to the airflow measured by pneumotachography as estimated by a determination coefficient R2 ≥ 0.70. This very simple model may well represent the behaviour of the chest wall and thus may be useful to interpret the relative motion of rib cage and abdomen during quiet breathing. (shrink)

Science is the study of our world, as it is in its messy reality. Nonetheless, science requires idealization to function—if we are to attempt to understand the world, we have to find ways to reduce its complexity. Idealization and the Aims of Science shows just how crucial idealization is to science and why it matters. Beginning with the acknowledgment of our status as limited human agents trying to make sense of an exceedingly complex world, Angela Potochnik moves on to explain (...) how science aims to depict and make use of causal patterns—a project that makes essential use of idealization. She offers case studies from a number of branches of science to demonstrate the ubiquity of idealization, shows how causal patterns are used to develop scientific explanations, and describes how the necessarily imperfect connection between science and truth leads to researchers’ values influencing their findings. The resulting book is a tour de force, a synthesis of the study of idealization that also offers countless new insights and avenues for future exploration. (shrink)

Using data collected at two phases, this study examines why and how ethical leadership behavior influences employees’ evaluations of organization-focused justice, i.e., procedural justice and distributive justice. By proposing ethical leaders as moral agents of the organization, we build up the linkage between ethical leadership behavior and the above two types of organization-focused justice. We further suggest trust in organization as a key mediating mechanism in the linkage. Our findings indicate that ethical leadership behavior engenders employees’ trust in their employing (...) organization, which in turn promotes their justice perceptions toward the organization. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed, and some directions for future research are suggested. (shrink)

Realism figures in current debates as the view that knowledge of the meanings of statements concerning a particular subject matter requires knowledge of their truth conditions, regarded as possibly transcending verification. Appealing to Wittgenstein's dictum that meaning is use, Michael Dummett has influentially argued that realistically-conceived truth conditions can play no role in an account of linguistic understanding. The present essay argues that, when such truth conditions are correctly understood, it will be seen that they are in fact indispensable to (...) any acceptable theory of meaning. The second part of the essay develops this conclusion with reference statements about other minds. (shrink)

Boolean games are a logical setting for representing strategic games in a succinct way, taking advantage of the expressive power and conciseness of propositional logic. A Boolean game consists of a set of players, each of which controls a set of propositional variables and has a specific goal expressed by a propositional formula. We show here that Boolean games are a very simple setting, yet sophisticated enough, for analysing the formation of coalitions. Due to the fact that players have dichotomous (...) preferences, the following notion emerges naturally: a coalition in a Boolean game is efficient if it has the power to guarantee that all goals of the members of the coalition are satisfied. We study the properties of efficient coalitions. (shrink)

In recent decades, psychological research on the effects of mindfulness-based interventions has greatly developed and demonstrated a range of beneficial outcomes in a variety of populations and contexts. Yet, the question of how to foster subjective well-being and happiness remains open. Here, we assessed the effectiveness of an integrated mental training program The Art of Happiness on psychological well-being in a general population. The mental training program was designed to help practitioners develop new ways to nurture their own happiness. This (...) was achieved by seven modules aimed at cultivating positive cognition strategies and behaviors using both formal and informal practices. The program was conducted over a period of 9 months, also comprising two retreats, one in the middle and one at the end of the course. By using a set of established psychometric tools, we assessed the effects of such a mental training program on several psychological well-being dimensions, taking into account both the longitudinal effects of the course and the short-term effects arising from the intensive retreat experiences. The results showed that several psychological well-being measures gradually increased within participants from the beginning to the end of the course. This was especially true for life satisfaction, self-awareness, and emotional regulation, highlighting both short-term and longitudinal effects of the program. In conclusion, these findings suggest the potential of the mental training program, such as The Art of Happiness, for psychological well-being. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to examine how faith-led practices in family firms affect organizational stewardship. Current studies highlight the relevance of religious adherence for family businesses, yet provide limited understanding of how this shapes the key traits of these organizations. Drawing on six autobiographies of family business leaders who openly express their adherence to their faith, and adopting an open-systems analysis of these autobiographies, we demonstrate that faith-led values influence organizational and leadership practices. Overall, our study suggests that (...) the influence of religious beliefs in the organizational practices of family businesses have greater repercussions than previously thought. By introducing a faith-led approach to stewardship, we enrich the theoretical discussion around stewardship and the relevance of religion in family business. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to examine how faith-led practices in family firms affect organizational stewardship. Current studies highlight the relevance of religious adherence for family businesses, yet provide limited understanding of how this shapes the key traits of these organizations. Drawing on six autobiographies of family business leaders who openly express their adherence to their faith, and adopting an open-systems analysis of these autobiographies, we demonstrate that faith-led values influence organizational and leadership practices. Overall, our study suggests that (...) the influence of religious beliefs in the organizational practices of family businesses have greater repercussions than previously thought. By introducing a faith-led approach to stewardship, we enrich the theoretical discussion around stewardship and the relevance of religion in family business. (shrink)

Philosophers traditionally recognize two main features of mental states: intentionality and phenomenal consciousness. To a first approximation, intentionality is the aboutness of mental states, and phenomenal consciousness is the felt, experiential, qualitative, or "what it's like" aspect of mental states. In the past few decades, these features have been widely assumed to be distinct and independent. But several philosophers have recently challenged this assumption, arguing that intentionality and consciousness are importantly related. This article overviews the key views on the relationship (...) between consciousness and intentionality and describes our favored view, which is a version of the phenomenal intentionality theory, roughly the view that the most fundamental kind of intentionality arises from phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

David Hume is a constant, but underappreciated presence in John Rawls’ work. This paper attempts to uncover and explicate the core Humean elements in Rawls’ philosophy and advocates for the merits of a more Humean Rawls. Though Rawls’ familiarity with Hume is well known and his commentators frequently mention the importance of Hume’s circumstances of justice, the depth and range of the Humean influence has not been sufficiently understood. Commentators have been too quick to accept Rawls’ own account of Hume (...) as a largely negative influence superseded by justice as fairness’s formidable alternative to utilitarianism. This is a mistake, as Hume remains a powerful and positive historical influence in Rawls’ political philosophy. Moreover, recognition of Hume’s influence provides cogent ways of responding to some of Rawls’ most prominent critics. Rawls’ early essays and his lectures on the history of moral and political philosophy provide valuable material for understanding how Rawls saw the relation of his own work to that of his predecessors. Through an analysis of Rawls’ texts with emphasis on his early papers and lectures we seek to clarify his understanding of Hume and show how it impacts his work. In what follows, we show Hume’s influence on Rawls’ understanding of the circumstances of justice, the site of justice, the priority of the right, sympathy, the judicious spectator, and his methodology and approach to the problem of stability based on congruence between the good and the right. This illuminates Hume’s influence on contemporary political philosophy and provides a more balanced picture of the historical foundation of Rawls’ political philosophy. We end with some positive remarks on the benefits of embracing Rawls’ Humean side. (shrink)

Recently, a number of philosophers have begun to question the commonly held view that choice or voluntary control is a precondition of moral responsibility. According to these philosophers, what really matters in determining a person’s responsibility for some thing is whether that thing can be seen as indicative or expressive of her judgments, values, or normative commitments. Such accounts might therefore be understood as updated versions of what Susan Wolf has called “real self views,” insofar as they attempt to ground (...) an agent’s responsibility for her actions and attitudes in the fact (when it is a fact) that they express who she is as a moral agent. As such, they seem to be open to some of the same objections Wolf originally raised to such accounts, and in particular to the objection that they cannot license the sorts of robust moral assessments involved in our current practices of moral responsibility. My aim in this paper is to try to respond to this challenge, by clarifying the kind of robust moral assessments I take to be licensed by (at least some) non-volitional accounts of responsibility and by explaining why these assessments do not in general require the agent to have voluntary control over everything for which she is held responsible. I also argue that the limited applicability of the distinction between “bad agents” and “blameworthy agents” on these accounts is in fact a mark in their favor. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have recently argued that we should interpret the debate over moral responsibility as a debate over the conditions under which it would be “fair” to blame a person for her attitudes or conduct. What is distinctive about these accounts is that they begin with the stance of the moral judge, rather than that of the agent who is judged, and make attributions of responsibility dependent upon whether it would be fair or appropriate for a moral judge (...) to react to the agent in various (negative) ways. This is problematic, I argue, because our intuitions about whether and when it would be fair to react negatively to another are sensitive to a host of considerations that appear to have little or nothing to do with an agent’s responsibility or culpability for her attitudes or behavior. If this is correct, then theories which make attributions of responsibility dependent upon the appropriateness of our reactions as moral judges will turn out to be fundamentally misguided. (shrink)

I argue for the unity of imagination in two prima facie diverse contexts: experiences of beauty and achievements of understanding. I develop my argument in three steps. First, I begin by describing a type of aesthetic experience that is grounded in a set of imaginative activities on the part of the person having the experience. Second, I argue that the same set of imaginative activities that grounds this type of aesthetic experience also contributes to achievements of understanding. Third, I show (...) that my unified account of imagination has important implications: it sheds light on two puzzling phenomena, the aesthetic value of science and the cognitive value of art. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to show that animal rights are not necessarily at odds with the use of animals for research. If animals hold basic moral rights similar to those of humans, then we should consequently extend the ethical requirements guiding research with humans to research with animals. The article spells out how this can be done in practice by applying the seven requirements for ethical research with humans proposed by Ezekiel Emanuel, David Wendler and Christine Grady to (...) animal research. These requirements are i) social value, ii) scientific validity, iii) independent review, iv) fair subject selection, v) favorable risk-benefit ratio, vi) informed consent, and vii) respect for research subjects. In practice, this means that we must reform the practice of animal research to make it more similar to research with humans, rather than completely abolish the former. Indeed, if we banned animal research altogether, then we would also deprive animals of its potential benefits – which would be ethically problematic. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIt has recently become fashionable among those who write on questions of moral responsibility to distinguish two different concepts, or senses, of moral responsibility via the labels ‘responsibility as attributability’ and ‘responsibility as accountability’. Gary Watson was perhaps the first to introduce this distinction in his influential 1996 article ‘Two Faces of Responsibility’ , but it has since been taken up by many other philosophers. My aim in this study is to raise some questions and doubts about this distinction and (...) to argue that it has led to confusion rather than clarification in debates over moral responsibility. In place of the attributability/accountability distinction, I propose that there is a single concept of moral responsibility underlying our actual moral practices. This core notion of moral responsibility, which I call ‘responsibility as answerability’, is well positioned to explain thos.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle AgesMichael CalabreseRhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages, by Rita Copeland; xiv & 295 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, $64.95 cloth, $22.95 paper.In this deeply learned book, Rita Copeland studies the history of rhetoric and grammar and their shifting roles in the history of translation, commentary, and interpretation from classical antiquity through the Middle Ages. Copeland examines the ideological (...) nexus of history, authority, and power in which commentary and vernacular translation function. “Vernacular writing,” she says, can “authorize itself by taking over the function of academic discourse” (p. 8). Her book then traces the history of this “authorization” and this “dis-placement” of Latin sources by the increasingly academically privileged vernacular. All in all, Copeland tells the story of how medieval literary culture articulated its translatio studii by confronting and preserving its Classical inheritance and also developing a role for the vernacular as an active, creative agent in the production of authoritative works. [End Page 413]Ultimately “rhetoric” is the star of Copeland’s book, and in essence she is telling its Roman and medieval life stories. By “rhetoric” we are to understand critical academic language that points toward ethics and practical action. Throughout the Middle Ages every modification or appropriation of critical tools expands the role of commentary and adds new forms of interpretive invention to the translation process. As Copeland puts it, “The medieval practice of translation as a form of appropriation and substitution will be conditioned, as in Roman contexts, by rhetorical theories of invention” (p. 36).The hermeneutical costar is grammar, for as part of the complex appropriation of classical practice, medieval readers recoup the “debased” Roman category of grammar, so that by the time of Martianus Capella it can “claim for itself the whole compass of literary activity” (p. 56). As grammar expands its power, so does rhetoric, a civic Roman art which gets “revalued in terms of service to theology” (p. 59). Medieval commentary now “assumes the character of rhetorical performance” (p. 86) and takes on a “primary productive character,” as it “continually refashions the [studied] text for changing conditions of understanding” (p. 64). What is emerging from all these developments is a medieval translation theory—and practice—which is informed by both academic and practical, ethical goals, that is, a hermeneutics forged by the link of grammar and rhetoric.The rest of the book studies the shifting status and the evolving role of the vernacular in this medieval hermeneutical drama. Copeland addresses the Ovide moralisé and the French translations of the Consolatio, and then Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women and Gower’s Confessio Amantis. We witness here how vernacular products take on authority by “inventing themselves” through authoritative discourse. In Gower’s Confessio we see the fusion of hermeneutics and rhetoric; the poem uses academic modes of discourse in the service of ethics or action. We thus see that by the late Middle Ages vernacular literature plays an authoritative role in the medieval translatio studii, as Gower seeks to “open the institution of learning to the widest possible audience and thereby empower it as a persuasive tool, leading to knowledge of the good” (p. 220). Overall, Copeland has told the story of the “leveling” of academic and vernacular discourse, so that the later, while not dispelling or overthrowing the former, can claim access to its traditional authority.Copeland’s prose is Latinate, at times pedantic and, at times, just plain Latin; reading the book can be a wearing experience. But it is all part of a history she knows in remarkable detail, a history that lies behind many assumptions we have about medieval ethical poetics. To have presented this history is a major scholarly feat. Copeland allows us to see medieval authors as both products and producers of methods of appropriation, imitation, conquest, and preservation—all strategies for “translating” the past and creating a present that can leave its intellectual mark on the future. One might now want to employ Copeland’s history of classical and medieval hermeneutics as a tool for [End Page 414] examining our own, contemporary academic rhetorics and for analyzing the “state of... (shrink)

The predominant view is that a study using health data is observational research and should require individual consent unless it can be shown that gaining consent is impractical. But recent arguments have been made that citizens have an ethical obligation to share their health information for research purposes. In our view, this obligation is sufficient ground to expand the circumstances where secondary use research with identifiable health information is permitted without explicit subject consent. As such, for some studies the Institutional (...) Review Board/Research Ethics Committee review process should not assess the practicality of gaining consent for data use. Instead the review process should focus on assessing the public good of the research, public engagement and transparency. (shrink)

In pursuit of the dream that patients' exercise of autonomy could extend beyond their span of competence, living wills have passed from controversy to conventional wisdom, to widely promoted policy. But the policy has not produced results, and should be abandoned.

There is increasing attention to the centrality of idealization in science. One common view is that models and other idealized representations are important to science, but that they fall short in one or more ways. On this view, there must be an intermediary step between idealized representation and the traditional aims of science, including truth, explanation, and prediction. Here I develop an alternative interpretation of the relationship between idealized representation and the aims of science. In my view, continuing, widespread idealization (...) calls into question the idea that science aims for truth. I argue that understanding must replace truth as the ultimate epistemic aim of science. Additionally, science has a wide variety aims, epistemic and non-epistemic, and these aims motivate different kinds of scientific products. Finally, I show how these diverse aims---all rather distant from truth---result in the expanded influence of social values on science. (shrink)

Moving away from the strong body of critique of pervasive ‘bad data’ practices by both governments and private actors in the globalized digital economy, this book aims to paint an alternative, more optimistic but still pragmatic picture of the datafied future. The authors examine and propose ‘good data’ practices, values and principles from an interdisciplinary, international perspective. From ideas of data sovereignty and justice, to manifestos for change and calls for activism, this collection opens a multifaceted conversation on the kinds (...) of futures we want to see, and presents concrete steps on how we can start realizing good data in practice. (shrink)

The concept of hierarchical organization is commonplace in science. Subatomic particles compose atoms, which compose molecules; cells compose tissues, which compose organs, which compose organisms; etc. Hierarchical organization is particularly prominent in ecology, a field of research explicitly arranged around levels of ecological organization. The concept of levels of organization is also central to a variety of debates in philosophy of science. Yet many difficulties plague the concept of discrete hierarchical levels. In this paper, we show how these difficulties undermine (...) various implications ascribed to hierarchical organization, and we suggest the concept of scale as a promising alternative to levels. Investigating causal processes at different scales offers a way to retain a notion of quasi-levels that avoids the difficulties inherent in the classic concept of hierarchical levels of organization. Throughout, our focus is on ecology, but the results generalize to other invocations of hierarchy in science and philosophy of science. (shrink)

In this paper, I first outline the view developed in my recent book on the role of idealization in scientific understanding. I discuss how this view leads to the recognition of a number of kinds of variability among scientific representations, including variability introduced by the many different aims of scientific projects. I then argue that the role of idealization in securing understanding distances understanding from truth, but that this understanding nonetheless gives rise to scientific knowledge. This discussion will clarify how (...) my view relates to three other recent books on understanding by Henk de Regt, Catherine Elgin, and Kareem Khalifa. (shrink)

Despite the recent proliferation of scientific, clinical, and narrative accounts of auditory verbal hallucinations, the phenomenology of voice hearing remains opaque and undertheorized. In this article, we outline an interdisciplinary approach to understanding hallucinatory experiences which seeks to demonstrate the value of the humanities and social sciences to advancing knowledge in clinical research and practice. We argue that an interdisciplinary approach to the phenomenology of AVH utilizes rigorous and context-appropriate methodologies to analyze a wider range of first-person accounts of AVH (...) at 3 contextual levels: cultural, social, and historical; experiential; and biographical. We go on to show that there are significant potential benefits for voice hearers, clinicians, and researchers. These include informing the development and refinement of subtypes of hallucinations within and across diagnostic categories; “front-loading” research in cognitive neuroscience; and suggesting new possibilities for therapeutic intervention. In conclusion, we argue that an interdisciplinary approach to the phenomenology of AVH can nourish the ethical core of scientific enquiry by challenging its interpretive paradigms, and offer voice hearers richer, potentially more empowering ways to make sense of their experiences. (shrink)

In recent years, the publication of the studies on the transmissibility in mammals of the H5N1 influenza virus and synthetic genomes has triggered heated and concerned debate within the community of scientists on biological dual-use research; these papers have raised the awareness that, in some cases, fundamental research could be directed to harmful experiments, with the purpose of developing a weapon that could be used by a bioterrorist. Here is presented an overview regarding the dual-use concept and its related international (...) agreements which underlines the work of the Australia Group Export Control Regime. It is hoped that the principles and activities of the AG, that focuses on export control of chemical and biological dual-use materials, will spread and become well known to academic researchers in different countries, as they exchange biological materials and scientific papers. To this extent, and with the aim of drawing the attention of the scientific community that works with yeast to the so called Dual-Use Research of Concern, this article reports case studies on biological dual-use research and discusses a synthetic biology applied to the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, namely the construction of the first eukaryotic synthetic chromosome of yeast and the use of yeast cells as a factory to produce opiates. Since this organism is considered harmless and is not included in any list of biological agents, yeast researchers should take simple actions in the future to avoid the sharing of strains and advanced technology with suspicious individuals. (shrink)

It is a common thought that mathematics can be not only true but also beautiful, and many of the greatest mathematicians have attached central importance to the aesthetic merit of their theorems, proofs and theories. But how, exactly, should we conceive of the character of beauty in mathematics? In this paper I suggest that Kant's philosophy provides the resources for a compelling answer to this question. Focusing on §62 of the ‘Critique of Aesthetic Judgment’, I argue against the common view (...) that Kant's aesthetics leaves no room for beauty in mathematics. More specifically, I show that on the Kantian account beauty in mathematics is a non-conceptual response felt in light of our own creative activities involved in the process of mathematical reasoning. The Kantian proposal I thus develop provides a promising alternative to Platonist accounts of beauty widespread among mathematicians. While on the Platonist conception the experience of mathematical beauty consists in an intellectual insight into the fundamental structures of the universe, according to the Kantian proposal the experience of beauty in mathematics is grounded in our felt awareness of the imaginative processes that lead to mathematical knowledge. The Kantian account I develop thus offers to elucidate the connection between aesthetic reflection, creative imagination and mathematical cognition. (shrink)

Can aesthetic judgements legitimately be linked to the success of scientific theories? I suggest that a satisfactory answer to this question should account for the persistent attraction that aesthetic considerations seem to have for scientists, while also explaining the apparent instability of the link between the beauty of a theory and its truth. I argue that two widespread tendencies in the literature, Pythagorean and subjectivist approaches, have difficulties meeting this twofold challenge. I propose a Kantian conception of aesthetic judgements as (...) second‐order considerations, related to our own intellectual capacities for making sense of the world, and argue that it fares better. (shrink)

Causal accounts of scientific explanation are currently broadly accepted (though not universally so). My first task in this paper is to show that, even for a causal approach to explanation, significant features of explanatory practice are not determined by settling how causal facts bear on the phenomenon to be explained. I then develop a broadly causal approach to explanation that accounts for the additional features that I argue an explanation should have. This approach to explanation makes sense of several aspects (...) of actual explanatory practice, including the widespread use of equilibrium explanations, the formulation of distinct explanations for a single event, and the tight relationship between explanations of events and explanations of causal regularities. (shrink)

A common argument against explanatory reductionism is that higher‐level explanations are sometimes or always preferable because they are more general than reductive explanations. Here I challenge two basic assumptions that are needed for that argument to succeed. It cannot be assumed that higher‐level explanations are more general than their lower‐level alternatives or that higher‐level explanations are general in the right way to be explanatory. I suggest a novel form of pluralism regarding levels of explanation, according to which explanations at different (...) levels are preferable in different circumstances because they offer different types of generality, which are appropriate in different circumstances of explanation. (shrink)

The 1940s and 1950s were marked by intense debates over the origin of drug resistance in microbes. Bacteriologists had traditionally invoked the notions of ‘training’ and ‘adaptation’ to account for the ability of microbes to acquire new traits. As the field of bacterial genetics emerged, however, its participants rejected ‘Lamarckian’ views of microbial heredity, and offered statistical evidence that drug resistance resulted from the selection of random resistant mutants. Antibiotic resistance became a key issue among those disputing physiological vs. genetic (...) explanations of variation in bacteria. Postwar developments connected with the Lysenko affair gave this debate a new political valence.Proponents of the neo-Darwinian synthesis weighed in with support for the genetic theory. However, certain features of drug resistance seemed inexplicable by mutation and selection, particularly the phenomenon of ‘multiple resistance’—the emergence of resistance in a single strain against several unrelated antibiotics. In the late 1950s, Tsutomu Watanabe and his collaborators solved this puzzle by determining that resistance could be conferred by cytoplasmic resistance factors rather than chromosomal mutation. These R factors could carry resistance to many antibiotics and seemed able to promote their own dissemination in bacterial populations. In the end, the vindication of the genetic view of drug resistance was accompanied by a recasting of the ‘gene’ to include extrachromosomal hereditary units carried on viruses and plasmids. (shrink)

Debate about cognitive science explanations has been formulated in terms of identifying the proper level(s) of explanation. Views range from reductionist, favoring only neuroscience explanations, to mechanist, favoring the integration of multiple levels, to pluralist, favoring the preservation of even the most general, high-level explanations, such as those provided by embodied or dynamical approaches. In this paper, we challenge this framing. We suggest that these are not different levels of explanation at all but, rather, different styles of explanation that capture (...) different, cross-cutting patterns in cognitive phenomena. Which pattern is explanatory depends on both the cognitive phenomenon under investigation and the research interests occasioning the explanation. This reframing changes how we should answer the basic questions of which cognitive science approaches explain and how these explanations relate to one another. On this view, we should expect different approaches to offer independent explanations in terms of their different focal patterns and the value of those explanations to partly derive from the broad patterns they feature. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss two questions. What does Kant understand by mechanical explanation in the Critique of judgment? And why does he think that mechanical explanation is the only type of the explanation of nature available to us? According to the interpretation proposed, mechanical explanations in the Critique of judgment refer to a particular species of empirical causal laws. Mechanical laws aim to explain nature by reference to the causal interaction between the forces of the parts of matter and (...) the way in which they form into complex material wholes. Just like any other empirical causal law, however, mechanical laws can never be known with full certainty. The conception according to which we can explain all of nature by means of mechanical laws, it turns out, is based on what Kant calls ‘regulative’ or ‘reflective’ considerations about nature. Nothing in Kant’s Critique of judgment suggests that these considerations can ever be justified by reference to how the natural world really is. I suggest that what, upon first consideration, appears to be a thoroughly mechanistic conception of nature in Kant is much more limited than one might have expected. (shrink)