Masked priming experiments occasionally revealed surprising effects: Participants responded slower for congruent compared to incongruent primes. This negative congruency effect was ascribed to inhibition of prime-induced activation [Eimer, M., & Schlaghecken, F. . Response faciliation and inhibition in subliminal priming. Biological Psychology, 64, 7–26.] that sets in if the prime activation is sufficiently strong. The current study tests this assumption by implementing manipulations designed to vary the amount of prime-induced activation in three experiments. In Experiments 1 and 3, NCEs were (...) observed despite reduced prime-induced activation. Experiment 2 revealed no NCE with at least similar prime strength. Thus, the amount of prime activation did not predict whether or not NCEs occurred. The findings are discussed with regard to the inhibition account and the recently proposed account of mask-induced activation [cf. Lleras, A., & Enns, J. T. . Negative compatibility or object updating? A cautionary tale of mask-dependent priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133, 475–493; Verleger, R., Jaskowski, P., Aydemir, A., van der Lubbe, R. H. J., & Groen, M. . Qualitative differences between conscious and nonconscious processing? On inverse priming induced by masked arrows. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133, 494–515]. (shrink)

Logical form has always been a prime concern for philosophers belonging to the analytic tradition. For at least one century, the study of logical form has been widely adopted as a method of investigation, relying on its capacity to reveal the structure of thoughts or the constitution of facts. This book focuses on the very idea of logical form, which is directly relevant to any principled reflection on that method. Its central thesis is that there is no such thing as (...) a correct answer to the question of what is logical form: two significantly different notions of logical form are needed to fulfil two major theoretical roles that pertain respectively to logic and to semantics. This thesis has a negative and a positive side. The negative side is that a deeply rooted presumption about logical form turns out to be overly optimistic: there is no unique notion of logical form that can play both roles. The positive side is that the distinction between two notions of logical form, once properly spelled out, sheds light on some fundamental issues concerning the relation between logic and language. (shrink)

Concretism is the ontological thesis according to which possibilia are concrete entities. The paper first outlines concretism, arguing that its sole founding thesis is that individuals across possible worlds are individuated by similitude. Among other things, this means that there is no need to postulate that there is no overlap among worlds. The main virtues and vices of concretism are then reviewed, and a novel vice is put forward: a failure in the reduction of modality due to the modal character (...) of intrinsicness. (shrink)

Can genetic testing and manipulation be done ethically? -- Is the use of human embryos in stem cell research ethical? -- Chapter 3:is assisted reproductive technology ethical?

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are quickly gaining ground in healthcare and clinical decision-making. However, it is still unclear in what way AI can or should support decision-making that is based on incapacitated patients’ values and goals of care, which often requires input from clinicians and loved ones. Although the use of algorithms to predict patients’ most likely preferred treatment has been discussed in the medical ethics literature, no example has been realised in clinical practice. This is due, arguably, to the (...) lack of a structured approach to the epistemological, ethical and pragmatic challenges arising from the design and use of such algorithms. The present paper offers a new perspective on the problem by suggesting that preference predicting AIs be viewed as sociotechnical systems with distinctive life-cycles. We explore how both known and novel challenges map onto the different stages of development, highlighting interdisciplinary strategies for their resolution. (shrink)

By virtue of what do alarm calls and facial expressions carry natural information? The answer I defend in this paper is that they carry natural information by virtue of changing the probabilities of various states of affairs, relative to background data. The Probabilistic Difference Maker Theory of natural information that I introduce here is inspired by Dretske's [1981] seminal analysis of natural information, but parts ways with it by eschewing the requirements that information transmission must be nomically underwritten, mind-independent, and (...) knowledge-yielding. PDMT includes both a qualitative account of information transmission and a measure of natural information in keeping with the basic principles of Shannon's communication theory and Bayesian confirmation theory. It also includes a new account of the informational content of a signal, understood as the combination of the incremental and overall support that the signal provides for all states of affairs at the source. Finally, I compare and.. (shrink)

International Relations scholars have been reluctant to engage with questions of friendship in the international system. This may be a consequence of the predominance of (neo)realism in IR and its implications – to view the international arena as an anarchic, self‐help system, where states are trapped in the security dilemma. However, over the last six decades, some regions have overcome the security dilemma and states have constructed peaceful relationships based on mutual trust and confidence, resembling friendship at the interstate level. (...) Building upon securitization theory, this essay distinguishes between different perceptions that states may have of their own security, and links them with different types of regional peace. It proposes a two‐phase process whereby relationships may move from negative to positive peace, suggesting different mechanisms for each phase. It illustrates this model by examining the Argentine–Brazilian détente of the late 1970s and the determination to build a zone of positive peace in Latin America’s Southern Cone. (shrink)

Algebraic Art explores the invention of a peculiarly Victorian account of the nature and value of aesthetic form, and it traces that account to a surprising source: mathematics. Drawing on literature, art, and photography, it explores how the Victorian mathematical conception of form still resonates today.

Clinical ethics committees (CECs) have been developing in many countries since the 1980s, more recently in the transitional countries in Eastern Europe. With their increasing profile they are now faced with a range of questions and challenges regarding their position within the health care organizations in which they are situated: Should CECs be independent bodies with a critical role towards institutional management, or should they be an integral part of the hospital organization? In this paper, we discuss the organizational context (...) in which CECs function in Europe focusing on five aspects. We conclude that in Europe clinical ethics committees need to maintain a critical independence while generating acceptance of the CEC and its potential benefit to both individuals and the organization. CECs, perhaps particularly in transitional countries, must counter the charge of “alibi ethics”. CECs must define their contribution to in-house quality management in their respective health care organization, clarifying how ethical reflection on various levels serves the hospital and patient care in general. This last challenge is made more difficult by lack of consensus about appropriate quality outcomes for CECs internationally. These are daunting challenges, but the fact that CECs continue to develop suggests that we should make the effort to overcome them. We believe there is a need for further research that specifically addresses some of the institutional challenges facing CECs. (shrink)

Gestational surrogacy is ethically complex, generating very different responses in law and policy worldwide. This paper argues that contemporary surrogacy law and policy, across many jurisdictions, fail to give sufficient attention to the significance of the relationship between the child and the gestational surrogate. This failure risks repeating the mistakes of historical, discredited approaches to adoption and donor‐assisted conception. This paper argues that proper recognition of the significance of gestation must be an organising principle in surrogacy law and policy. The (...) paper begins by pointing to examples of surrogacy law and practice where the role of the gestator is unacceptably minimised, most notably the framing of the surrogate as a mere ‘carrier’. It goes on to examine the nature of gestation, including consideration of contemporary scholarship on the metaphysics of pregnancy and emerging work in epigenetics, and argues that current evidence supports the view that the gestational relationship must be taken more seriously than it currently is. The paper then draws analogies with parenthood in donor‐assisted conception and adoption to argue that approaches to parental status in novel family formations that fail to promote transparency and seek to deny the truth of familial relationships are doomed to fail. The paper concludes by suggesting some implications for law and policy that flow from placing sufficient emphasis on the gestational role. The overarching thesis of this paper is that gestational surrogacy is ethically permissible when these fundamental requirements are adhered to, and that surrogacy law should proceed on this basis. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Cassinadri raised substantial criticism about the possibility of using moral reasons to endorse the hypothesis of extended cognition over its most popular alternative, the embedded view. In particular, Cassinadri criticized 4 of the arguments we formulated to defend EXT and argued that our claim that EXT might be preferable to EMB does not stand close scrutiny. In this short reply, we point out—contra Cassinadri—why we still believe that there are moral reasons to prefer EXT over EMB, (...) hence why we think that the former is more inclusive and more progressive than the latter. (shrink)

Until is a notoriously difficult temporal operator as it is both existential and universal at the same time: A∪B holds at the current time instant w iff either B holds at w or there exists a time instant w' in the future at which B holds and such that A holds in all the time instants between the current one and ẃ. This “ambivalent” nature poses a significant challenge when attempting to give deduction rules for until. In this paper, in (...) contrast, we make explicit this duality of until by introducing a new temporal operator ∇ that allows us to formalize the “history” of until, i.e., the “internal” universal quantification over the time instants between the current one and ẃ. This approach provides the basis for formalizing deduction systems for temporal logics endowed with the until operator. For concreteness, we give here a labeled natural deduction system N(LTL∇) for a linear-time logic LTL∇ endowed with the new history operator. We show that LTL∇ is equivalent to the linear temporal logic LTL with until, which follows by formalizing back and forth translations between the two logics. We also define an indirect translation from LTL∇ into LTL via temporal logics with past operators; such a result provides an upper bound to the problem of satisfiability for LTL∇ formulas. (shrink)

It is commonly assumed that the scientific study of emotions should focus on discrete categories such as fear, anger, sadness, joy, disgust, shame, guilt, and so on. This view has recently been questioned by the emergence of the “core affect movement,” according to which discrete emotions are not natural kinds. Affective science, it is argued, should focus on core affect, a blend of hedonic and arousal values. Here, I argue that the empirical evidence does not support the thesis that core (...) affect is a more “natural” category than discrete emotions. I conclude by recommending a splitting strategy in our search for natural affective kinds. †To contact the author, please write to: Andrea Scarantino, Department of Philosophy and Neuroscience Institute, Georgia State University, P.O. Box 4089, Atlanta, GA 30302‐4089; email: [email protected]. (shrink)

In this paper I begin to fashion a theory of musical form that I call historical formalism. Historical formalism posits that our perception of the formal properties of a musical work is informed by considerations not only of artistic categories but also of the historical, sociopolitical, and cultural circumstances within which that work was composed.

: This paper combines Simondon’s philosophy of individuation with some aspects of post-humanist and‘new materialist’ thought, while, at the same time, remaining within the ambit of a more classically ‘historical’characterisation of materialism. Two keywords drawn from Karen Barad and Simondon respectively – ‘ontoepistemology’and ‘axiontology’ – represent the red thread of a narrative that connects the early modern invention of civil science to Wiener’s cybernetic theory ofsociety. The political stakes common to these forms of what I call ‘banal’ materialism, Simondon attacked (...) ontologically,epistemologically and politically. The conceptual tools Simondon’s philosophy of individuation elaborates prove tosupport a ‘non-banal’ materialist critique of the alleged ‘unsocial sociability’ of human nature theorised in modernpolitical theory. A genuine materialist approach, as I will argue, allows us to shift political thinking from politicsconceived as a problem to be solved to politics as an arena of strategic experimentation. (shrink)

According to the Institute of Medicine, chronic pain affects at least 116 million adults in the United States, which is more than the total affected by heart disease, cancer, and diabetes combined. Pain costs the nation up to $635 billion each year in medical treatment and lost productivity. It has been conceptualized as a public health problem due to its prevalence, seriousness, disparities, vulnerable populations, the utility of population health strategies, and the importance of prevention at both the population and (...) individual levels. For many patients, treatment of pain is inadequate due to uncertain diagnoses, societal stigma, the lack of effective treatments, and inadequate patient and clinician knowledge about the best ways to manage pain. This article explores the inadequate treatment of pain in the U.S. and the subsequent rise of prescription painkiller abuse, misuse, and overdoses. This is followed by a review of the actions taken by states to regulate the prescribing of controlled substances. (shrink)

Anecdotal evidence has long lamented the status of social studies in elementary classrooms as observed by preservice teachers. As standardized testing has risen for mathematics and language arts, social studies has been pushed aside. In the aftermath of accountability legislation such as No Child Left Behind, research indicates that social studies is less visible in elementary classrooms due to an instructional focus on tested content areas (e.g. math, language arts, reading). In this study, approximately 90 elementary preservice teachers enrolled in (...) a social studies methods course responded to a survey and indicated the frequency and quality of lessons they observed over the course of a single semester. Findings report that preservice elementary teachers witnessed few, if any, lessons in social studies in the elementary classroom. Implications for teacher education are discussed. (shrink)

The reform process of the CAP is increasingly open to actors that apply different frames. Recent research reveals the consistent use of five frames during CAP reform processes: the policy mechanism frame, the farmers’ economic frame, the societal concerns frame, the budgetary frame, and the foreign trade frame. Our qualitative content analysis of 1,155 newspaper articles from Austria’s largest agricultural newspaper published between 01/10/2010 and 31/01/2015 confirms that these five frames are also used in national CAP reporting and consist of (...) subframes. The European Commission (EC), the European Parliament, and the Council of the European Union, which are involved in the CAP legislative process, mainly use the policy mechanism frame. The farmers’ economic frame and the policy mechanism frame are applied throughout the reform process. The societal concerns frame is gradually used over time, while the foreign trade frame is limited to specific events. The budgetary frame increasingly refers to public money for public goods, which indicates that the EC and other actors put efforts into legitimising the CAP. The results emphasise that both, agricultural and environmental actors use agricultural media to generate support for or condemnation of agricultural policy and thereby affect political agenda-setting. (shrink)

The present article is an analysis of Heidegger's notorious Rectoral Address in terms of its attempt to bring together philosophy and politics in a way that would revitalise both. Through the repossession and reconfiguration of common words and concepts, Heidegger hoped to provide the intellectual impetus for a radical, invigorating cultural revolution in Germany. Given this apparently laudable aim, one is faced with the pressing question concerning the tension between his philosophical insight, on the one hand, and his inexplicable political (...) blindness on the other. Hence the paper focuses, firstly, on the radical nature of Heidegger's transformation of traditional conceptions of philosophy (science), and secondly, on his failure to separate the originality and significance of this philosophy from a catastrophic ideological attachment to the idea of German spiritual unity and destiny. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.21(1) 2002: 18-34. (shrink)

This volume offers a new framework for understanding expertise. It proposes a reconceptualization of the traditional notion of expertise and calls for the development of a new contextual and action-oriented notion of expertise, which is attentive to axiological values, intellectual virtues, and moral qualities. -/- Experts are usually called upon, especially during times of emergency, either as decision-makers or as advisors in formulating policies that often have a significant impact on society. And yet, for certain types of choices, there is (...) a growing tension between experts’ recommendations and alternative views. The chapters in this volume critically assess the idea of whether possessing epistemic authority can automatically make someone’s assertions necessarily more grounded than others. They not only evaluate the epistemological implications of this idea but also reflect on its ethical, socio-cultural, and political consequences. The interdisciplinary framework advanced across the chapters seeks to overcome certain limitations that underlie current models of expertise by adopting more inclusive and representative decisions that can improve the perceived neutrality of experts’ decisions. Increasing neutrality means reducing cases in which an unidentified bias – be it a scientific one or not – puts any of the individuals involved in a specific public choice at a systematic disadvantage. -/- Philosophy, Expertise, and the Myth of Neutrality will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of the social sciences, public policy, and sociology. (shrink)

I formulate and criticise a condition that captures some recent ideas on the nature of pretence, namely, the disbelief condition. According to an initial understanding of this condition, an agent who is pretending that P must also disbelieve that P. I criticise this idea by proposing a counterexample showing that an agent may be in a state of pretence that does not imply disbelief in what is pretended. I also draw some general conclusions about the nature of pretence.

Critical algorithm scholarship has demonstrated the difficulties of attributing accountability for the actions and effects of algorithmic systems. In this commentary, we argue that we cannot stop at denouncing the lack of accountability for algorithms and their effects but must engage the broader systems and distributed agencies that algorithmic systems exist within; including standards, regulations, technologies, and social relations. To this end, we explore accountability in “the Generated Detective,” an algorithmically generated comic. Taking up the mantle of detectives ourselves, we (...) investigate accountability in relation to this piece of experimental fiction. We problematize efforts to effect accountability through transparency by undertaking a simple operation: asking for permission to re-publish a set of the algorithmically selected and modified words and images which make the frames of the comic. Recounting this process, we demonstrate slippage between the “complication” of the algorithm and the obscurity of the legal and institutional structures in which it exists. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the _ethics of how_ to approach the introduction of MAiD as an organizational ethics challenge, a focus that diverges from the traditional focus in healthcare ethics on the _ethics of why_ MAiD is right or wrong. It describes a method co-designed and implemented by ethics and medical leadership at a tertiary hospital to develop a values-based, grassroots response to the decriminalization of assisted dying in Canada. This organizational ethics engagement method embodied core tenants that drew inspiration (...) from a variety of sources, including poetic ones. These tenants are: make the problem bigger; focus on values; cultivate open moral spaces; and trust emergence. The paper describes how these tenants were put into practice in order to create a rigorous and sustainable MAiD program that delivers high-quality care to patients and families while honoring the moral diversity of the hospital workforce. One of the goals in sharing this method is to provide a roadmap for healthcare organizations in Canada and other jurisdictions around the world that are facing the challenge of responding to patient requests for MAiD following the decriminalization of this care option. (shrink)

A Partial Combinatory Algebra is completable if it can be extended to a total one. In [1] it is asked (question 11, posed by D. Scott, H. Barendregt, and G. Mitschke) if every PCA can be completed. A negative answer to this question was given by Klop in [12, 11]; moreover he provided a sufficient condition for completability of a PCA (M, ·, K, S) in the form of ten axioms (inequalities) on terms of M. We prove that just one (...) of these axiom (the so called Barendregt's axiom) is sufficient to guarantee (a slightly weaker notion of) completability. (shrink)

In this interview the philosopher Luce Irigaray discusses her book Through Vegetal Being. In response to questions, she distinguishes the human relationship to the environment and to other human beings. She describes how we must change our manner of relating to nature, beginning with our own: to learning how to coexist as a natural being among others instead of dominating the natural world. We must cultivate our instincts, free ourselves from traditions and elaborate a new education and sociocultural order and (...) it is then that we will perceive that we cannot share with plants and animals all that we can share with another human being. (shrink)