An ecological description of a landscape transcends its geographical definition to characterize it in terms of a complex agency composed of a spatial mosaic, structured energy, information and meaning. Because the dimensions of the landscape encompasses both natural and human processes, it requires a more robust set of theories that incorporate the material components and their perceptual meaning. A biosemiotic approach defines the landscape as the sum of its organisms’ eco-fields, which are spatial configurations that carry meanings connected to specific (...) needs and related functions. In this perspective, the new postulated General Theory of Resources, offers a substantial contribution to complete the paradigmatic framework of a “private landscape” species-, individual- and function-specific. From this theory resources are considered every material (f.i. food) or immaterial elements (f.i. safety) necessary to fullfill individual needs. The habitat becomes the “private landscape” and the well-being versus the ill-being are the emergent conditions of each individual under the environmental constraints. Definitively space is the entity on which material and immaterial resources are distributed and the dimension on which individuals species are interacting by using biosemiotic mechanisms. (shrink)

Perceptual illusionism is the view that perceptual experience is, in general, radically illusory. That is, perceptual experience presents objects as having certain sensible properties and standing in certain sensible relations, but nothing in the subject’s environment has those properties or stands in those relations. This paper makes the case for perceptual illusionism by showing how a broad set of philosophical and scientific considerations converge to support illusionism about the full range of sensible properties and relations. After clarifying the illusionist thesis, (...) I set out the argument in three parts. First, I briefly make the case for an illusionist view of color. I then argue for illusionism about the spatial/temporal properties presented in experience on the assumption that some “radical” view of space (and/or time) is correct—that is, some view according to which nothing like our ordinary three-dimensional space (or four-dimensional spacetime) exists at the fundamental level. Finally, I argue that there is a strong case for illusionism even if all radical views turn out to be false. (shrink)

I perform an economic and ethical analysis on wealth and income inequality. Economists have performed many statistical studies that reveal a number of, often contradictory, findings in connection with the distribution of wealth and income. Hence, the statistical findings leave us with no better knowledge of the effects that inequality has on economic progress. At the same time, the existing theoretical results have not provided us with a definitive answer concerning the effects of inequality on progress. By gaining knowledge of (...) the nature of inequality, and bringing basic economic principles to bear on the subject, we can come to an understanding of what the causal relationship is between inequality and economic progress. Furthermore, I apply a new theory of ethics – rational egoism – to assess economic inequality. I show that, in the right context, economic inequality is both economically and morally desirable. (shrink)

Not long ago, under the influence of Michel Foucault, one spoke of the conjunction of knowledge and power, but in this post-truth era power appears singularly uninterested in knowledge, even as the supporters of Donald Trump claim that he alone of all politicians speaks the truth. This essay proposes to examine the relations of power and knowledge under the present populist assault. This analysis begins in the work of Claude Lefort, who spoke of the separation of knowledge and power in (...) democracy’s symbolic regime, and is then counterposed to Ernesto Laclau’s understanding of ‘populist reason’ in order to explore the present torsion of this relation to the point where power can appear not just separated from, but opposed to knowledge. It will be argued that it is less a question of post-truth than of different forms of truth with different truth claims, borne by different imperatives, and tied to different forms of representation – truth claims that can, in relation to each other, be indifferent, complementary, or conflictual. With this in mind, the essay asks: what is the relation of the people to truth? Do those who claim to represent the people seek possession of a different kind of truth? What is the relation of populism to ideology? And what is populism’s relation to ‘post-modernism’? (shrink)

Trial by jury is a fundamental feature of democratic governance. But what form should jury decision-making take? I argue against the status quo system in which juries are encouraged and even required to engage in group deliberation as a means to reaching a decision. Jury deliberation is problematic for both theoretical and empirical reasons. On the theoretical front, deliberation destroys the independence of jurors’ judgments that is needed for certain attractive theoretical results. On the empirical front, we have evidence from (...) both legal and non-legal contexts that group deliberation often leads to group judgments that are worse in a number of respects than judgments generated by non-interactional methods of judgment aggregation. Finally, I examine some possible alternatives to free-wheeling jury deliberation, including the constrained and structured deliberation embodied in the DELPHI method, voting, and averaging of probabilistic judgments. (shrink)

This article introduces the special issue on middle-range theory in science and technology studies, providing the background to its production and reviewing different notions of “middle.” It begins with Merton's ideas about middle-range theory as a way of moving beyond the production of either descriptions or theories of everything. Instead of seeing the middle as the space between the theoretical imagination and the detailed depiction of everyday practices, the authors outline three ways of thinking about the middle range: as an (...) adjective, the closest to Merton's conception; as a noun, the liminal place between theories, audiences, and levels; and as a verb, a process, a means of making connections across time, discipline, community, and place. A summary of each of the articles in this special issue is provided, preceding a call for further discussion about the role of case studies and the nature of the middle in STS. (shrink)

The idea that labor mixing confers property in unowned resources is, for many, the very heart of the Lockean system of property. In this essay I shall argue that this common view is mistaken. Locke...

Can war ever be just? By what right do we charge people with war crimes? Can war itself be a crime? What is a good peace treaty? Since the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, many wars have erupted, inflaming such areas as the Persian Gulf, Central Africa and Central Europe. Brutalities committed during these conflicts have sparked new interest in the ethics of war and peace. Brian Orend explores the ethics of war and peace from a Kantian (...) perspective, emphasizing human rights protection, the rule of international law and a fully global concept of justice. Contending that Kant’s just war doctrine has not been given its due, Orend displays Kant’s theory to its fullest, impressive effect. He then completely and clearly updates Kant’s perspective for application to our time. Along the way, he criticizes pacifism and realism, explores the nature of human rights protection during wartime, and defends a theory of just war. He also looks ahead to future developments in global institutional reform using cases from the Persian Gulf War, Somalia, Bosnia, and Rwanda to illustrate his argument. Controversial and timely, perhaps the most important contribution War and International Justice: A Kantian Perspective makes is with regard to the question of justice after war. Orend offers a principled theory of war termination, making an urgent plea to reform current international law. (shrink)

This essay is the first of two seeking to draw out an ontology of peace from Paul Ricoeur’s thought. This first essay (Part I) argues that Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of creation provides the best starting point because of its insistence on the goodness of created being. Ricoeur develops this conviction from his reading of the biblical creation accounts, which I follow through three texts from three periods of Ricoeur’s work. In The Symbolism of Evil, Ricoeur show that peace rather than violence (...) is most fundamental to creation. In his essay “On the Exegesis of Gen 1:1-2:4a,” he expands his interpretation to consider the combat imagery in the Psalms, but shows how the text interprets the separation and ordering of creation as a work of providential wisdom rather than violence. In Thinking Biblically, Ricoeur complicates his earlier hermeneutics of creation by bringing in themes of mastery, chaos, and fragility—three themes that need careful interpretation in order to preserve Ricoeur’s earlier emphasis on the goodness and peacefulness of creation. This preservation is possible, I argue, by recovering Ricoeur’s early Christological reflections in The Symbolism of Evil, which point to the hope of an ultimate, eschatological victory over violence. I conclude by arguing that Ricoeur’s hermeneutics can help us to imagine peace, which is crucial to the practice of peace. (shrink)

This case involves invasive research on captive wild populations of birds to study aggressive animal behavior. The case and associated commentaries raise and examine fundamental issues: whether and under what conditions, such research is ethically justified when the research has no expected, direct application to the human species; the moral status of animals and how one balances concern for the animal’s interests against the value of gains in scientific knowledge. They also emphasize the issue of the importance of a thorough (...) literature search to ensure appropriate research design and experimental design to minimize animal suffering. It raises the issue of circumstances in which such research should be modified or terminated. (shrink)

"This book is based on new work relating gendered assumptions about rationality to men's mental health. It offers the reader a theoretical exploration of a topically and politically sensitive issue and provides a valuable critique of postmodern theory and theorists. It is relevant to practitioners and activists in the mental health field, will be of interest to profeminist theorists, and is essential reading for academics and students of sociology and allied disciplines."--Jacket.

Externalist theories of thought content are sometimes arrived at by reflection upon Twin Earth thought experiments of the sort made famous by Hilary Putnam and Tyler Burge. The conclusion many philosophers draw from these thought experiments is that certain types of thought contents are individuated, in part, by environmental or socioenvironmental factors. This doctrine of "Twin Earth content-externalism" implies that it is possible for thinkers that are alike in all intrinsic physical respects to differ in the contents of their thoughts (...) by virtue of differences in their environments. (shrink)

In most children’s hospitals, there are very few ethics consultations, even though there are many ethically complex cases. We hypothesize that the reason for this may be that hospitals develop different mechanisms to address ethical issues and that many of these mechanisms are closer in spirit to the goals of the pioneers of clinical ethics than is the mechanism of a formal ethics consultation. To show how this is true, we first review the history of collaboration between philosophers and physicians (...) about clinical dilemmas. Then, as a case-study, we describe the different venues that have developed at one children’s hospital to address ethical issues. At our hospital, there are nine different venues in which ethical issues are regularly and explicitly addressed. They are ethics committee meetings, Nursing Ethics Forum, ethics Brown Bag workshops, PICU ethics rounds, Grand Rounds, NICU Comprehensive Care Rounds, Palliative Care Team case conferences, multidisciplinary consults in Fetal Health Center, and ethics consultations. In our hospital, ethics consults account for only a tiny percentage of ethics discussions. We suspect that most hospitals have multiple and varied venues for ethics discussions. We hope this case study will stimulate research in other hospitals analyzing the various ways in which ethicists and ethics committees can build an ethical environment in hospitals. Such research might suggest that ethicists need to develop a different set of “core competencies” than the ones that are needed to do ethics consultations. Instead, they should focus on their skills in creating multiple “moral spaces” in which regular and ongoing discussion of ethical issues would take place. A successful ethicist would empower everyone in the hospital to speak up about the values that they believe are central to respectful, collaborative practice and patient care. Such a role is closer to what the first hospital philosophers set out to do than in the role of the typical hospital ethics consultant today. (shrink)

As late as 1948, when he was making his report to the Literae Humaniores Faculty Board on the work he had done as University Lecturer since 1945, Friedrich Waismann listed three text books that he had ready for publication and one book—as it might be “real book”—which he referred to as “Philosophy and Grammar”. That was his fi nal title for a work he had been preparing since 1929 and which was originally to be called “Logik Sprache Philosophie”. In 1948 (...) that work will have consisted physically in a heavily corrected set of galley proofs, printed for Routledge and Kegan Paul . The print was set up in the unhappy year of 1939, the copy reaching the publisher on 25 July of that year. (shrink)

Renin is the rate‐limiting enzyme in a cascade that leads to production of angiotensin II, which is perhaps our most important regulator of salt and water balance and blood pressure. In this personal perspective, I describe how I entered the renin field 33 years ago by discovering that proteases increased the level of renin activity in biological fluids, so revealing the existence of a ‘pro’ form of the molecule. This led me on a journey that encapsulated all of the major (...) milestones in molecular discovery for renin. These included (1) the elucidation of the steps in renin biosynthesis, (2) the cloning of renin cDNA and its gene, (3) demonstration of the structure of the renin protein, (4) using the renin gene in the first genetic studies in hypertension, (5) finding the mechanism by which the major controller, cyclic AMP, regulates the promoter, (6) showing that a strong enhancer and its weak promoter control this physiologically regulatable gene in accord with the variegation (on/off switching) model, and (7) being the first to identify molecules involved in posttranscriptional control. The renin molecule, its gene and molecular control are now very well understood, but more fine details on the topic of renin continue to emerge to delight ‘reninologists’ and others. BioEssays 25:520–527, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This article examines the mobilization of resources for the Human Genome Mapping Project in the United Kingdom. The Project was established through an award of additional funds to the Medical Research Council at a time of financial stringency within publicly funded science, accompanied by relatively little of the debate that had surrounded the U.S. initiative. It is argued, following Fujimura and Star’s terminology, that the project was “packaged” and repackaged by its proponents so that it aligned the, otherwise disparate, agendas (...) of several “social worlds.” Furthermore, by bringing together certain social worlds and not others, some issues were also excluded from discussion. In this instance, the social and ethical issues surrounding genetic mapping were accorded a much lower profile than in other national programs. (shrink)

Practically Religious: Worldly Benefits and the Common Religion of Japan. Ian Reader and George J. Tanabe Jr. Hawai'i University Press, Honolulu 1998. xii, 303 pp. $45 ISBN 0-8248-2065-7; $22.95 ISBN 0-8248-209-8.

An activity called Purple Dragons and Yellow Toadstools, originally reported in 1987 as a training activity for jurors, was adapted as a priming exercise for a unit on teaching research ethics with undergraduate students. In this activity, learners develop skills for building negotiated consensus. The procedure involves individuals’ ranking 10–15 moral transgressions and/or legal violations followed by a small group discussion in order to arrive at an agreed-upon ranking by the team. The framework has proved to be quite flexible, adaptable (...) to different subject areas and with different populations of students. (shrink)

Proteins account for the catalytic and structural versatility displayed by all cells, yet they are assembled from a set of only 20 common amino acids. With few exceptions, only 61 nucleotide triplets also direct incorporation of these amino acids. Endeavors to expand the genetic code recently progressed to nucleus‐containing cells, after Chin et al.1 transferred Escherichia coli genes for a mutant tyrosine‐adaptor molecule and its synthetase into Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Transformed yeast cells were produced that exhibit efficient site‐specific incorporation of non‐biotic (...) amino acids into proteins. This makes it likely that code complexity can be elevated experimentally in mammals. BioEssays 26:111–115, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Aquinas never describes himself as a ‘philosopher.’ He typically uses that word when referring to such “pagans” as Aristotle. Yet he often presents what we can now view as purely philosophical arguments. And it is some of these with which MacIntosh is concerned in this fine new book, which is divided into three parts, as is Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae. MacIntosh has previously published two books on Robert Boyle, who features from time to time in the present volume.In part 1, “Natural (...) Philosophy,” MacIntosh reports a number of things that Aquinas has to say about necessity and possibility, causality, time and motion, and time and infinity. Part 2, “Natural Theology,” deals with Aquinas under the headings... (shrink)

It has been nearly half a century since the publication of Harry Braverman’s Labor and Monopoly Capital. That, along with Michael Burawoy’s subsequent interrogation of Braverman—Manufacturing Consent—set the terms for a robust and enduring research agenda that has focused on labor processes: the deskilling of work, managerial control over workers, consent, and the extraction of surplus value. This article endeavors to advance the labor process paradigm by highlighting recruitment as a tool by which employers maximize the likelihood that they will (...) hire people who will consent to their objectives, broadly defined. Drawing on a broad range of literatures, we show how recruitment and hiring practices constitute part of an overarching apparatus of control wherein managers imagine that particular people will be ideal for particular jobs and positions. We conclude by sketching a research agenda that sociologists of work and labor processes might undertake in order to understand these issues more thoroughly. (shrink)

Originally published 1967, this title reveals how the missionaries, so often misguided and short-sighted, were in fact pioneers of modernization, science and freedom. The structure of the book allows for comparative analysis and the volume illustrates how some of the social consequences of action through the schools could be foreseen. In addition light is thrown on the results of Imperial rule during the nineteenth century and on the nature of the impact of Western education in Asia and Africa.