Significant efforts have been made to define ethical responsibilities for professionals engaged in nanotechnology innovation. Rosalyn Berne delineated three ethical dimensions of nanotechnological innovation: non-negotiable concerns, negotiable socio-cultural claims, and tacitly ingrained norms. Braden Allenby demarcated three levels of responsibility: the individual, professional societies (e.g. engineering codes), and the macro-ethical. This article will explore how these definitions of responsibility map onto practitioners’ understanding of their responsibilities and the responsibilities of others using the nanotechnology innovation community of the greater Phoenix area, (...) which includes academic researchers, investors, entrepreneurs, manufacturers, insurers, attorneys, buyers, and media. To do this we develop a three-by-three matrix that combines Berne’s three dimensions and Allenby’s three levels. We then categorize the ethical responsibilities expressed by forty-five practitioners in semi-structured interviews using these published dimensions and levels. Two questions guide the research: (i) what responsibilities do actors express as theirs and/or assign to other actors and; (ii) can those responsibilities be mapped to the presented ethical frameworks? We found that most of the responsibilities outlined by our respondents concentrate at the professional society + non-negotiable and professional + negotiable intersections. The study moves from a philosophical exploration of ethics to an empirical analysis, exploring strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in the existing nanotechnology innovation network. This opens the door for new practitioners to be introduced in an effort to address responsibilities that are not currently recognized. (shrink)

This paper is based on a semantic foundation of quantum logic which makes use of dialog-games. In the first part of the paper the dialogic method is introduced and under the conditions of quantum mechanical measurements the rules of a dialog-game about quantum mechanical propositions are established. In the second part of the paper the quantum mechanical dialog-game is replaced by a calculus of quantum logic. As the main part of the paper we show that the calculus of quantum logic (...) is complete and consistent with respect to the dialogic semantics. Since the dialoggame does not involve the 'excluded middle' the calculus represents a calculus of effective (intuitionistic) quantum logic. In a forthcoming paper it is shown that this calculus is equivalent to a calculus of sequents and more interestingly to a calculus of propositions. With the addition of the 'excluded middle' the latter calculus is a model for the lattice of subspaces of a Hilbert space. (shrink)

Modern philosophical biology has been dominated by the idea of mechanism. Even the attempts to escape from mechanism, such as the theories of vitalism and holism, covertly assume the mechanistic hypothesis while surrounding it with an aura of mysticism. The mechanistic approach is the result of applying the methods of physics to the realm of biology. The immense prestige of physics has tended to disguise the fact that biology is a science in its own right, with autonomous principles. The purpose (...) of the article is to develop the philosophy of organism, first systematically elaborated by Whitehead, and to seek to demonstrate that organic being is unintelligible without the concept of purposiveness and hence of value. This necessarily leads to the return of metaphysics in the form of metabiology.RésuméLa biologie philosophique moderne est dominée par l'idée de mécanisme. Il n'est pas jusqu'aux tentatives d'échapper au mécanisme, telle par exemple la théorie du vitalisme et celle du holisme, qui n'assument implicitement l'hypothése mécaniste tout en l'entourant d'une aura de mysticisme. La conception mécaniste résulte de l'applicatio n des méthodes de la physique au domaine de la biologie. L'immense prestige de la physique a tendu à déguiser le fait pourtant reel que la biologie est une science qui jouit de sa propre souveraineté et de principes autonomes. Le but de cet article est d'exposer une philosophie de l'organisme élaborée systématiquement par Whitehead pour la premiére fois et de chercher ensuite à démontrer que tout être organique est inintelligible en dehors du concept de finalité et, par conséquent, de valeur. Ceci conduit nécessairement à un renouveau de la métaphysique sous forme de métabiologie. (shrink)

An examination of Cassirer’s conception of symbolizing, which is born in his critique of Kant, will show that objectifying human experience without external absolutes is grounded in affect, not cognition. When there is no external absolute to guide objectifying, then the roots of objectifying begin with how we are affected by experience and led to reflect. Affect formulates how we become conscious of what there is and express this consciousness so as to objectify it. Affect thus has an indirect influence (...) on consciousness and objectifying. Cassirer expands the scope of the free play of the imagination, which Kant restricted to aesthetic judgments, to account for how order arises through any modality when a rule is not given. He anchors this generative source in human expression itself, and thereby prevents objectifying from sinking into relativism. Affect is thus shown to play a regulative role in consciousness when we objectify human experience without external absolutes. (shrink)

The Birkhoff-Maltsev problem asks for a characterization of those lattices each of which is isomorphic to the lattice L(K) of all subquasivarieties for some quasivariety K of algebraic systems. The current status of this problem, which is still open, is discussed. Various unsolved questions that are related to the Birkhoff-Maltsev problem are also considered, including ones that stem from the theory of propositional logics.

In a recent article Professor W. Beare casts doubt on the authenticity of XOPOY at certain places in the Plutus. Of 626–7, he observes: ‘…the editors assume an interlude and insert in Aristophanes’ text. But what the scholiast says is . The poet “ought to have” inserted a choral interlude and “waited a little” until someone could return from the temple with news of the cure.