Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences contains a series of explorations of the different ways in which the social sciences have interacted with the natural sciences. Usually, such interactions are considered to go only `one way': from the natural to the social sciences. But there are several important essays in this volume which show how developments in the social sciences have affected the natural sciences - even the `hard' science of physics. Other essays deal with various types of interaction since (...) the Scientific Revolution. In his general introductory chapter, Cohen sets some general themes concerning analogies and homologies and the use of metaphors, drawing specific examples from the use of concepts of physics by marginalist economists and of developments in the life sciences by organismic sociologists. The remaining chapters, which explore the different ways in which the social sciences and the natural sciences have actually interacted, are written by leaders in the field of history of science, drawn from a wide range of countries and disciplines. The book will be of great interest to all historians of science, philosophers interested in questions of methodology, economists and sociologists, and all social scientists concerned with the history of their subject and its foundations. (shrink)

Bizarre delusions are not specific to schizophrenia and can be found in other psychotic disorders. However, to date, there are no studies investigating socio-demographic and clinical characteristics associated with BizD across the psychosis spectrum. In this study 819 subjects with a diagnosis of SZ, schizoaffective disorder and bipolar I disorder were included. Patients with history of BizD and with no BizD were compared with respect to socidemographic and clinical variables, and predictors of BizD were explored. Patients with BizD were less (...) educated, less likely to be married, had higher Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale negative scores and lower Young Mania Rating Scale scores. Younger age, SZ and SZA diagnoses, higher PANSS positive scores, presence of reference delusions, tactile and olfactory hallucinations were predictors. Our results indicate that BizD are associated with higher illness severity, lower functionality and specific set of symptoms. (shrink)

Philosophical understandings of Nature and Human Nature. Classical Greek and modern West, Christian, Buddhist, Taoist, by 14 authors, including Robert Neville, Stanley Rosen, David Eckel, Livia Kohn, Tienyu Cao, Abner Shimoney, Alfred Tauber, Krzysztof Michalski, Lawrence Cahoone, Stephen Scully, Alan Olson and Alfred Ferrarin. Dedicated to the phenomenological ecology of Erazim Kohák, with 10 of his essays and a full bibliography. Overall theme: on the question of the moral sense of nature.

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 2, Page 10-14, March‐April 2022.

When applied in the health sector, AI-based applications raise not only ethical but legal and safety concerns, where algorithms trained on data from majority populations can generate less accurate or reliable results for minorities and other disadvantaged groups.

© 2016 Elsevier LtdJumping spiders are famous for their visually driven behaviors [1]. Here, however, we present behavioral and neurophysiological evidence that these animals also perceive and respond to airborne acoustic stimuli, even when the distance between the animal and the sound source is relatively large and with stimulus amplitudes at the position of the spider of ∼65 dB sound pressure level. Behavioral experiments with the jumping spider Phidippus audax reveal that these animals respond to low-frequency sounds by freezing—a common (...) anti-predatory behavior characteristic of an acoustic startle response. Neurophysiological recordings from auditory-sensitive neural units in the brains of these jumping spiders showed responses to low-frequency tones —recordings that also represent the first record of acoustically responsive neural units in the jumping spider brain. Responses persisted even when the distances between spider and stimulus source exceeded 3 m and under anechoic conditions. Thus, these spiders appear able to detect airborne sound at distances in the acoustic far-field region, beyond the near-field range often thought to bound acoustic perception in arthropods that lack tympanic ears [2]. Furthermore, direct mechanical stimulation of hairs on the patella of the foreleg was sufficient to generate responses in neural units that also responded to airborne acoustic stimuli—evidence that these hairs likely play a role in the detection of acoustic cues. We suggest that these auditory responses enable the detection of predators and facilitate an acoustic startle response. Video. (shrink)

In his monumental 1687 work, _Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica_, known familiarly as the _Principia_, Isaac Newton laid out in mathematical terms the principles of time, force, and motion that have guided the development of modern physical science. Even after more than three centuries and the revolutions of Einsteinian relativity and quantum mechanics, Newtonian physics continues to account for many of the phenomena of the observed world, and Newtonian celestial dynamics is used to determine the orbits of our space vehicles. This (...) authoritative, modern translation by I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman, the first in more than 285 years, is based on the 1726 edition, the final revised version approved by Newton; it includes extracts from the earlier editions, corrects errors found in earlier versions, and replaces archaic English with contemporary prose and up-to-date mathematical forms. Newton's principles describe acceleration, deceleration, and inertial movement; fluid dynamics; and the motions of the earth, moon, planets, and comets. A great work in itself, the _Principia_ also revolutionized the methods of scientific investigation. It set forth the fundamental three laws of motion and the law of universal gravity, the physical principles that account for the Copernican system of the world as emended by Kepler, thus effectively ending controversy concerning the Copernican planetary system. The illuminating Guide to Newton's _Principia_ by I. Bernard Cohen makes this preeminent work truly accessible for today's scientists, scholars, and students. (shrink)

Presents Newton's unifying idea of gravitation and explains how he converted physics from a science of explanation into a general mathematical system.

Aristotle's claim in Metaphysics Z.6 that "each substance is the same as its essence" has long puzzled commentators. For it seems to conflict with two other Aristotelian theses: (1) primary substances are individuals (e.g., Socrates and Callias), and (2) essences are universals (e.g., Man and Horse). Three traditional solutions to this difficulty are considered and rejected. Instead, to make the Z.6 equation consistent with (1) and (2), I propose that it be interpreted to be making something other than a straightforward (...) identity claim. Callias is the same as his essence in the sense that to be identical to Callias is to be the same man as Callias (where Man is the essence of Callias). In general, x is identical to y if, and only if, x and y are the same E (where E specifies the "what it is to be" for x, i.e., the essence of x). So each of Socrates and Callias is the same as his essence, and Man is that essence, but Socrates and Callias are not identical, for they are not the same man. (shrink)

Should anonymous sperm “donation”—a misnomer, since sperm is usually purchased—be permitted? A number of countries, including Sweden, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, and several Australian states, have answered no.1 The United Kingdom recently joined this list, instituting a system whereby new sperm (and egg) donors must put information into a registry, and a donor-conceived child “is entitled to request and receive their donor’s name and last known address, once they reach the age of 18.”2 The arguments offered (...) by the legislators in these jurisdictions in favor of these measures, along with the arguments offered by scholarly proponents such as Naomi Cahn, focus on one major .. (shrink)

Newton’s physics is based on two fundamental concepts: mass and force. In the _Principia_ Newton explores the propoerties of several types of force. The most important of these are forces that produce accelerations or changes in the state of motion or of rest of bodies. In Definition 4 of the Principia, Newton separates these into three principal categories: impact or percussion, pressure, and centripetal force. In the Principia, Nwton mentions other types of forces, including (in Book 2) the forces with (...) which fluids resist motions through them. Of a different sort is Newton’s „force of inertia“, which is neither an accelerative force nor a static force and is nit, properly speaking in the context of dynamics, a force at all. (shrink)

Professor Sparrow’s (2022) Target Article helpfully elucidates the question of when the ordinary person-affecting conception of harm and benefit should apply to discussions of germline genome editi...

This is an investigation of Aristotle's conception of accidental compounds (or "kooky objects," as Gareth Matthews has called them)—entities such as the pale man and the musical man. I begin with Matthews's pioneering work into kooky objects, and argue that they are not so far removed from our ordinary thinking as is commonly supposed. I go on to assess their utility in solving some familiar puzzles involving substitutivity in epistemic contexts, and compare the kooky object approach to more modern approaches (...) involving the notion of referential opacity. I conclude by proposing that Aristotle provides an implicit role for kooky objects in such metaphysical contexts as the Categories and Metaphysics. (shrink)

Originally edited by Timothy Stoltzfus Jost, this text examines how different countries around the world approach the same challenges in health care law and ethics: how to finance care for as many people as possible; how to ensure quality care; how to best secure patients' rights; how to regulate abortion, end of life decision making, and assisted reproduction; and how to manage infectious diseases, tobacco use, and human subject research. The new edition considers a broader array of countries, particularly from (...) Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. (shrink)

Aristotle takes up the topic of change (or coming-to-be and ceasing-to-be) in both the Physics and De Generatione et Corruptione. He distinguishes between simple coming-to-be (substantial change), as when something comes into existence, and qualified coming-to-be (accidental change), as when an already existing thing alters, or moves, or changes in some other way. But he also maintains a persistence principle: that in every change, whether simple or qualified, there is something that persists throughout the change. I examine the question of (...) whether this principle threatens the viability of the distinction between substantial and accidental change by comparing what Aristotle has to say about it in the Physics with what he says in GC. In the process, I discuss several recent treatments of the topic as well as some conflicting views about the role, if any, of prime matter in Aristotle's account of substantial change. (shrink)

In the last several months, several major disciplines have started their initial reckoning with what ChatGPT and other Large Language Models (LLMs) mean for them – law, medicine, business among other professions. With a heavy dose of humility, given how fast the technology is moving and how uncertain its social implications are, this article attempts to give some early tentative thoughts on what ChatGPT might mean for bioethics. I will first argue that many bioethics issues raised by ChatGPT are similar (...) to those raised by current medical AI – built into devices, decision support tools, data analytics, etc. These include issues of data ownership, consent for data use, data representativeness and bias, and privacy. I describe how these familiar issues appear somewhat differently in the ChatGPT context, but much of the existing bioethical thinking on these issues provides a strong starting point. There are, however, a few “new-ish” issues I highlight – by new-ish I mean issues that while perhaps not truly new seem much more important for it than other forms of medical AI. These include issues about informed consent and the right to know we are dealing with an AI, the problem of medical deepfakes, the risk of oligopoly and inequitable access related to foundational models, environmental effects, and on the positive side opportunities for the democratization of knowledge and empowering patients. I also discuss how races towards dominance (between large companies and between the U.S. and geopolitical rivals like China) risk sidelining ethics. (shrink)

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the need to rethink the status of space and time which Kant considered to be a priori forms of sensibility was prompted by the emergence of new approaches to the methodology of scientific cognition. In neo-Kantian interpretation these cognitive forms acquire a special epistemological status, manifesting themselves in theoretical research as “pre-given” foundations of knowledge. It seems necessary to conduct a comparative analysis of two interconnected neo-Kantian concepts, of Hermann Cohen and (...) Ivan Lapshin. Studying Kant’s philosophy since his student days, Lapshin gradually came to the conclusion that the need to clarify and develop Kant’s transcendental method was dictated by the development of scientific knowledge. Indeed, the works of the Russian neo-Kantian contain echoes and polemical adjustments of Cohen’s spatio-temporal ideas. Our study has revealed common epistemological attitudes in Cohen and Lapshin: the wish to improve elements of Kantian philosophy, adjusting them to prove the possibility of scientific-theoretical cognition and of overcoming psychologism and developing the logicistic approach to the critique of cognition. Each of the two authors developed their own “mechanism” of reducing space and time to a range of intellectual procedures for the construction of the object of knowledge. In Cohen’s account space and time pre-establish the language of observation and found all scientific-theoretical work. Lapshin, on the other hand, in discussing the formal and substantive features of these categories (the introduction of “axioms” of time, the need to specify the concepts of time and space through other categories), notes that their use in scientific judgment implies an epistemological givenness of the concept of the object. This I see as a variant of solving one and the same epistemological task. I submit that Lapshin worked out an independent concept of space and time as cognitive forms that are congruent with the spirit of European neo-Kantianism and contemporary science. (shrink)

This is an examination of Aristotle's notion of an "accidental being" -- something intermediate between a substance and a property. An accidental being (sometimes called "accidental compound" or "kooky object") is an ephemeral object, typically the compound of a substance and a property, that exists for only as long as its components are united. I set out the role that accidental beings play in Aristotle's solutions to several philosophical problems. I also investigate the similarity between these beings and the individual (...) non-substances of Aristotle's Categories. Finally, I propose that accidental beings can be assimilated into a more contemporary conceptual scheme as events -- the states or conditions that substances are in or undergo. (shrink)

Sir Isaac Newton was one of the greatest scientists of all time, a thinker of extraordinary range and creativity who has left enduring legacies in mathematics and the natural sciences. In this volume a team of distinguished contributors examine all the main aspects of Newton's thought, including not only his approach to space, time, mechanics, and universal gravity in his Principia, his research in optics, and his contributions to mathematics, but also his more clandestine investigations into alchemy, theology, and prophecy, (...) which have sometimes been overshadowed by his mathematical and scientific interests. (shrink)

"The worst thing about food science, the elephant in the room, is that it's not just the opinions that are changing—but the 'facts' themselves shift too." Did you know that the great philosophers were the original foodies? To eat or not to eat? That’s an easy question to answer. But what to eat? That’s a deep and profoundly difficult one. Doctors and nutritionists often disagree with each other, while celebrities and scientists keep pitching us new recipes and special diets. No (...) one thought to ask the philosophers—those rational souls devoted to truth, ethics, and reason—what they think. Until now. (shrink)

This is a practical lawyer's appeal for help on behalf of clients to whom the question of human rights is particularly pressing. It so happens that some of these clients are aliens, not citizens, so they can't very well talk or worry about rights of citizenship. Many of them are without property, and so not deeply interested in rights of property. Many of them have no jobs, and so are not particularly interested in the rights of labor. But all of (...) them are human, and if that gives them any rights, they would like to know, and I, as their lawyer, would like to know, what those rights are. And so I come to a forum of the wise men of America searching for light on that problem. If I can return to my clients with even one lighted candle, that would be better than sitting and cursing the darkness. But I should like to return with a whole candelabra of seven candles illuminating seven questions that seem to me to be at the heart of the world's great darkness today. (shrink)

The death of Imre Lakatos on February 2, 1974 was a personal and philosophical loss to the worldwide circle of his friends, colleagues and students. This volume reflects the range of his interests in mathematics, logic, politics and especially in the history and methodology of the sciences. Indeed, Lakatos was a man in search of rationality in all of its forms. He thought he had found it in the historical development of scientific knowledge, yet he also saw rationality endangered everywhere. (...) To honor Lakatos is to honor his sharp and aggressive criticism as well as his humane warmth and his quick wit. He was a person to love and to struggle with. PAUL K. FEYERABEND ROBERT S. COHEN MARX W. WARTOFSKY TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface VII JOHN WORRALL / Imre Lakatos : Philosopher of Mathematics and Philosopher of Science JOSEPH AGASSI / The Lakatosian Revolution 9 23 D. M. ARMSTRONG / Immediate Perception w. W. BAR TLEY, III/On Imre Lakatos 37 WILLIAM BERKSON / Lakatos One and Lakatos Two: An Appreciation 39 I. B. COHEN / William Whewell and the Concept of Scientific Revolution 55 L. JONATHAN COHEN / How Can One Testimony Corroborate Another? 65 R. S. COHEN / Constraints on Science 79 GENE D'AMOUR/ Research Programs, Rationality, and Ethics 87 YEHUDA ELKANA / Introduction: Culture, Cultural System and Science 99 PA UL K. (shrink)

This volume is dedicated to Mario Bunge in honor of his sixtieth birthday. Mario Bunge is a philosopher of great repute, whose enormous output includes dozens of books in several languages, which will culminate with his Treatise on Basic Philosophy projected in seven volumes, four of which have already appeared [Reidel, I 974ff. ]. He is known for his works on research methods, the foundations of physics, biology, the social sciences, the diverse applications of mathematical methods and of systems analysis, (...) and more. Bunge stands for exact philosophy, classical liberal social philosophy, rationalism and enlightenment. He is brave, even relentless, in his attacks on subjectivism, mentalism, and spiritualism, as well as on positivism, mechanism, and dialectics. He believes in logic and clarity, in science and open-mindedness - not as the philosopher's equivalent to the poli tician's rhetoric of motherhood and apple pie, but as a matter of everyday practice, as qualities to cultivate daily in our pursuit of the life worth living. Bunge's philosophy often has the quality of Columbus's egg, and he is prone to come to swift and decisive conclusions on the basis of argu ments which seem to him valid; he will not be perturbed by the fact that most of the advanced thinkers in the field hold different views. (shrink)

The central argument in the Euthyphro is the one Socrates advances against the definition of piety as "what all the gods love." The argument turns on establishing that a loved thing (philoumenon) is 1) a loved thing because it is loved (phileitai), not 2) loved because it is a loved thing. I suggest that this claim can be understood and found acceptable if we take "because" to be used equivocally in it. Despite the equivocation, Socrates' argument is valid, showing that (...) Euthyphro cannot offer this definition consistently with his view that the gods have as a reason for loving pious things that they are pious things. (shrink)

My aim is to prove that Hermann Cohen was not only a philosopher of dialogue but has played an exceedingly important role in the history of that current of thought. His books Ethics of Pure Will (1904) and Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism (1919) offer a detailed analysis of the relationships between I and Thou, I and It, I and We. In the first book these relationships are considered from the ethical-legal point of view and (...) in the second from the viewpoint of religious anthropology. However, Cohen considers the problem of inter-personal relationships not in isolation, but as an important component of his entire philosophical system. Deduction of the concept of personality in Ethics of Pure Will is based on Cohen’s logic of the origin expounded in the first part of his system in The Logic of Pure Cognition. Cohen explains that the origin of the self-consciousness of I as a personality is not the external world, but another person, i.e. Thou. In turn, the partnership relationships between I and Thou create the community We which forms the basis of the law-governed state. The process of artistic creation in the framework of inter-personal relationship is explored in Aesthetics of Pure Feeling. Finally, Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism formulates the conception of religion as the most complete realisation of inter-personal relationship. Thus, dialogism became an important dimension of Cohen’s entire philosophical system, a fact noted by Martin Buber. Franz Rosenzweig, in unfolding dialogical thinking, expressly appeals to all the elements of Cohen’s system. There are signs of his influence on Bakhtin’s doctrine. Thus, examining Cohen’s doctrine as part of the philosophy of dialogue gives insights into this entire trend as a coherent whole. (shrink)