There are more than 350,000 health apps available in public app stores. The extolled benefits of health apps are numerous and well documented. However, there are also concerns that poor-quality apps, marketed directly to consumers, threaten the tenets of evidence-based medicine and expose individuals to the risk of harm. This study addresses this issue by assessing the overall quality of evidence publicly available to support the effectiveness claims of health apps marketed directly to consumers. To assess the quality of evidence (...) available to the public to support the effectiveness claims of health apps marketed directly to consumers, an audit was conducted of a purposive sample of apps available on the Apple App Store. We find the quality of evidence available to support the effectiveness claims of health apps marketed directly to consumers to be poor. Less than half of the 220 apps (44%) we audited state that they have evidence to support their claims of effectiveness and, of these allegedly evidence-based apps, more than 70% rely publicly on either very low or low-quality evidence. For the minority of app developers that do publish studies, significant methodological limitations are commonplace. Finally, there is a pronounced tendency for apps—particularly mental health and diagnostic apps—to either borrow evidence generated in other (typically offline) contexts or to rely exclusively on unsubstantiated, unpublished user metrics as evidence to support their effectiveness claims. Health apps represent a significant opportunity for individual consumers and healthcare systems. Nevertheless, this opportunity will be missed if the health apps market continues to be flooded by poor quality, poorly evidenced, and potentially unsafe apps. It must be accepted that a continuing lag in generating high-quality publicly available evidence of app effectiveness and safety is not inevitable: it is a choice. Just because it will be challenging to raise the quality of the evidence base publicly available to support the claims of health apps, this does not mean that the bar for evidence quality should be lowered. Innovation for innovation’s sake must not be prioritized over public health and safety. (shrink)

Between the 1930s and the mid 1970s, it was commonly believed that in 1880 Karl Marx had proposed to dedicate to Charles Darwin a volume or translation of Capital but that Darwin had refused. The detail was often interpreted by scholars as having larger significance for the question of the relationship between Darwinian evolutionary biology and Marxist political economy. In 1973–4, two scholars working independently—Lewis Feuer, professor of sociology at Toronto, and Margaret Fay, a graduate student at Berkeley—determined simultaneously that (...) the traditional story of the proposed dedication was untrue, being based on a long-standing misinterpretation of the relevant correspondence. Between the two, and among several other scholars who became their respective allies, there developed a contest of authority and priority over the discovery. From 1975 to 1982, the controversy generated a considerable volume of spilled ink in both scholarly and popular publications. Drawing on previously unexamined archival resources, this article revisits the ‘case’ of the so-called ‘Darwin–Marx correspondence’ as an instance of the phenomenon of ‘multiple discovery’. A familiar occurrence in the natural sciences, multiple discovery is rarer in the humanities and social sciences. The present case of a priority dispute in the history of ideas followed patterns familiar from such disputes in the natural sciences, while also diverging from them in ways that shed light on the significance of disciplinary norms and research infrastructures. (shrink)

One of liberalism’s core commitments is to safeguarding individuals’ autonomy. And a central aspect of liberal social justice is the commitment to protecting the vulnerable. Taken together, and combined with an understanding of autonomy as an acquired set of capacities to lead one’s own life, these commitments suggest that liberal societies should be especially concerned to address vulnerabilities of individuals regarding the development and maintenance of their autonomy. In this chapter, we develop an account of what it would mean for (...) a society to take seriously the obligation to reduce individuals’ autonomy-related vulnerabilities to an acceptable minimum. In particular, we argue that standard liberal accounts underestimate the scope of this obligation because they fail to appreciate various threats to autonomy. (shrink)

I argue that, on a dispositionalist account of causation and indeed on any other view of causation according to which causation is a real relation, general relativity does not give causal principles a role in explaining phenomena. In doing so, I bring out a surprisingly substantial constraint on adequate views about the explanations and ontology of GR, namely the requirement that such views show how GR can explain motion that is free of disturbing influences.

Ethics and Qualities of Life looks at what enters into ethical judgment and choice. Interpretation of a case and of what the options are is always a factor, as is a sense of the possible values at stake. Intuitions also enter in, but often are unreliable. For a long time it seemed only fair that oldest sons inherited, and struck few people as unfair that women were not allowed to attend universities. A moral judgment is putatively part of a moral (...) order in a society that any reasonable person would accept. But what counts as "reasonable" is generally contestable. The unreliability of intuitions leads naturally to ethical theory. Kantian, contractualist, and consequentialist theories all have some important truth in them, but not the whole truth. Contractualism lacks the resources required for a fully determinate account of what counts as "reasonable". Broad general rules are important to Kant and are at the center of everyday morality. But can Kantian ethics explain why they have to have this central role? Our evolving social contract now contains elements that once would have seemed counter-intuitive to most people. But could consequentialists have predicted with entire confidence the consequences of social changes that we now think were desirable? The last part of this book contains a double argument. One is that ethical theory is employed by humans in a state of semi-ignorance of relevant factors, grasping at likely truths and evolved intuitions. The other is that consequentialist considerations have a major role at the fundamental level, but much more in justification or criticism than in ethical discovery. (shrink)

Feinberg is one of the leading philosophers of law of the last forty years. This volume collects recent articles, both published and unpublished, on what he terms "basic questions" about the law, particularly in regard to the relationship to morality. Accessibly and elegantly written, this volume's audience will reflect the diverse nature of Feinberg's own interests: scholars in philosophy of law, legal theory, and ethical and moral theory.

Ctesias’ Persica and Its Near Eastern Context. By Matt Waters. Wisconsin Studies in Classics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2017. Pp. xiii + 159, illus. $64.95.

Winner of the 2015 Pierre-Antoine Bernheim Prize for the History of Religion by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-LettresAfter a century during which Confucianism was viewed by academics as a relic of the imperial past or, at best, a philosophical resource, its striking comeback in Chinese society today raises a number of questions about the role that this ancient tradition might play in a contemporary context. The Sage and the People is the first comprehensive enquiry into the "Confucian revival" that (...) began in China during the 2000s. Based on extensive anthropological fieldwork carried out over eight years in various parts of the country, it explores the re-appropriation and reinvention of popular practices in fields as diverse as education, self-cultivation, religion, ritual, and politics.The book analyzes the complexity of the "Confucian revival" within the broader context of emerging challenges to such categories as religion, philosophy, and science that prevailed in modernization narratives throughout the last century. Exploring state cults both in Mainland China and Taiwan, authors Sébastien Billioud and Joël Thoraval compare the interplay between politics and religion on the two shores of the Taiwan strait and attempt to shed light on possible future developments of Confucianism in Chinese society. (shrink)

This Master of Arts thesis is in two parts: a novel, An Anarchy of Man, and an exegesis which places the novel in relation to philosophical concerns about the self and the way those concerns are portrayed in selected works of Western literature. The novel is set in Canberra and Sydney and tells the story of the relationship between two characters: Joe and Gin. It explores the way we in the modern Western world think about ourselves and those around us. (...) Chapter One considers the view of the self in the work of the philosopher Rene Descartes and explores how this view is portrayed in three contemporary Australia novels, and in An Anarchy of Man. Chapter Two examines post-Cartesian views of the self, especially those in the work of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, and then considers the way the self is portrayed in Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, and in my own An Anarchy of Man. Chapter Three examines postmodern conceptions of the self and considers how these conceptions are portrayed in the work of the contemporary American novelist Don DeLillo and in my own An Anarchy of Man. (shrink)

Many phylogenetic systematists have criticized the Biological Species Concept (BSC) because it distorts evolutionary history. While defenses against this particular criticism have been attempted, I argue that these responses are unsuccessful. In addition, I argue that the source of this problem leads to previously unappreciated, and deeper, fatal objections. These objections to the BSC also straightforwardly apply to other species concepts that are not defined by genealogical history. What is missing from many previous discussions is the fact that the Tree (...) of Life, which represents phylogenetic history, is independent of our choice of species concept. Some species concepts are consistent with species having unique positions on the Tree while others, including the BSC, are not. Since representing history is of primary importance in evolutionary biology, these problems lead to the conclusion that the BSC, along with many other species concepts, are unacceptable. If species are to be taxa used in phylogenetic inferences, we need a history-based species concept. (shrink)

A major reason that Confucius should matter to Western ethical philosophers is that some of his concerns are markedly different from those most common in the West. A Western emphasis has been on major choices that are treated in a decontextualized way. Confucius’ emphasis is on paths of life, so that context matters. Further, the nuances of personal relations get more attention than is common (with the exception of feminist ethics) in Western philosophy. What Confucius provides is a valuable aid (...) in arriving at a more balanced sense of what ethics is concerned with. It also allows us to realize the importance of sensitivity to particulars. Finally, it highlights the importance of style (as well as the content of what is chosen) in behavior, and the ways in which relations with family and friends can connect with choices in a wider “public” sphere. (shrink)

Vers la fin du XIVe siècle se fait jour une théorie du signe et de la signification qui, par une réélaboration des principaux concepts sémantiques, renouvelle toute l’analyse logique du langage.Partant de Guillaume d’Ockham, dont l’œuvre est ici décisive, cet ouvrage suit le développement d’une logique fondée sur des éléments de sémiologie, à travers différents auteurs du XIVe siècle tels que Gauthier Burley, Jean Buridan, Albert de Saxe, Marsile d’Inghen, Pierre d’Ailly...Une telle « logique du signe » prend place dans (...) toute une mutation du savoir, en ce siècle où la crise profonde du monde médiéval appelle une autre conception des rapports entre l’homme, les choses extérieures et le langage. (shrink)

Walmsley offers a succinct introduction to major philosophical issues in artificial intelligence for advanced students of philosophy of mind, cognitive science and psychology. Whilst covering essential topics, it also provides the student with the chance to engage with cutting edge debates.

The death penalty by lethal injection is a legal punishment in the United States. Sodium Thiopental, once used in the death penalty cocktail, is no longer available for use in the United States as a consequence of this association. Anesthesiologists possess knowledge of Sodium Thiopental and possible chemical alternatives. Further, lethal injection has the look and feel of a medical act thereby encouraging physician participation and comment. Concern has been raised that the death penalty by lethal injection, is cruel. Physicians (...) are ethically directed to prevent cruelty within the doctor-patient relationship and ethically prohibited from participation in any component of the death penalty. The US Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty is not cruel per se and is not in conflict with the 8th amendment of the US constitution. If the death penalty is not cruel, it requires no further refinement. If, on the other hand, the death penalty is in fact cruel, physicians have no mandate outside of the doctor patient relationship to reduce cruelty. Any intervention in the name of cruelty reduction, in the setting of lethal injection, does not lead to a more humane form of punishment. If physicians contend that the death penalty can be botched, they wrongly direct that it can be improved. The death penalty cocktail, as a method to reduce suffering during execution, is an unverifiable claim. At best, anesthetics produce an outward appearance of calmness only and do not address suffering as a consequence of the anticipation of death on the part of the condemned. (shrink)

. In this paper, I attempt to dissolve the theism/atheism boundary. In the first part, I consider last things, according to mainstream science. In the second part, I define the Natural God as the Force of Nature—evolving, unifying, maximizing—and consider Its relation to last things. Finally, I discuss our knowledge of the Natural God and Its relevance to our personal lives. I argue that we can know the Natural God through scientific reason combined with global intuition, and that this knowledge, (...) from the perspective of last things, may help us achieve universal love, ethical action, and personal salvation. (shrink)

A natural starting place for developing a phylogenetic species concept is to examine monophyletic groups of organisms. Proponents of “the” Phylogenetic Species Concept fall into one of two camps. The first camp denies that species even could be monophyletic and groups organisms using character traits. The second groups organisms using common ancestry and requires that species must be monophyletic. I argue that neither view is entirely correct. While monophyletic groups of organisms exist, they should not be equated with species. Instead, (...) species must meet the more restrictive criterion of being genealogically exclusive groups where the members are more closely related to each other than to anything outside the group. I carefully spell out different versions of what this might mean and arrive at a working definition of exclusivity that forms groups that can function within phylogenetic theory. I conclude by arguing that while a phylogenetic species concept must use exclusivity as a grouping criterion, a variety of ranking criteria are consistent with the requirement that species can be placed on phylogenetic trees. (shrink)

Philosophers intent upon characterizing the difference between physics and biology often seize upon the purported fact that physical explanations conform more closely to the covering law model than biological explanations. Central to this purported difference is the role of laws of nature in the explanations of these two sciences. However, I argue that, although certain important differences between physics and biology can be highlighted by differences between physical and biological explanations, these differences are not differences in the degree to which (...) those explanations conform to the covering law model, which fits biology about as well as it does physics. (shrink)

Dispositionalism is the view that the world is, ultimately, just a world of objects and their irreducible dispositions, and that such dispositions are, ultimately, the sole explanatory ground for the occurrence of events. This view is motivated, partly, by arguing that it affords, while non‐necessitarian views of laws of nature do not afford, an adequate account of our intuitions about which regularities are non‐accidental. I, however, argue that dispositionalism cannot adequately account for our intuitions about which regularities are non‐accidental. Further, (...) I argue that, intuitions aside, if we suppose that our world contains objects along with their irreducible dispositions, we must suppose, on pain of logical incoherence, that it contains laws of nature that are incompatible with a dispositionalist ontology. Indeed, if we suppose a world of objects and irreducible dispositions, we will have to suppose that the most prominent views of laws of nature currently on offer are all inadequate. (shrink)

Ecology has often been characterized as an immature scientific discipline. This paper explores some of the sources of this alleged immaturity. I argue that the perception of immaturity results primarily from the fact that historically ecologists have based their work upon two very different approaches to research.

Unfoldable cardinals are preserved by fast function forcing and the Laver-like preparations that fast functions support. These iterations show, by set-forcing over any model of ZFC, that any given unfoldable cardinal κ can be made indestructible by the forcing to add any number of Cohen subsets to κ.

A phylogeny that allows for lateral gene transfer (LGT) can be thought of as a strictly branching tree (all of whose branches are vertical) to which lateral branches have been added. Given that the goal of phylogenetics is to depict evolutionary history, we should look for the best supported phylogenetic network and not restrict ourselves to considering trees. However, the obvious extensions of popular tree-based methods such as maximum parsimony and maximum likelihood face a serious problem—if we judge networks by (...) fit to data alone, networks that have lateral branches will always fit the data at least as well as any network that restricts itself to vertical branches. This is analogous to the well-studied problem of overfitting data in the curve-fitting problem. Analogous problems often have analogous solutions and we propose to treat network inference as a case of model selection and use the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). Strictly tree-like networks are more parsimonious than those that postulate lateral as well as vertical branches. This leads to the conclusion that we should not always infer LGT events whenever it would improve our fit-to-data, but should do so only when the improved fit is larger than the penalty for adding extra lateral branches. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:iPod, YouTube, Wii Play: Theological Engagements with Entertainment by D. Brent Laytham, and: If These Walls Could Talk: Community Muralism and the Beauty of Justice by Maureen H. O’ConnellJoel WardeniPod, YouTube, Wii Play: Theological Engagements with Entertainment By D. Brent Laytham EUGENE, OR: CASCADE, 2012. 209 PP. $24.00If These Walls Could Talk: Community Muralism and the Beauty of Justice By Maureen H. O’Connell COLLEGEVILLE, MN: LITURGICAL PRESS, 2012. (...) 319 PP. $39.95Although, in the Republic, Plato discussed the usefulness (and danger!) of having artists practicing within the civic community, from his time forward, social philosophers, moral theologians, and religious ethicists have tended to avoid [End Page 199] probing too much into the relationship between the aesthetic and the ethical. To be sure, as organized academic philosophy developed, especially after the Enlightenment, the separate intellectual bailiwick of aesthetics left ethical considerations of what is morally (as opposed to artistically) good to the domain of ethics. The result of such segmentation was to keep both interests’ discussions of “the good” significantly apart.The two books reviewed here represent new (and, hopefully, now less uncommon) attempts to find the correspondence between beauty and goodness. Because both authors think and write specifically from the perspective of Christian ethics, these attempts make use of the resources of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, the sometimes contrasting traditions of Protestant and Catholic spiritual reflection, and the authors’ own personal engagement with sources of beauty or entertainment. Both authors argue in some way that the pursuit of the beautiful (or the enjoyable) bears a relation to goodness. They both also argue that our use of technology and our making of art ought to attend to the building of justice.In his book iPod, YouTube, Wii Play: Theological Engagements with Entertainment, D. Brent Laytham investigates varied forms of contemporary entertainment activities and technologies (e.g., the media-sharing website YouTube, video games, fashion magazines, sporting events) and unearths the ways in which these contemporary and technologically facilitated pastimes both support and endanger human social interaction. In particular, he pays close attention to how entertainment(s) help or hinder the drive of a community of believers into lives of discipleship.The thirteen chapters of the book are each organized around a particular technological theme and make good use of sociological reflection on media, as well as some Christian reflection on games, the communal pursuit of fun, and festivity. Laytham, a Methodist, takes a sympathetic stance toward modes of entertainment in how they function, at times, as legitimate means of communication between persons. But he also warns that they can, if used without an understanding of their effects on the inner lives of the persons involved, be damaging. The author often demonstrates remarkable psychological insight, such as when he discusses the pressures put upon teenagers’ sense of physical self-image when based on the values of fashion magazines (140), the spiritual dangers of any kind of escapism (118), and the complicated motivations underlying petty gambling (107). And though reflection questions that are scattered throughout the body of the text are sometimes distracting from the arguments he puts forward (and so maybe would be better placed at the end of each chapter), he clearly wants his critique of media and entertainment to lead to a fuller, better enjoyment of them, a proper enjoyment possible when they are understood in relation to what should be their ultimate purpose: the drawing together of communities of persons. [End Page 200]Moving from a consideration of entertainment to art, properly speaking, Maureen O’Connell’s If These Walls Could Talk: Community Muralism and the Beauty of Justice is a number of things. It is a narrative description of what has happened in one urban environment in the United States, where socioeconomic decline, street violence, and crushing poverty produce needful places for transformative grace; a theological-aesthetic analysis of a genre of fine art, peculiar for the materials used and the venues in which it is displayed; a moral-ethical project inspired by familial ties to a particular city, as well as the fruit of continued interest (and, one might even say, pastoral zeal) on the author’s... (shrink)

Este artigo apresenta os aspectos liberais e republicanos da filosofia política de Rousseau e defende que eles devem ser interpretados como complementares. Entretanto, essa complementaridade pode ser caracterizada num sentido específico, qual seja, como sendo um liberalismo republicano.

Ought Implies Kant defends Kantianism via a critical examination of consequentialism. The latter is shown to be untenable on epistemic grounds; meanwhile, the charge that Kantianism is really consequentialism in disguise is refuted. The book also presents a novel interpretation of Kantianism as according direct duties owed to other animals.

Abstract: In this paper, I examine the current case against the second-order property view of existence through a discussion of Colin McGinn's up to date statement of this case. I conclude that the second-order property view of existence remains viable.

In the preface to the Yale edition of Samuel Johnson’s poems, the editors remark that “for a modern reader who can recreate the situation in which [“London”] was written, it may still be exciting enough. But to one with less imaginative capacity or historical knowledge, its appeal lies in Johnson’s skillful handling of the couplet.”2 To assist us in re-creating the milieu of 1738, the editors supply the usual notes identifying various historical personages and events which are no longer in (...) the domain of common knowledge. In this respect they follow Johnson’s lead. “London” is manifestly an occasional poem; and its occasion—in part, Walpole’s timidity abroad and corruption at home—like all occasions, passed.3 Indeed it passed so quickly that Johnson himself felt called upon in the fifth edition to annotate, for instance, his mention of “the Gazetteer”: “the paper which at that time contained apologies for the Court.” By 1750 Walpole was long out of court, the Gazetteer extinct, and “London” as outdated as yesterday’s newspaper.For poems like “London” whose contents are neither au courant nor immortal but rather historical or simply dead, the Yale editors suggest two avenues of resuscitation: the reader may either restore the background by means of historical imagination or, failing that, admire Johnson’s couplet art, which perhaps has a better chance at perennial appeal. Either content or form, either history or art—both options require a sacrifice on our part, and that sacrifice is our occasion, our need. Even assuming that the poem’s context could be exhumed and that we could participate once again in all the rage of the “patriot” opposition to Walpole, Why would we want to? The problem is that not only “London” but the Walpole regime itself is now defunct. Yet the same question must be asked of the poem’s art, even and especially if it is eternal. Why are we interested in the aesthetic knowledge of couplets that have been drained of all substance? Is understanding “London” in either case an end in itself? The pure content of the poem is too concrete, its pure form too abstract, to answer our occasions. Thus to understand the poem as either history or art demands a leisure that has no exigencies and is therefore free for the bygone and ethereal.42. E.L. McAdam, Jr. and George Milne, eds., Poems, vol. 6, The Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson , p. xvii.3. For a detailed exposition of the social and political background of “London,” see Donald Greene, The Politics of Samuel Johnson , pp. 88-92, and James Clifford, “London,” Young Sam Johnson , pp. 175-94.4. John Locke explains the infinite leisure we can take in understanding the obscurities of ancient authors in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Alexander Campbell Fraser, 2 vols. , 2:110:There being no writings we have any great concernment to be very solicitous about the meaning of, but those that contain either truths we are required to believe, or laws we are to obey, and draw inconveniences on us when we mistake or transgress, we may be less anxious about the sense of other authors; who, writing but their own opinions, we are under no greater necessity to know them, than they to know ours. Our good or evil depending not on their decrees, we may safely be ignorant of their notions: and therefore in the reading of them, if they do not use their words with a due clearness and perspicuity, we may lay them aside. (shrink)