Volume 20, Issue 10, October 2020, Page 77-79.

The authors of the concept Health-Related Digital Autonomy have laid the first building block to examine the interactions between artificial intelligence, social media, and depression f...

By utilizing new information from both clinical and experimental (lesion, electrophysiological, and gene-activation) studies with animals, the anatomy underlying anterograde amnesia has been reformulated. The distinction between temporal lobe and diencephalic amnesia is of limited value in that a common feature of anterograde amnesia is damage to part of an comprising the hippocampus, the fornix, the mamillary bodies, and the anterior thalamic nuclei. This view, which can be traced back to Delay and Brion (1969), differs from other recent models in (...) placing critical importance on the efferents from the hippocampus via the fornix to the diencephalon. These are necessary for the encoding and, hence, the effective subsequent recall of episodic memory. An additional feature of this hippocampalanterior thalamic and the perirhinal–medial dorsal thalamic systems are compromised, leading to severe deficits in both recall and recognition. (shrink)

John Woods' The Logic of Fiction, now thirty-five years old, is a ground-breaking event in the establishment of the semantics of fiction as a stand-alone research programme in the philosophies of language and logic. There is now a large literature about these matters, but Woods' book retains a striking freshness, and still serves as a convincing template of the treatment options for the field's key problems. The book now appears in a second edition with a new Foreword by Nicholas (...) Griffin and an extended bibliography covering the period 1969-2009. As Griffin notes in his Foreword, it is "surprising on looking back to discover how little was written on the semantics of fiction before John Woods' The Logic of Fiction was published in 1974. The surprise is the greater because Woods' book appeared after almost a quarter century of fierce philosophical debate about reference Fictional discourse, one would have thought, would be an important testing ground for philosophical theories of referential expressions and one, moreover, in which the standard theories would likely be tested to destruction. " " One of the great merits of Woods' book is that it takes seriously the wide-ranging demands that fiction imposes on logic and semantics, and does not try to force fiction into some pre-conceived logical mould. but thanks to Woods' pioneering efforts, we are much closer to one now than we were when he set out to write his book. His book was not the last word on the logic of fiction; it was much more important: it was nearly the first." NICHOLAS GRIFFIN is Canada Research Chair in Philosophy at McMaster University. Recent publications include Russell vs Meinong: The Legacy of "On Denoting," edited with Dale Jacquette. JOHN WOODS is Director of the Abductive Systems Group at the University of British Columbia and Charles S. Peirce Visiting Professor of Logic in the Group on Logic and Computational Science, King's College London. He has two forthcoming books on fiction - an edited volume, Fictions and Models: New Essays, and a research monograph, Sherlock's Member: New Perspectives on the Semantics of Fiction, both to appear in 2010. (shrink)

Sequence on modern ontology -- From theology to philosophy -- The four pillars of modern philosophy -- Modern philosophy : a theological critique -- Analogy versus univocity -- Identity versus representation -- Intentionality and embodiment -- Intentionality and selfhood -- Reason and the incarnation of the logos -- The passivity of modern reason -- The baroque simulation of cosmic order -- Deconstructed representation and beyond -- Passivity and concursus -- Representation in philosophy -- Actualism versus possibilism -- Influence versus concurrence (...) -- Transition -- Sequence on political ontology -- Cosmos, law and morality -- Metaphysics and modern politics -- The fate of the rational animal -- The irony of representation -- On legal concurrence -- The fate of the social animal -- Representation and mixed government -- Bureaucracy and the formal distinction -- Form, matter and contract -- The antiquity of historicism -- The sovereignty of the artist -- Eucharistic creativity and political power -- The conundrum of kingship -- The truth of political fiction -- The two rival constructions -- Creativity and mixed constitution -- Christological constitutionalism -- The fate of the fabricating animal -- The fate of the beast-angel -- The death of charity -- Augustine's three cities -- Church as cosmopolis -- Aquinas and kingship -- The theology of ruling -- The ecumenico-political problem -- Supernatural charity and global order -- Socialism beyond the left -- Critique of all materialisms. (shrink)

As a subject of inquiry, laws of nature exist in the overlap between metaphysics and the philosophy of science. Over the past three decades, this area of study has become increasingly central to the philosophy of science. It also has relevance to a variety of topics in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and epistemology. Readings on Laws of Nature is the first anthology to offer a contemporary history of the problem of laws. The book is organized around three (...) key issues: the matter of distinguishing laws from mere correlations, questions concerning inductive reasoning and laws, and the consideration of whether there are any true laws in science. Designed for class use, the anthology covers a remarkably broad range of views and concerns, and consists exclusively of articles that have proved highly influential in the field. Readings on Laws of Nature will also serve as a valuable research and reference tool for philosophers who do not specialize in the subject, but who have occasion to examine concepts relating to the laws of nature in their own work. (shrink)

The dominant figure of mid-nineteenth-century British political economy, John Stuart Mill exercised a lasting influence on philosophical thought. This compact statement of Mill's doctrines starts with an informative Introduction by editor Ernest Nagel and proceeds with extracts from A System of Logic that clarify Mill's processes of reasoning. The following five-part treatment draws upon the philosopher's major works to consider names and propositions; reasoning; induction; operations subsidiary to induction; and the logic of the moral sciences. Selections from An Examination (...) of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy conclude the text, along with an essay on the definition of political economy and its methods of investigation. (shrink)

David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature presents the most important account of skepticism in the history of modern philosophy. In this lucid and thorough introduction to the work, John P. Wright examines the development of Hume's ideas in the Treatise, their relation to eighteenth-century theories of the imagination and passions, and the reception they received when Hume published the Treatise. He explains Hume's arguments concerning the inability of reason to establish the basic beliefs which underlie science and morals, (...) as well as his arguments showing why we are nevertheless psychologically compelled to accept such beliefs. The book will be a valuable guide for those seeking to understand the nature of modern skepticism and its connection with the founding of the human sciences during the Enlightenment. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend brain death as a criterion for determining death against objections raised by Don Marquis, Michael Nair-Collins, Doyen Nguyen, and Laura Specker Sullivan. I argue that any definition of death for beings like us relies on some sortal concept by which we are individuated and identified and that the choice of that concept in a practical context is not determined by strictly biological considerations but involves metaphysical, moral, social, and cultural considerations. This view supports acceptance of (...) a more pluralistic legal definition of death as well as acceptance of brain death as death. (shrink)

This article contends that decommodification is an appropriate concept for understanding diverse initiatives such as fair trade, microfinance, open source, social enterprises, and the environmental commons as component features of a common process. Decommodification is conceived as any political, social, or cultural process that reduces the scope and influence of the market in everyday life. Given recent transformations in market societies, a more expansive framework for decommodification is urgently required. Decommodification would insulate non-market spheres from market encroachments; increase the provision (...) of public goods and expand social protection; promote democratic control over the market by creating economic circuits grounded in a logic predicated on social needs rather than profit; and undermine market hegemony by revealing the market’s true social costs and consequences. By ensuring basic needs, enhancing individual capacities and capabilities, and promoting social cooperation and collaboration, decommodification constitutes a central feature of an egalitarian agenda. (shrink)

This essay criticizes John Norton's 2010 defense of the thesis that “all induction is local.” Norton's local inductions are bound, if cogent, to involve general principles, and the need to accredit these general principles threatens to lead to all the usual problems associated with the ‘problem of induction’. Norton, in fact, recognizes this threat, but his responses are inadequate. The right response involves not induction but a sophisticated version of hypothetico-deduction. Norton's secondary thesis—that if there is a general account (...) of cogent scientific reasoning, then it is certainly not the one supported by personalist Bayesians—is also criticized. (shrink)

MIT Press, 1999 Review by Paul Bohan Broderick, Ph.D. on May 26th 2002 Volume: 6, Number: 21.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume's Essays on Happiness John Immerwahr The second volume of Hume's Essays, Moral and Political (1742) includes a set offour pieces on the sects, that naturally form themselves in the world. These essays, "The Epicurean," "The Stoic," "The Platonist," and "The Sceptic,"refer to the ancient philosophical schools, but their main purpose, according to Hume, is to describe four different ideas ofhuman life and ofhappiness. There is little discussion (...) ofthese works in the Hume literature, but Hume himself seemed to be rather fond of them. Although several early essays were dropped from later editions, this set reappears in every version of the Essays. Hume also invested unusual care in crafting these essays, "polishingthe sentences with such precision," according to Green and Grose, "that the subsequent editions made scarcely an alteration in their language." In this article I will argue that these essays do play a significant role in Hume's overall philosophical strategy, and that a close reading ofthem helps us fill out important aspects of Hume's moral philosophy. An Attractive Reading of the Four Essays In one of the few detailed discussions of these essays, Robert Fogelin presents one reading that has a good deal of initial plausibility. Fogelin's interpretation has several main points. First, he dismisses the importance of the first three essays and asserts that "despite certain particular points of agreement," these essays are "not expressive ofHume's own position." Secondly, he argues that the final essay, "The Sceptic," does represent Hume's own position, and that in this essay Hume presents himself"under the thinnest possible disguise." In effect, Fogelin'sinterpretation is that"The Sceptic"canbe profitably readinisolationfrom the first three. Finally, Fogelin sees "The Sceptic" as having roughly the same function as the Treatise ofHuman Nature. He sees "The Sceptic" as another technical philosophical work where Hume tries, in a somewhat different way, to work out the relationship between scepticism, morality, and the passions. It is not hard to see what makes this type of interpretation plausible. On stylistic grounds alone, there are reasons to dismiss the first three essays and focus attention primarily on "The Sceptic." The first three are quite brief and are written in a rhetorical and flowery style, whereas "The Sceptic" is longer (as long as the other three essays combined) and returns to Hume's normal prose style. Substantively, Volume XV Number 2 307 JOHN IMMERWAHR there are many doctrines in "The Sceptic" which, as Fogelin correctly points out, are reminiscent of Hume's other philosophical works. An Alternative Reading Despite the plausibility of this reading, I will defend an alternative interpretation. First, I will argue that the essays are intended to be read as a set. The four essays constitute a philosophical dialogue that consists offour closely related speeches; it is misleading to read one of the speeches out of the context of the dialogue as a whole. Secondly, I will try to show that none of the speakers represents Hume's own position. From Hume's point of view, all of the speeches make important points but also contain significant errors. Finally, I will argue that the purpose of these popular essays is different from the goal of technical philosophical works such as the Treatise. While the Treatise is intended to describe and analyze human nature, the purpose ofthese essays is therapeutic rather than analytic; they are designed to change rather than to inform the reader. In the next three sections I discuss these claims in detail. I. Hume's First Dialogue Taken together, the four essays can be read as Hume's first (but by no means last) effort in dialogue writing. The evidence that they were intended by Hume as a dialogue is drawn from what Hume says about them, from internal evidence, and from a comparison with their classical model, the dialogues of Cicero. For the most part, Hume wanted his readers to see his Essays as stand-alone pieces. In the Advertisement for the first volume Hume warns his readers that they must not look for any Connexion among these Essays, but must consider each ofthem as a Work apart. But both in the Advertisement to the second volume (where... (shrink)

This second set of papers by John Rist is concerned with attempts by (mostly pagan) thinkers in Greco-Roman antiquity to understand the nature of morality against a background of wide-ranging debate about the relationship between soul and body and the necessity for a correct psychology and physiology if the 'good life for man' is to be revealed. Three papers are on Plato, whose elaborate mix of ethics, psychology and metaphysics sets the stage for most of the debate; one is (...) on Aristotle, five are on the Stoics and five on Plotinus. A further study deals with the general problem of the relationship between ethics, cosmology and biology, and the series concludes with the crisis among both pagans and Christians in late antiquity over whether man is naturally good enough to correct his own moral weakness. The set of difficulties recognised by Plato has now found a disturbing conclusion. (shrink)

Some irrational numbers are "random" in a sense which implies that no algorithm can compute their decimal expansions to an arbitrarily high degree of accuracy. This feature of (most) irrational numbers has been claimed to be at the heart of the deterministic, but chaotic, behavior exhibited by many nonlinear dynamical systems. In this paper, a number of now classical chaotic systems are shown to remain chaotic when their domains are restricted to the computable real numbers, providing counterexamples to the above (...) claim. More fundamentally, the randomness view of chaos is shown to be based upon a confusion between a chaotic function on a phase space and its numerical representation in Rn. (shrink)

Managers have the primary role responsibility to protect and promote the economic viability of their organizations. Utilizing a formula that demonstrates the inherently unstable nature of economic systems, I argue that managers are sometimes morally required to make adjustments that result in harming people who work for them in order to reestablish the equilibrium necessary to remain viable. The question of who is going to be harmed and how this harm is morally justified is the focal point of this paper. (...) I argue that utilizingtraditional methods associated with our common morality cannot solve the issue of who is going to be harmed, and that the traditionalmethods for reestablishing equilibrium promote a distribution of harm that cannot be justified from a rationally defensible moral pointof view. Utilizing the constraint of impartiality and the concept of the health of the organization, I argue that an equal distribution of harmamong everyone affected by the decision is the only one that is rationally defensible. (shrink)

This book presents reverse mathematics to a general mathematical audience for the first time. Reverse mathematics is a new field that answers some old questions. In the two thousand years that mathematicians have been deriving theorems from axioms, it has often been asked: which axioms are needed to prove a given theorem? Only in the last two hundred years have some of these questions been answered, and only in the last forty years has a systematic approach been developed. In Reverse (...) Mathematics, John Stillwell gives a representative view of this field, emphasizing basic analysis--finding the "right axioms" to prove fundamental theorems--and giving a novel approach to logic. Stillwell introduces reverse mathematics historically, describing the two developments that made reverse mathematics possible, both involving the idea of arithmetization. The first was the nineteenth-century project of arithmetizing analysis, which aimed to define all concepts of analysis in terms of natural numbers and sets of natural numbers. The second was the twentieth-century arithmetization of logic and computation. Thus arithmetic in some sense underlies analysis, logic, and computation. Reverse mathematics exploits this insight by viewing analysis as arithmetic extended by axioms about the existence of infinite sets. Remarkably, only a small number of axioms are needed for reverse mathematics, and, for each basic theorem of analysis, Stillwell finds the "right axiom" to prove it. By using a minimum of mathematical logic in a well-motivated way, Reverse Mathematics will engage advanced undergraduates and all mathematicians interested in the foundations of mathematics. (shrink)

In this paper I defend a pairing of the “Epistemic Criterion” and of the “Momentousness Criterion” from a critique in Clayton and Stevens’s advocacy of the “Acceptability Requirement.” I argue that where it is valuable for people to set their own ends, they can only fully meaningfully do this in light of facts and free of misinformation. It is the duty of educators to put them in this position; it is then students' prerogative to fail to live meaningfully. While children (...) have no duty to perfect themselves, they do have a right to invent themselves, but they cannot do this is ignorance: if their life is meaningless because they chose as well as they could without being informed, then they could not truly consent to the life they undertook, and did not have a realistic chance at a meaningful life. (shrink)

This is an examination of similarities and differences between two recent models of abductive reasoning. The one is developed in Atocha Aliseda’s Abductive Reasoning: Logical Investigations into the Processes of Discovery and Evaluation (2006). The other is advanced by Dov Gabbay and the present author in their The Reach of Abduction: Insight and Trial (2005). A principal difference between the two approaches is that in the Gabbay-Woods model, but not in the Aliseda model, abductive inference is ignorance-preserving. A further differ-ence (...) is that Aliseda reconstructs the abduction relation in a semantic tableaux environment, whereas the Woods-Gabbay model, while less systematic, is more general. Of particular note is the connection between abduction and legal reasoning. (shrink)

This book addresses one of the fundamental topics in philosophy: the relation between appearance and reality. John Yolton draws on a rich combination of historical and contemporary material, ranging from the early modern period to present-day debates, to examine this central philosophical preoccupation, which he presents in terms of distinctions between phenomena and causes, causes and meaning, and persons and man. He explores in detail how Locke, Berkeley and Hume talk of appearances and their relation to reality, and offers (...) illuminating connections and comparisons with the work of contemporary philosophers such as Paul Churchland and John McDowell. He concludes by offering his own proposal for a 'realism of appearances', which incorporates elements of both Humean and Kantian thinking. His important study will be of interest to a wide range of readers in the history of philosophy, the history of ideas, and contemporary philosophy of mind, epistemology and metaphysics. (shrink)

Raimo Tuomola has complained that my critical review of his The Philosophy of Sociality is superficial, that I have not presented, even that I have misrepresented his work, and that I have neglected its virtues, which others have praised. I reject his complaint about the content of my review as unwarranted in an open society, as he demands that I take his work on his own terms. I defend my view of the place of his work in the analytic tradition, (...) my analysis of his work as essentialist and not explanatory, my argument that his analytic method is weak, and my appraisal that the framework he offers for current social scientific research is not needed and not very useful. (shrink)

For Alesha to give valid and sufficient consent to a COVID-19 vaccine, she must possess both capacity and competency. Let us consider each in turn.Does Alesha have capacity? Is she approaching her...

Things that don't exist -- Fictional object nominalism -- Fictional object realism -- Meinongianism -- God's existence and nonexistence -- Contingency and nonexistence -- Perfection and divine existence -- Nonexistence and creatures -- Ex nihilo and nonexistence -- Infinite existence and countless nonexistents -- Providence and freedom -- Nonexistents and middle knowledge -- Evil as nonexistence.

Philosophy and the advances in cosmology, neurology, molecular biology, and the social sciences have made the convincing and converging arguments for God's existence more probable than ever in history. On God's Existence is a concise summary of these arguments as well as new arguments inspired by the advances of the sciences.--Publisher description.

: The notion of a delusion occupies a central place in psychotherapy. The presence of delusional thinking in a patient is often regarded as indicative of psychosis. And yet, the nature of a delusion is still widely disputed. The difficulty of defining a delusion has proved so difficult that some prominent authors have declared the task impossible. The aim of this paper is to offer a characterisation of delusional systems of thought. In this paper is argued that delusions, unlike scientific (...) explanations and the explanations generally offered by common sense, fail to minimise that which requires explanation. In the first part of the paper, difficulties with extant accounts will be discussed. In the following parts, the author’s own account of delusional thoughts will be developed and some difficult cases considered. It will be argued that delusions differ from more typical beliefs in the number of things that they leave unexplained. Delusions, unlike those beliefs we typically see as rational, bring about an increase in the number of things requiring explanation. Keywords: Delusions; Epistemology; Analysis; Explanation; Rationality Aspetti epistemologici del pensiero delirante Riassunto: La nozione di delirio occupa una posizione centrale nell’ambito della psicoterapia. La presenza del pensiero delirante in un paziente è considerata spesso come un indice di psicosi. E, tuttavia, la natura del delirio non è ancora oggetto di ampio accordo tra gli studiosi. La difficoltà nel definire il delirio si è mostrata talmente ostica che diversi importanti studiosi hanno dichiarato questo compito impossibile. Lo scopo di questo lavoro è quello di offrire una caratterizzazione dei sistemi di pensiero delirante. Si sosterrà che i deliri, diversamente dalle spiegazioni scientifiche e da quelle offerte generalmente dal senso comune, non riescono a ridurre quanto necessita di una spiegazione. Nella prima parte del lavoro, saranno discusse le difficoltà degli approcci correnti. Nelle parti seguenti verrà proposto l’approccio dell’autore ai pensieri deliranti e verranno presi in esame alcuni casi complessi. Si sosterrà che i deliri si distinguono dai casi più tipici di credenza per il numero di cose che lasciano senza spiegazione. I deliri, diversamente dalle credenze che tipicamente consideriamo irrazionali, determinano un incremento del numero di cose che richiedono una spiegazione. Parole chiave: Delirio; Epistemologia; Analisi; Spiegazione; Razionalità. (shrink)

The eighteenth-century American founders believed that religion is special and deserves special constitutional protection, and that all peaceable faiths must be drawn into the constitutional process and protection. The founders introduced six constitutional principles for the protection of religious freedom: freedom of conscience, free exercise of religion, religious pluralism, religious equality, separation of church and state, and no state establishment of religion. Since the 1940s, the United States Supreme Court has upheld these religious freedom principles in more than 170 cases, (...) albeit unevenly of late. Moreover, in recent years religious freedom has come under sharp popular and academic attack, particularly as religious pathologies have come to light and religious freedom claims have clashed with sexual liberty claims. This article calls for a return to the first principles of religious freedom for all, at home and abroad, and for a new balance between religious freedom and other fundamental rights claims. (shrink)

Given Quine's views on philosophical methodology, he should not have taken the axioms of classical mereology to be "self-evident", or "analytic"; but rather, he should have set out to justify them by what might be broadly called an "inference to the best explanation". He does very little to this end. In particular, he does little to examine alternative theories, to see if there might be anything they could explain better than classical mereology can. I argue that there is something important (...) that needs to be explained, namely, the way that properties "travel around in clusters" (eg. we often know that "when and where there is something with such-and-such property, there is also something with so-and-so other property", and so on). I argue that these clusterings of properties can be given various subtle (broadly "commonsense") explanations using a version of mereology that denies the classical axiom of "extensionality" (that is, denying that two distinct things must have distinct parts). I offer a challenge to the Quinean metaphysics: to show that these "non-extensional" explanations can be replaced by better explanations that use only classical, extensional mereology and set theory. (shrink)

Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.