This book asks whether evolution can help us to understand human behaviour and explores diverse evolutionary methods and arguments. It provides a short, readable introduction to the science behind the works of Dawkins, Dennett, Wilson and Pinker. It is widely used in undergraduate courses around the world.

David Bohm is a physicist with a broad range of other interests including religion, philosophy, education, art, and linguistics. This book surveys Bohm's physical theories including the quantum potential theory and the implicate order or holomovement theory.

It is commonplace to distinguish between propositional justification (having good reasons for believing p) and doxastic justification (believing p on the basis of those good reasons).One necessary requirement for bridging the gap between S’s merely having propositional justification that p and S’s having doxastic justification that p is that S base her belief that p on her reasons (propositional justification).A plausible suggestion for what it takes for S’s belief to be based on her reasons is that her reasons must contribute (...) causally to S’s having that belief. Though this suggestion is plausible, causal accounts of the basing relation that have been proposed have not fared well. In particular, cases involving causal deviancy and cases involving over-determination have posed serious problems for causal accounts of the basing relation. Although previous causal accounts of the basing relation seem to fall before these problems, it is possible to construct an acceptable causal account of the basing relation. That is, it is possible to construct a causal account of the basing relation that not only fits our intuitions about doxastic justification in general, but also is not susceptible to the problems posed by causal deviancy and causal over-determination. The interventionist account of causation provides the tools for constructing such an account. My aim is to make use of the insights of the interventionist account of causation to develop and defend an adequate causal account of the basing relation. (shrink)

Paraconsistent dialetheism is the view that some contradictions are true and that the inference rule ex falso quod libet is invalid. A long-standing problem for paraconsistent dialetheism is that it has difficulty making sense of situations where people use locutions like ‘just true’ and ‘just false’. Jc Beall recently advocated a general strategy, which he terms shrieking, for solving this problem and thereby strengthening the case for paraconsistent dialetheism. However, Beall’s strategy fails, and seeing why it fails brings into greater (...) focus just how daunting the just-true problem is for the dialetheist. (shrink)

An important and engaging book on a key argument in contemporary debates about free will and moral responsibility.

Several leadership and ethics scholars suggest that the transformational leadership process is predicated on a divergent set of ethical values compared to transactional leadership. Theoretical accounts declare that deontological ethics should be associated with transformational leadership while transactional leadership is likely related to teleological ethics. However, very little empirical research supports these claims. Furthermore, despite calls for increasing attention as to how leaders influence their followers’ perceptions of the importance of ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR) for organizational effectiveness, no (...) empirical study to date has assessed the comparative impact of transformational and transactional leadership styles on follower CSR attitudes. Data from 122 organizational leaders and 458 of their followers indicated that leader deontological ethical values (altruism, universal rights, Kantian principles, etc.) were strongly associated with follower ratings of transformational leadership, while leader teleological ethical values (utilitarianism) were related to follower ratings of transactional leadership. As predicted, only transformational leadership was associated with follower beliefs in the stakeholder view of CSR. Implications for the study and practice of ethical leadership, future research directions, and management education are discussed. (shrink)

This book fills an important gap in previous Husserl scholarship by focusing on intersubjectivity and empathy (i.e., the experience of others as other subjects) and by addressing the related issues of validity, the degrees of evidence with which something can be experienced, and the different senses of 'objective' in Husserl's texts. Despite accusations by commentators that Husserl's is a solipsistic philosophy and that the epistemologies in Husserl's late and early works are contradictory, Hermberg shows that empathy, and thus other subjects, (...) are related to one's knowledge on the view offered in each of Husserl's Introductions to Phenomenology. Empathy is significantly related to knowledge in at least two ways, and Husserl's epistemology might, consequently, be called a social epistemology: (a) empathy helps to give evidence for validity and thus to solidify one's knowledge, and (b) it helps to broaden one's knowledge by giving access to what others have known. These roles of empathy are not at odds with one another; rather, both are at play in each of the Introductions (if even only implicitly) and, given his position in the earlier work, Husserl needed to expand the role of empathy as he did. Such a reliance on empathy, however, calls into question whether Husserl's is a transcendental philosophy in the sense Husserl claimed. (shrink)

This paper argues for a postcritical praxis in global citizenship education (GCE) and peace education (PE). The paper begins by critiquing the interlocking fields of GCE and PE as problematically framed around the three key pillars of liberal peace. Then, drawing on postabyssal thinking the paper illustrates that the Western-centricity of liberal peacebuilding is not only colonialist/imperialist but that it is an erasure of the other. The paper argues that in light of this realization epistemological pluralism as a transformative response (...) is wanting. Instead new responses must focus on other ontological possibilities grounded in a postcritical response to postabyssal thought. Before concluding, the paper offers some pedagogic possibilities integrating the ontological for a new postcritical GCE and PE. (shrink)

The scientific reasoning strategies used to discover a new concept in a scientific domain were investigated in two studies. An innovative task in which subjects discover new concepts in molecular biology was used. This task was based upon one set of experiments that Jacob and Monod used to discover how genes are controlled, and for which they were awarded the Nobel prize. In the two studies reported in this article, subjects were taught some basic facts and experimental techniques in molecular (...) biology, using a simulated molecular genetics laboratory on a computer. Following their initial training, they were then asked to discover how genes are controlled by other genes. In Study 1, subjects found no evidence that was consistent with their initial hypothesis. Subjects then set one of two goals for conducting experiments and evaluating data. One goal was to search for evidence consistent with the current hypothesis (and they did not attend to the features of discrepant findings); none of the subjects who only had this goal succeeded at discovering how the genes were controlled. Other subjects in Study 1 used a different goal: Upon noticing evidence inconsistent with their current hypothesis, these subjects set a new goal of attempting to explain the cause of the discrepant findings. Using this goal, a subset of these subjects discovered the correct solution to the problem. Study 2 was conducted to test the hypothesis that subjects' goals of finding evidence consistent with their current hypothesis blocks consideration of alternate hypotheses and generation of new goals, it was predicted that if subjects could achieve their initial goal of discovering evidence consistent with their current hypothesis, they would then attend to particular features of discrepant evidence and solve the problem. To test this prediction, an additional mechanism of genetic control that was consistent with subjects' initial goal was added to the genes. Here, subjects had to discover two mechanisms of control: one mechanism consistent with their current hypothesis, and one inconsistent with their hypothesis. Twice as many subjects reached the correct solution in Study 2 than in Study 1. The findings of the two studies indicate that goals provide a powerful constraint on the cognitive processes underlying scientific reasoning and that the types of goals that are represented determine many of the reasoning errors that subjects make. (shrink)

Psychotherapy helps one enact ideas about a good life, and therapists practice orientations rooted in their chosen approach. A 'good life' can therefore mean different things depending on the therapy. Building on the philosophy of Charles Taylor, Smith examines the link between therapy, ethics and the root of therapeutic views in comparison to modern, Western ideas about 'living well'. This is one of two complementary volumes. This volume builds on the last to explore what it means to engage the different (...) ethics of different therapies by offering a deeper explication of therapeutic ethics. Utilizing Taylor's work on practical reasoning, Smith explores topics like the nature of the ethical argument, the role of ethical intuitions and the value of framing ethical debate as ongoing dialogue. He applies this to therapeutics ethics to show how vital it is to consider the ethical proposals that are present in current theories and practices in order to understand the psychotherapies. A key text for upper level undergraduate, postgraduate students and professionals in the field of psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, theoretical psychology and philosophy of the mind. (shrink)

This paper argues that human agency is not simply a function of intrinsic properties about the agent, but that agency instead depends on the ecology that the agent is in. In particular, the paper examines ways that disabilities affect agency and shows how, by paying deliberate attention to structuring the social environment around people with disabilities, we can mitigate some of the agential impact of those disabilities. The paper then argues that the impact of one’s social environment on agency isn’t (...) restricted only to those agents that have disabilities, but also characterizes all human agency. All of our agency is environmentally dependent. (shrink)

A number of scholars have recently drawn attention to the importance of iteration in scientific research. This paper builds on these previous discussions by drawing a distinction between epistemic and methodological forms of iteration and by clarifying the relationships between them. As defined here, epistemic iteration involves progressive alterations to scientific knowledge claims, whereas methodological iteration refers to an interplay between different modes of research practice. While distinct, these two forms of iteration are related in important ways. Contemporary research on (...) the biological effects of nanomaterials illustrates that methodological iteration can help to “initiate,” “equip,” and “stimulate” epistemic iteration. (shrink)

Most research on metaphors that construe time as motion (motion metaphors of time) has focused on the question of whether it is the times or the person experiencing them (ego) that moves. This paper focuses on the equally important distinction between metaphors that locate times relative to ego (the ego-based metaphors Moving Ego and Moving Time) and a metaphor that locates times relative to other times (sequence is relative position on a path). Rather than a single abstract target domain TIME, (...) these two kinds of temporal metaphor metaphorize different kinds of temporal concept—perspective-specific vs. perspective-neutral temporal concepts. Recognition of this distinction enhances the explanatory potential of conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). An example involves the interaction of deixis and the temporal reference crosslinguistically of vocabulary with the spatial meanings in-front and behind. More generally, this approach refines our ability to describe the temporal concepts involved in motion metaphors of time. Such temporal concepts are present not only in the target domains, but also in the source domains of motion metaphors of time, where we find space-to-time metonymy, which may play a role in motivating the metaphors. In order to distinguish such metonymy from metaphor, we need to characterize metaphor as a mapping across frames rather than domains. (shrink)

In recent years, industry-funded research has come under fire because of concerns that it can be biased in favor of the funders. This article suggests that efforts by philosophers of science to analyze the concept of objectivity can provide important lessons for those seeking to evaluate and improve industry-funded research. It identifies three particularly relevant criteria for objectivity: transparency, reproducibility, and effective criticism. On closer examination, the criteria of transparency and reproducibility turn out to have significant limitations in this context, (...) but the criterion of effective criticism suggests some important strategies for improving the objectivity of industry-funded science. (shrink)

Although many bioethicists have given attention to the special health issues of Africa and to the ethics of research on the continent, only a handful have considered these issues through the lens of African moral thought. The question has been for the most part neglected as to what a distinctively African moral perspective would be for the analysis and teaching of bioethics issues. To address the oversight, the authors of this paper describe embarking on a project aimed at incorporating African (...) moral perspective, values and philosophy into a teaching curriculum. The authors clarify the rationale for the project and discuss the strategies employed in Africanizing the bioethics curriculum. (shrink)

Sixty‐one million Americans and approximately a billion people worldwide live with some form of disability that limits one or more major life activities. The field of precision medicine continues to grapple with how to best serve disability communities. In this paper, we suggest that precision medicine faces an ethical tension between its goal to treat or cure disabling conditions and views that consider disability as a marginalized identity. We appeal to the concepts of recognition justice and distributive justice to argue (...) that the ELSI community should take a more proactive role in promoting disability inclusion in precision medicine's practice and research. We also highlight two priorities for the ELSI community moving forward: facilitating greater collaboration between genetics and genomic professionals and disability communities and advocating for inclusive research design and disability accommodations in the research process. (shrink)

. The potential for financial conflicts of interest to influence scientific research has become a significant concern. Some commentators have suggested that the development of standardized study protocols could help to alleviate these problems. This paper identifies two problems with this solution: scientific research incorporates numerous methodological judgments that cannot be constrained by standardized protocols; and standardization can hide significant value judgments. These problems arise because of four weaknesses of standardized guidelines: incompleteness, limited applicability, selective ignorance, and ossification. Therefore, the (...) standardization of study designs should not serve as an alternative to addressing the interests and power relations that pervade science policy-making. Policy makers should take at least two steps to prevent powerful interest groups from co-opting standardized guidelines. First, their development and review should be made as transparent as possible and should be subjected to broadly-based deliberation. Second, standardized guidelines should be supplemented with efforts to scrutinize the conditions under which financial COIs tend to have the most worrisome effects so that additional steps can be taken to eliminate and mitigate those conditions. (shrink)

The dominance of agency theory can reduce our collective scope to analyse private equity in all its diversity and depth. We contribute to theorisation of private equity by developing a contrasting perspective that draws on a rich tradition of virtue ethics. In doing so, we juxtapose 'private equity' with 'public good' to develop points of rhetorical and analytical contrast. We develop a typology differentiating various forms of private equity, and focus on the 'take private' form. These takeovers are where private (...) equity funds are used to buy all a firm's publicly listed shares. Take private deals reduce reporting requirements and lessen the amount of public scrutiny a firm comes under. They allow greater control of a firm's assets and resources but also have effects in terms of the wider social fabric. The 'public good' and virtue ethics offer an alternative basis for theorisation of these deals. This provides a needed contrast to accounts of private equity based on agency theory. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 6, June 2020, Page 35-37.

The Lottery Paradox has been thought to provide a reductio argument against probabilistic accounts of inductive inference. As a result, much work in artificial intelligence has concentrated on qualitative methods of inference, including default logics, which are intended to model some varieties of inductive inference. It has recently been shown that the paradox can be generated within qualitative default logics. However, John Pollock's qualitative system of defeasible inference, does avoid the Lottery Paradox by incorporating a rule designed specifically for that (...) purpose. I shall argue that Pollock's system instead succumbs to a worse disease: it fails to allow for induction at all. (shrink)

In recent years, philosophers of science have taken renewed interest in pursuing scholarship that is “socially engaged.” As a result, this scholarship has become increasingly relevant to public policy. In order to illustrate the ways in which the philosophy of science can inform public policy, this chapter focuses specifically on environmental research and policy. It shows how philosophy can assist with environmental policy making in three ways: clarifying the roles of values in policy-relevant science; addressing scientific dissent, especially in response (...) to “hot-button” policy issues; and responding thoughtfully to scientific uncertainty. (shrink)

Research on sexual harassment in the workplace has followed several trajectories: the extent of sexual harassment, labeling sexual harassment, responses to sexual harassment, and contributing factors to sexual harassment. Much of this research has been necessarily applied, leaving theoretical frameworks concerning sexual harassment underdeveloped. This research uses the case of the sexual harassment of temporary workers to develop grounded theory to provide a more structural understanding of sexual harassment. While temporary employment has increased dramatically in the past 15 years, researchers (...) have only recently begun to document the effects of this trend. This research is based on 68 in-depth interviews from two broader studies on clerical temporary work in Chicago and Los Angeles. The researchers find that the organization of temporary work fosters sexual harassment through the magnification of asymmetrical power relationships. (shrink)

This book explores new phenomenological research on the structural disruptions of spatiality, temporality, and understanding in the context of anxiety and depressive disorders. It offers critiques of mainstream psychopathology, taking a transdisciplinary approach to the relationship between mental illness and self-constitution.

I follow Hájek (Synthese 137:273–323, 2003c) by taking objective probability to be a function of two propositional arguments—that is, I take conditional probability as primitive. Writing the objective probability of q given r as P(q, r), I argue that r may be chosen to provide less than a complete and exact description of the world’s history or of its state at any time. It follows that nontrivial objective probabilities are possible in deterministic worlds and about the past. A very simple (...) chance–credence relation is also then natural, namely that reasonable credence equals objective probability. In other words, we should set our actual credence in a proposition equal to the proposition’s objective probability conditional on available background information. One advantage of that approach is that the background information is not subject to an admissibility requirement, as it is in standard formulations of the Principal Principle. Another advantage is that the “undermining” usually thought to follow from Humean supervenience can be avoided. Taking objective probability to be a two-argument function is not merely a technical matter, but provides us with vital flexibility in addressing significant philosophical issues. (shrink)

A moderation-mediation model was constructed to examine relationships among family background, individual characteristics, proximal learning settings and adolescents' aspirations. Data were collected as part of a longitudinal study of Australian youth (3779 boys and 4001 girls). The findings from moderation-mediation investigations and from regression surface analyses suggest that: (a) the predictors combine to have large associations with adolescents' educational aspirations and small relationships with occupational aspirations; and (b) there are family country-of-origin differences in the linear and curvilinear nature of the (...) relationships among individual characteristics, proximal learning settings and adolescents' aspirations. The investigation indicates the need to examine between-group family differences for a more complete understanding of family background variations in students' school outcomes. (shrink)

Some neurotropic enteroviruses hijack Trojan horse/raft commensal gut bacteria to render devastating biomimicking cryptic attacks on human/animal hosts. Such virus-microbe interactions manipulate hosts’ gut-brain axes with accompanying infection-cycle-optimizing central nervous system disturbances, including severe neurodevelopmental, neuromotor, and neuropsychiatric conditions. Co-opted bacteria thus indirectly influence host health, development, behavior, and mind as possible “fair-weather-friend” symbionts, switching from commensal to context-dependent pathogen-like strategies benefiting gut-bacteria fitness.

Here I look at the views of Mackie about the transitivity of causal statements. Mackie suggests that we replace total transitivity with a calculation which assigns a proportional value to partial causes; this allows us to work out an overall proportion of a single event in a causal chain. I marry the philosophical discussion with a sketch of tort law by means of an unusual hypothetical. I suggest that Mackie’s proportional analysis could be have a useful practical application since current (...) tort law regards causality as transitive and that total responsibility may be placed on the originator of connected but distinct events. (shrink)

‘What is Man?’ That was the half-secret question motivating political theory in the nineties and the aughts.1 Sometimes, critics glossed the question as one of ‘subjectivity’, ‘the theory of the su...

Carter and Leslie's Doomsday Argument maintains that reflection upon the number of humans born thus far, when that number is viewed as having been uniformly randomly selected from amongst all humans, past, present and future, leads to a dramatic rise in the probability of an early end to the human experiment. We examine the Bayesian structure of the Argument and find that the drama is largely due to its oversimplification.

A series of imitation games involving 3-participant (simultaneous comparison of two hidden entities) and 2-participant (direct interrogation of a hidden entity) were conducted at Bletchley Park on the 100th anniversary of Alan Turing’s birth: 23 June 2012. From the ongoing analysis of over 150 games involving (expert and non-expert, males and females, adults and child) judges, machines and hidden humans (foils for the machines), we present six particular conversations that took place between human judges and a hidden entity that produced (...) unexpected results. From this sample we focus on features of Turing’s machine intelligence test that the mathematician/code breaker did not consider in his examination for machine thinking: the subjective nature of attributing intelligence to another mind. (shrink)