We describe a first order axiom set which yields the classical first order Euclidean geometry of Tarski when used with classical logic, and yields an intuitionistic Euclidean geometry when used with intuitionistic logic. The first order language has a single six place atomic predicate and no function symbols. The intuitionistic system has a computational interpretation in recursive function theory, that is, a realizability interpretation analogous to those given by Kleene for intuitionistic arithmetic and analysis. This interpretation shows the unprovability in (...) the intuitionistic theory of certain “nonconstructive” theorems of the classical geometry. (shrink)

The non-identity problem is really a collection of problems having distinct logical features. For that reason, non-identity problems can be typed. This article focuses on just one type of non-identity problem, the problem, which includes Derek Parfit's depletion example and many others. The can't-expect-better problem uses an assessment about the low probability of any particular person's coming into existence to reason that an earlier wrong act does not harm that person. This article argues that that line of reasoning is unusually (...) treacherous in that it makes not just one hard-to-detect error in what is done with the relevant probability assessments but rather alternates between two. We sort out one fallacy only to fall, against all odds (as it were), into a second. By avoiding both errors, we become able to discern harm in cases in which the can't-expect-better problem argues there is none. We will then be in a position to set aside the can't-expect-better problem as an objection against the person-based intuition that acts that are must be at least some existing or future person. (shrink)

According to the Asymmetry, it is wrong to bring a miserable child into existence but permissible not to bring a happy child into existence. When it comes to procreation, we don’t have complete procreative liberty. But we do have some discretion. The Asymmetry seems highly intuitive. But a plausible account of the Asymmetry has been surprisingly difficult to provide, and it may well be that most moral philosophers – or at least most consequentialists – think that all reasonable efforts to (...) provide such an account have by now been exhausted. In this paper, I argue that, despite the difficulties, the Asymmetry is too important to be set aside. I also note a handful of accounts of the Asymmetry that have been proposed and why they fail. It seems, for example, that it will not do to say that some people matter morally and others don’t, or that a person matters morally in some worlds but not others. My own conclusion is that, while we are bound to say all people matter morally – you, me and the merely possible – we are not bound to say that all their losses– or all ours– matter morally. We can instead distinguish between morally significant and insignificant losses, with the distinction between the two being a matter of where the loss is incurred in relation to the person who incurs it. This way of looking at things – which I call Variabilism– provides the basis for a plausible account of the Asymmetry. The availability of such an account suggests, I think, that our prospects for rescuing the Asymmetry are bright. (shrink)

In this paper, I critically assess transhumanist philosophy and its influence in bioethics by turning to resources in the work of Michel Foucault. I begin by outlining transhumanism and drawing out some of the primary goals of transhumanist philosophy. In order to do so, I focus on the work of Nick Bostrom and Julian Savulescu, two prominent contributors to this thinking. I then move to explicate Foucault’s work, in the early iterations of the Abnormal lecture series, on the concept of (...) vile sovereignty. Foucault used the concept of vile sovereignty to critique psychiatric witnesses that had been utilized in mid twentieth-century French courts of law. Turning back to transhumanism, I analyze transhumanist discourse on the basis of Foucault’s vile sovereignty. Transhumanists promote human enhancement in a way that rejects the body—especially the disabled body—and pose the question of what lives are worth living, as well as attempt to answer it. I conclude that because of the undeserved influence and ableism of transhumanism, it is important for feminist philosophers, philosophers of disability, and other disability scholars, who collide at the nexus of bioethical debate (especially with regard to reproductive technology and the body), to work together to intervene upon transhumanist discourse. (shrink)

The disability critique of negative genetic selection is frequently accused of threatening reproductive liberty. This paper describes the disability critique and defends it against that objection. It also contends that the critique can work to deflate belief in genetic determinism. Recognizing the influence of genetic determinism helps advocate for existing persons in the disability community and protects reproductive liberty. The disability critique can point to genetic determinism but does not suggest a ban or obstacles to the choice of negative genetic (...) selection; therefore, it is not antithetical to reproductive liberty, as has been charged. (shrink)

Child Versus Childmaker investigates a "person-affecting" approach to ethical choice. A form of consequentialism, this approach is intended to capture the idea that agents ought both do the most good that they can and respect each person as distinct from each other. Focusing on cases in which a conflict of interest arises between "childmakers"—parents, infertility specialists, embryologists, and others engaged in the task of bringing new people into existence—and the children they aim to create, the author considers what we today (...) owe those who will come into existence tomorrow. (shrink)

In a critical intervention into the bioethics debate over human enhancement, philosopher Melinda Hall tackles the claim that the expansion and development of human capacities is a moral obligation. Hall draws on French philosopher Michel Foucault to reveal and challenge the ways disability is central to the conversation. The Bioethics of Enhancement includes a close reading and analysis of the last century of enhancement thinking and contemporary transhumanist thinkers, the strongest promoters of the obligation to pursue enhancement technology. With (...) specific attention to the work of bioethicists Nick Bostrom and Julian Savulescu, the book challenges the rhetoric and strategies of enhancement thinking. These include the desire to transcend the body and decide who should live in future generations through emerging technologies such as genetic selection. Hall provides new analyses rethinking both the philosophy of enhancement and disability, arguing that enhancement should be a matter of social and political interventions, not genetic and biological interventions. Hall concludes that human vulnerability and difference should be cherished rather than extinguished. -/- This book will be of interest to academics working in bioethics and disability studies, along with those working in Continental philosophy (especially on Foucault). (shrink)

Examining stem cell biology from a philosophy of science perspective, this book clarifies the field's central concept, the stem cell, as well as its aims, methods, models, explanations and evidential challenges. The first chapters discuss what stem cells are, how experiments identify them, and why these two issues cannot be completely separated. The basic concepts, methods and structure of the field are set out, as well as key limitations and challenges. The second part of the book shows how rigorous explanations (...) emerge from stem cell experiments, and compares these to other kinds of scientific explanation. Model organisms, the role of genes, and the significance of collaboration are also discussed. The last part of the book considers relations to systems biology and clinical medicine, arguing that both the mathematical models of the former, and ethical principles of the latter, are necessary for stem cell biology to deliver on its promises. (shrink)

Originally published in 1986. The theory of events presented is one that construes events to be concrete particulars; and it embodies an attempt to take seriously the idea that events are the changes that objects undergo when they change. The theory is about what an event really is, about when events are identical, about what properties events have essentially, and about what relations events bear to entities of other kinds. In addition, this book contains an account of what philosophers are (...) up to when they provide reasons for thinking that objects belonging to metaphysically interesting kinds exist. It also gives an account of the role of criteria of identity in such reasons, and an account of what criteria of identity must be like in order for them to be able to play such a role. (shrink)

This article looks at the increasing prominence of bioterrorist threat scenarios in recent US foreign policy. Germ warfare, it argues, is being depicted as the paradigmatic threat of the post-Cold War era, not only because of its affinity for cross-border movement but also because it blurs the lines between deliberate attack and spontaneous natural catastrophe. The article looks at the possible implications of this move for understandings of war, strategy and public health. It also seeks to contextualize the US’s growing (...) military interest in biodefence research within the commercial strategies of the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. In its methodology, the article weaves together elements from defence literature, scientific perspectives on infectious disease, catastrophe theory and political economy. The conceptual underpinnings of the strategy of pre-emptive warfare, it argues, lie as much in the theory of biological emergence as in official US defence strategy. (shrink)

The present study investigated whether humans are more likely to trust people who are coordinated with them. We examined a well-known type of linguistic coordination, lexical entrainment, typically involving the elaboration of “conceptual pacts,” or partner-specific agreements on how to conceptualize objects. In two experiments, we manipulated lexical entrainment in a referential communication task and measured the effect of this manipulation on epistemic and practical trust. Our results showed that participants were more likely to trust a coordinated partner than an (...) uncoordinated one, but only when the latter broke previously established conceptual pacts. (shrink)

This paper considers two objections based in axiological considerations against the position that whether a given outcome, or possible future or world, is morally worse than a second world may depend in part on what is going on at a third world. Such a wide-angled approach to determining worseness is critical to the solution I have previously proposed in connection with the nonidentity problem. I argue that both objections fail.

The identification and valorization of unacknowledged, feminized forms of economic productivity has been an important task for feminist theory. In this article, we expand and rethink existing definitions of labour, in order to recognize the essential economic role women play in the stem cell and regenerative medicine industries, new fields of biomedical research that are rapidly expanding throughout the world. Women constitute the primary tissue donors in the new stem cell industries, which require high volumes of human embryos, oöcytes, foetal (...) tissue and umbilical cord blood. Such material is generally given for free in the advanced industrial democracies, constituted as a surplus (‘spare’ embryos) or waste (umbilical cord ‘afterbirth’, cadaveric foetuses, poor quality oöcytes) whose generative powers should not be withheld from others. At the same time, among impoverished female populations in developing nations, such biological material is now often procured through frankly transactional relations, where women undertake risky procedures for small fees. In each case, female bodily productivity is mobilized to support bioeconomic research, yet the economic value involved in these relations is largely unacknowledged. In this article, we consider both the gift economy and the transactional economy for reproductive tissues as a form of labour. In order to fully conceptualize the specificities of feminized productivity in the bioeconomy, we distinguish between earlier feminist theories of reproductive labour and the emerging practices generated by stem cell research, which we term regenerative labour. We consider how historical transformations in the regulation of feminized labour and the technical repertoires of stem cell research renegotiate the productivity limits of female reproductive biology, opening it out to novel and profitable forms of surplus value and enrolling women in complex negotiations over their role in bioeconomic activity. (shrink)

Ludwik Fleck’s theory of thought-styles has been hailed as a pioneer of constructivist science studies and sociology of scientific knowledge. But this consensus ignores an important feature of Fleck’s epistemology. At the core of his account is the ideal of ‘objective truth, clarity, and accuracy’. I begin with Fleck’s account of modern natural science, locating the ideal of scientific objectivity within his general social epistemology. I then draw on Fleck’s view of scientific objectivity to improve upon reflexive accounts of the (...) origin and development of the theory of thought-styles, and reply to objections that Fleck’s epistemological stance is self-undermining or inconsistent. Explicating the role of scientific objectivity in Fleck’s epistemology reveals his view to be an internally consistent alternative to recent social accounts of scientific objectivity by Harding, Daston and Galison. I use these contrasts to indicate the strengths and weaknesses of Fleck’s innovative social epistemology, and propose modifications to address the latter. The result is a renewed version of Fleck’s social epistemology, which reconciles commitment to scientific objectivity with integrated sociology, history and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Overconfidence is typically damaging to one’s reputation as a trustworthy source of information. Previous research shows that the reputational cost associated with conveying a piece of false information is higher for confident than unconfident speakers. When judging speaker trustworthiness, individuals do not exclusively rely on past accuracy but consider the extent to which speakers expressed a degree of confidence that matched the accuracy of their claims (their “confidence-accuracy calibration”). The present study experimentally examines the interplay between confidence, accuracy and a (...) third factor, namely evidence, in the assessment of speaker trustworthiness. Experiment 1 probes the hypothesis that overconfidence does not backfire when a confident but inaccurate claim is justified: the trustworthiness of a confident speaker who turns out to be wrong is restored if the confidence expressed is based on strong evidence (good confidence-evidence calibration). Experiment 2 investigates the hypothesis that confidence can backfire if a confident and accurate claim is not justified: the trustworthiness of a confident speaker who turns out to be right is damaged if the confidence expressed is based on weak evidence (bad confidence-evidence calibration). Our results support both hypotheses and thus suggest that “confidence-evidence calibration” plays a crucial role in the assessment of speaker trustworthiness. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a new way to integrate historical accounts of social interaction in scientific practice with philosophical examination of scientific knowledge. The relation between descriptive accounts of scientific practice, on the one hand, and normative accounts of scientific knowledge, on the other, is a vexed one. This vexatiousness is one instance of the gap between normative and descriptive domains. The general problem of the normative/descriptive divide takes striking and problematic form in the case of social aspects of (...) scientific knowledge. With respect to this issue, history and philosophy of science appear starkly incompatible. I show how this dualism can be overcome, drawing on social action theory and the recent history of cellular immunology. (shrink)

The Voice of Virtue illuminates the musical practices at the heart of the Neostoic movement that spread across French lands during the Wars of Religion in the latter half of the sixteenth century. Guided by twin reparative traditions granting music and philosophy therapeutic power, composers and performers across the embattled Catholic and Protestant confessions turned to moral song as a means of repairing personal and collective virtue damaged by the ongoing conflict. Moral song collections enlarged interest in Stoic philosophy by (...) circulating its ethical program to a broader audience through attractive paraphrases of Stoic maxims set to music. Even more importantly, this skillfully composed repertoire of polyphonic song offered a multi-sensory moral practice that would have resonated powerfully for those well-versed in the paradoxes of the Stoic tradition. Bringing together a repertoire of little-known music prints, a rich visual culture, and an impressive body of literary and philosophical sources, The Voice of Virtue not only illuminates the influence of Stoicism on music, but also reveals that we cannot fully understand Neostoicism as an intellectual or cultural movement without accounting for its vibrant musical sounds. Virtue, as voiced in these Stoic practices, proves to be both rational and fully invested in the sensory processes of the singing body. (shrink)

Alors que le renouveau des idees politiques, sociales, morales a Athenes conduit l'education, vouee surtout au projet oratoire et formel des sophistes, vers une exigence intellectuelle plus authentique, Isocrate, en 393, et Platon, en 387, ouvrent successivement leur " ecole ". Des lors s'installe pour longtemps entre la philosophie et la rhetorique un equilibre instable, fait de rivalites et d'affrontements, mais aussi d'apparentements et de mutuelles seductions. L'oeuvre d'Isocrate correspond a la mise en place de cette tension, qui est ainsi (...) des l'origine au coeur du debat sur l'education. Mais l'apprentissage de l'eloquence, d'abord " simple " acquisition de l'art oratoire, vise une education politique, puis parce que la voie apparement rectiligne choisie par Isocrate comporte aussi, comme l'itineraire platonicien, son " detour " un ideal de culture, dont toute l'histoire de l'education, jusqu'a nous, porte la marque. Isocrate, rhetorique et education, retrace a travers l'etude de la pedagogie puis, plus largement, de la paideia isocratique, la naissance et le developpement d'un projet majeur d'education rhetorique, rival souvent heureux, au cours de l'histoire, de l'education " philosophique " : Isocrate a ouvert une ecole qui, en Occident, n'a plus jamais ferme ses portes... (shrink)

The politics of Mary Kaldor -- Militarism and the state -- European nuclear disarmament -- Linking peace and human rights -- Politics "from below" -- Independent civil society -- Dealignment, Helsinki citizens, and Moscow -- The problem of intervention to stop war -- The politics of violence -- Safe havens and protectorates -- New wars -- Rethinking intervention -- Human security -- The future of security?

The Supreme Court dismissed the Pornography/Civil Rights Ordinance as an unconstitutional restriction of speech. The Court's dismissal itself violates the free speech of the proposers of the Ordinance. It is not possible for both pornographers to perform the speech act of making pornography and feminists to perform the speech act of proposing the Ordinance. I show that the speech act of proposing the Ordinance takes First Amendment precedence over the speech act of making pornography.

What things count as individuals, and how do we individuate them? It is a classic philosophical question often tackled from the perspective of analytic metaphysics. This volume proposes that there is another channel by which to approach individuation -- from that of scientific practices. From this perspective, the question then becomes: How do scientists individuate things and, therefore, count them as individuals? This volume collects the work of philosophers of science to engage with this central philosophical conundrum from a new (...) angle, highlighting the crucial topic of experimental individuation and building upon recent, pioneering work in the philosophy of science. An introductory chapter foregrounds the problem of individuation, arguing it should be considered prior to the topic of individuality. The following chapters address individuation and individuality from a variety of perspectives, with prominent themes being the importance of experimentation, individuation as a process, and pluralism in individuation's criteria. Contributions examine individuation in a wide range of sciences, including stem cell biology, particle physics, and community ecology. Other chapters examine the metaphysics of individuation, its bearing on realism/antirealism debates, and interrogate epistemic aspects of individuation in scientific practice. In exploring individuation from the philosophy of biology, physics, and other scientific subjects, this volume ultimately argues for the possibility of several criteria of individuation, upending the tenets of traditional metaphysics. It provides insights for philosophers of science, but also for scientists interested in the conceptual foundations of their work. (shrink)

Ontologies of living things are increasingly grounded on the concepts and practices of current life science. Biological development is a process, undergone by living things, which begins with a single cell and (in an important class of cases) ends with formation of a multicellular organism. The process of development is thus prima facie central for ideas about biological individuality and organismality. However, recent accounts of these concepts do not engage developmental biology. This paper aims to fill the gap, proposing the (...) lineage view of stem cells as an ontological framework for conceptualizing organismal development. This account is grounded on experimental practices of stem cell research, with emphasis on new techniques for generating biological organization in vitro. On the lineage view, a stem cell is the starting point of a cell lineage with a specific organismal source, time-interval of existence, and ‘tree topology’ of branch-points linking the stem to developmental termini. The concept of ‘enkapsis’ accommodates the cell-organism relation within the lineage view; this hierarchical notion is further explicated by considering the methods and results of stem cell experiments. Results of this examination include a (partial) characterization of stem cells’ developmental versatility, and the context-dependence of developmental processes involving stem cells. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Broome and others have argued that it makes no sense, or at least that it cannot be true, to say that it is better for a given person that he or she exist than not. That argument can be understood to suggest that, likewise, it makes no sense, or at least that it cannot be true, to say that it is worse for a given person that he or she exist than that he or she never have existed at (...) all. This argument is of critical importance to the question of whether consequentialist theory should take a traditional, aggregative form or a less conventional, person‐affecting, or person‐based, form. I believe that, potentially, the argument represents a far more serious threat to the person‐based approach than does, for example, Parfit's two medical programmes example. Parfit's example nicely illustrates the distinction between aggregative and person‐based approaches and raises important questions. But the example — though not, I think, by Parfit — is sometimes pressed into service as a full‐fledged counterexample against the person‐based approach. As such, I argue, the example is not persuasive. In contrast, the Broomeian argument, if correct, is definitive. For that argument relies on certain metaphysical assumptions and various uncontroversial normative claims — and hence nicely avoids putting into play the controversial normative claims that lie at the very heart of the debate. The purpose of the present paper, then, is to evaluate the Broomeian argument. I argue that this potentially definitive challenge to a person‐based approach does not in fact succeed. (shrink)

Focusing on the speculative methodologies used to generate models of the financial and meteorological future, this article develops a series of theses on the ‘evental’ and ‘atmospheric’ quality of contemporary power. What is at stake in the circulation of capital today, I argue, is not so much the exchange of equivalents as the universal transmutability of fluctutation. Whether we are dealing with the turbulence of world financial markets or that of complex earth systems, the non-dialectical relation can itself be extracted, (...) recombined and liquefied, as it were, in a dimension of its own. In the same way that financial derivatives price the variable relation between and across national currencies, weather derivatives now make it possible to issue contracts on the unknowable contingencies embedded in complex atmospheric relations. This reconfiguration of value requires a thorough rethinking of classical sociological conceptions of debt, promise and political violence. (shrink)

Philosophy of scientific practice aims to critically evaluate as well as describe scientific inquiry. Epistemic norms are required for such evaluation. Social constructivism is widely thought to oppose this critical project. I argue, however, that one variety of social constructivism, focused on epistemic justification, can be a basis for critical epistemology of scientific practice, while normative accounts that reject this variety of social constructivism cannot., idealized epistemic norms cannot ground effective critique of our practices. I propose a new approach, placing (...) SCj within a general framework of social action theory. This framework can be used to explicate epistemic norms implicit in our scientific practices. *Received July 2009; revised July 2009. †To contact the author, please write to: MS 14, P.O. Box 1892, Houston, TX 77251‐1892; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

During the 1920s and 1930s geneticist L. C. Dunn of Columbia University cautioned Americans against endorsing eugenic policies and called attention to eugenicists' less than rigorous practices. Then, from the mid-1940s to early 1950s he attacked scientific racism and Nazi Rassenhygiene by co-authoring Heredity, Race and Society with Theodosius Dobzhansky and collaborating with members of UNESCO on their international campaign against racism. Even though shaking the foundations of scientific discrimination was Dunn's primary concern during the interwar and post-World War II (...) years, his campaigns had ancillary consequences for the discipline. He contributed to the professionalization of genetics during the 1920s and 1930s and sought respectability for human genetics in the 1940s and 1950s. My article aims to elucidate the activist scientist's role in undermining scientific discrimination by exploring aspects of Dunn's scientific work and political activism from the 1920s to 1950s. Definitions are provided for scientific discrimination and activist scientist. (shrink)

This book aims to give an account, called Variabilism, of the moral significance of merely possible persons and to use Variabilism to illuminate abortion. In doing so it lays the groundwork for a more productive discussion on abortion.

Stem cell biology and systems biology are two prominent new approaches to studying cell development. In stem cell biology, the predominant method is experimental manipulation of concrete cells and tissues. Systems biology, in contrast, emphasizes mathematical modeling of cellular systems. For scientists and philosophers interested in development, an important question arises: how should the two approaches relate? This essay proposes an answer, using the model of Waddington’s landscape to triangulate between stem cell and systems approaches. This simple abstract model represents (...) development as an undulating surface of hills and valleys. Originally constructed by C. H. Waddington to visually explicate an integrated theory of genetics, development and evolution, the landscape model can play an updated unificatory role. I examine this model’s structure, representational assumptions, and uses in all three contexts, and argue that explanations of cell development require both mathematical models and concrete experiments. On this view, the two approaches are interdependent, with mathematical models playing a crucial but circumscribed role in explanations of cell development. (shrink)

If there is collective scientific knowledge, then at least some scientific groups have beliefs over and above the personal beliefs of their members. Gilbert's plural-subjects theory makes precise the notion of ‘over and above’ here. Some philosophers have used plural-subjects theory to argue that philosophical, historical and sociological studies of science should take account of collective beliefs of scientific groups. Their claims rest on the premise that our best explanations of scientific change include these collective beliefs. I argue that Gilbert's (...) account of collective scientific belief does not provide a better explanation of scientific change than a non-collective alternative. A different defence of collective scientific belief and knowledge is needed. (shrink)

The Asymmetry consists of two claims. (A) That a possible person's life would be abjectly miserable –less than worth living – counts against bringing that person into existence. But (B) that a distinct possible person's life would be worth living or even well worth living does not count in favour of bringing that person into existence. In recent years, the view that the two halves of the Asymmetry are jointly untenable has become increasingly entrenched. If we say all persons matter (...) morally whether they exist or not and on that basis try to explain the first half of the Asymmetry, we lose the second half of the Asymmetry. If we say that some persons do not matter morally and some do and on that basis try to explain the second half of the Asymmetry, we lose the first half of the Asymmetry – or else find ourselves with a principle that is either inconsistent or otherwise deeply troubled in some way that has nothing to do with the content of the Asymmetry itself. In this article, I propose an alternative approach to the Asymmetry which I will call Variabilism. By understanding each and every person, whether existing or not, to matter morally but variably– such that the moral significance of any loss incurred by any person is considered to depend, not on who incurs that loss and whether that person matters morally, but rather on where that loss is incurred in relation to the person who incurs it – we can both nicely ground the two halves of the Asymmetry and avoid the conceptual difficulties that have plagued competing approaches. (shrink)

There is by now broad consensus in the critical literature that neoliberalism and social conservatism have frequently coexisted in practice. Yet the alt-right fits none of the previously identified alliances: this is not the neoliberal neoconservatism of the Reagan and Bush years, nor the neoliberal communitarianism of the Third Way, nor even a form of neoliberal authoritarianism. Instead, the alt-right claims intellectual descent from economic libertarianism, on the one hand, and paleo- (as opposed to neo-) conservatism on the other. This (...) paper traces the contours of this ‘paleolibertarian’ alliance, first by following the volatile political trajectory of Murray Rothbard, the foremost philosopher of American libertarianism, and, second, by uncovering precedents in the longer history of the American far right. It will be argued that paleoconservatism makes for a uniquely powerful ally because it offers a workable response to libertarianism’s intrinsic contradictions. (shrink)

This review surveys three central issues in philosophy of stem cell biology: the nature of stem cells, stem cell experiments, and explanations of stem cell capacities. First, I argue that the fundamental question ‘what is a stem cell?’ has no single substantive answer. Instead, the core idea is explicated via an abstract model, which accounts for many features of stem cell experiments. The second part of this essay examines several of these features: uncertainty, model organisms, and manipulability. The results shed (...) light on the form of our emerging knowledge of stem cells: mechanistic explanations. The third part of the essay sketches some key features of these explanations, which are constructed by a collaborative experimenting community. (shrink)

Stem cell biology is driven by experiment. Its major achievements are striking experimental productions: "immortal" human cell lines from spare embryos (Thomson et al. 1998); embryo-like cells from "reprogrammed" adult skin cells (Takahashi and Yamanaka 2006); muscle, blood and nerve tissue generated from stem cells in culture (Lanza et al. 2009, and references therein). Well-confirmed theories are not so prominent, though stem cell biologists do propose and test hypotheses at a profligate rate. 1 This paper aims to characterize the role (...) of experiment in stem cell biology, so as to answer the following question: how do experiments contribute to our knowledge of stem cells and related phenomena? The .. (shrink)

It is widely thought that causal cognition underpins technical reasoning. Here we suggest that understanding causal cognition as a thinking system that includes theory of mind (i.e., social cognition) can be a productive theoretical tool for the field of evolutionary cognitive archaeology. With this contribution, we expand on an earlier model that distinguishes seven grades of causal cognition, explicitly presenting it together with a new analysis of the theory of mind involved in the different grades. We then suggest how such (...) thinking may manifest in the archaeological or stone tool record and techno-behaviors of the last three million years or so. Our thesis is threefold: (a) theory of mind is an integral element of causal cognition; (b) generally speaking, the more advanced causal cognition is, the more it is dependent on theory of mind; and (c) the evolution of causal cognition depends more and more on mental representations of hidden variables. Ultimately, the final or seventh grade of causal cognition allows us to reason from a network of hidden variables that, amongst other things, enables the learning, manufacture, and use of complex technological systems. It also facilitates the seamless mapping of knowledge between personal (egocentric), physical, and social networks that allows for newly devised and innovative technical and social outcomes. (shrink)