In face of the multiple controversies surrounding the DSM process in general and the development of DSM-5 in particular, we have organized a discussion around what we consider six essential questions in further work on the DSM. The six questions involve: 1) the nature of a mental disorder; 2) the definition of mental disorder; 3) the issue of whether, in the current state of psychiatric science, DSM-5 should assume a cautious, conservative posture or an assertive, transformative posture; 4) the role (...) of pragmatic considerations in the construction of DSM-5; 5) the issue of utility of the DSM - whether DSM-III and IV have been designed more for clinicians or researchers, and how this conflict should be dealt with in the new manual; and 6) the possibility and advisability, given all the problems with DSM-III and IV, of designing a different diagnostic system. Part I of this article took up the first two questions. Part II will take up the second two questions. Question 3 deals with the question as to whether DSM-V should assume a conservative or assertive posture in making changes from DSM-IV. That question in turn breaks down into discussion of diagnoses that depend on, and aim toward, empirical, scientific validation, and diagnoses that are more value-laden and less amenable to scientific validation. Question 4 takes up the role of pragmatic consideration in a psychiatric nosology, whether the purely empirical considerations need to be tempered by considerations of practical consequence. As in Part 1 of this article, the general introduction, as well as the introductions and conclusions for the specific questions, are written by James Phillips, and the responses to commentaries are written by Allen Frances. (shrink)

In the conclusion to this multi-part article I first review the discussions carried out around the six essential questions in psychiatric diagnosis – the position taken by Allen Frances on each question, the commentaries on the respective question along with Frances’ responses to the commentaries, and my own view of the multiple discussions. In this review I emphasize that the core question is the first – what is the nature of psychiatric illness – and that in some manner all further (...) questions follow from the first. Following this review I attempt to move the discussion forward, addressing the first question from the perspectives of natural kind analysis and complexity analysis. This reflection leads toward a view of psychiatric disorders – and future nosologies – as far more complex and uncertain than we have imagined. (shrink)

In face of the multiple controversies surrounding the DSM process in general and the development of DSM-5 in particular, we have organized a discussion around what we consider six essential questions in further work on the DSM. The six questions involve: 1) the nature of a mental disorder; 2) the definition of mental disorder; 3) the issue of whether, in the current state of psychiatric science, DSM-5 should assume a cautious, conservative posture or an assertive, transformative posture; 4) the role (...) of pragmatic considerations in the construction of DSM-5; 5) the issue of utility of the DSM - whether DSM-III and IV have been designed more for clinicians or researchers, and how this conflict should be dealt with in the new manual; and 6) the possibility and advisability, given all the problems with DSM-III and IV, of designing a different diagnostic system. Part I of this article will take up the first two questions. With the first question, invited commentators express a range of opinion regarding the nature of psychiatric disorders, loosely divided into a realist position that the diagnostic categories represent real diseases that we can accurately name and know with our perceptual abilities, a middle, nominalist position that psychiatric disorders do exist in the real world but that our diagnostic categories are constructs that may or may not accurately represent the disorders out there, and finally a purely constructivist position that the diagnostic categories are simply constructs with no evidence of psychiatric disorders in the real world. The second question again offers a range of opinion as to how we should define a mental or psychiatric disorder, including the possibility that we should not try to formulate a definition. The general introduction, as well as the introductions and conclusions for the specific questions, are written by James Phillips, and the responses to commentaries are written by Allen Frances. (shrink)

In face of the multiple controversies surrounding the DSM process in general and the development of DSM-5 in particular, we have organized a discussion around what we consider six essential questions in further work on the DSM. The six questions involve: 1) the nature of a mental disorder; 2) the definition of mental disorder; 3) the issue of whether, in the current state of psychiatric science, DSM-5 should assume a cautious, conservative posture or an assertive, transformative posture; 4) the role (...) of pragmatic considerations in the construction of DSM-5; 5) the issue of utility of the DSM – whether DSM-III and IV have been designed more for clinicians or researchers, and how this conflict should be dealt with in the new manual; and 6) the possibility and advisability, given all the problems with DSM-III and IV, of designing a different diagnostic system. Part 1 of this article took up the first two questions. Part 2 took up the second two questions. Part 3 now deals with Questions 5 & 6. Question 5 confronts the issue of utility, whether the manual design of DSM-III and IV favors clinicians or researchers, and what that means for DSM-5. Our final question, Question 6, takes up a concluding issue, whether the acknowledged problems with the earlier DSMs warrants a significant overhaul of DSM-5 and future manuals. As in Parts 1 & 2 of this article, the general introduction, as well as the introductions and conclusions for the specific questions, are written by James Phillips, and the responses to commentaries are written by Allen Frances. (shrink)

Economist Frank Knight drew a distinction between decisions under risk and decisions under uncertainty. Despite the significance of this distinction for decision theory, we argue that there has been inadequate attention to the difficulties involved in classifying decision situations into these categories. Using the risk assessment of carbon nanotubes as an example, we show that it is often unclear whether there is adequate information to classify a decision situation as being under risk as opposed to uncertainty. We conclude by providing (...) two suggestions for responding to these difficulties: treating decisions as real-world experiments; and promoting broadly based deliberation about quantitative information. (shrink)

A crucial imperative for decolonial praxis in the liberal settler colony is to radically delegitimise the prevailing social order. This is regarded as necessary to achieving genuinely decolonial forms of social transformation rather than merely the ongoing modification of colonial rule. I propose here, however, that such objectives depend not simply on delegitimising the colonial regime as such, but also on finding ways to expose and challenge its resources of legitimating power, that is, the capacity to shape and reshape perceptions (...) of legitimacy in the public sphere, and thus render legitimacy a moving rather than static target for opponents. I explore, here, the potential for a basic democratic grammar of contestation to be utilised in this task. The promise of such a grammar lies in its permanent availability to problematise rule arranging powers in the public sphere, and thus work to expose their unjustified nature. It also carries a threat, however, in that its public activation always arouses a broader array of normative forces, some aspects of which might oppose or undermine decolonial objectives. Whilst the democratic grammar holds promise for challenging liberal legitimating power, then, it must also be treated with caution from a decolonial perspective. (shrink)

This article reviews the recent literature on idealization, specifically idealization in the course of scientific modeling. We argue that idealization is not a unified concept and that there are three different types of idealization: Galilean, minimalist, and multiple models, each with its own justification. We explore the extent to which idealization is a permanent feature of scientific representation and discuss its implications for debates about scientific realism.

Late in 1990, the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at Illinois Institute of Technology (lIT) received a grant of more than $200,000 from the National Science Foundation to try a campus-wide approach to integrating professional ethics into its technical curriculum.! Enough has now been accomplished to draw some tentative conclusions. I am the grant's principal investigator. In this paper, I shall describe what we at lIT did, what we learned, and what others, especially philosophers, can learn (...) from us. We set out to develop an approach that others could profitably adopt. I believe that we succeeded. (shrink)

This article reviews the recent literature on idealization, specifically idealization in the course of scientific modeling. We argue that idealization is not a unified concept and that there are three different types of idealization: Galilean, minimalist, and multiple models, each with its own justification. We explore the extent to which idealization is a permanent feature of scientific representation and discuss its implications for debates about scientific realism.

The classical interpretation of mathematical statements can be seen as comprising two separate but related aspects: a domain and a truth-schema. L. E. J. Brouwer’s intuitionistic project lays the groundwork for an alternative conception of the objects in this domain, as well as an accompanying intuitionistic truth-schema. Drawing on the work of Arend Heyting and Michael Dummett, I present two objections to classical mathematical semantics, with the aim of creating an opening for an alternative interpretation. With this accomplished, I (...) then make the case for intuitionism as a suitable candidate to fill this void. (shrink)

Michael Scriven’s (1959) example of identical twins (who are said to be equal in fitness but unequal in their reproductive success) has been used by many philosophers of biology to discuss how fitness should be defined, how selection should be distinguished from drift, and how the environment in which a selection process occurs should be conceptualized. Here it is argued that evolutionary theory has no commitment, one way or the other, as to whether the twins are equally fit. This (...) is because the theory of natural selection is fundamentally about the fitnesses of traits, not the fitnesses of token individuals. A plausible philosophical thesis about supervenience entails that the twins are equally fit if they live in identical environments, but evolutionary biology is not committed to the thesis that the twins live in identical environments. Evolutionary theory is right to focus on traits, rather than on token individuals, because the fitnesses of token organisms (as opposed to their actual survivorship and degree of reproductive success) are almost always unknowable. This point has ramifications for the question of how Darwin’s theory of evolution and R. A. Fisher’s are conceptually different. (shrink)

In their 2010 book, Biology’s First Law, D. McShea and R. Brandon present a principle that they call ‘‘ZFEL,’’ the zero force evolutionary law. ZFEL says (roughly) that when there are no evolutionary forces acting on a population, the population’s complexity (i.e., how diverse its member organisms are) will increase. Here we develop criticisms of ZFEL and describe a different law of evolution; it says that diversity and complexity do not change when there are no evolutionary causes.

Very few researchers have reported on procedures of recruiting, obtaining informed consent, and compensating participants in health research in the Arabian Gulf Region. Empirical research can inform the debate about whether to adjust these procedures for culturally diverse settings. Our objective was to delineate procedures related to recruiting, obtaining informed consent, and compensating health research participants in the extremely high-density multicultural setting of Qatar.

Modelers often rely on robustness analysis, the search for predictions common to several independent models. Robustness analysis has been characterized and championed by Richard Levins and William Wimsatt, who see it as central to modern theoretical practice. The practice has also been severely criticized by Steven Orzack and Elliott Sober, who claim that it is a nonempirical form of confirmation, effective only under unusual circumstances. This paper addresses Orzack and Sober's criticisms by giving a new account of robustness analysis (...) and showing how the practice can identify robust theorems. Once the structure of robust theorems is clearly articulated, it can be shown that such theorems have a degree of confirmation, despite the lack of direct empirical evidence for their truth. (shrink)

According to Michael Friedman’s theory of explanation, a law X explains laws Y1, Y2, …, Yn precisely when X unifies the Y’s, where unification is understood in terms of reducing the number of independently acceptable laws. Philip Kitcher criticized Friedman’s theory but did not analyze the concept of independent acceptability. Here we show that Kitcher’s objection can be met by modifying an element in Friedman’s account. In addition, we argue that there are serious objections to the use that Friedman (...) makes of the concept of independent acceptability. (shrink)

This article is a critical response to the claim advanced by Robert Elliott Allinson in three issues of Dialogue and Universalism that we need a new Enlightenment for the 21st century. In contradistinction to this claim, I argue that what we really need is a new interpretation of the ideals of the European Enlightenment. This assertion is based on the assumption that the basic beliefs and values that constitute the heart and soul of the European Enlightenment are founded in (...) human nature and that this nature is one and the same among all human beings. My discussion is composed of two parts, the first is formal, and the second is analytical. In the first part, I present general observations on the cultural and historical dynamics of the European Enlightenment. In the second part, I advance an analysis and a critical evaluation of the arguments Allinson advances in the editorial he wrote for the three issues of Dialogue and Universalism. The proposition I defend is that we need not a new Enlightenment but an interpretation and a comprehensive, efficacious implementation of the ideals of reason, science, and humanism. (shrink)

In 2021, the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies (hereafter, BICS) sponsored an essay competition (hereafter, the Contest) designed to solicit the best evidence for the hypothesis that human consciousness survives bodily death, and more specifically, evidence that would prove this hypothesis beyond a reasonable doubt. The summer 2022 issue of the Journal of Scientific Exploration featured a special subsection on the BICS contest and its winning essays. Robert Bigelow and Colm Kelleher outlined the motivation, design, and judging criteria for the (...) competition. Keith Augustine provided an extensive critical commentary on the contest design and eight of its prominent winning essays. Stephen Braude and several coauthors responded to Augustine’s criticisms, and Augustine provided a reply to Braude and his collaborators. Finally, the subsection concluded with a collaborative paper in which Etienne LeBel, Adam Rock, and Augustine proposed a more rigorous experimental design for testing the survival hypothesis. Augustine presented important criticisms of the Contest and several of its prominent winning essays. Moreover, many of his criticisms apply to survival literature in general and so are instructive for the wider survival debate. And Braude, one of the most important contributors to the survival debate since C.D. Broad and C.J. Ducasse, was at the helm of the reply to Augustine. Although the response to Augustine raised important concerns about skeptical assessments of the evidence for survival, it was hamstrung with several defects. 1. Preliminaries 2. Problematic Aspects of the Reply to Augustine 3. What is the Question? Honing in on the Actual Disagreement 4. Inference to Best Explanation 5. Confirmation Approaches to Evidential Support -- 5.1 Evidential Justification -- 5.2 When Does an Observation Favor One Hypothesis Over Another Hypothesis? The Law of Likelihood -- 5.3 When Should We Up Our Confidence in a Hypothesis? Incremental Confirmation -- 5.4 How Can We Determine the Net Plausibility of a Hypothesis? Bayes’ Theorem and Posterior Probabilities -- 5.5 Which of Two Hypotheses is More Probable than the Other? Principle of Contrastive Posterior Probabilities -- 5.6 When Does Evidence Justify Believing a Hypothesis? Principle of Absolute Confirmation -- 5.7 Survivalist Confusions about Bayesian Analyses -- 5.8 The Washing Out of Priors -- 5.9 The Subjectivism Objection -- 5.10 Summing Up Insights from Confirmation Theory -- 6. Back to Braude 7. Varieties of Skepticism 8. Neurophysiological Evidence and the Survival Hypothesis 9. The Data from Mediumship 10. The Alleged Improbability of Fraud and Other Counterexplanations 11. Mediumship and the Logic of Confirmation 12. The Significance of Failed Tests 13. Survivalist Rescues and Contrastive Confirmation 14. Evidential Support without Predictions -- 15. The Testability Problem -- Concluding Remarks. (shrink)

It is gratifying to learn that there are fellow humanist philosophers who pay homage to the Enlightenment and its legacy. Such a humanist philosopher is Michael Mitias. He has taken precious time and the labor of his active and synoptic thought to both read the trilogy I have had the privilege of guest editing and what is more, to write about it. Hence, I feel that he deserves a response. I shall address some of the key points that he (...) has raised in the interest of dialogue, an activity which he has praised and which rightly forms the heart of our journal. I intend to respond to the following points: (i) that we do not need a new enlightenment, but a reinterpretation of the old; (ii) that the editorials are not consistent with the articles of the contributors; (iii) that the method I have utilized, to endeavor to invoke a new Enlightenment through self-conscious intention, via rallying philosophers together is at odds with the origin of the classical Enlightenment; (iv) that the viewpoint I have expressed suffers from its Eurocentrism. (shrink)

Slavoj Žižek writes: "Today philosophy is approaching a double end. Physics and brain sciences offer answers to the big metaphysical questions (is the universe infinite? Do we have a free will?), while what remained of philosophy is mostly getting lost in historicist relativism, reducing truth to a discursive “truth-effect.” But more and more people are tired of this game: the need for a new beginning, for authentic metaphysics, is felt everywhere. And Allinson does something that we all secretly knew it (...) has to be done, but nobody dared to actually do it so directly: he convincingly argues for the return to a philosophy that shamelessly addresses big questions. A great sigh of relief will be felt by the readers of Awakening Philosophy: The Loss of Truth: we are back home. If there is justice in our intellectual life, the book will become daily bread for thinking beings." -/- Brian Klug, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, the University of Oxford writes: "Awakening Philosophy is as original as it is ambitious. Allinson holds up a mirror to academic philosophy and shows how it has become fragmented into an eclectic set of specialisms. He seeks to get philosophy to question itself, thus reviving the spirit of Socratic enquiry: self-examination. In the process, he sets out to recover “the Great Questions” that have exercised philosophers from Plato to such figures as Descartes, Spinoza, Hume, Kant and Husserl. A timely and ground-breaking book." -/- Michael Slote, UST Professor of Ethics, Department of Philosophy, University of Miami, Member, Royal Irish Academy, former Tanner Lecturer, Stanford University, writes: "An elegant and timely appeal for philosophers and the educated public to make use of philosophy's historic roots for purposes of present-day enlightenment." In this original book, Robert Elliott Allinson asserts that philosophers have been lulled into a dogmatic sleep by Immanuel Kant, the slayer of metaphysics, who has convinced them (and the rest of humanity) that we can never know Reality. Allinson awakens global philosophers from their sceptical slumbers by diagnosing the reason why they have abdicated their traditional calling as leaders of inquiry into truth and wisdom. (shrink)

This philosophical Mao is a fresh portrait of the mind of the ruler who changed the face of China in the twentieth century. The book traces the influences of both traditional Chinese and traditional pre-Marxist Western philosophy on the early Mao and how these influences guided the development of his thought. It reveals evidence of the creative dimensions of Mao's thinking and how he wove the yin/yang pattern of change depicted in the Yijing, the Chinese Book of Changes, into the (...) Marxist dialectic to bring ancient Chinese philosophy to mark changes in twentieth century thought. -/- Mao's lifetime philosophical journey includes his interpretations of and comments on both Chinese and Western philosophers. His deep, metaphysical reflections, uncanny prognostications and pensive speculations from his early pre-Marxist period to his later philosophical years prove to be as startling as they are thought-provoking. -/- Slavoj Žižek, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, University of London, UK, writes: "Mao Ze Dong is celebrated (or cursed) as a revolutionary leader, but the philosophical foundation of his activity is largely ignored. In his superb study, Allinson fills in this lack. Mao's thought is not just located in its historical context; its complex references to the Chinese traditional thought, to Marx and Western philosophy, but also to modern sciences (quantum physics), are explored and documented. A new Mao thus emerges, a Mao whose radical acts are grounded in a thick texture of philosophical reflections. Allinson's Mao is indispensable for everybody who wants to understand not just Mao but the concatenation of philosophy and politics that characterized the twentieth century. -/- Michael Puett, Walter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History and Anthropology, Harvard University, writes: "Through extensive research, involving not only Mao's writings themselves but also the marginal notes he made on books he read, Allinson is able to trace the development of Mao's thinking over the course of his lifetime and to demonstrate the degree to which he was actively engaged with both the Chinese and Western philosophical traditions throughout. This is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the intellectual history of China. -/- Anne Cheng, Chair of Chinese Intellectual History, Collège de France, writes: "Has it ever occurred to you to associate Mao with Aristotle or with the ancient Chinese Book of Changes, the Yijing? If you find it hard to believe, read this book by Robert Allinson who, in his own philosophical way, manages to inject new life and revived interest in this highly controversial but iconic figure which is still looming large behind the giant video screen of present day China. -/- Irene Eber, Former Director and Louis Frieberg Professor Emerita of Chinese History and Philosophy, Louis Freiberg Center for East Asian Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel and Former Senior Fellow, Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, writes: "This is a most exciting and fascinating enterprise. A magnificent statement on behalf of East-West philosophy. -/- Jana Rošker, chief editor of Asian Studies and the founder and first president of the European Association of Chinese Philosophy (International Communication of Chinese Culture), writes: "As Irene Eber writes in her foreword to this book 'This is a ground breaking work'. She is right, for it is indeed a work of utmost importance. In addition, the book is essential because it deals with a highly topical issue, one that can certainly help us to improve our understanding of contemporary China... Allinson achieves his goals in this book by clearly demonstrating a thoughtfully elaborated case of a truly intercultural, and, at the same time, truly intersubjective philosophy with widely influential connotations. This volume will be of great value to anyone interested in Chinese or cross-cultural philosophy, political theory and recent history. (shrink)

The endomorphism monoid of a model-theoretic structure carries two interesting topologies: on the one hand, the topology of pointwise convergence induced externally by the action of the endomorphisms on the domain via evaluation; on the other hand, the Zariski topology induced within the monoid by (non-)solutions to equations. For all concrete endomorphism monoids of $\omega $ -categorical structures on which the Zariski topology has been analysed thus far, the two topologies were shown to coincide, in turn yielding that the pointwise (...) topology is the coarsest Hausdorff semigroup topology on those endomorphism monoids. We establish two systematic reasons for the two topologies to agree, formulated in terms of the model-complete core of the structure. Further, we give an example of an $\omega $ -categorical structure on whose endomorphism monoid the topology of pointwise convergence and the Zariski topology differ, answering a question of Elliott, Jonušas, Mitchell, Péresse, and Pinsker. (shrink)

Elliott Sober argues that the statistical slogan “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” cannot be taken literally: it must be interpreted charitably as claiming that the absence of evidence is (typically) not very much evidence of absence. I offer an alternative interpretation, on which the slogan claims that absence of evidence is (typically) not objective evidence of absence. I sketch a definition of objective evidence, founded in the notion of an epistemically objective likelihood, and I show that (...) in Sober’s paradigm case, the slogan can, on this understanding, be sustained. (shrink)

Penelope Maddy and Elliott Sober recently attacked the confirmational indispensability argument for mathematical realism. We cannot count on science to provide evidence for the truth of mathematics, they say, because either scientific testing fails to confirm mathematics (Sober) or too much mathematics occurs in false scientific theories (Maddy). I present a pragmatic indispensability argument immune to these objections, and show that this argument supports mathematical realism independently of scientific realism. Mathematical realism, it turns out, may be even more firmly (...) established than scientific realism. (shrink)

Preface 9 PART I: RELIGIOUS, SCIENTIFIC, AND PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND Introduction to Part I 19 1. The Bible 27 2. Natural Theology 33 William Paley 3. On the Origin of Species 38 Charles Darwin 4. Objections to Mr. Darwin’s Theory of the Origin of Species 65 Adam Sedgwick 5. The Origin of Species 73 Thomas H. Huxley 6. What Is Darwinism? 82 Charles Hodge 7. Darwinism as a Metaphysical Research Program 105 Karl Popper 8. Karl Popper’s Philosophy of Biology 116 (...) class='Hi'>Michael Ruse 9. Human Nature: One Evolutionist’s View 136 Francisco Ayala 10. Universal Darwinism 158 Richard Dawkins PART II: CREATION SCIENCE AND THE McLEAN CASE Introduction to Part II 187 11. The Creationists 192 Ronald L. Numbers 12. Creation, Evolution, and the Historical Evidence 231 Duane T. Gish 13. Witness Testimony Sheet: McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education 253 Michael Ruse 14. United States District Court Opinion: McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education 279 Judge William R. Overton 15. The Demise of the Demarcation Problem 312 Larry Laudan 16. Science at the BarùCauses for Concern 331 Larry Laudan 17. Pro Judice 337 Michael Ruse 18. More on Creationism 345 Larry Laudan 19. Commentary: Philosophers at the BarùSome Reasons for Restraint 350 Barry R. Gross PART III: INTELLIGENT DESIGN CREATIONISM AND THE KITZMILLER CASE Introduction to Part III 369 20. But Isn’t It Creationism? The Beginnings of "Intelligent Design" in the Midst of the Arkansas and Louisiana Litigation 377 Nick Matzke 21. What Is Darwinism? 414 Phillip E. Johnson 22. Is It Science Yet? Intelligent Design, Creationism, and the Constitution 426 Matthew Brauer, Barbara Forrest, and Steven G. Gey 23. Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Expert Witness Testimony 434 Michael Behe 24. Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Expert Report 456 Robert T. Pennock 25. A Step toward the Legalization of Science Studies 485 Steve Fuller 26. What Is Wrong with Intelligent Design? 495 Elliott Sober 27. United States District Court Memorandum Opinion: Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. 506 Judge John E. Jones II 28. Can’t Philosophers Tell the Difference between Science and Religion? Demarcation Revisited 536 Robert T. Pennock. (shrink)

First, this collection seeks to examine exactly what Levinass writings mean for both Jews and Christians. Second, it takes a snapshot of the current state of Jewish-Christian dialogue, using Levinas as the rationale for the discussion. Three generations of Levinas scholars are represented. Contributors: Leora Batnitzky, Jeffrey Bloechl, Richard A. Cohen, Paul Franks, Robert Gibbs, Kevin Hart, Dana Hollander, Robyn Horner, Jeffrey L. Kosky, Jean-Luc Marion, Michael Purcell, Michael A. Signer, Merold Westphal, Elliott R. Wolfson, Edith Wyschogrod.

Despite overwhelming evidence that climate change is real and represents a serious challenge for human flourishing, many still hold that climate change is not a credible threat—including a surprising number of broadcast meteorologists. In this article, we look at the logic that underwrites such an attitude, which typically appeals to a distrust of climate models, natural variability, or the presence of a conspiracy. Using a model selection framework, championed by Elliott Sober and Malcolm Forster, we will show that appeals (...) to such lines of reasoning do not provide sufficient warrant to dismiss the predictions of climate models. (shrink)

Ruyu HungNational Chiayi University, TaiwanThis is a collective writing experiment of PESA members, orchestrating the Philosophy of Education in a New Key regarding East Asia. In 2016 the pioneerin...

This collective paper on radicalization and violent extremism part of the ‘Philosophy of education in a new key’ initiative by Educational Philosophy and Theory brings together some of the leading contemporary scholars writing on the most pressing epistemological, ethical, political and educational issues facing post-9/11 scholarship on radicalization and violent extremism. Its overall aim is to move beyond the ‘conventional wisdom’ associated with this area of scholarly research best represented by its many slogans, metaphors and other thought-terminating clichés. By providing (...) conceptual lenses on issues previously compartmentalized primarily [or even exclusively] in security and intelligence studies or at the fringes of scholarly interest, radicalization and violent extremism turn out to be much more complex than ‘radicalization studies’ has been eager to acknowledge. (shrink)

This article is a collective writing experiment undertaken by philosophers of education affiliated with the PESGB (Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain). When asked to reflect on questions concerning the Philosophy of Education in a New Key in May 2020, it was unsurprising that the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on society and on education were foremost in our minds. We wanted to consider important philosophical and educational questions raised by the pandemic, while acknowledging that, first and foremost, it (...) is a human tragedy. With nearly a million deaths reported worldwide to date, and with everyone effected in one way or another by Covid-19, there is a degree of discomfort, and a responsibility to be sensitive, in reflecting and writing about it academically. Members of this ‘Covid Collective’ come from various countries, with perspectives from Great Britain and Ireland well represented, and we see academic practice as a globally connected enterprise, especially since the digital revolution in academic publishing. The concerns raised in this article relate to but move beyond Covid-19, reflecting the impact of neoliberalism [and other political developments] on geopolitics with educational concerns as central to our focus. (shrink)

Drawing on victim precipitation theory, we propose that certain employees are more likely to perceive abusive supervision because of their personality traits. Specifically, we hypothesize that subordinates’ emotional stability, conscientiousness, and agreeableness will be negatively related to perceived abuse from their supervisor and that negative emotions at work will mediate these relationships. We surveyed 222 employees and found that emotional stability and conscientiousness negatively predicted employees’ self-reports of abusive supervision and that this relationship was mediated by negative emotions. Thus, employees (...) lower in emotional stability or conscientiousness are more likely to experience negative emotions, which in turn is related to higher levels of abuse. (shrink)

Anxiety disorders are among the most prevalent mental disorders. Present treatments such as cognitive behavior therapy and pharmacological treatments show only moderate success, which emphasizes the importance for the development of new treatment protocols. Non-invasive brain stimulation methods such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct current stimulation have been probed as therapeutic option for anxiety disorders in recent years. Mechanistic information about their mode of action, and most efficient protocols is however limited. Here the fear extinction model can (...) serve as a model of exposure therapies for studying therapeutic mechanisms, and development of appropriate intervention protocols. We systematically reviewed 30 research articles that investigated the impact of rTMS and tDCS on fear memory and extinction in animal models and humans, in clinical and healthy populations. The results of these studies suggest that tDCS and rTMS can be efficient methods to modulate fear memory and extinction. Furthermore, excitability-enhancing stimulation applied over the vmPFC showed the strongest potential to enhance fear extinction. We further discuss factors that determine the efficacy of rTMS and tDCS in the context of the fear extinction model and provide future directions to optimize parameters and protocols of stimulation for research and treatment. (shrink)

In 1966 the population biologist Richard Levins gave a forceful and in?uential defence of a method called “robustness analysis” (RA). RA is a way of assessing the result of a model by showing that different but related models give the same result. As Levins put it, “our truth is the intersection of independent lies” (1966, 423). Steven Orzack and Elliott Sober (1993) responded with an equally forceful critique of this method, concluding that the idea of robustness “lacks proper de?nition (...) and that its bearing on the question of whether a proposition is true is highly problematic” (533). Replies to Orzack and Sober, from Levins (1993) and Weisberg (2006b), have rejected the idea that RA, on its own, can con?rm the results of models. I argue that these replies have not properly addressed Orzack and Sober’s real criticisms, which focus not on the role of empirical data in RA but on the problem of ensuring that the models used in RA are independent. By drawing on accounts of RA in experimental science, I argue that there is in fact a fallible but viable form of RA that can both con?rm the results of models and incorporate empirical data. However, for reasons other than those of Orzack and Sober, I conclude that RA may be of limited use in model-based science, as the example of ?shery biology can show. (shrink)

The rise of precision medicine has led to an unprecedented focus on human biological material in biomedical research. In addition, rapid advances in stem cell technology, regenerative medicine and synthetic biology are leading to more complex human tissue structures and new applications with tremendous potential for medicine. While promising, these developments also raise several ethical and practical challenges which have been the subject of extensive academic debate. These debates have led to increasing calls for longitudinal governance arrangements between tissue providers (...) and biobanks that go beyond the initial moment of obtaining consent, such as closer involvement of tissue providers in what happens to their tissue, and more active participatory approaches to the governance of biobanks. However, in spite of these calls, such measures are being adopted slowly in practice, and there remains a strong tendency to focus on the consent procedure as the tool for addressing the ethical challenges of contemporary biobanking. In this paper, we argue that one of the barriers to this transition is the dominant language pervading the field of human tissue research, in which the provision of tissue is phrased as a ‘donation’ or ‘gift’, and tissue providers are referred to as ‘donors’. Because of the performative qualities of language, the effect of using ‘donation’ and ‘donor’ shapes a professional culture in which biobank participants are perceived as passive providers of tissue free from further considerations or entitlements. This hampers the kind of participatory approaches to governance that are deemed necessary to adequately address the ethical challenges currently faced in human tissue research. Rather than reinforcing this idea through language, we need to pave the way for the kind of participatory approaches to governance that are being extensively argued for by starting with the appropriate terminology. (shrink)

Do abusive supervisors benefit from their own harmful behaviors, or do they experience the same repercussions as their victims do? This article extends a growing stream of research that aims to understand how bad actors process their own negative actions, when they are most impacted by their adverse behaviors, and how their job performance is influenced as a result. We ground this research in a moral emotions perspective to suggest that enacted abusive supervision elicits prominent moral responses (i.e., shame or (...) guilt), which subsequently influence the supervisor’s own work conduct. Specifically, we suggest that feelings of guilt will prompt an abusive boss to compensate for their negative behaviors by increasing performance efforts, whereas supervisors with feelings of shame will withdraw and exhibit lower work performance. Multiple mediation results from Study 1 revealed that abusive supervisors predominantly experience shame and, in turn, reduced performance. In Study 2, we expand on these findings by considering the moderating role of supervisor core self-evaluations (CSE). We find that the negative relationship between enacted abuse and supervisor performance (through shame) is exacerbated when managers possess a fragile sense of self (i.e., low CSE). Overall, the current article adds to the argument that abusive supervisors do not profit from their own negative behaviors and that they, too, suffer performance setbacks. (shrink)

Despite a long and venerable tradition, the material constitution almost disappeared from constitutional scholarship after the Second World War. Its marginalisation saw the rise of a normative and legalistic style in constitutional law that neglected the role of social reality and political economy. This collection not only retrieves the history and development of the concept of the material constitution, but it tests its theoretical and practical relevance in the contemporary world. With essays from a diverse range of contributors, the collection (...) demonstrates that the material constitution speaks to several pressing issues, from the significance of economic development in constitutional orders to questions of constitutional identity. Offering original analyses supported by international case studies, this book develops a new model of constitutional reality, one that informs our understanding of the world in profound ways. (shrink)

A child’s death is a profound loss for mothers and affects hundreds of thousands of women. Mothers report inconsolable and progressive grief that is distinct from depression and impacts daily emotions and functions. The brain mechanisms responsible for this relatively common and profound mental health problem are unclear, hampering its clinical recognition and care. In an initial exploration of this condition, we used resting state functional MRI (fMRI) scans to examine functional connectivity in key circuits, and task-based fMRI to examine (...) brain network activity in grieving mothers in response to pictures of their deceased child and as well as recognizable deceased celebrities and unfamiliar individuals. We compared nine mothers who had lost an adult child and aged-matched control mothers with a living child of a similar age. Additionally, we collected diffusion imaging scans to probe structural connectivity and complemented the imaging studies with neuropsychological assessments. Increased functional activation in Ventral Attention/Salience Networks accompanied by a reduced activation in the medial prefrontal cortex in response to the deceased child’s picture robustly distinguished the grieving mothers from controls. Heightened resting-state functional connectivity between the paraventricular thalamic nucleus (PVT) and the amygdala distinguished the grieving mothers from the controls and correlated with subjective grief severity. Structurally, maternal grief and its severity were associated with alterations in corticolimbic white matter tracts. Finally, grieving mothers performed worse than controls on neuropsychological tests of learning, memory, and executive function, linked with grief severity. Reduced activation in cortical regions inhibiting emotions and changes in the PVT circuitry—a region involved in long-term emotional memories and decision making under conflict—distinguish grieving mothers from controls. Notably, the magnitude of neurobiological changes correlates with the subjective severity of grief. Together, these new discoveries delineate a prevalent and under-recognized mental health syndrome and chart a path for its appreciation and care. (shrink)