This short and highly accessible volume opens up the subject of the philosophy of biology to professionals and to students in both disciplines. The text covers briefly and clearly all of the pertinent topics in the subject, dealing with both human and non-human issues, and quite uniquely surveying not only scholars in the English-speaking world but others elsewhere, including the Eastern block. As molecular biologists peer ever more deeply into life’s mysteries, there are those who fear that such ‘reductionism’ conceals (...) more than it reveals, and there are those who complain that the new techniques threaten the physical safety of us all. As students of evolution apply their new-found understanding to our own species, some people think that this is merely an excuse for racist and sexist propaganda, and others worry that the whole exercise blatantly violates the religious beliefs many of us hold dear. These controversies are the joint concern of biologists and philosophers—of those whose task it is to study the theoretical and moral foundations of knowledge. The comprehensive and fully up-to-date bibliography makes this an invaluable and indispensable guide. (shrink)

This paper explores how words relate to concepts. It argues that in many cases, words get their meanings in part by associating with concepts, but only in conjunction with substantial input from language. Language packages concepts in grammatically determined ways. This structures the meanings of words, and determines which sorts of concepts map to words. The results are linguistically modulated meanings, and the extralinguistic concepts associated with words are often not what intuitively would be expected. The paper concludes by discussing (...) implications of this thesis for the relation of word to sentence meaning, and for issues of linguistic determinism. (shrink)

Contemporary psycholinguistic models place significant emphasis on the cognitive processes involved in the acquisition, recognition, and production of language but neglect many issues related to the representation of language-related information in the mental lexicon. In contrast, a central tenet of network science is that the structure of a network influences the processes that operate in that system, making process and representation inextricably connected. Here, we consider how the structure found across phonological networks of several languages from different language families may (...) influence language processing as we age and experience diseases that affect cognition during the typical and atypical acquisition of new words, during typical perception and production of speech in adults, and during language change over time. We conclude that the network science approach may not only provide insights into specific language processes but also provide a way to connect the work from these domains, which are becoming increasingly balkanized. (shrink)

This paper proposes a novel distinction between accounts of scientific representation: it distinguishes thin accounts from thick accounts. Thin accounts focus on the descriptive aspect of representation whereas thick accounts acknowledge the evaluative aspect of representation. Thin accounts focus on the question of what a representation as such is. Thick accounts start from the question of what an adequate representation is. In this paper, I give two arguments in favor of a thick account, the Argument of the Epistemic Aims of (...) Modeling and the Argument of the Normativity of the Practice of Modeling. I also discuss possible objections to a thick account: the Argument from Misrepresentation and the Objections from Model Testing. The conclusion will be that the arguments on balance support a thick account of representation. (shrink)

Against arealist background, the paper starts by demonstrating the horror of the very popular doctrine, “Worldmaking”, according to which a known world is partly constructed by our imposition of concepts. The rest of the paper aims to make worldmaking hard. (i) It rejects the usual episternological and semantic paths to Worldmaking arguing that they use the wrong methodology and proceed in the wrong direction. (ii) It considers the relation between Worldmaking and the response-dependency theory of concepts. Philip Pettit has proposed (...) a global version of that theory: all our concepts are response-dependent. The paper argues that this theory provides an example of the semantic path to Worldmaking and for that reason alone should be rejected. (shrink)

This paper begins the development of a pragmatics of emotion based on the pragma-dialectical programme, Externalization, Socialization, Functionalization, and Dialectification, applied to the emotional mode of argumentation. The first step points out a systematic equivocation within pragma-dialectics between the notion of argument and that of 'dialectics.' With this cleared, it is shown that each of the first three main assumptions can be altered to accommodate a non-logical mode of communication. However, dialectification, insofar as it is actually defining of the dialectical (...) mode, must be created anew. A defining assumption for emotionality is presented as a replacement for dialectification. (shrink)

Both Higher-Order Uni cation approaches to In linguistic theories on discourse coherence Kehler, discourse semantics Dalrymple et al., 1991; Shieber et.

This dissertation interprets Leibniz’ notion of perception through abilities, agency, and action. In chapter 1, I characterize the differences between kinds of Leibnizian perception by considering their relationship to different abilities. I focus on lower cognition, where Leibniz distinguishes bare perception from sensation by their degrees of distinctness and memory. I read this relationship, between kinds of perception and qualities of perception, through actions. I begin with complete lacks of distinctness and memory and how they relate to stupors as an (...) inability to act. I then turn to a range of incrementally more advanced cases of perceptions and actions to highlight the role of distinctness and memory in each. The cases reveal how differences in kinds of action depend on differences in kinds of perception in Leibniz’ system. My approach breaks with traditional readings that invoke consciousness to account for the differences, and it builds in some ways on readings that lead with representation. I also comment on the prospects of such an abilities based approach for 21st century theories of perception. In chapter 2, I articulate the point of view or perspectival nature of Leibnizian perception through expression and agency. I establish some conditions that Leibniz sets on perspectival expression for individual perceivers, and on the particular way that perceptions belong to their perceivers in Leibniz’ system. I argue that spatial, geometrical notions of perspective, though useful, ultimately give way to a deeper, agential notion of perspective for Leibniz. I make a case for including an agential side of POV in perception, beyond the phenomenal flow of perception. I then articulate how agency is unique and fundamental to Leibniz’ notion of perspective or point of view, both in internal action and in the activity and passivity of external action. In chapter 3, I ask about the limits of perceivers in Leibniz’ system—where they arise and where they don’t. I set the question adjacent to Leibniz' celebrated mill argument. I consider readings of the argument that invoke action, and build on them to include questions about how action relates to interaction in different kinds of perceivers. One question concerns the lack of perception in primary matter, and another concerns the lack of perception in an aggregate of secondary matter. After milling through some considerations, I settle on a notion of organic unity, underpinned by a notion of action, that can draw lines between Leibnizian perceivers and non-perceivers. (shrink)

The human ability to form large, coordinated groups is among our most impressive social adaptations. Larger groups facilitate synergistic economies of scale for cooperative breeding, such economic tasks as group hunting, and success in conflict with other groups. In many organisms, genetic relationships provide the structure for sociality to evolve via the process of kin selection, and this is the case, to a certain extent, for humans. But assortment by genetic affiliation is not the only mechanism that can bring people (...) together. Affinity based on symbolically mediated and socially constructed identity, or cultural kinship, structures much of human ultrasociality. This paper examines how genetic kinship and two kinds of cultural kinship—affinal kinship and descent—structure the network of cooperating whale hunters in the village of Lamalera, Indonesia. Social network analyses show that each mechanism of assortment produces characteristic networks of different sizes, each more or less conducive to the task of hunting whales. Assortment via close genetic kin relationships (r = 0.5) produces a smaller, denser network. Assortment via less-close kin relations (r = 0.125) produces a larger but less dense network. Affinal networks are small and diffuse; lineage networks are larger, discrete, and very dense. The roles that genetic and cultural kinship play for structuring human sociality is discussed in the context of these results. (shrink)

Michael B. Gill offers a new account of Humean moral pluralism: the view that there are different moral reasons for action, which are based on human sentiments. He explores its historical origins, and argues that it offers the most compelling view of our moral experience. Together, pluralism and Humeanism make a philosophically powerful couple.

Creating focal lesions in primary visual cortex (V1) provides an opportunity to study the role of extra-geniculo-striate pathways for activating extrastriate visual cortex. Previous studies have shown that more than 95% of neurons in macaque area V2 and V3 stop firing after reversibly cooling V1 [1,2,3]. However, no studies on long term recovery in areas V2, V3 following permanent V1 lesions have been reported in the macaque. Here we use macaque fMRI to study area V2, V3 activity patterns from 1 (...) to 22 months after lesioning area V1. We find that visually driven BOLD responses persist inside the V1-lesion projection zones (LPZ) of areas V2 and V3, but are reduced in strength by ,70%, on average, compared to prelesion levels. Monitoring the LPZ activity over time starting one month following the V1 lesion did not reveal systematic changes in BOLD signal amplitude. Surprisingly, the retinotopic organization inside the LPZ of areas V2, V3 remained similar to that of the non-lesioned hemisphere, suggesting that LPZ activation in V2, V3 is not the result of input arising from nearby (non-lesioned) V1 cortex. Electrophysiology recordings of multi-unit activity corroborated the BOLD observations: visually driven multi-unit responses could be elicited inside the V2 LPZ, even when the visual stimulus was entirely contained within the scotoma induced by the V1 lesion. Restricting the stimulus to the intact visual hemi-field produced no significant BOLD modulation inside the V2, V3 LPZs. We conclude that the observed activity patterns are largely mediated by parallel, V1-bypassing, subcortical pathways that can activate areas V2 and V3 in the absence of V1 input. Such pathways may contribute to the behavioral phenomenon of blindsight. (shrink)

The paper proceeds in four parts. First, a theory of liberty is sketched, which theory depends heavily upon three distinctions in ethics. These distinctions are shown to be maintainable using no more than resources of a standard deontic logic. That logic is itself recast from the trial of the required, the forbidden, and the optional into a simpler logic of the obligatory and the permitted. Secondly, two challenges presented to this theory of liberty and its use of standard deontic logic, (...) are examined. These challenges stem from the seeming existence of actions and omissions that are neither forbidden or required, on the one hand, nor morally indifferent, on the other. Such actions are subclassified as supererogatory , suberogatory , or quasi-erogatory . Third, attempts to reduce these three kinds of not indifferent but not obligatory actions into either indifference of a kind, or obligation of a kind, are rejected. Fourth, the moral permissibility of these three kinds of not indifferent but not obligatory actions is defended, and the non-punishability of such permissible if non-otimific actions is defended on retributivist grounds. Der Artikel besteht aus vier Teilen. Im ersten Teil wird eine Freiheitstheorie skizziert, die auf drei Differenzierungen in der Ethik basiert. Allein auf Grundlage der Standard-deontischen Logik wird gezeigt, daß die Differenzierungen aufrechterhalten werden können. Die Standard-Logik selbst, gebildet aus der Trias von "geboten", "verboten" und "erlaubt", wird in eine einfachere Logik des Obligatorischen und des Erlaubten umgeformt. Im zweiten Teil werden zwei Kritikpunkte an der Freiheitstheorie und ihrem Gebrauch der üblichen deontischen Logik untersucht. Die Kritikpunkte ergeben sich aus der Tatsache, daß es offenbar Handlungen und Unterlassungen gibt, die einerseits weder verboten noch geboten, andererseits aber auch nicht moralisch indifferent sind. Solche Handlungen werden eingeteilt in die supererogatorischen , die suberogatorischen und die quasi-erogatorischen Handlungen. Als Drittes werden verschiedene Versuche verworfen, die drei Typen nicht indifferenter, aber auch nicht obligatorischer Handlungen entweder auf eine wie auch immer geartete Indifferenz oder auf eine wie auch immer geartete Obligation zu reduzieren. Schließlich wird die These vertreten, daß die drei Typen nicht indifferenter und nicht obligatorischer Handlungen moralisch erlaubt sind, und daß erlaubte, wenn auch nicht optimale Handlungen - auf der Grundlage einer Theorie der Vergeltung - nicht strafbar sind. (shrink)

Die Beiträge des Bands analysieren die vielen Gesichter der Gewalt und fragen nach übergreifenden Wesenszügen des Phänomens Gewalt. In phänomenologischer Perspektive rücken sie das erfahrende Subjekt ins Zentrum der Analyse. Der Band fokussiert Gewalt als ein perspektivisches Phänomen, als erlittene, verübte oder aus der Perspektive Dritter erfahrene, etwa bezeugte Gewalt, ohne zu unterstellen, dass sich schlicht von der Gewalt reden ließe. Dass der Sinn der Gewalt immer perspektivisch erfahren wird, besagt nicht, dass zwischen Gewalt als Widerfahrnis, als Intention und als (...) sozialem Ereignis ein unüberbrückbarer analytischer Abgrund bestünde, wie er handlungs- und diskurstheoretische Ansätze traditionell trennt. Vielmehr ist dem Sinn der Gewalt nur im Rückgang auf jenes Zwischenreich von subjektivem Sinn und objektiven Ordnungen auf die Spur zu kommen, in dem wir als leibliche Wesen der Welt Sinn abgewinnen, in dem aber auch unsere vielfältige Verletzlichkeit gründet. (shrink)

This article reviews empirical research on social security and social welfare law. It identifies the efforts needs to be carried out to promote empirical research in this area of law and outlines an empirical research agenda of topics that should be given priority. The UK defines social security as based on five key benefits viz. social/contributory, categorical/universal, tax-based, and occupational/means-tested. This article focuses on the primary model of administrative justice. It is a three-fold: bureaucratic rationality/accuracy and efficiency; professional treatment/service; and (...) moral judgment/fairness, each pair in the order of a model and its corresponding legitimizing values, respectively. Research on social security fraud identifies a two-fold basis—reflexivity: reflection/introspection on fraudulent acts, anxiety: the extent of guilt and insecurity, post-action, and anticipation of conviction. Accordingly, based on a relative synthesis of both elements, there is a four-fold categorization which goes as follows: subversive, desperate, fatalistic, and unprincipled. (shrink)

Albert of Saxony was one of the great logicians of the Middle Ages, on a par with William Ockham and John Buridan. The Twenty-Five Disputed Questions on Logic treat of central issues in logic, both then and now, such as the nature of meaning, of universals, of truth, and of tense and modality; and the quality and quantity of propositions, the role of negation, and the relations of contradiction and equivalence between them. Dr. Fitzgerald has studied Albert's work extensively, and (...) previously edited the Twenty-Five Disputed Questions from the original manuscripts. This translation makes available for the first time in English this careful and exemplary examination of logical notions by an outstanding medieval thinker.-Stephen Read, University of St. Andrews. (shrink)

The last decade has experienced a vivid enthusiasm to unravel the mystery of consciousness believed to be one of the major puzzles of human kind. We share this enthusiasm. Still, we feel that current models are incomplete suffering from a problem that we call the “small network argument”.

Legal orthodoxy has it that the wrong involved in breaking a promise, like that involved in breaking a contract, depends essentially on the making of a binding promise. It is in this sense sui generis. But philosophers are not so sanguine. T.M. Scanlon is the latest in a long line of moral philosophers who have sought to reduce the wrong of promise-breaking to a wider class of wrongs associated with a duty, variously formulated, not to disappoint the expectations one induces (...) in another. I argue that Scanlon's theory founders on a logical impasse that plages all such reductionist accounts. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 39.4 (2005) 119-131 [Access article in PDF] New Stages: Challenges for Teaching the Aesthetics of Drama Online Michael Anderson Introduction The history of drama education can be read as a series of arguments over dichotomies: process and product, theatre and classroom, artist and teacher, and so forth.1 One of the more recent discussions has focused on technology versus live classroom drama.2 At the (...) heart of these discussions is an attempt to define the aesthetic dimensions of the subject. In one sense, these are fruitful discussions to have as they reflect the dynamism of a live art form in schools. There seems, however, to be a tendency for these debates to entrench themselves into ideological positions. In this paper, I would like to promote the idea that we do not have to develop oppositions or dichotomies before finding that the middle ground provides the richest experiences for drama students. I would like to propose that we see these emerging technologies as providing yet other (albeit different) stages upon which the drama aesthetic can be played.3 Aesthetics and Drama Education Drama education has had an uneasy and often contentious relationship with discussions around aesthetics. Often the drama education community has split along two lines—those who value process and those who value product.4 Work by drama educators such as Judith McLean has demonstrated the centrality of the understanding of the aesthetic and the importance of putting an aesthetic understanding at the center of teaching and learning in drama.5 Her development of an Aesthetic Framework provides teachers with an approach for understanding the position of aesthetics within drama teaching and learning that bypasses the fruitless dichotomies [End Page 119] of process versus product. As most now agree, the drama classroom has a place for both process and product.6 In both, we can find important aesthetic features of drama education. The Challenge of Emerging Technologies and Drama Education Having weathered the dichotomies of the past, there are now fresh challenges to the understanding of drama and aesthetics. The prevalence of and pressure for integration of new technologies in the drama classroom are also challenging drama educators to incorporate technology within the drama aesthetic. The ubiquity of technology that relates to drama education is facing teachers with serious challenges to engage with a dramatic aesthetic in classrooms. Perhaps the most stunning challenge is the exposure and experience twenty-first-century children have to rapidly changing technologies. As Morris explains, students are exposed to more drama in settings other than classrooms and theatres: For most Australian children, experience of drama is less likely to be through live performance than through screen-based media such as television, film, videos, video games, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM and interactive web-based games. And their experience of live performance is most likely to be shaped by the use of technology for design elements such as set, lighting and sound.7This is a compelling and imminent challenge. If drama educators cannot or will not find ways to work with technology, students will find other places to express their creativity outside the drama classroom. Added to the pressure from students who have grown up with these technologies, there is increasing pressure from curriculum developers and school systems to integrate technology into teaching. Aesthetics, Technology, and Curriculum: An Evolving Relationship All authorities and educational policy bodies in Australia are mandating integration of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) into drama curriculum. Recently, the New South Wales (NSW) Board of Studies mandated ICT as an area of "cross curriculum content," necessitating its inclusion in all Years 7-10 syllabi (which include all of the arts).8 For instance, the Year 7-10 drama syllabus states "... teachers should allow students the opportunity to explore different information communication technologies in their class work."9Recent studies have demonstrated mixed rates of participation and enthusiasm for the introduction of ICT in Australia and internationally. In the Australian study, half the respondents surveyed were not using ICT of any kind in their drama education.10 A... (shrink)

Robert Fogelin agrees that arguments for Cartesian sceptism carry a heavy burden of theoretical commitment, for they take for granted, explicitly or implicitly, the foundationalist's idea that experimental knowledge is in some fully general way 'epistemologically prior' to knowledge of the world. He thinks, however, that there is a much more direct and commonsensical route to scepticism. Ordinary knowledge-claims are accepted on the basis of justificatory procedures that fall far short of eliminating all conceivable error-possibilities. As a result, it is (...) always possible, by bringing new errorpossibilities into play, to raise the 'level of scrutiny' to which a given knowledge-claim is subject, so that it no longer seems adequately justified. Philosophical theories of justification can be seen as attempts to repair this fragility of ordinary knowledge. But they fail, all succumbing to the Pyrrhonian modes of assumption, circularity or infinite regress. I argue that Fogelin's conception of varying levels of scrutiny leads at most to fallibilism and not to radical scepticism. More importantly, I show that changing the range of relevant defeaters to a given knowledge claim can do more that impose stricter standards for justification: it can change the subject by altering the direction of inquiry. We see from this that the introduction of 'sceptical hypotheses' (such as that Descartes's Evil Deceiver) are not best seen as raising standards to some maximal level but as introducing a new kind of evaluation which, without commitment to what I call 'epistemological realism,' does nothing to impugn the justificational status of ordinary knowledge-claims entered in ordinary contexts. (shrink)

The doctrine of double effect has a firm, respected position within Roman Catholic medical ethics. Neil M. Gorsuch, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, believes that this doctrine also enjoys a central place within U.S. law. This essay examines and assesses Gorsuch’s thesis. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 11.1 (Spring 2011): 31–40.

John Duns Scotus distinguished the ‘convertible’ transcendentals, from ‘disjunctive’ transcendental pairs The latter are mutually exclusive pairs that together cover all of being. This paper investigates the distinctive modal metaphysical account based on the necessary-contingent pair of disjunctive transcendentals, developed by Scotus in approaching the problem of divine foreknowledge and future contingents. Although Scotus commented several times on this problem, only in his Reportatio did he explicitly add a succinct exposition distinguishing between two kinds of contingency and two kinds of (...) necessity. This double understanding of the necessary-contingent pair is first of all systematically and schematically presented in the paper. Subsequently, instead of continuing with the problem of divine foreknowledge as such, the implications of this Scotist framework for an adequate metaphysical understanding of the human will and its freedom will be drawn out. Finally, these schemes are compared to recent literature on the central role of contingency in Scotus’s thought, especially to the research of A. Vos on synchronic contingency and J. Söder on operative contingency. (shrink)

These texts were created as part of a federally funded project (R305A200364) funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), targeted towards the use of low-tech immersive learning for social studies instruction in Ohio's fourth and fifth grade classrooms. Texts and materials created as part of the Digital Civic Learning curriculum are free for use for educational purposes.