Advanced Cell Technology's Ethics Advisory Board has been called window dressing for a corporate marketing plan. But the scientists and managers have paid attention, and the lawyers have gone along.

Many tasks in statistical and causal inference can be construed as problems of entailment in a suitable formal language. We ask whether those problems are more difficult, from a computational perspective, for causal probabilistic languages than for pure probabilistic (or “associational”) languages. Despite several senses in which causal reasoning is indeed more complex—both expressively and inferentially—we show that causal entailment (or satisfiability) problems can be systematically and robustly reduced to purely probabilistic problems. Thus there is no jump in computational complexity. (...) Along the way we answer several open problems concerning the complexity of well-known probability logics, in particular demonstrating the ${\exists \mathbb {R}}$ -completeness of a polynomial probability calculus, as well as a seemingly much simpler system, the logic of comparative conditional probability. (shrink)

Should there be a female age limit on public funding for assisted reproductive technology (ART)? The question bears significant economic and sociopolitical implications and has been contentious in many countries. We conceptualise the question as one of justice in resource allocation, using three much-debated substantive principles of justice—the capacity to benefit, personal responsibility, and need—to structure and then explore a complex of arguments. Capacity-to-benefit arguments are not decisive: There are no clear cost-effectiveness grounds to restrict funding to those older women (...) who still bear some capacity to benefit from ART. Personal responsibility arguments are challenged by structural determinants of delayed motherhood. Nor are need arguments decisive: They can speak either for or against a female age limit, depending on the conception of need used. We demonstrate how these principles can differ not only in content but also in the relative importance they are accorded by governments. Wide variation in ART public funding policy might be better understood in this light. We conclude with some inter-country comparison. New Zealand and Swedish policies are uncommonly transparent and thus demonstrate particularly well how the arguments we explore have been put into practice. (shrink)

The concept of the gene has been the central organizing theme of 20th century biology. Biology has become increasingly influential both for philosophers seeking a naturalized basis for epistemology, ethics, and the understanding of the mind, as well as for the human sciences generally. The central task of this work is to get the story right about genes and in so doing provide a critical and enabling resourse for use in the further pursuit of human self-understanding. ;The work begins with (...) a wide-ranging historical reconstruction and conceptual analysis of the meaning of "the gene" that results in defining and distinguishing two different "genes". Each of these can be seen as an heir to one of the two major historical trends in explaining the source of biological order---preformationism and epigenesis. The preformationist gene predicts phenotypes but only on an instrumental basis where immediate medical and/or economic benefits can be had. The gene of epigenesis , by contrast, is a developmental resource that provides templates for RNA and protein synthesis but has in itself no determinate relationship to organismal phenotypes. The seemingly prevalent idea that genes constitute information for traits is based, I argue, upon an unwarranted conflation of these two senses which is in effect held together by rhetorical glue. Beyond this historical, conceptual, and rhetorical inquiry the bulk of the dissertation then concerns itself with an empirically up-to-date analysis of the cell and molecular basis of biological order and of the pathological loss of same. In each of these chapters I structure my analysis with the idea in mind that the "conflated" view can be held empirically accountable. Major touchpoints in this work include the ideas of I. Kant, J. Blumenbach, K. E. von Baer, J. Muller, R. Virchow, W. Johannsen, R. Falk, J. Sapp, E. Schrodinger, M. Delbruick, G. Gamow, R. Doyle, L. Kay, S. Kauffman, E. Jablonka, J. Rothman, K. Yamamoto, P. Rous, H. Temin, J. M. Bishop, H. Harris, E. Stanbridge, D. L. Smithers, B. Vogelstein, E. Farber and H. Rubin. (shrink)

John R. Searle’s 1995 publication The Construction of Social Reality is the foundation of this collection of scholarly papers examining Searle's philosophical theories. Searle’s book sets out to reconstruct the ontology of the social sciences through an analysis of linguistic practices in the context of his celebrated work on intentionality. His book provided a stimulating account of institutional facts such as money and marriage and how they are created and replicated in everyday social life. The authors in this collection provide (...) a critical appraisal of these and other ideas presented in Searle’s original publication. The editors' introduction clearly outlines the main issues in the debate and provides a useful introduction to Searle's contributions to social science. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:16~ BOOK REVIEWS There are fairly frequent typographical errors in the text; most of them harmless hut one of them reverses the meaning of the sentence- " institutionally prescribed means " for " institutionally proscribed means" (p. 279), and a couple of them are comical-" In a previous part of this discussion (pp. 000-000) ", (p. 265); see also p. 274. MICHAEL STOCK, O.P. St. Stephen Priory Dover, Massachusetts (...) Rhetoric and Praxis: The Contribution of Classical Rhetoric to Prac· tical Reasoning. Edited by JEAN DIETZ Moss. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1986. Pp. 168. $24.00 (cloth). The six essays on classical rhetoric which constitute this collection were first presented at a conference entitled Classical Rhetoric and the Teaching of Freshman Composition held October 6-8, 1983, at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. In her excellent introduction, Jean Dietz Moss, the editor, indicates that the purpose of this collection of essays is " to retrieve from the classical age of rhetoric some methods of practical reasoning-methods of stimulating and ordering thought about matters of common concern-that might inform our teaching of writing today" (p. 1). This particular theme runs throughout all of the essays. Professor Moss informs us that the basis of these studies is the conviction that the act of reason has not changed since the time of the Sophists, Plato, and Aristotle, even though its forms have. The reasoning process is the same for us today as it was for those of the past. Armed with this conviction, the authors of these essays attempt to recover from classical rhetoric some means which will assist in the teaching of freshman composition. In the initial essay, Professor Schoeck gives the background and history of rhetoric, thus setting the stage for the essays which follow. These essays take up in turn five classical concepts: topoi, enthymeme, kairos, aitia and telos. The first two concepts are the more familiar and are derived from Aristotle's Rhetoric; the other three, while less familiar, are discovered throughout the writings of other philosophers and rhetoricians of the classical period. Professor Hairston focuses even more sharply on the cause of the present problem in writing among students. Hairston explains that early in the twentieth century rhetoric as an academic discipline was separated from the English BOOK REVIEWS 168 departments, and then, within a brief period of time, was dropped from the curriculum altogether. In the absence of rhetoric, the teaching of writing was left entirely to literature departments, and according to Hairston, this was a serious mistake. The romantic view held by most literature departments at that time led them to deal with writing as a nonrational activity. The papers in this collection put forward the view that composing is a cognitive task and training in rhetoric can assist in its development. Schoeck reflects the attitude of all the contributors when he proposes that what is needed now is a rhetoric for our times. " One of our purposes in these essays is to insure that there will be a renewed presentation that will keep pace with contemporary literary production" (p. 38). One must applaud the effort both to improve the writing of com· positions by students and to recover a part of classical rhetoric for our day. This particular effort to recover some of the riches of the past appears to be a part of a growing trend which the reviewer heartily endorses. By and large, this collection of essays is very good. However, a teacher of composition unfamiliar with rhetoric might find its usefulness limited. Although the terminology is defined within the context of the articles, it is my judgment that the essays would be found difficult to understand by one who had little or no previous familiarity with rhetoric. The usefulness of these essays would improve exponentially for someone who came to them equipped with some knowledge of classical rhetoric. None of the articles deals directly with the problem of teaching writing or communication. The participants at the con· ference at which these essays were originally presented had the advan· tage of ongoing discussions from which they were able to develop tactics to be implemented in the... (shrink)

ABSTRACT To address challenges to the primacy of the subject in speculative realism, we put Levi R. Bryant's object-oriented ontology in conversation with Jacques Lacan's register theory. In so doing, we recuperate an autonomous materiality for itself, providing a reading of the debate between Slavoj Žižek and Ernesto Laclau over the Lacanian Real and simultaneously providing a rich map of the being of subjectivity and modes of the rhetorical. We systematize Žižek's claim that each element of the register resonates with (...) the others to produce an ontical cartography: a map of the different intersections of the materially autonomous Real with the Symbolic and Imaginary elements of the Lacanian subject. By delimiting the characteristics of these intersections, we can better understand the different valences in which rhetoric operates without foreclosing the agency of objects and the objectivity of subjects. (shrink)

Alan R. Perreiah - Renaissance Truth and the Latin Language Turn - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44:2 Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.2 319-321 Ann Moss. Renaissance Truth and the Latin Language Turn. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. 306. Cloth, $74.00. Ann Moss offers an exciting and informative history of humanism from Johannes Balbus through Melanchthon, who completed the "turn" from scholastic to humanistic Latin. She marshals considerable evidence from lexicography and letters that scholastics and (...) humanists cultivated two idioms of Latin that created "two different mind-sets" , two "orders of truth-values" , and "two Latin speech communities that talked past one another" . While her main thesis that the "two linguistic universes" were "incommensurable" is questionable, it is a useful heuristic device to highlight differences between the two traditions. Moss illustrates many of her claims by controversies surrounding the legend of St. Ann, mother of Mary. Whether she is misled by the rhetoric of those heated debates on religious folklore, or whether they support her claim of "incommensurability" must be.. (shrink)

In his account of primitive people in D.R.N. 5 Lucretius says that they led a wandering, nomadic sort of existence ; ignorant of agriculture and husbandry, they were content to eat nuts and berries and the like , while streams and springs called them to quench their thirst : denique nota vagis silvestria templa tenebant nympharum… The rest of the sentence is a lush description of the streams which welled up from those woodland shrines, washing over rocks and moss, and (...) sometimes breaking out over the plain. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Art, Artists and Pedagogy. Philosophy and the Arts in Education ed. by Christopher Naughton, Gert Biesta, David R. ColeAnnette ZiegenmeyerChristopher Naughton, Gert Biesta, and David R. Cole, eds., Art, Artists and Pedagogy. Philosophy and the Arts in Education (New York: Routledge, 2018)The question about the role and purpose of the arts in education in the twenty-first century is an important issue being currently discussed in various publications.1 Despite (...) many valuable approaches about how to reflect on the challenges arts and education face today, no adequate and sustainable solution seems to have been worked out yet.In their book Art, Artists and Pedagogy, Christopher Naughton, Gert Biesta and David R. Cole (editors) and other co-authors explore new ways to rethink arts education in the twenty-first century via two main philosophies in education. The first one is based on Gert Biesta’s work, The Rediscovery of Teaching, that focuses on the relation of the arts to the world and on what kind of society we may wish to envisage by using concepts such as “grown-up-ness” and “middle ground.”2 The second one is based on Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, who provide a theoretical framework to look more deeply into the influence of state and global capital when taking decisions on how art education should develop in the future. Within their different positions, both philosophies also complement each other by sharing some relevant aspects concerning, for example, the value of arts in society. [End Page 104]Besides the editors who are leading academics in the arts, philosophy, and education, most of the co-authors are established professors and senior lecturers from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the USA. Considering the fact that the book is intended for educators who teach the arts at different age-levels in schools and universities or for artists working in the community, it is surprising that there are not more voices of contemporary artists and teachers integrated in the publication to capture the philosophical discourse being perceived from their viewpoints. This could add an interesting counterpoint to the philosophical approaches and thus widen the perspective on the subject.The book comprises fifteen chapters which can be read either individually or sequentially. In the introductory chapter, Biesta reflects on the potential of the arts in an era of growing economization of education. Representing the exploration and transformation of our desires, the arts can thus become a positive force for the ways in which we seek to exist in the world in grown-up modes. As a consequence, Biesta suggests an “approach of resistance in how we engage with others and how we come to terms with our own desires and those of the others.”3 He sees the work of the teacher as “interruptive” in that it raises the question about which desires appear to be helpful towards existing in a grown-up way in the world.4Many articles in the book use aspects of Biesta’s philosophy as a (methodological) starting point and lens to further develop their approach. To begin with, Mary Ann Hunter reflects on Biesta’s concept of “interruption” by examining how school partnerships with artists can be valued as a necessary interruption.5 According to Hunter, the way artists act “unteacherly” presents a chance to interrupt the regulatory practices of schooling and to thus ameliorate some of the negative impacts of assessment-focused teaching. Julianne Moss and Anne-Marie Morrissey also refer to Biesta, but concentrate on issues of identity and subjectivity by showing how the teacher comes to terms with herself, her desires, and those of the students (by mitigating her own knowledge and skills with those of her class). Robyn Ewing and John Saunders focus on the concept of grown- up-ness. With reference to a drama project with children from a primary school in the context of an Australian teacher professional learning program, Ewing and Saunders show that the process of co-creating drama work with children provides an open space within teaching where “transformative learning” can be experienced. Nico de Vos focuses on another interesting aspect by bringing in the philosophical idea of bodily connectedness in... (shrink)

Subset Spaces were introduced by L. Moss and R. Parikh in [8]. These spaces model the reasoning about knowledge of changing states.In [2] a kind of subset space called intersection space was considered and the question about the existence of a set of axioms that is complete for the logic of intersection spaces was addressed. In [9] the first author introduced the class of directed spaces and proved that any set of axioms for directed frames also characterizes intersection spaces.We give (...) here a complete axiomatization for directed spaces. We also show that it is not possible to reduce this set of axioms to a finite set. (shrink)

The article considers the conceptual pair of violence and the sacred as a commonplace ("topos”) of French scientific, philosophical, and religious thought of the 20th-21th centuries and explains why this pair was so relevant and attracted many dissimilar thinkers. Six authors are taken as the main examples: G. Bataille, R. Caillois, R. Girard, E. Levinas, M. Eliade, and J. Kristeva. For analytic purposes, the author identifies three "common factors” that unite them. Firstly, the influence of the French sociological school (Durkheim, (...) Hubert and Moss, Dumezil, Hertz etc.). Among other things, these scholars studied the religious meaning of blood, violent ascetics and sacrifice, conceptualizing violence as a pledge of social cohesion (Durkheim) or as a factor of transition from the profane to the sacred world (Hubert and Moss). Secondly, the ideas of these six thinkers were inspired by real violence, which they tried to comprehend via the concept of the sacred. In particular, their reflection was influenced by the cultural and personal experience of world wars. Third, this conceptual pair is value-charged and used to create a new religion or interpret the existing ones in heterodox way. As starting point for this creative process, Catholic or Orthodox Christianity, Christian atheism, and Judaism are taken. The author concludes that even if this topos is forgotten today, it undoubtedly remains significant for the history of sociology and philosophy, as well as for cultural history. (shrink)

This paper explores the space of (propositional) probabilistic logical languages, ranging from a purely `qualitative' comparative language to a highly `quantitative' language involving arbitrary polynomials over probability terms. While talk of qualitative vs. quantitative may be suggestive, we identify a robust and meaningful boundary in the space by distinguishing systems that encode (at most) additive reasoning from those that encode additive and multiplicative reasoning. The latter includes not only languages with explicit multiplication but also languages expressing notions of dependence and (...) conditionality. We show that the distinction tracks a divide in computational complexity: additive systems remain complete for NP, while multiplicative systems are robustly complete for ∃ℝ. We also address axiomatic questions, offering several new completeness results as well as a proof of non-finite-axiomatizability for comparative probability. Repercussions of our results for conceptual and empirical questions are addressed, and open problems are discussed. (shrink)

It is argued that the so-called fitting attitude- or buck-passing pattern of analysis may be applied to personal values too if the analysans is fine-tuned in the following way: An object has personal value for a person a, if and only if there is reason to favour it for a’s sake. One benefit with it is its wide range: different kinds of values are analysable by the same general formula. Moreover, by situating the distinguishing quality in the attitude rather than (...) the reason part, the analysis admits that personal value is recognizable as a value not only by the person for whom it has personal value, but for everyone else too. We thereby avoid facing two completely different notions of value, viz., one pertaining to impersonal value, and another to personal value. The analysis also elucidates why we are justified in our concern for objects that are valuable for us; if value just is, as it is suggested, the existence of reasons for such a concern, the justification is immediately forthcoming. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Philosophy of Bishop Stillingfleet RICHARD H. POPKIN EDWARD STILLINGFLEET(1635-1699), the Bishop of Worcester, is known only as Locke's opponent. Although he was a leading figure in seventeenth century intellectual history, he is now almost completely forgotten.1 He is only mentioned once in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy as the first person to write against Deism. 2 His texts have been ditlicult to locate, and have hardly been studied. Although (...) Locke's answers to him comprise a large volume in Locke's Works, little interest has been shown in Stillingfleet's side of the story. His letters to Locke were last printed in the 1710 edition of his works. (I am now publishing a photoreproduction edition of the attacks on Locke, and a photoreproduction of the six volumes of his works is due soon.) In spite of this neglect, Stillingfleet was a quite interesting figure. He was not a simple moss-back, a religious reactionary, fighting progressive theories like Locke's. Rather, he was trying to maintain some basis for religious belief in the face of the intellectual upheavals in the seventeenth century. For over forty years he struggled against a wide range of philosophical and theological developments of the time that he saw as leading to scepticism and infidelity. Stillingfleet attempted to defend the reasonableness of Christianity in an intellectual world dominated by the new science, the new philosophy, the religious wars, the rise of irreligion, Bible criticism, and Spinozism. In the new scientific, philosophical and theological context he sought to show how an intelligent, reasonable man could maintain his religious views as more probable than their denials. And, he tried to show the perils involved in various new lines of thought. As he wrote to Locke, "in an age wherein the Mysteries of Faith are so much exposed by the Promoters of Scepticism and Infidelity, it is a thing of dangerous consequence to start such new methods of Certainty as are apt to leave men's minds more doubtJull than before." 3 Stillingfleet criticized various new views of thinkers like Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza and Locke, and tried to show that they were unreasonable and x No section is devoted to Stillingfleet in Charles de R~musat's Histoire de la Philosophie en Angleterre depuis Bacon jusqu'gt Locke, 2 vols. (Paris, 1875). He is of course briefly treated by Locke scholars, but only in relation to Locke. 2 Ernest C. Mossner, "Deism," Encyclopedia of Philosophy ('New York, 1967), II, 328. 3 Edward StiUingfleet,The Bishop o~ Worcester's Answer to Mr. Locke's Letter (London, 1697), pp. 37-38. [303] 304 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY destructive. Instead he advocated a commonsense philosophy incorporating Aristotelian and Stoic elements, as an adequate basis for a reasonable view of the world. Stillingflect's critique of empiricism, in its Epicurean and Lockean forms, revealed some of the basic difficulties in this emerging philosophy. His own views in some ways foreshadowed the counter-philosophy that Thomas Reid was to offer a century later against the full-blown empirical scepticism of Hume. And Hume's essay "Of Miracles" can, I believe, be seen as the reductio ad absurdum of Stillingfleet's commonsense philosophy. In this paper I shall try to sketch out Bishop Stilhngfleet's philosophy, and to indicate the role it played in the history of British empirical thought. The Bishop's attack on Locke only occurred at the very end of his long and fruitful intellectual career. (He died during the debate in 1699.) To appreciate why he was so concerned with exposing the sceptical and irreligious tendencies in Locke's thought, and the potential conflicts between empiricism and the tenets of Judeo-Christianity, one has to look at his entire theological and philosophical career. Stillingfleet was one of the most erudite divines of the seventeenth century, a leading member of the brilliant group of Anglican theologians, including, besides himself, William Chillingworth, Bishop John Wilkins (the founder of the Royal Society), and Archbishop John Tillotson.4 Stillingfleet was extremely sensitive to the fundamental issues being raised in the religious, scientific and philosophical debates of the time, and tried, like his fellow Anglican divines, to develop a commonsense semirational, semiempirical defense... (shrink)

This paper traces the shift from the age of realism to the age of virtualism we are currently witnessing. To do so, I draw on older theories announcing this advent (mostly Baudrillard in Simulacra and simulation. Transl. Sheila Glaser. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1994 [1981]; Serres in Atlas. Édition Julliard, Paris, 1994; Virilio in The vision machine. Transl. Rose J. Indiana UP, Bloomington, 1994). I will describe how AI destabilizes fundamental distinctions upon which reality is built—such as the difference (...) between truth and fiction, between existence and simulation, between the actual and the potential, between game and everyday life, between person and avatar. Against the backdrop of a broader notion of the virtual (drawing on Deleuze in The actual and the virtual. Transl. Eliot Ross Albert in Parnet C Dialogues. Bloomsbury, London, pp 148–152, 2006 [1996]), I will read current realist theories (Chalmers in Reality plus—virtual worlds and the problems of philosophy. Allen Lane, London in 2022; Gabriel in Why the world does not exist. Transl. Gregory S. Moss. Polity, Cambridge, 2015; Ferraris in Positive realism. Zero Books, Arlesford, 2015; Meillassoux in After finitude—an essay on the necessity of contingency. Transl. Brassler R. Bloomsbury, London, 2008) as symptoms of the ongoing shift (rather than countermeasures against it), because they result in an inability to do justice to the epistemic and existential changes resulting from the erosion of the foundations of reality. The consequences of this shift are hard to predict and can only partially be outlined in this paper, which will end in a cautious attempt to do so (chapters 5 and 6). Starting off with a brief overview on this topic (chapter 1), I will trace the reasons for my diagnosis focusing first on what I call the “age of reality” currently coming to an end (chapter 2), then on why virtuality cannot be subsumed under reality (chapter 3), then how virtuality is currently replacing reality (chapter 4). (shrink)

Chemical structures are among the trademarks of our profession, as surely chemical as flasks, beakers and distillation columns. When someone sees one of us busily scribbling formulas or structures, he or she has no trouble identifying a chemist. Yet these familiar objects, which accompany our work from start to end, from the initial doodlings (Fig. I) to the final polished artwork in a publication (Fig. II), are deceptively simple. They raise interesting and difficult questions about representation. It is the intent (...) of this article to reflect upon molecular graphics. (shrink)

R T Allen; The Meaning of Life and Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 25, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 47–58, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9.

This distinction has sometimes been read as purely epistemic, resting not on things, but on our knowledge of them: there is one world, not two, though it may be apprehended in two ways. But this view is patently at odds with the text. Knowledge and opinion are δυνάμεις, "faculties," to be distinguished and defined by their objects, no less than by the state of mind they produce, and Plato clearly states that the fallibility and unclearness of opinion is rooted in (...) the relative unreality of opinables. (shrink)

This article draws on scientific explanations of obesity to motivate the creation of a system of paternalistic public health interventions into the obesity epidemic. Libertarian paternalists argue that paternalism is warranted in light of the cognitive limits of human decision-making abilities. There are further, specific biological limits on our capacity to choose and maintain a healthy diet. These biological facts strengthen the general motivation for libertarian paternalism. As a consequence, the creation of a system of paternalistic public health interventions into (...) the obesity epidemic is warranted. (shrink)

In this essay I wish to raise the question of whether it is meaningful to say that a certain sort of robot is in pain. This is, of course, not an empirical question. There exists no robot of the sort I shall describe. But, I shall argue, if such a robot did in fact exist, it would be meaningful to say it is in pain.

Objectives—To assess perceptions of the informed consent process in patients undergoing urgent abdominal surgery.Design—A prospective observational study was carried out using structured questionnaire-based interviews. Patients who had undergone urgent abdominal surgery were interviewed in the postoperative period to ascertain their perceptions of the informed consent process. Replies were compared to responses obtained from a control group undergoing elective surgery, to identify factors common to the surgical process and those specific to urgent surgery. Patients' perceptions of received information were also compared (...) to the information perceived to have been provided by the consent obtainers. Setting—Gastrointestinal surgical service of a university teaching hospital.Patients—Seventy-four consecutive patients undergoing urgent abdominal surgery and 80 control patients undergoing elective surgery. Main measurements—Principal outcome measures were patients' perceptions of factors interfering with the ability to give informed consent, assessment of the quality of informed consent and the degree of discussion of the expected outcomes. Results—Forty-nine of the seventy-four (66%) patients undergoing urgent surgery perceived that pain did not affect their ability to give informed consent. Twenty-seven reported an adverse effect of analgesia on the ability to give informed consent. Only 22% of patients undergoing urgent surgery perceived that there had been any discussion of potential side effects and complications of surgery. Conclusion–The majority of patients in this series with acute intra-abdominal surgical conditions perceive that they retain the ability to give informed consent for surgery. There is a need for improved discussion of therapeutic options and likely outcomes. (shrink)