The hypothesis that play behavior is more prevalent in larger-brained animals has recently been challenged. It may be, for example, that only certain brain structures are related to play. Here, we analyze social play behavior with regards to the cerebellum: a structure strongly implicated in motor-development, and possibly also in cognitive skills. We present an evolutionary analysis of social play and the cerebellum, using a phylogenetic comparative method. Social play frequency and relative cerebellum size are positively correlated. Hence, there appears (...) to be a link between the evolutionary elaboration of social play and the cerebellum. (shrink)

Pancreatitis is a complex, progressively destructive inflammatory disorder. Alcohol was long thought to be the primary causative agent, but genetic contributions have been of interest since the discovery that rare PRSS1, CFTR and SPINK1 variants were associated with pancreatitis risk. We now report two associations at genome-wide significance identified and replicated at PRSS1-PRSS2 and X-linked CLDN2 through a two-stage genome-wide study. The PRSS1 variant likely affects disease susceptibility by altering expression of the primary trypsinogen gene. The CLDN2 risk allele is (...) associated with atypical localization of claudin-2 in pancreatic acinar cells. The homozygous CLDN2 genotype confers the greatest risk, and its alleles interact with alcohol consumption to amplify risk. These results could partially explain the high frequency of alcohol-related pancreatitis in men. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Important features of the self-concept can be located outside of the individual and inside close or related others. The authors use this insight to reinterpret data previously said to support the empathy-altruism model of helping, which asserts that empathic concern for another results in selflessness and true altruism. That is, they argue that the conditions that lead to empathic concern also lead to a greater sense of self-other overlap, raising the possibility that helping under these conditions is not selfless but (...) is also directed toward the self. In 3 studies, the impact of empathic concern on willingness to help was eliminated when oneness--a measure of perceived self-other overlap--was considered. Path analyses revealed further that empathic concern increased helping only through its relation to perceived oneness, thereby throwing the empathy-altruism model into question. The authors suggest that empathic concern affects helping primarily as an emotional signal of oneness. (shrink)

Explores different applications of Aristotle's hypothesis on the components of form, matter and pyschological states.

ABSTRACT:A wide range of research uses patterns of genetic variation to infer genetic similarity between individuals, typically referred to as genetic ancestry. This research includes inference of human demographic history, understanding the genetic architecture of traits, and predicting disease risk. Researchers are not just structuring an intellectual inquiry when using genetic ancestry, they are also creating analytical frameworks with broader societal ramifications. This essay presents an ethics framework in the spirit of virtue ethics for these researchers: rather than focus on (...) rule following, the framework is designed to build researchers’ capacities to react to the ethical dimensions of their work. The authors identify one overarching principle of intellectual freedom and responsibility, noting that freedom in all its guises comes with responsibility, and they identify and define four principles that collectively uphold researchers’ intellectual responsibility: truthfulness, justice and fairness, anti-racism, and public beneficence. Researchers should bring their practices into alignment with these principles, and to aid this, the authors name three common ways research practices infringe these principles, suggest a step-by-step process for aligning research choices with the principles, provide rules of thumb for achieving alignment, and give a worked case. The essay concludes by identifying support needed by researchers to act in accord with the proposed framework. (shrink)

At the heart of Levinas’s work is the apparently simple idea that through the encounter with another person, we are forced to give up our self-concern and take heed of the ethical relation between us. But, while simple on the surface, when one tries to characterize it in more detail, it can be hard to fit together the various ways in which Levinas talks about this relation and to identify precisely what he took its normative structure to be, as this (...) is described in a number of apparently different ways, that are not obviously compatible or equivalent, such as “command,” “call,” “summons,” “demand,” and so on. In this chapter, we intend to focus on these different characterizations and show what makes them different while also endeavoring to find a way in which Levinas’s conception may nonetheless be fitted together into a coherent account of the face-to-face encounter that is at the heart of his ethics. We will begin by considering the different normative terms used to characterize the encounter in that text and show how they are conceptually distinct from one another; we will then offer a way to read Levinas’s position to nonetheless show how these different normative relations can be fitted together into a stable position. (shrink)

This paper investigates the impact of activism on a large, powerful corporation in Tasmania. Gunns Ltd was a large woodchip processor in Tasmania that fought a long-running battle with environmental activists regarding Gunns’ logging and processing activities. The study focuses on events in 2004–2005, when Gunns applied to build a pulp mill in rural northern Tasmania and began a legal case against activists. The research question is whether there is clear statistical evidence that these events were important, as is widely (...) believed, in the ultimate failure of Gunns in, just 6 years after being the largest and one of the most financially successful Tasmanian companies. We use a mixed methods approach that combines a detailed narrative informed by theory, to examine issues of corporate social responsibility and ethical behaviour, with an econometric time series analysis of the impact of activism on the market value of Gunns. Our analysis supports the contention that the events in 2004–2005 played a significant part in the decline of the long-run market value of Gunns over the subsequent period, through to its failure in 2011. We discuss the underlying causes for Gunns’ failure in terms of agency, stakeholder, legitimacy and leadership theories. Research frequently assesses effects such as those in the Gunns’ case through solely qualitative means. This paper integrates a quantitative analysis into a detailed qualitative narrative and theoretical interpretation of events, to provide additional precision to its findings. It contributes to research in CSR and the impact of activism. (shrink)

The opening chapter of Genesis makes a lofty claim about the human condition: that humans are created in the image of God. But why can humans image God? This article examines four different interpretations of humans as interpretive animals. Following Martin Heidegger's account of Dasein, I argue that humans are interpretive animals, and as such, are suitable creatures to bear God's image. Humans as interpretive animals function as the image of God, not because of divine fiat; instead, humans in their (...) capacities are open to being the image. My argument is not that the image of God is identifiable as particular human features. Instead, it is the fact that humans have specific capacities that make them interpretive animals (e.g., radical openness, thrownness, malleability) and that these traits are constitutive for what it means to be human. Alongside Heidegger, I draw on the works of Charles Taylor, Claudia Welz, and Kathryn Tanner. (shrink)

This book has been written in the hopes of equipping teachers-in-training—that is, teacher candidates—with the skills needed for action research: a process that leads to focused, effective, and responsive strategies that help students succeed.

I formulate a counterfactual version of the notorious ‘Ramsey Test’. Whereas the Ramsey Test for indicative conditionals links credence in indicatives to conditional credences, the counterfactual version links credence in counterfactuals to expected conditional chance. I outline two forms: a Ramsey Identity on which the probability of the conditional should be identical to the corresponding conditional probability/expectation of chance; and a Ramsey Bound on which credence in the conditional should never exceed the latter. Even in the weaker, bound, form, the (...) counterfactual Ramsey Test makes counterfactuals subject to the very argument that Lewis used to argue against the indicative version of the Ramsey Test. I compare the assumptions needed to run each, pointing to assumptions about the time‐evolution of chances that can replace the appeal to Bayesian assumptions about credence update in motivating the assumptions of the argument. I finish by outlining two reactions to the discussion: to indicativize the debate on counterfactuals; or to counterfactualize the debate on indicatives. (shrink)

We show that, in terms of both implication and consistency strength, an extendible with a larger strong cardinal is stronger than an enhanced supercompact, which is itself stronger than a hypercompact, which is itself weaker than an extendible. All of these are easily seen to be stronger than a supercompact. We also study Cn‐supercompactness.

I formulate a counterfactual version of the notorious 'Ramsey Test'. Whereas the Ramsey Test for indicative conditionals links credence in indicatives to conditional credences, the counterfactual version links credence in counterfactuals to expected conditional chance. I outline two forms: a Ramsey Identity on which the probability of the conditional should be identical to the corresponding conditional probabihty/expectation of chance; and a Ramsey Bound on which credence in the conditional should never exceed the latter.Even in the weaker, bound, form, the counterfactual (...) Ramsey Test makes counterfactuals subject to the very argument that Lewis used to argue against the indicative version of the Ramsey Test. I compare the assumptions needed to run each, pointing to assumptions about the time-evolution of chances that can replace the appeal to Bayesian assumptions about credence update in motivating the assumptions of the argument.I finish by outlining two reactions to the discussion: to indicativize the debate on counterfactuals; or to counterfactualize the debate on indicatives. (shrink)

For the past 30 years, Paget Henry has been one of the most articulate and creative voices in Caribbean scholarship, making seminal contributions to the study of Caribbean political economy, C.L.R. James studies, critical theory, phenomenology, and Africana philosophy. This volume includes some of his most important essays from across his remarkable career, providing an introduction to a broad range of pressing contemporary themes and to the unique mind of one of the leading Caribbean intellectuals of his generation.

We describe a general method for verifying inequalities between real-valued expressions, especially the kinds of straightforward inferences that arise in interactive theorem proving. In contrast to approaches that aim to be complete with respect to a particular language or class of formulas, our method establishes claims that require heterogeneous forms of reasoning, relying on a Nelson-Oppen-style architecture in which special-purpose modules collaborate and share information. The framework is thus modular and extensible. A prototype implementation shows that the method is promising, (...) complementing techniques that are used by contemporary interactive provers. (shrink)

David Lewis is widely credited with the first formulation of common knowledge and the first rigorous analysis of convention. However, common knowledge and convention entered mainstream game theory only when they were formulated, later and independently, by other theorists. As a result, some of the most distinctive and valuable features of Lewis' game theory have been overlooked. We re-examine this theory by reconstructing key parts in a more formal way, extending it, and showing how it differs from more (...) recent game theory. In contrast to current theories of common knowledge, Lewis' theory is based on an explicit analysis of the modes of reasoning that are accessible to rational individuals and so can be used to analyse the genesis of common knowledge. Lewis' analysis of convention emphasises the role of inductive reasoning and of salience in the maintenance of conventions over time. Footnotes Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 13th Amsterdam Colloquium at the University of Amsterdam, at a workshop on social norms at Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, and at seminars at Tilburg University and the University of Bristol. We are grateful for comments from participants at those meetings, from two anonymous referees, and from Michael Bacharach, Nick Bardsley, Cristina Bicchieri, Luc Bovens, Simon Grant, David McCarthy, Shepley Orr, Brian Skyrms, Peter Vanderschraaf, Peter Wakker and Jörgen Weibull. Robert Sugden's work was supported by the Leverhulme Trust. (shrink)

The topic of this essay is what I name the idea that God the Creator and creatures comprise an exhaustive and mutually exclusive classification of the contents of reality. I am concerned with one of the most penetrating discussions of this issue to be found in the early thirteenth century, Robert Grosseteste’s treatment of challenges to Christian dualism.

David Lewis's account of intentionality is a version of what he calls 'global descriptivism'. The rough idea is that the correct interpretation of one's total theory is the one (among the admissible interpretations) that come closest to making it true. I give an exposition of this account, as I understand it, and try to bring out some of its consequences. I argue that there is a tension between Lewis's global descriptivism and his rejection of a linguistic account of (...) the intentionality of thought. I distinguish some different senses in which Lewis's theory might permit, or be committed to, a kind of holism about intentional content, and I consider the sense in which Lewis's account might be said to be an internalist account, and the motivation for this kind of internalism. (shrink)

The COVID‐19 pandemic has placed extraordinary stress on frontline healthcare providers as they encounter significant challenges and risks while caring for patients at the bedside. This study used qualitative research methods to explore nurses and respiratory therapists' experiences providing direct care to COVID‐19 patients during the first surge of the pandemic at a large academic medical center in the Northeastern United States. The purpose of this study was to explore their experiences as related to changes in staffing models and to (...) consider needs for additional support. Twenty semi‐structured interviews were conducted with sixteen nurses and four respiratory therapists via Zoom or by telephone. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, identifiers were removed, and data was coded and analyzed thematically. Five major themes characterize providers' experiences: a fear of the unknown, concerns about infection, perceived professional unpreparedness, isolation and alienation, and inescapable stress and distress. This manuscript analyzes the relationship between these themes and the concept of moral distress and finds that some, but not all, of the challenges that providers faced during this time align with previous definitions of the concept. This points to the possibility of broadening the conceptual parameters of moral distress to account for providers' experiences of treating patients with novel illnesses while encountering institutional and clinical challenges. (shrink)

With each novel infectious disease outbreak, there is scholarly attention to healthcare providers’ obligation to assume personal risk while they care for infected patients. While most agree that healthcare providers have a duty to assume some degree of risk, the extent of this obligation remains uncertain. Furthermore, these analyses rarely examine healthcare institutions’ obligations during these outbreaks. As a result, there is little practical guidance for healthcare institutions that are forced to weigh whether or when to exclude healthcare providers from (...) providing care or allow them to opt out from providing care to protect themselves. This article uses the COVID-19 pandemic to examine the concept of risk and the professional duties of both healthcare providers and healthcare institutions, and proposes a framework that can be used to make concrete institutional policy choices. This framework should be a useful tool for any hospital, clinic, or health agency that must make these choices during the current pandemic and beyond. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Influences Exemplarism, truth, and knowledge Body and soul Free will Future contingency and modality Cosmology Time and eternity The eternity of the world.

Over the last decade or so, the rate of growth of academic publications involving discussion of ‘citizen science’ and ‘community science’, and similar variants, has risen exponentially. These fluid terms, with no fixed definition, cover a continuum of public participation within a range of scientific activities. It is, therefore, apposite and timely to examine the evolving typologies of citizen science and community science and to ask how particular disciplinary actors are shaping content and usage. Do certain approaches to citizen science (...) and community science activity remain siloed within specific disciplines or do some approaches resonate more widely? In this study, we use mixed methods—bibliometric and textual analysis—to chart the changing academic interpretations of this scientific activity over time. We then ask what these analyses mean for the future direction of academic research into citizen science and community science. The results suggest that, while certain disciplinary-based interpretations have been particularly influential in the past, a more epistemically mixed array of academic interests than was previously evident are currently determining expectations of what citizen science and community science should look like and what they can be expected to deliver. (shrink)

David Lewis has argued that there must be a difference between indicative and counterfactual conditionals beyond an indication of truth-value commitments. He cites the following contrast to show this: If Oswald did not shoot Kennedy, then someone else did. If Oswald had not shot Kennedy, then someone else would have. In response, it is shown that this difference is better explained by shifts in context. Keep context fixed, the contrast disappears. EG: If Oswald was not the one who shot (...) Kennedy, then someone else was. If Oswald had not been the one who shot Kennedy, then someone else would have been. (shrink)

This book contains new critical editions of the Latin texts of Robert Grosseteste's 13th century treatise on free will, De libero arbitrio, with complete English translations. Included is a substantial study of the texts, their place in Grosseteste's body of works, doctrinal content, employment by later thinkers, and manuscript sources.

David Lewis's best-system analysis of laws of nature is perhaps the best known sophisticated regularity theory of laws. Its strengths are widely recognized, even by some of its ablest critics. Yet it suffers from what appears to be a glaring weakness: It seems to grant an arbitrary privilege to the standards of our own scientific culture. I argue that by reformulating, or reinterpreting, Lewis's exposition of the best-system analysis, we arrive at a view that is free of this (...) weakness. The resulting theory of laws has the surprising consequence that the term "law of nature" is indexical. (shrink)

Few figures of the Middle Ages command the attention of so many modern disciplines as Robert Grosseteste (c. 1170-1253). Theology, Philosophy, History, and Science are all areas which his life and thought continue to have significance and to inspire re-interpretation. Accompanied by a series of original commentaries, this new edition of Grosseteste's work, with English translation, draws together the perspectives of modern scientists and medieval specialists. Volume I of a six volume series, Knowing and Speaking presents two of the (...) earliest of Grosseteste's works, the treatises On the Liberal Arts and On the Generation of Sounds. These are accompanied by a significant Middle English treatise on the Seven Liberal Arts whose anonymous fifteenth-century author translated and excerpted passages from Grosseteste's treatises in a re-imagining of their structure and function.0Each work is treated separately within the volume, which is constructed in three parts. On the Liberal Arts sets Grosseteste's thoughts on the arts subjects and emphasises moral concerns about the purpose of learning. On the Generation of Sounds builds on the theories and statements of On the Liberal Arts in connection to the production of sound, elaborating the earlier position, relating the generation of sounds to human vocal and speech production. (shrink)

The Lady of Linshui Pacifies Demons: A Seventeenth-Century Novel. Translated by Kristin Ingrid Fryklund; introduction by Mark Edward Lewis and Brigitte Baptandier. Seattle: University of Washington press, 2021. Pp. xxiv + 280. $35.

Jonathan Schaffer (2004 ) proposes an ingenious amendment to David Lewis's semantics for counterfactuals. This amendment explicitly invokes the notion of causal independence, thus giving up Lewis's ambitions for a reductive counterfactual account of causation. But in return, it rescues Lewis's semantics from extant counterexamples. I present a new counterexample that defeats even Schaffer's amendment. Further, I argue that a better approach would be to follow the causal modelling literature and evaluate counterfactuals via an explicit postulated causal (...) structure. This alternative approach easily resolves the new counterexample, as well as all the previous ones. Up to now, its perceived drawback relative to Lewis's scheme has been its non-reductiveness. But since the same drawback applies equally to Schaffer's amended scheme, this becomes no longer a point of comparative disadvantage. (shrink)

The present paper analyzes the self‐generated explanations (from talk‐aloud protocols) that “Good” and “Poor” students produce while studying worked‐out examples of mechanics problems, and their subsequent reliance on examples during problem solving. We find that “Good” students learn with understanding: They generate many explanations which refine and expand the conditions for the action parts of the example solutions, and relate these actions to principles in the text. These self‐explanations are guided by accurate monitoring of their own understanding and misunderstanding. Such (...) learning results in example‐independent knowledge and in a better understanding of the principles presented in the text. “Poor” students do not generate sufficient self‐explanations, monitor their learning inaccurately, and subsequently rely heavily on examples. We then discuss the role of self‐explanations in facilitating problem solving, as well as the adequacy of current AI models of explanation‐based learning to account for these psychological findings. (shrink)

This dissertation studies Grosseteste's attempt in his De libero arbitrio to develop a theory of non-temporal modality which severs possibility and changeability. It consists in close philosophical analysis of Grosseteste's views, based on new editions and translations of De libero arbitrio, De scientia Dei, and De veritate propositionis contained in the Appendices. ;After studying the theories of modality proposed by Boethius, Abelard, and twelfth century logic texts, together with the logico-linguistic framework thirteenth century writers drew from them, I examine the (...) basic assumptions and motivations of Grosseteste's discussion: the notions of sentences and dicta, time-variable truth-value, the notion of power, the problem of reconciling divine knowledge and human free will. ;I identify two main modal theories in Grosseteste, one linking possibility with changeability of truth-value and bearing similarities with as well as important differences from the theories of the twelfth century logicians; the other presented as a reaction to this theory and, in particular, to its unusual claim that true sentences about future contingents are necessary. I attempt to make sense of this by a reconstruction of the theory, making use of the notion of dense time. ;I then investigate in detail Grosseteste's theory of the eternal truths, with an eye to its relation to his theories of modality. I show that Grosseteste's sophisticated theory is not a theory of modality; the theory is seen, nonetheless, to highlight obscurities in Grosseteste's account of non-temporal modality. ;The account of non-temporal modality rests on the notion of a dictim's eternal power; these powers are reduced to God's eternal powers. I critically examine Grosseteste's defense of the idea of divine power, highlighting the difficulties he viewed the notion of the actualizability of a power and of its priority to act as posing. His views on these matters are compared with those of Scotus. ;I investigate the theory of non-temporal modality erected on this basis and, in particular, its reduction to divine powers, the adequacy of the strategy, and Grosseteste's use of the theory to solve the problem divine knowledge poses for free will. (shrink)

David lewis has argued that--Despite the 'fission' cases--One may consistently hold both that what matters in survival is "mental continuity and connectedness" and that what matters in survival is identity. To prove his point, He produces a certain theory of persons. Derek parfit and penelope maddy have objected that the theory lewis produces does not actually have the advantages he claims for it. In this paper, The author questions their objections, And then argues that, Even though lewis's (...) theory has many virtues, No sufficiently knowledgeable person can be justified in accepting it (here and now) as an adequate theory of persons. (shrink)

Disturbances of consciousness, including fluctuations in attention and awareness, are a common and clinically important symptom in dementia with Lewy bodies. In the present study we investigate potential mechanisms of such disturbances of consciousness in a clinicopathological study evaluating specific components of the cholinergic system. [3H]Epibatidine binding to the high-affinity nicotinic receptor in the temporal cortex differentiated DLB cases with and without DOC, being 62–66% higher in those with DOC. The were no differences between DLB patients with or without DOC (...) in 125I-labeled α-bungaratoxin binding to the low-affinity nicotinic receptor, [3H]pirenzepine binding to the muscarinic M1 receptor, or in choline acetyltransferase activity. These findings provide support for the hypothesis that cholinergic activity is an important neural correlate if consciousness and suggest a mechanism of DOC in DLB involving alterations in the nicotinic receptor, composed of predominantly α4 and β2 subunits. (shrink)