We argue that there is a variety of convention, effective coordinating agreement, that has not been adequately identified in the literature. Its distinctive feature is that it is a structure of conditional we-intentions of parties, unlike more familiar varieties of convention, which are structures of expectations and preferences or obligations. We argue that status functions constitutively involve this variety of convention, and that what is special about it explains, and gives precise content to the central feature of (...) class='Hi'>status functions, namely, that objects with status functions can perform their functions only insofar as they have been collectively accepted as having them. (shrink)

This article discusses John Searle’s status function account of human rights and Åsa Burman’s “A Critique of the Status Function Account of Human Rights.” While recognizing the validity of part of the critique, based on the distinction between types and tokens, the author argues that, nonetheless, one is not compelled to accept Burman’s conclusion, that “one must give up the status function account of human rights to explain how a human right can exist without collective recognition”. Specifically, (...) the author accepts Burman’s critique of Searle’s attempt to preserve the intuition that human rights have existed without collective recognition, but concludes offering three ways to understand human rights even in the absence of collective recognition, all of which preserve the status function account. (shrink)

This contradiction ”1. The universal right to free speech did not exist before the European Enlightenment, at which time it came into existence. 2. The universal right to free speech has always existed, but this right was recognized only at the time of the European Enlightenment.” draws on two common and conflicting intuitions: The human right to free speech exists because institutions, or the law, says so. In contrast, the human right to free speech can exist independently of institutions—these institutions (...) simply recognize a right we already have. John Searle argues that his status function account of human rights can preserve both intuitions by showing that the inconsistency between and is merely apparent. I argue that this solution works for tokens of human rights but not for types, while the contradiction concerns types. Hence, the status function account of human rights fails to preserve both intuitions. (shrink)

In this article, I articulate and defend an account of corporations motivated by John Searle’s discussion of them in his Making the Social World. According to this account, corporations are abstract entities that are the products of status function Declarations. They are also connected with, though not reducible to, various people and certain of the power relations among them. Moreover, these connections are responsible for corporations having features that stereotypical abstract entities lack (e.g., the abilities to take actions and (...) make profits). (shrink)

In this article, I articulate and defend an account of corporations motivated by John Searle’s discussion of them in his Making the Social World. According to this account, corporations are abstract entities that are the products of status function Declarations. They are also connected with, though not reducible to, various people and certain of the power relations among them. Moreover, these connections are responsible for corporations having features that stereotypical abstract entities lack (e.g., the abilities to take actions and (...) make profits). (shrink)

We are able to participate in countless different sorts of social practice. This indefinite set of capacities must be explainable in terms of a finite stock of capacities. This paper compares and contrasts two different explanations. A standard decomposition of the capacity to participate in social practices goes something like this: the interpreter arrives on the scene with a stock of generic practice-types. He looks at the current scene to fill-in the current tokens of these types. He looks at the (...) current state of these practice tokens to see what actions are available to him. He uses his current desires to choose between these various possible actions. I argue that this standard explanation is defective, drawing on arguments by Searle and Wittgenstein and Garfinkel. I propose an alternative explanation, in which the participants must continually show each other the state of the scene in order to maintain the scene’s intelligibility. I provide a simple formal language in which to describe this alternative approach, in which we can state quite precisely what someone is doing when they participate in a practice. This language is related to both deontic and epistemic logics, but it is much simpler – it does not include the classic propositional connectives, and it is driven by a very different set of assumptions. The inspirations for this formal language are Searle’s analysis of directions of fit, Wittgenstein’s remarks on rule-following and Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology. (shrink)

This article develops an institutional understanding of borders. Drawing on constitutive constructivism and theories of practical communication we argue that bordering as a process is a form of sorting through the imposition of status-functions on people and things, which alters the perception of that thing by setting it within a web of normative claims, teleologies and assumptions. Studying any border, therefore, extends to include the rule structure that constitutes it as well as the sources of that structure’s legitimacy. (...) Furthermore, rule structures are both restrictive and facilitative and importantly they overlap while retaining different sources of legitimacy: actors bring different constitutive perspectives on the border depending on the particular rule structure they are drawing on in order to make legitimate claims about what that border produces. This recognition sensitizes analysis to the interplay between different sense-making regimes and their authoritative underpinnings. Methodologically it points researchers towards the practical and discursive methods actors use when making arguments about what a particular border can and does do. (shrink)

The most debated status of the wave function of Quantum Mechanics is discussed in the light of the epistemological vs ontological opposition.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE STATUS AND FUNCTION OF DIVINE SIMPLENESS IN SUMMA THEOLOGIAE Ia, qq. 2-13 PETER BURNS, S.J. l esuit School of Theology Berkeley, California Introduction I N THE FIRST PART of what follows I hope to do four things: a) to give a brief summary of Aquinas's remarks contained in the third question of the first part of the Summa Theologiae, entitled de Dei simplicitate; b) to outline two (...) diferent ways of interpreting what Aquinas is about when making those remarks; c) to assess which interpretation is better from an exegetical standpoint; d) to assess which interpretation is better from a philosophical standpoint. In the second part my aim will be threefold : a) to trace the way Aquinas derives and uses the concept of divine simpleness in questions 2 through 11 ; b) to examine briefly the relationship between this concept and possible cosmological arguments for the existence of God; and c) to evaluate critically some modern treatments of arguments of the cosmological type in the light of this relationship. I shall not be concerned to show that Aquinas's conclusions in question 2 (the Five Ways) are justified by the arguments he adduces; rather, my concern will be to show that an adequate evaluation of his arguments cannot ignore the function of divine simpleness as a key element therein. I. The Status Of Divinle Simpleness (1) A Summary of S.T. la, 3 At the beginning of question 3 Aquinas lists eight points of inquiry. The first is whether God is a body, that is, composed 1 2 PETER BURNS, S.J. of extended parts. He offers three reasons why he thinks the reply must be negative. Firstly, an unchanging first cause of change, which God is (by la, 2, 3) would appear not to be bodily, since experience offers no examples of bodies causing change without themselves changing. Secondly, to be extended in space implies the potentiality of being divisible, but a primary reality is utterly actual, since absolutely speaking, actuality precedes po~ tentiality, and God is the primary reality. Thirdly, since the soul is nobler than inanimate things, and God is the most excellent of beings, God cannot be any less noble than the soul. But the soul in itself is not bodily but that in virtue of which bodies are what they are. In the next article Aquinas denies that God is composed of matter and form because matter is potential and only exists by participating in some form. In addition, since agents act in virtue of their form, God, as the prime source of activity and being in no way potential, must be considered as being essentially form without composition with matter, Aquinas then asks whether God can be identified with his own essence or nature. Given that matter is the individuating factor in beings composed of matter and form, and that such composition is ruled out in case of God, Aquinas claims that the distinctness of his being must be due to form. Hence God is his own form or nature or essence. In a crucial move in the next article Aquinas identifies God, who is his essence, with his existence, for as an uncaused necessary reality this essence must be self-subsistent. Thus God's nature or essence is necessarily self-instantiating, nor does God participate in existence, but essentially is identical with (the act of) 'existing', Therefore the distinction between essence and existence, between what something is and that it is, does not hold for God. Having daimed that God is his own existence, Aquinas argues that this existence is prior to genus in general and to the genus of substance specifically. So there is no possibility of distinguishing in God genus and difference, nor can God receive predicates as a substance, since this would imply potentiality. Therefore God is DIVINE SIMPLENESS IN SUMMA THEOLOGIAE 3 not composed of substance and accidents. In article 7, Aquinas claims that God is altogether simple. After summing up the previous remarks he makes two general points. Everything composite is subsequent to and dependent on its components, whereas God is the first, uncaused necessary being. Secondly, everything composite is caused, for essentially diverse elements must... (shrink)

Introduction. The article deals with the problem of the functional status of regions in the system of economic federalism, which is associated with the high spatial heterogeneity of Russia, and explains the need to move from the model of economic fed- eralism, which combines the presence of universal institutions and institutional exceptions, to a model that takes into account the spatial diversity of ter- ritories. The purpose of the study is to substantiate the decrease in the heterogeneity of the (...) economic federalism space when moving on to a model based on macro territories - groups of regions with the same functional status. Methods. The author uses methods of a mono- graphic review, logical and statistical analysis in the context of applying a spatial approach in studying the relations of economic federalism, as well as the concept of “smart specialization” in relation to the regions of Russia to differentiate the relationship of the federal center with the territories within the same specialization. Scientific novelty of the study. The article is the first to present a methodology for determining the functional status of regions, which is the basis for the subsequent formation of a model of relations between the federal center and macro regions. Results. The author proposes methods for deter- mining the functional status of regions and calcu- lating indicators that characterize the relations of economic federalism. The first methodology, based on economic and territorial criteria, makes it possi- ble to attribute each region of Russia to a group of macro regions according to their functional status. The second method makes it possible to substanti- ate a greater asymmetry of indicators character- izing economic federalism in the country as a whole than in the context of macro territories. Conclusions. Regarding the higher stability of indicators characterizing economic federalism by groups of macro-territories than in the country as a whole, the need for a transition to a flexible model of economic federalism based on differentiated measures and specific tools to support regions in the context of their functional specializations is substantiated. (shrink)

In spite of contemporary theoretical disagreement on the nature of language, there is a widespread informal agreement about what linguistic facts are. This article argues that a functional approach to language can provide the foundation for an explicit account of what the informal consensus implies. The account bridges the ‘internalist’ and the ‘externalist’ views of language by understanding mental constructs such as those involved in human languages as aspects of a dynamic social equilibrium. As in evolutionary biology, processes of selection (...) can work to stabilize certain features while others vary; and this process (in which ‘function’ plays a key role) is a necessary supplement to a purely mentalist account. This position is seen as a development of the position of Searle on social facts and Keller on language change. (shrink)

For a long time, researchers of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and futurists have hypothesized that the developed Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) systems can execute intellectual and behavioral tasks similar to human beings. However, there are two possible concerns regarding the emergence of AGI systems and their moral status, namely: 1) is it possible to grant moral status to the AGI-enabled robots similar to humans? 2) if it is (im)possible, then under what conditions do such robots (fail to) achieve moral (...) status similar to humans? To examine the possibilities, the present study puts forward a functionality argument, which claims that if a human being and an AGI-enabled robot have similar functionality, but different creative processes, they may have similar moral status. Furthermore, the functionality argument asserts that an entity’s (a human being or an AGI-enabled robot) creation/production from carbon or silicon or its brain’s utilization of neurotransmitters or semiconductors does not carry any significance. Rather, if both entities have similar functionality, they may have similar moral status, which implies that the AGI-enabled robot may achieve human-like moral status if it performs human-like functions. (shrink)

What is the nature of law and what is the best way to discover it? This book argues that law is best understood in terms of the social functions it performs wherever it is found in human society. In order to support this claim, law is explained as a kind of institution and as a kind of artefact. To say that it is an institution is to say that it is designed for creating and conferring special statuses to people (...) so as to alter their rights and responsibilities toward each other. To say that it is an artefact is to say that it is a tool of human creation that is designed to signal its usability to people who interact with it. This picture of law's nature is marshalled to critique theories of law that see it mainly as a product of reason or morality, understanding those theories via their conceptions of law's function. It is also used to argue against those legal positivists who see law's functions as relatively minor aspects of its nature. -/- This method of conceptualizing law's nature helps us to explain how the law, understood as social facts, can make normative demands upon us. It also recommends a methodology for understanding law that combines elements of conceptual analysis with empirical research for uncovering the purposes to which diverse peoples put their legal activities. (shrink)

Medical technology, specialization, and the corporatization of health delivery systems in the late twentieth century have all helped give birth to an unwelcome but unavoidable responsibility for individuals with family or friends—serving as a health care proxy. The responsibility comes without monetary compensation, is often involuntary, and lacks any real guidelines beyond the duty to make life-and-death decisions in circumstances over which the proxy has little control.The parameters of the proxy's job have evolved somewhat awkwardly in statutes and case law, (...) as lawmakers and judges have tried to apply conventional concepts to novel circumstances. This article examines the legal and functional status of the proxy, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of current public policy as reflected by state advance directive and surrogate decision-making laws. The first section of the article provides a historical perspective of our current notions of agency law as relevant to health care proxies. (shrink)

Patients with Wilson’s disease suffer from prospective memory impairment, and some of patients develop cognitive impairment. However, very little is known about how brain structure and function changes effect PM in WD. Here, we employed multimodal neuroimaging data acquired from 22 WD patients and 26 healthy controls who underwent three-dimensional T1-weighted, diffusion tensor imaging, and resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging. We investigated gray matter volumes with voxel-based morphometry, DTI metrics using the fiber tractography method, and RS-fMRI using the seed-based (...) functional connectivity method. Compared with HC, WD patients showed GM volume reductions in the basal ganglia and occipital fusiform gyrus, as well as volume increase in the visual association cortex. Moreover, whiter matter tracks of WD were widely impaired in association and limbic fibers. WM tracks in association fibers are significant related to PM in WD patients. Relative to HC, WD patients showed that the visual association cortex functionally connects to the thalamus and hippocampus, which is associated with global cognitive function in patients with WD. Together, these findings suggested that PM impairment in WD may be modulated by aberrant WM in association fibers, and that GM volume changes in the association cortex has no direct effect on cognitive status, but indirectly affect global cognitive function by its aberrant functional connectivity in patients with WD. Our findings may provide a new window to further study how WD develops into cognitive impairment, and deepen our understanding of the cognitive status and neuropathology of WD. (shrink)

This is a new volume of original essays on the metaphysics of quantum mechanics. The essays address questions such as: What fundamental metaphysics is best motivated by quantum mechanics? What is the ontological status of the wave function? Does quantum mechanics support the existence of any other fundamental entities, e.g. particles? What is the nature of the fundamental space of quantum mechanics? What is the relationship between the fundamental ontology of quantum mechanics and ordinary, macroscopic objects like tables, chairs, (...) and persons? This collection includes a comprehensive introduction with a history of quantum mechanics and the debate over its metaphysical interpretation focusing especially on the main realist alternatives. (shrink)

There’s a general assumption that teleology and function do not exist in inanimate nature. Throughout biology, it is generally taken as granted that teleology (or teleonomy) and functions are not only unique to life, but perhaps even a defining quality of life. For many, it’s obvious that rocks, water, and the like, are not teleological, nor could they possibly have stand-alone functions. This idea - that teleology and function are unique to life - is the target of this (...) paper. I begin with an overview of McShea’s field theoretic account of teleology. I start with the field theoretic account because it presents a promising analysis of teleological systems. It is promising because, in not making any assumptions about life’s special status in teleological systems, it avoids counterexamples that have problematized other accounts. I then consider some of the prominent efforts that have been made to attempt to avoid ascribing functions or teleology to some form of inanimate nature. In my assessment, none of the efforts are successful. I conclude by offering mineral evolution as a case study to show how inanimate nature can be both teleological and functional. The evolution of mineral species reveals that teleology and function extend to inanimate nature, and that teleology and function come in degrees. (shrink)

The culturally pervasive tendency to identify aspects of the body as aesthetically imperfect harms individuals and scaffolds injustice related to disability, race, gender, LGBTQ+ identities, and fatness. But abandoning the notion of imperfection may not respect people’s reasonable understandings of their own bodies. I examine the prospects for a practice of aesthetic assessment grounded in a notion of the body’s function. I argue that functional aesthetic assessment, to be respectful, requires understanding the body’s functions as complex, malleable, and determined (...) by the projects and interests of the person whose body it is. Aesthetically relevant functions, on this account, are determined neither by the body’s status as organism nor by cultural assumptions about how bodies should function or be used. (shrink)

Philosophers of biology have developed an extensive literature on biological functions. Here I propose a treatment of the topic based in social studies of science. I posit that the chief philosophical accounts of biological functions all rest upon a realist ontology of biological functions, one that conceives functions as human-independent qualities of things. Rather than being conceptualised as a property of traits or structures, function should be understood as a status granted by communities acting in (...) accordance with specific domains of knowledge and practice. Function becomes not a property of things, but a collective good: not of things, but by communities. I survey the existing explanations of biological functions from the philosophical literature and identify what I take to be those accounts’ shared complications. I then employ Martin Kusch’s communitarian epistemology as a point of departure for a sociological conception of function and develop an explanation of function that rests on an understan.. (shrink)

I argued in Karl Marx's Theory of History that the central claims of historical materialism are functional explanations, and I said that functional explanations are consequence explanations, ones, that is, in which something is explained by its propensity to have a certain kind of effect. I also claimed that the theory of chance variation and natural selection sustains functional explanations, and hence consequence explanations, of organismic equipment. In Section I I defend the thesis that historical materialism offers functional or consequence (...) explanations, and I reject Jon Elster's contention that game theory can, and should, assume a central role in the Marxist theory of society. In Section II I contrast functional and consequence explanation, thereby revising the position of Karl Marx's Theory of History, and I question whether evolutionary biology supports functional explanations. Section III is a critique of Elster's views on functional explanation, and Sections IV and V defend consequence explanation against metaphysical and epistemological doubts. A concluding section summarizes my present understanding of the status of historical materialist explanations. (shrink)

The author of the paper critically analyzes a quasi-theory of future contingents (PFC) given by Marcin Tkaczyk and proposes his own explication of its theses and terms. The author makes it by introducing operational definitions of temporal and modal concepts, distinguishing between the causal and functional determination, discussing the status of the principle of bivalence, and replacing Tkaczyk’s theses by their new formulations. As a result, the author states, among other things, that (contrary to Tkaczyk) there is no contradiction (...) between the thesis about the opened future and the thesis about divine omniscience, because it requires the causal (but not functional as it is a case) determination between a true proposition and its determined fact. The author also shows that Tkaczyk’s examples of the retroactive causes are not an accurate solution of the antinomy because they are, at most, the examples of the factors which change the picture of the past but not the past itself. (shrink)

In the debate over the moral status of nonsentient organisms, biocentrists argue that all living things, including nonsentient ones, have interests of their own. They often defend this claim by arguing that living organisms are goal-directed, functionally organized systems. This argument for ascribing interests has faced a serious challenge that is sometimes called the Problem of Scope. Critics have argued that ascribing interests on the basis of functional organization would have implausible implications regarding the scope of the argument, such (...) as ascribing interests to inanimate artifacts and machines. In this paper, I argue that much of the recent discussion on the Problem of Scope is based on an uncharitable interpretation of the argument for ascribing interests, which presupposes a reductionist account of functions. I assess this version of the argument, and explain why it cannot succeed. I then consider an alternative interpretation of the argument, which appeals to a non-reductionist account of functions. I argue that this version of the argument avoids the Problem of Scope, while acknowledging that it has limitations of its own. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that selection history accounts of function can support a fully reductive naturalization of functional properties. I argue that this assumption is false. A problem with the alternative causal role account of function in this context is that it invokes the teleological notion of a goal in analysing real function. The selection history account, if it is to have reductive status, must not do the same. But attention to certain cases of selection history in biology, specifically (...) those involving meiotic drive, shows that selection historical explanations are available in the case of items without any plausible function. Making contributions to goals, here fitness, must be introduced as an additional constraint in the analysis, either explicitly, or implicitly by appeal to individual functions or the selection-of/selection-for distinction. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in the measurement of health status. One of the most well-known health status instruments is the Sickness Impact Profile (SIP). This paper examines the nature, development and testing of the SIP (and its UK equivalent the FLP). The practical merits of these instruments are explained, and some cautionary remarks are offered about their limitations.

Parents of children with anxiety disorders are found to be over controlling and more rejecting in parent–child interactions than parents of control children. However, most studies included mothers, and the rearing behaviour of fathers of anxious children is largely unknown. Also, it remains unclear whether parents’ control and rejection is a response to child's anxiety, or (also) results from parents’ own anxiety. Participants were 121 children referred with anxiety disorders and 38 control children, and their parents. The diagnostic status (...) of all parents was assessed. Each child conducted discussions around issues of disagreement, with father, with mother, and with both parents. Compared to parents of control children, fathers and mothers of clinically anxious children displayed more control to their child, but not more rejection, and fathers supported their partner less. Effect sizes, however, were small. In families of fathers with anxiety disorders, fathers were borderline more controlling and rejecting and mothers more rejecting towards their anxious child than in families of fathers without anxiety disorders. Fathers with anxiety disorders dominated the conversation relative to mothers, which was associated with greater controlling of the child. Effect sizes were medium. Mothers’ anxiety status was not associated with different rearing behaviours in both parents. It is concluded that fathers’ anxiety status seems to make the difference in raising an anxious child. (shrink)

This article is a response to Bernard Matolino’s criticisms against Ifeanyi Menkiti’s elucidations on the normative notion of personhood in African philosophy. This article argues that Menkiti’s article is best understood to be ultimately focused on articulating the normative notion of personhood; so understood, Menkiti’s analysis eschews many of the objections made against it by Matolino. We show that the confusion lies in a general failure in African philosophy to distinguish three distinct senses of the notion of a person. We (...) further show how the referent ‘it’ as used to pick out infants by Menkiti, contrary to Matolino’s analysis that suggests that it is an instance of ‘mal-function’ may be charitably construed to be capturing the idea that infants have moral status and/or that they are morally neutral. A defense of Menkiti’s idea of personhood is crucial in a search for a robust African perfectionist ethics. Keywords: ‘It’, Moral agency, Moral Perfectionism, Moral status, Personhood. (shrink)

According to the prominent accounts of artifacts, artifacts are objects produced to serve a function (Hilpinen, Theoria 58:58–82, 1992 ; Preston, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2022a ). If, as commonly suggested, artworks are artifacts then the lack of a viable functional account of artworks generates a problem and leaves us with one of the three following options: (i) Artworks are not artifacts, (ii) Artworks are a special kind of artifacts (Levinson, Creations of the mind: Theories of artifacts and their (...) representation, 2007 ; Evnine, Making objects and events, 2016 ), (iii) If we follow pluralism about ‘artifact’, artworks can be captured by a distinct concept of artifacts. (i) is hard to defend. Being an artifact seems to be a necessary condition of being an artwork. To me, (ii) is already hinting at a form of pluralism in our artifact concepts. Ultimately, I conclude that (iii) provides a useful route to spell out what kind of pluralism is at stake and how it can be used to resolve the tension that arises from the artifactual status of artworks and functions. (shrink)

This chapter examines a question at the intersection of the mind-body problem and the analysis of mental representation: the question of the direction of constraint between psychological fact and theory and neurophysiological or physical fact and theory. Does physiology constrain psychology? Are physiological facts more basic than psychological facts? Or do psychological theories, including representational analyses, guide and constrain physiology? Despite the antireductionist bent of functionalist positions, it has generally been assumed that physics or physiology are more basic than, and (...) hence contraining on, psychological fact and theory. Section 1 sketches the intuitions that would lead one to adopt such a view. The chapter then examines whether one-sided constraint has been and should be found in practice. It argues that philosophical analysis of psychological science shows that rigorous functional analyses can be carried out in advance of physiological knowledge. Indeed, in the investigation of sensory perception, ascription of psychological function leads the way in the individuation and investigation of neurophysiology. We shall look at several cases in visual perception (binocular single vision, stereopsis, and color vision), in which psychological results have provided a basis for physiological research. It is tempting to think that the psychological functions that enable physiological investigation would be Wrightian teleofunctions. It is, thus, natural to suppose that psychologists and neurophysiologists have proceeded with a conception of the purpose of a given neural structure, and have viewed neural anatomy and neural activity as the substrate for or instantiation of various properly psychological functions. For example, neuroscientists surely understand that the eye and visual system are for seeing, rather than for detecting an electric discharge in the vicinity of the retina (which sighted humans can do, via the subjective light produced by such discharges), and they guide their investigations of the eye, visual cortex, and intervening pathways accordingly. As a result, they will view rods and cones in the eye as photoreceptors, even though these structures will produce "output" (will respond with hyperpolarization) to other forms of energy. At the same time, there may be cases in which the functions that have guided research are in fact precisely determined input-output functions, whose teleofunctional status is absent or misdescribed. I will argue that in the case of trichromatic color matches, the psychological function involved is an input-output function, and that this result has implications for the description of color vision as a psychological capacity. (shrink)

This paper defines and defends a notion of teleological function which is fit to figure in explanations concerning how organic systems, and the items which compose them, are able to perform certain activities, such as surviving and reproducing or pumping blood. According to this notion, a teleological function of an item (such as the heart) is a typical way in which items of that type contribute to some containing system's ability to do some activity. An account of what it is (...) for an item to contribute to a containing system's ability to perform an activity is provided. I argue that the view acquires its normative status in virtue of the fact that it obeys a function-accident distinction and obeys a function-dysfunction distinction; that the view is ahistorical; and, that its ahistoricity provides it with an advantage over one of its main competitors. (shrink)

In this paper we present a functional analysis of biotechnology and identify the particular status that genetic engineering has relative to other biotechnological techniques such as domestication. The analysis builds on work by Dan Sperber and characterises biotechnology in primarily technical and biological functional terms as symbiotic interactions in which humans modify other organisms. We identify three main routes by which these interactions are established in biotechnology. We argue that two of these routes have in-built mechanisms for preventing an (...) uncontrolled dissemination of the modified organisms, and that one has an in-built mechanism for promoting such dissemination. The three routes are available to traditional forms of biotechnology as to state-of-the-art genetic engineering. Drawing now on work by Alfred Nordmann on the uncanniness of modern technologies, we show that genetic engineering is set apart by the epistemic consequences of the microscopic size of its progeny: genetically modified organisms, when disseminating, do so beyond our perceptual and conceptual control. Existing strategies against unwanted dissemination of organisms modified in traditional biotechnology are therefore typically not adequate against possible unwanted dissemination of genetically modified organisms, giving this dissemination a status similar to that of untraceable natural disasters. (shrink)

While previous studies have suggested that there exists a relationship between obesity and executive function (EF), the mechanisms and causal relationship between them remain unclear. There are important clinical implications of determining whether EF can predict and treat obesity. We conducted a multilevel meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and longitudinal studies. Specifically, we investigate (a) whether EF interventions have an effect on weight loss, (b) whether baseline EF can be a predictor of future weight loss through obesity intervention, and (...) (c) whether early-life EF can predict future weight loss. Eight RCTs and 17 longitudinal studies with a total of 11,393 participants were identified. We found that (a) EF interventions may not have an effect on weight loss, (b) baseline inhibition (β = 0.259,p= 0.03) and delay discounting (β = −0.17,p= 0.04) significantly predict future weight loss through obesity intervention, (c) age (F= 13.666,p= 0.005) moderates the relationship between working memory and weight loss through intervention, but not weight status, type of intervention, and percentage of female, and (d) early life inhibition (β = 0.185,p= 0.07) is a marginally significant predictor of future weight loss. Our results seem to support the assumption that the relationship between EF and obesity is not direct, and a higher-order factor, such as genes, may link obesity and EF. Building on the preliminary findings, further studies focusing on EF and obesity are needed in the future. (shrink)

Menstrual taboos are nearly ubiquitous and assume parallel forms in geographically distant populations, yet their function has baffled researchers for decades. This paper proposes that menstrual taboos are anticuckoldry tactics. By signaling menstruation, they may advertise female reproductive status to husbands, affines, and other observers. Females may therefore have difficulty in obfuscating the timing of the onset of pregnancy. This may have three consequences: (a) males are better able to assess their probabilities of paternity and to direct their parental (...) investment toward genetic offspring; (b) adulterous pregnancies are more easily detected and penalized, enhancing sexual fidelity; and (c) males avoid marrying pregnant females by relying on menstruation as evidence of nonpregnancy. This hypothesis is tested with 29 months of field data on menstrual taboos among the Dogon of Mali. Key results include the following: (a) cuckoldry is a major Dogon concern, (b) menstrual huts advertise female reproductive status, (c) husbands impose the taboos upon their wives, (d) female defiance of the taboos is undetectable and probably rare, and (e) informants think that the taboos help husbands and patrilineages to avoid cuckoldry. Thus the anti-cuckoldry hypothesis provides helpful insight into the menstrual taboos of the Dogon and should be tested among other populations. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to begin developing a version of Gualtiero Piccinini’s mechanistic account of computation that does not need to appeal to any notion of proper (or teleological) functions. The motivation for doing so is a general concern about the role played by proper functions in Piccinini’s account, which will be evaluated in the first part of the paper. I will then propose a potential alternative approach, where computing mechanisms are understood in terms of Carl (...) Craver’s perspectival account of mechanistic functions. According to this approach, the mechanistic function of ‘performing a computation’ can only be attributed relative to an explanatory perspective, but such attributions are nonetheless constrained by the underlying physical structure of the system in question, thus avoiding unlimited pancomputationalism. If successful, this approach would carry with it fewer controversial assumptions than Piccinini’s original account, which requires a robust understanding of proper functions. Insofar as there are outstanding concerns about the status of proper functions, this approach would therefore be more generally acceptable. (shrink)

Variations in levels of apolipoprotein E have been tied to the risk and progression of Alzheimer's disease . Our group has previously compared and contrasted the promoters of the mouse and human ApoE gene promoter sequences and found notable similarities and significant differences that suggest the importance of the APOE promoter's role in the human disease. We examine here three specific single-nucleotide polymorphisms within the human APOE promoter region, specifically at -491 , -427 , and at -219 upstream from the (...) +1 transcription start site. The -219 and -491 polymorphic variations have significant association with instance of AD, and -491AA has significant risk even when stratified for the APOEepsilon4 allele. We also show significant effects on reporter gene expression in neuronal cell cultures, and, notably, these effects are modified by species origin of the cells. The -491 and -219 polymorphisms may have an interactive effect in addition to any independent activity. DNA-protein interactions differ between each polymorphic state. We propose SP1 and GATA as candidates for regulatory control of the -491 and -219 polymorphic sites. This work's significance lies in drawing connection among APOE promoter polymorphisms' associations with AD to functional promoter activity differences and specific changes in DNA-protein interactions in cell culture-based assays. Taken together, these results suggest that APOE expression levels are a risk factor for AD irrespective of APOEepsilon4 allele status. (shrink)

The theoretical rationale was the author’s Functional Model of Health, where health is construed as a function of creative coping with stress. Participants in the study were 141 patients with blood cancer treated with bone marrow transplantation at the Hematology Clinic, Jagiellonian University Collegium Medicum. Besides a standardized interview the following instruments were used: STAI by Spielberger, CISS and CHIP by Endler and Parker, and SOC-29 by Antonovsky. Health status was operationalized using 10-point self-rating scales to assess the patients’ (...) perceived health and sense of calmness, while their objective health was rated by a medical expert - hematologist. In the statistical analyses significant correlations were found between stress level and the patients’ subjective health. The following variables predicted stress intensity: anxious personality, distraction coping strategy, female sex, and sense of meaningfulness. Subjective health predictors of leukemia patients are: objective health, level of stress, by the patient’s sense of meaningfulness and focusing on negative emotions. To promote patients’ health moreover, their sense of meaningfulness in life and in being active should be supported and enhanced. (shrink)

This paper discusses what the function of the aesthetic sense is for Hutcheson, and how its function bears on a number of exegetical issues viz. Whether there is any possibility of objectivity within the scope of the theory and what the status of his analogy between secondary qualities and beauty actually amounts to. I argue that the aesthetic sense is analogous to a prevalent account of bodily sensations, which saw bodily sensation as having the function jointly signalling and eliciting (...) motivational dispositions toward features that are harmful or beneficial to the body. The aesthetic sense is supposed to motivate us toward gaining knowledge of the world, and allows for a standard of taste relative to its function. The paper is a complement to my 'Hutcheson's Moral Sense', History of Philosophy Quarterly (forthcoming 2001). (shrink)