What could someone represent that would enable her to track, at least within limits, others' perceptions, knowledge states and beliefs including false beliefs? An obvious possibility is that she might represent these very attitudes as such. It is sometimes tacitly or explicitly assumed that this is the only possible answer. However, we argue that several recent discoveries in developmental, cognitive, and comparative psychology indicate the need for other, less obvious possibilities. Our aim is to meet this need by describing the (...) construction of a minimal theory of mind. Minimal theory of mind is rich enough to explain systematic success on tasks held to be acid tests for theory of mind cognition including many false belief tasks. Yet minimal theory of mind does not require representing propositional attitudes, or any other kind of representation, as such. Minimal theory of mind may be what enables those with limited cognitive resources or little conceptual sophistication, such as infants, chimpanzees, scrub-jays and human adults under load, to track others' perceptions, knowledge states and beliefs. (shrink)

The development of children’s minds raises fundamental psychological and scientific questions, from how we are able to know about and describe basic aspects of the world such as words, numbers and colours to how we come to grasp causes, actions and intentions. This is the first book to properly introduce and examine philosophical questions concerning children’s cognitive development and considers the implications of scientific breakthroughs for the philosophy of developmental psychology. Each chapter explores a central topic in developmental psychology from (...) a philosophical perspective: social interaction and the developing mind children's awareness of objects and the question of 'object permanence' knowledge of numbers children and the acquisition of knowledge of colour language acquisition and the 'mapping problem' children's knowledge of the relation between actions and goals belief acquisition and the developing mind. Throughout the book Stephen Butterfill draws on several important case studies, including experiments with children on memory, ‘false belief tasks’, and the process by which children come to see other people, not just themselves, as capable of experience. He shows how these questions can illuminate some fundamental debates in philosophy of mind, such as the mind’s possession of concepts, rationality and the mind, the possibility of objective thought, and the nature of perceptual experience. Additional features, such as chapter summaries, annotated further reading and a glossary provide helpful tools for those coming to the subject for the first time. (shrink)

In animal cells, the Golgi complex undergoes reversible disassembly during mitosis. The disassembly/reassembly process has been intensively studied in order to understand the mechanisms that govern organelle assembly and inheritance during cell division. A long‐standing controversy in the field has been whether formation of Golgi structure is template‐mediated or self‐organizes from components of the endoplasmic reticulum. A recent study1 however, has demonstrated that a subset of proteins that form a putative Golgi matrix can be inherited during cell division in the (...) absence of membrane input from the endoplasmic reticulum. The outcome of this study suggests that a templating mechanism for the formation of Golgi structure may exist. This study has important implications for understanding mechanisms that govern Golgi biogenesis. BioEssays 24:584–587, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Morain and colleagues (Morain et al. 2019) propose two conditions for avoiding role conflicts: if “(A) research participation would not substantially disadvantage the patient as compared with usual...

The Journal of "Religious Ethics" marks the tercentenary of Edwards's birth with the following collection of essays. In keeping with the overall mission of the journal, this tribute takes the form of historical and constructive reflection, in which diverse perspectives on Edwards's work and diverse forms of engagement with it supplement and correct one another. Our hope is that these essays will serve both to generate interest in Edwards's work among those who are unfamiliar with him, and to advance the (...) discussion of central issues in theological and religious ethics. In this introductory essay, we will offer some reflections on Edwards's general significance for contemporary ethics, followed by a closer examination of his main texts and a brief summary of the essays collected here. (shrink)

Pompey does not accept defeat at Pharsalus. Rather, in an effort to gain support from powers beyond Rome, he makes for Egypt and, unbeknownst to him, his decapitation. As narrated in Lucan'sBellum ciuile, after deliberating in Cilicia with his senatorial advisers (8.259–455), Pompey stops at the island of Cyprus (8.456–9):tum Cilicum liquere solum Cyproque citatasimmisere rates, nullas cui praetulit arasundae diua memor Paphiae, si numina nascicredimus aut quemquam fas est coepisse deorum.Then they left the Cilician soil and steered their vessels (...) in haste for Cyprus—Cyprus which the goddess, mindful of Paphian waves, prefers to any of her shrines (if we believe that deities have birth, or if it is lawful to hold that any of the gods had a beginning).In Lucan, Pompey's trip to Cyprus is brief and includes a somewhat curious reference to Venus (diua), her origins (undae … Paphiae) and the birth of the gods. Other authors also record Pompey's visit to Cyprus, although the details vary. Some, including Julius Caesar, set his deliberations not in Cilicia but on Cyprus itself (Caes.BCiu.3.102.3.1–8.1; cf. Plut.Vit. Pomp. 77.1.1–2.1). Others, it seems, provide few if any details of Pompey at the island, for example the scanty evidence from Livy,Per. 112.1–10. (shrink)

In this article, I examine John Goldberg and Benjamin Zipursky’s argument, set out in Recognizing Wrongs, that the ‘principle of civil recourse’ explains much of tort law. Specifically, I assess their claim that tort remedies are instances of civil recourse. I argue that while this label fits a variety of damages awards, it does not fit two significant tort remedies: injunctions and damages for pecuniary losses.

The unique discourse of Confucian ritual practice encompasses a powerful and sophisticated way of talking about individual fulfillment within the context of more substantive or universal conceptions of the good life. To make this case, I will consider both the text of the "Analects" and the influential readings of the "Analects" offered by Fingarette in "Confucius: The Secular as Sacred" and by Hall and Ames in "Thinking through Confucius". Though the two interpretive works are helpful in articulating the classical Confucian (...) contribution to the problem of balancing conformity and individuality, I will argue that an alternative reading is required to appreciate fully how values thought to embody and express the fullest humanity might be inculcated in ethical agents without undoing their individuality. Such an alternative is developed here. (shrink)

Sensitivity to others’ actions is essential for social animals like humans and a fundamental requirement for any kind of social cognition. Unsurprisingly, it is present in humans from early in the first year of life. But what processes underpin infants’ sensitivity to others’ actions? Any attempt to answer this question must solve twin puzzles about the development of goal tracking. Why does some, but not all, of infants’ goal tracking appear to be limited by their abilities to represent the observed (...) action motorically at the time it occurs? And why does their sensitivity to action sometimes manifest itself differently in dishabituation, pupil dilation and anticipatory looking? Solving these twin puzzles is critical for understanding humans’ earliest sensitivity to others’ actions. After introducing the puzzles, this paper argues that solving them may require identifying multiple, distinct processes for tracking the targets and goals of actions. (shrink)

In this response to the commentary by Michael and Christensen, we first explain how minimal mindreading is compatible with the development of increasingly sophisticated mindreading behaviours that involve both executive functions and general knowledge, and then sketch one approach to a minimal account of goal ascription.

The argument laid out in this book discusses and interprets the work of Hobbes in relation to religion. It compares a traditional interpretation of Hobbes where Hobbes’ use of conventional terminology when talking about natural law is seen as ironic or merely convenient despite an atheist viewpoint, with the view that Hobbes’ morality is truly traditional and Christian. The book considers other thinkers of the age in tandem with Hobbes and discusses in detail his theology inspired by corporeal mechanics. The (...) position is that there are significant senses in which Hobbes can be said to be a traditional natural law theorist. (shrink)

The argument of this paper develops in four stages. In the first I expose two fundamental and at the same time highly problematical questions which serve as points of departure for Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms. In the second stage I set forth an answer which serves to unite the two questions and reveal their interpenetration. This answer assumes the form of an explication of the fundamental structure of experience. The third stage serves as a justification of this procedure by (...) showing why the answer takes the form it does. This is accomplished by uncovering the basic ontological dimension presupposed in the answer and elaborating its development. The fourth and final stage is a repetition of the initial question in the light of this uncovering, and is done with a view toward recasting the answer in a more fundamental way. I think this outline will become clear in its intent, and will be seen to be in a peculiar way inevitable as the argument proceeds. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 293 graphies, which put the individual thinkers and their works into their proper doctrinal context, are very welcome. Noack tries to be, and is, fair. We saw that he even tries to find a common ground between phenomenological and analytical philosophy. He does not reject the latter at the outset. He is objective within the limits of his philosophical upbringing and his historical background. MAx RIESZR New (...) YorIc City Martin Heidegger and the Pre-Socratics. An Introduction to His Thought. By George Joseph Seidel, O. S. B. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1964. Pp. x + 169.) Seidel's book, Martin Heidegger and the Pre-Soeratics, is a carefully documented explication of Heidegger's interpretations of Parnmnides and Heraclitus. Beyond this it attempts and in large measure succeeds in giving an account of tteidegger's understanding of the western philosophical tradition as originated and at the same time fatefully misled by the Greeks. Seidel intends his study to be an introduction to Heidegger's thought. For purposes of evaluation I will divide my remarks into three major categories: (1) Seidel's work as an introduction to Heidegger's philosophy, (2) Seidel's work as an account of Heidegger's philosophy, and (3) the value of the work to the historian of philosophy and to the philosopher. Seidel's rejections of various al~rnative approaches to Heidegger's thought are somewhat contrived and not terribly convincing, which brings into question the author's claim tt~at Heidegger is approached least prejudicially through his interpretations of the presocratics. There are I think even more compelling reasons for rejecting Seidel's claim. In fact, there are strong reasons for rejecting his approach. I shall deal with them shortly. The author rejects an approach to Heidegger through Heidegger's Kantbuch (Kant und das Problem der Metaphysilc) because of the difficulty involved in disentangling Kant's views, Heidegger's interpretation of Kant's views, and Heidegger's own views as revealed in these interpretations. The same difficulty, however, pertains with respect to YIeidegger's interpretations of Parmenides and Heraclitus, though I suspect classical scholars will react with no small degree of indignation to the suggestion that Heidegger's interpretations of these thinkers are not easily distinguishable from what they actually said. To give but one more example, Seidel rejects an approach to tIeidegger through Hegel on the grounds that the similarities holding between the two thinkers tends to blind one to their essential differences. Now if this were truly the case, and I seriously doubt that it is, it is a very sad commentary on the capacities of historians and scholars of German philosophy. Leaving aside the fact that the reasons offered for the purpose of eliminating various alternative approaches to tteidegger are dubious, let us consider Seidel's own approach. There are at least two strong reasons for rejecting it. To begin with, it is indispensable to an understanding of Heidegger's "conversations" with past thinkers that his views on the nature of the history of philosophy be grasped. This in turn involves a commentator in that nest. of problems which center in and around I]eidegger's understanding of the nature of history. This leads one back ultimately to a discussion of Heidegger's conception of time and of temporality, for it is temporality that grounds and makes intelligible historicity and with it those sets of happenings which come to be understood as historical. Heidegger makes clear in Sein und Zeit that a proper understanding of time is necessary not only for the articulation of Being, but that it is the indespensable horizon in terms of which a phenomenological destruction--and, one might add, understanding--of the history of ontology is possible. Now Seidel is by no means unaware of this, but nonetheless he fails to give us any more than a sketchy account of Heidegger's understanding of time and temporality, and he gives us little more information with respect to history and historicity. The information he does give--at least in the case of history--is accurate enough, but it lacks that amplification and care for detail that would permit us a comprehension of the nature and significance of Heidegger... (shrink)

Should we welcome social robots into interpersonal relationships? In this paper I show that an adequate answer to this question must take three factors into consideration: (1) the psychological vulnerability that characterizes ordinary interpersonal relationships, (2) the normative significance that humans attach to other people’s attitudes in such relationships, and (3) the tendency of humans to anthropomorphize and “mentalize” artificial agents, often beyond their actual capacities. I argue that we should welcome social robots into interpersonal relationships only if they are (...) endowed with a social capacity that is functionally similar to our own capacity for social norms. Drawing on an interdisciplinary body of research on norm psychology, I explain why this capacity is importantly different from pre-programmed, top-down conformity to rules, in that it involves an open-ended responsiveness to social corrective feedback, such as that which humans provide to each other in expressions of praise and blame. (shrink)

In Book IX of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses the motivating psychology of the benefactor. He finds that self-love is the crucial element of consciousness that accounts for the benefactor’s desire to participate constructively in the community of being. His analysis invites comparison with Aquinas’s treatment of the theological virtue of caritas. Similarities are found, but Aquinas’s approach leads to a discussion of divine beatitude where we find a somewhat surprising analogy between Aristotle’s human and Aquinas’s divine benefactor. For Aquinas (...) finds that divine beatitude is also a self-love flowing outward to the divine creative project. (shrink)

SummaryThe Admonition Controversy, largely between Thomas Cartwright and John Whitgift has proven fecund ground for intellectual historians analysing the religious dimension to early-modern political ideas. This paper argues that the religious dimension of Cartwright's mixed constitutionalism needs better explanation, rather than just noting that his ecclesiastical mixed constitutionalism mirrors his political mixed constitutionalism. This paper tracks Cartwright's progressive, dialogical unfolding of his mixed constitutionalism in response to Whitgift's attempt to derive episcopacy from the fact of English monarchy, effectively discrediting the (...) Admonition to Parliament. Furthermore, the essay outlines how the Cartwright–Whitgift debate led Cartwright to emphasise a parliamentarist mixed constitution when most of his contemporaries, especially the more famous mixed constitutionalist, Thomas Smith, portrayed the English parliament leaning noticeably towards the monarch. This analysis accepts that religious polemic was a major driving force in the normalisation of parliamentarism, yet seeks to show exactly how this worked out in one of the most important church–state disputes in Elizabethan England. (shrink)

Historical outlines of fin-de-siècle European criminology have typically focused on the debate between supporters of Lombrosian anatomical determinism on the one hand, and the more environmentalist (i.e. French) explanations of crime on the other. What has gone largely unnoticed, however, is how the basic tenets of the 'French school' were shaped by an implicit moral concern with mass consumption and indi vidualism, particularly in regard to juvenile crime. This paper examines the psychosocial conception of the juvenile criminal - within the (...) par ticular context of fin-de-siècle culture, social theory and political ideol ogy - to delineate how French criminologists encountered economic modernity and reconceptualized their understanding of the relationship between the child, the family and the state. (shrink)

Scientific peer reviewers play an integral role in the grant selection process, yet very little has been reported on the levels of participation or the motivations of scientists to take part in peer review. The American Institute of Biological Sciences developed a comprehensive peer review survey that examined the motivations and levels of participation of grant reviewers. The survey was disseminated to 13,091 scientists in AIBS’s proprietary database. Of the 874 respondents, 76% indicated they had reviewed grant applications in the (...) last 3 years; however, the number of reviews was unevenly distributed across this sample. Higher review loads were associated with respondents who had submitted more grant proposals over this time period, some of whom were likely to be study section members for large funding agencies. The most prevalent reason to participate in a review was to give back to the scientific community and the most common reason to decline an invitation to review was lack of time. Interestingly, few suggested that expectation from the funding agency was a motivation to review. Most felt that review participation positively influenced their careers through improving grantsmanship and exposure to new scientific ideas. Of those who reviewed, respondents reported dedicating 2–5% of their total annual work time to grant review and, based on their self-reported maximum review loads, it is estimated they are participating at 56–87% of their capacity, which may have important implications regarding the sustainability of the system. Overall, it is clear that participation in peer review is uneven and in some cases near capacity, and more needs to be done to create new motivations and incentives to increase the future pool of reviewers. (shrink)

Some of the manuscripts of Aelius Anstides include a short oration in the form of an encomium to an unnamed king. The oration is entitled in three manuscripts and in another. It has been pointed out that in the former group of manuscripts the title is not preceded by the words thus casting doubt on Aristidean authorship.