Questioning reality -- The hair of the dog -- Good/bad -- Resistance and the side effect -- Putting resistance on the couch -- Modern medicine : a health report -- Psychotherapeutic paradox -- Loops -- Dialectics -- Paradox within the home -- The staying-with-it principle -- Immunization and immunotherapy -- A little poison is good for you -- The strange obsession of Dr. Hahnemann -- From gods to genes -- RPM -- Such stuff as dreams -- The attack of the (...) evil things -- Becoming well. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Images >> Visual Vertigo:Gaëlle Foray's Homage to the DiscardedAmber Bal (bio)Gaëlle Foray's artistic style invites renewed meditation upon the two human processes that surround the artwork: first, the metamorphosis of raw materials into aesthetic object at the hands of the artist, and second, the phenomenology of perceiving art. On the side of reception (in other words, the viewer's experience of Foray's works), the artworks demand first to be felt. (...) Only following an immediate visceral "strike" of abstract, unfocused perception, does the analytical eye proceed to examine these intricate works up close, parsing their immense and meticulous detail. On the side of artistic creation, Foray's methods elicit questions about the artist's relationship to Earth's finite materials, to the tension between environmental awareness and our own extractive practices. Foray's response to issues of waste and consumption at the heart of artistic endeavors is that she exclusively uses discarded materials; a form of recycling, gleaning, and/or foraging in the lived world. Yet, her approach is distinct from the well-established use of objet trouvés ("found objects") in modern art. Unlike "anti-artworks" such as Marcel Duchamp's 1917 Fontaine (a porcelain urinal signed "R. Mutt") or Piero Manzoni's 1961 Merda d'artista, both of which offer "common objects" in their original state for aesthetic contemplation, Foray's works are not "readymades." As opposed to what Steven Goldsmith describes as Duchamp's "subordinat[ion] of form to concept," Foray manipulates and defamiliarizes her recycled artistic material through processes of collage and bricolage.1 She describes the transformation of collected objects as a means of "paying homage to waste," from natural matter like animal bones, minerals, and fossils to synthetic waste such as long-discarded plastic toys or Tupperware containers, abandoned family photo albums, and démodé dinner party utensils from the eighties.2What emerges from the selection of Foray's works featured in this issue is a clash between the ephemerality of the human lifespan and planetary spatio-temporal dimensions. Her artistic process forces vertiginous acknowledgement of the fragility of human existence as it presses up against that which the human tries to capture through art: the world. What's more, Earth's monumental landscapes only ever figure as and in fragments. Two specific conflicts return across Foray's works to create this sense of vertigo. First is the contrast between the limited human lifespan and the eternity of the fossil; as the latter is often figured alongside photographs of humans or man-made materials in a manner that draws attention to this unfathomably large geological temporal scale. A secondary contrast arises from Foray's recurrent human-nature juxtaposition as the boundedness of human life continually knocks up against raw and unruly natural matter. Foray's recourse to diverse textures and materials heightens these oppositions—schist lies atop bone, the smooth veneer of a photograph envelops a human form but rests against the jagged edges of a stone. As we shall explore through ruminations on specific pieces, her method prompts inquiry into the relationship between these human [End Page 110] and geological timescales, attesting Foray's remarkable ability to capture brevity and limitlessness in tandem. Of equal note is Foray's repeated, self-reflexive wink to art's mediation of the world through a "framing effect," as she regularly makes the protective screen of a work or staging of an exhibition space integral to the artwork itself. This is her own means of drawing attention to the conditions in which the work of art is encountered, both exaggerating the distantiating function of the frame in classical art which "served to make [artwork] discontinuous with its surroundings" and building upon the "readymade" tradition's abolition of the barrier between viewer and artwork.3Foray's pieces, composed from an amalgam of natural matter and industrial or household waste, operate as self-contained ecosystems that are akin to stumbling upon a diorama that has escaped from its box, or a snowglobe whose glass sphere has been shattered and from which the liquid has drained away. In La Mer (see pages 34/35), the background's glitter and the iridescent blues... (shrink)

This book offers a discussion about how people think, talk, learn, and explain things in causal terms in terms of action and manipulation. Sloman also reviews the role of causality, causal models, and intervention in the basic human cognitive functions: decision making, reasoning, judgement, categorization, inductive inference, language, and learning.

Department of History and Philosophy of Science. University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RH This paper is concerned with the question of whether atomic particles of the same species, i. e. with the same intrinsic state-independent properties of mass, spin, electric charge, etc, violate the Leibnizian Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles, in the sense that, while there is more than one of them, their state-dependent properties may also all be the same. The answer depends on what exactly (...) the state-dependent properties of atomic particles are taken to be. On the plausible interpretation that these should comprise all monadic and relational properties that can be expressed in terms of physical magnitudes associated with self-adjoint operators that can be defined for the individual particles, then the weakest form of the Principle is shown to be violated for bosons, fermions and higher-order paraparticles, treated in first quantization *Some of the arguments inn this paper appeared in a thesis submited by one of us (S.F.) In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the PhD degree of the University of London, in 1984. entitled 'Identity and ‘Individuality in Classical and Quantum Physics’. (shrink)

Discussions of representation in science tend to draw on examples from art. However, such examples need to be handled with care given a) the differences between works of art and scientific theories and b) the accommodation of these examples within certain philosophies of art. I shall examine the claim that isomorphism is neither necessary nor sufficient for representation and I shall argue that there exist accounts of representation in both art and science involving isomorphism which accommodate the apparent counterexamples and, (...) moreover, allow us to understand how “impossible” artistic objects and inconsistent scientific theories can be said to represent. (shrink)

Healthcare is becoming increasingly automated with the development and deployment of care robots. There are many benefits to care robots but they also pose many challenging ethical issues. This paper takes care robots for the elderly as the subject of analysis, building on previous literature in the domain of the ethics and design of care robots. Using the value sensitive design approach to technology design, this paper extends its application to care robots by integrating the values of care, values that (...) are specific to AI, and higher-scale values such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The ethical issues specific to care robots for the elderly are discussed at length alongside examples of specific design requirements that work to ameliorate these ethical concerns. (shrink)

What is a scientific theory? This book considers this fundamental question by presenting a range of options and the issues they raise. It draws comparisons between theories and artworks and proposes that we should stop thinking of theories as things altogether.

Robotization is an increasingly pervasive feature of our lives. Robots with high degrees of autonomy may cause harm, yet in sufciently complex systems neither the robots nor the human developers may be candidates for moral blame. John Danaher has recently argued that this may lead to a retribution gap, where the human desire for retribution faces a lack of appropriate subjects for retributive blame. The potential social and moral implications of a retribution gap are considerable. I argue that the retributive (...) intuitions that feed into retribution gaps are best understood as deontological intuitions. I apply a debunking argument for deontological intuitions in order to show that retributive intuitions cannot be used to justify retributive punishment in cases of robot harm without clear candidates for blame. The fundamental moral question thus becomes what we ought to do with these retributive intuitions, given that they do not justify retribution. I draw a parallel from recent work on implicit biases to make a case for taking moral responsibility for retributive intuitions. In the same way that we can exert some form of control over our unwanted implicit biases, we can and should do so for unjustifed retributive intuitions in cases of robot harm. (shrink)

The unusually loyal supporters of Donald Trump are often described as a cult. How can we understand this extreme phenomenon in U.S. politics? We develop theoretical expectations and use the Big Five personality dimensions to investigate whether Trump's most loyal supporters share personality characteristics that might make them inclined to cult-like support. We find that (1) Trump's supporters share high levels of Conscientiousness; (2) this is substantively and statistically distinguishable from the commonly identified association between Conscientiousness and Conservatism; and (3) (...) the association is highly robust to a range of sensitivity tests. Our main findings are robust across two surveys. Study 1 is an online survey conducted in 2021 designed specifically for this project. Study 2 is the 2016 American National Election Study (ANES). (shrink)

Although continued investments in nanotechnology are made, atomically precise manufacturing (APM) to date is still regarded as speculative technology. APM, also known as molecular manufacturing, is a token example of a converging technology, has great potential to impact and be affected by other emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and ICT. The development of APM thus can have drastic global impacts depending on how it is designed and used. This paper argues that the ethical issues that arise from APM (...) - as both a standalone technology or as a converging one - affects the roles of stakeholders in such a way as to warrant an alternate means furthering responsible innovation in APM research. This paper introduces a value-based design methodology called Value Sensitive Design (VSD) that may serve as a suitable framework to adequately cater to the values of stakeholders. Ultimately, it is concluded that VSD is a strong candidate framework for addressing the moral concerns of stakeholders during the preliminary stages of technological development. (shrink)

First published in 1992, The Way is Edward Goldsmith's magnum opus. In it, he proposes that the stability and integrity of humans depend on the preservation of the balance of natural systems surrounding the individual--family, community, society, ecosystem, and the ecosphere itself. Portraying life processes and ecological thinking as holistic, Goldsmith calls for a paradigm shift away from the reductionist approach of modern science. The basic belief in the whole was at the heart of the worldview of primal, (...) earth-oriented societies, as manifested by the Tao of the ancient Chinese, the R'ta of Vedic India, the Asha of the Avestas, and the Sedaq of the tribal Hebrews. The Way was the path taken to maintain the critical order of the cosmos. Echoing the way of traditional cultures, Goldsmith presents an all-embracing, coherent worldview that promotes more harmonious and sustainable practices capable of satisfying real biological, social, ecological, and spiritual needs. Revised to include a glossary, index, bibliographic notes, and several updated chapters, this is a major work by one of our boldest and most promising thinkers. (shrink)

Folk and philosophers alike argue whether particular emotions are rational. However, these debates presuppose that emotions are eligible for rationality. Drawing on examples of how we manage our own emotions through strategies such as taking medication, I argue that the general permissibility of such management demonstrates that emotions are ineligible for rationality. It follows that emotions are never irrational or rational. Because neither perception nor emotion is eligible for rationality, this reveals a significant epistemic continuity between them, lending support to (...) perceptual views of emotion. (shrink)

Nick Shea’s Representation in Cognitive Science commits him to representations in perceptual processing that are about probabilities. This commentary concerns how to adjudicate between this view and an alternative that locates the probabilities rather in the representational states’ associated “attitudes”. As background and motivation, evidence for probabilistic representations in perceptual processing is adduced, and it is shown how, on either conception, one can address a specific challenge Ned Block has raised to this evidence.

Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAWs) are robotic weapons systems, primarily of value to the military, that could engage in offensive or defensive actions without human intervention. This paper assesses and engages the current arguments for and against the use of LAWs through the lens of achieving more ethical warfare. Specific interest is given particularly to ethical LAWs, which are artificially intelligent weapons systems that make decisions within the bounds of their ethics-based code. To ensure that a wide, but not exhaustive, survey (...) of the implications of employing such ethical devices to replace humans in warfare is taken into account, this paper will engage on matters related to current scholarship on the rejection or acceptance of LAWs—including contemporary technological shortcomings of LAWs to differentiate between targets and the behavioral and psychological volatility of humans—and current and proposed regulatory infrastructures for developing and using such devices. After careful consideration of these factors, this paper will conclude that only ethical LAWs should be used to replace human involvement in war, and, by extension of their consistent abilities, should remove humans from war until a more formidable discovery is made in conducting ethical warfare. (shrink)

Preventive vaccination can protect not just vaccinated individuals, but also others, which is often a central point in discussions about vaccination. To date, there has been no systematic study of self- and other-directed motives behind vaccination. This article has two major goals: first, to examine and distinguish between self- and other-directed motives behind vaccination, especially with regard to vaccinating for the sake of third parties, and second, to explore some ways in which this approach can help to clarify and guide (...) vaccination debates and policy. I propose conceiving of vaccination in terms of three basic elements: the vaccination decision-maker, the vaccine recipient and the primary beneficiary. I develop a taxonomy based on the relations between these elements to distinguish four kinds of vaccination: self-protective, paternalistic, altruistic and indirect. I finally discuss the case of human papillomavirus vaccine regulation for men and women to show how each kind of vaccination is associated with and raises specific ethical questions. (shrink)

A theory of customary international law -- Case studies -- A theory of international agreements -- Human rights -- International trade -- A theory of international rhetoric -- International law and moral obligation -- Liberal democracy and cosmopolitan duty.

A normative framework for modeling causal and counterfactual reasoning has been proposed by Spirtes, Glymour, and Scheines. The framework takes as fundamental that reasoning from observation and intervention differ. Intervention includes actual manipulation as well as counterfactual manipulation of a model via thought. To represent intervention, Pearl employed the do operator that simplifies the structure of a causal model by disconnecting an intervened-on variable from its normal causes. Construing the do operator as a psychological function affords predictions about how people (...) reason when asked counterfactual questions about causal relations that we refer to as undoing, a family of effects that derive from the claim that intervened-on variables become independent of their normal causes. Six studies support the prediction for causal arguments but not consistently for parallel conditional ones. Two of the studies show that effects are treated as diagnostic when their values are observed but nondiagnostic when they are intervened on. These results cannot be explained by theories that do not distinguish interventions from other sorts of events. (shrink)

Current analytic metaphysics has been claimed to be, at best, out of touch with modern physics, at worst, actually in conflict with the latter The continuum companion to the philosophy of science, Continuum, London, 2011; Ladyman and Ross Every thing must go: metaphysics naturalized, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007). While agreeing with some of these claims, it has been suggested that metaphysics may still be of service by providing a kind of ‘toolbox’ of devices that philosophers of science can access (...) in order to help provide an interpretation of theories in fundamental physics Metaphysics in contemporary physics, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 2015). In this context it has been argued that ‘standard’ forms of dispositionalism simply cannot be sustained in the context of modern physics but that certain ‘non-standard’ views may provide the resources to help explicate the sense in which physics may be regarded as ‘modally informed’. Here that suggestion will be further extended in order to consider the implications both with regard to the overall relevance of metaphysics given advances in science and for the prospects of a naturalised metaphysics more generally. In particular, this paper will focus on three concerns: that the particular tools identified are not, in fact, ‘scientifically disinterested’ and thus that the distinction between ‘naturalised’ and ‘non-naturalised’ metaphysics is at best vague or poorly drawn; that the usefulness of such tools depends on their being shaped to fit the relevant physics and thus the latter ‘guts’ metaphysics; that if metaphysics does prove to be useful in this sense then we have no reason to scorn non-naturalised metaphysics to begin with. (shrink)

Both current and past analyses and critiques of transhumanist and posthumanist theories have had a propensity to cite the Greek myth of Prometheus as a paradigmatic figure. Although stark differences exist amongst the token forms of posthumanist theories and transhumanism, both theoretical domains claim promethean theory as their own. There are numerous definitions of those two concepts: therefore, this article focuses on posthumanism thought. By first analyzing the appropriation of the myth in posthumanism, we show how the myth fails to (...) be foundational and how we need to rethink the posthumanist mythological framework. We then introduce Haldane’s Daedalus figure as a fruitful analogy to understand the demiurgic posture that critics mean to unveil by first using Prometheus. Daedalus embodies the artisan role, whose status as an inventor for the mighty preserves from the gods' direct opprobrium. Thereafter, we introduce the Camusian Myth of Sisyphus as a competing analogy that ultimately serves as a myth better suited to address the posthumanist position on an existential standpoint. we ultimately show that Sisyphus, as the ‘absurd man’ that Camus claims him to be, is himself the posthuman, thus serving as a more ideal foundational myth for posthumanism and preserving the importance of narrative in posthuman discourses. To conclude, we specifically show that the concept of Sisyphus as a posthuman icon has significance that reaches beyond narrative value to current ecological debates in posthumanism. (shrink)

There continues to be a debate on whether addiction is best understood as a brain disease or a moral condition. This debate, which may influence both the stigma attached to addiction and access to treatment, is often motivated by the question of whether and to what extent we can justly hold addicted individuals responsible for their actions. In fact, there is substantial evidence for a disease model, but the disease model per se does not resolve the question of voluntary control. (...) Recent research at the intersection of neuroscience and psychology suggests that addicted individuals have substantial impairments in cognitive control of behavior, but this "loss of control" is not complete or simple. Possible mechanisms and implications are briefly reviewed. (shrink)

Most discussions of Spinoza and consciousness—and there are not many— conclude either that he does not have an account of consciousness, or that he does have one but that it is at best confused, at worst hopeless. I argue, in fact, that people have been looking in the wrong place for Spinoza's account of consciousness, namely, at his doctrine of "ideas of ideas". Indeed, Spinoza offers the possibility of a fairly sophisticated, naturalistic account of consciousness, one that grounds it in (...) the nature and capacities of the body. Consciousness for Spinoza, I suggest, is a certain complexity in thinking that is the correlate of the complexity of a body, and human consciousness, for Spinoza, is nothing but the correlate in Thought of the extraordinarily high complexity of the human body in Extension. In this respect, Spinoza anticipates the conception of mind that is presently emerging from studies in the so-called ‘embodied mind’ research program. Moreover, this research program, in turn, may hold out hope for a clearer understanding of some of Spinoza's more difficult claims. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The international debate on the ethics and legality of autonomous weapon systems (AWS), along with the call for a ban, primarily focus on the nebulous concept of fully autonomous AWS. These are AWS capable of target selection and engagement absent human supervision or control. This paper argues that such a conception of autonomy is divorced from both military planning and decision-making operations; it also ignores the design requirements that govern AWS engineering and the subsequent tracking and tracing of moral responsibility. (...) To show how military operations can be coupled with design ethics, this paper marries two different kinds of meaningful human control (MHC) termed levels of abstraction. Under this two-tiered understanding of MHC, the contentious notion of ‘full’ autonomy becomes unproblematic. (shrink)

Simple finite axiomatizations are given for versions of the modal logics K and K4 with non-contingency (or contingency) as the sole modal primitive. This answers two questions of I. L. Humberstone.

The ethics of care still appeals to many in spite of penetrating criticisms of it which have been presented over the past 15 years or so. This paper tries to offer an explanation for this, and then to critically engage with three versions of an ethics of care. The explanation consists firstly in the close affinities between nursing and care. The three versions identified below are by Gilligan (1982 ), a second by Tronto (1993 ), and a third by Gastmans (...) (2006 ), see also Little (1998 ). Each version is described and then subjected to criticism. It is concluded that where the ethics of care is presented in a distinctive way, it is at its least plausible; where it is stated in more plausible forms, it is not sufficiently distinct from nor superior to at least one other common approach to nursing ethics, namely the much-maligned 'four principles' approach. What is added by this paper to what is already known: as the article tries to explain, in spite of its being subjected to sustained criticism the ethics of care retains its appeal to many scholars. The paper tries to explain why, partly by distinguishing three different versions of an ethics of care. It is also shown that all three versions are beset with problems the least serious of which is distinctiveness from other approaches to moral problems in health care. (shrink)

There are five basic ways to resolve disagreements: keep arguing until capitulation, compromise, locate an ambiguity or contextual factors, accept Pyrrhonian skepticism, and adopt relativism. Relativism is perhaps the most radical and least popular solution to a disagreement, and its defenders generally think the best motivator for relativism is to be found in disputes over predicates of personal taste. I argue that taste predicates do not adequately motivate relativism over the other possible solutions, and argue that relativism looks like the (...) most promising approach when disputants cannot even agree on the meta-evidence for a contested proposition. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to review and critique Wessel Reijers and Bert Gordijn’s paper Moving from value sensitive design to virtuous practice design. In doing so, it draws on recent literature on developing value sensitive design (VSD) to show how the authors’ virtuous practice design (VPD), at minimum, is not mutually exclusive to VSD. This paper argues that virtuous practice is not exclusive to the basic methodological underpinnings of VSD. This can therefore strengthen, rather than exclude the VSD (...) approach. Likewise, this paper presents not only a critique of what was offered as a “potentially fruitful alternative to VSD” but further clarifies and contributes to the VSD scholarship in extending its potential methodological practices and scope. It is concluded that VPD does not appear to offer any original contribution that more recent instantiations of VSD have not already proposed and implemented. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the connection between meaning, the specific field of phenomenological philosophy, and mattering, the cornerstone of personal identity. Doing so requires that we take a stand on the scope and method of phenomenological philosophy itself. I will argue that while we can describe our lives in an “impersonal” way, such descriptions will necessarily omit what makes it the case that such lives can matter at all. This will require distinguishing between “personal” identity and “self” identity, an idea (...) well-established in the phenomenological literature – for instance, in Husserl’s distinction between the “transcendental ego” and the person -- but I will argue that self-identity is a normative achievement whose clarification requires a move into second-person phenomenology. The argument moves through three sections. First, I will discuss Aron Gurwitsch’s “non-egological” conception of consciousness and will explain the most important reason Husserl rejected this view in his transcendental phenomenology. Second, I will discuss some contemporary approaches to Husserl’s distinction between person and ego. Third, I will argue that these approaches testify to an ambiguity in Husserl’s account of being “true” to oneself that requires us to understand selfhood as having the structure Heidegger called care. The importance of this will be demonstrated phenomenologically in a critical examination of Paul Ricoeur’s ontology of selfhood, particularly his interpretation of the second-person phenomenology of conscience. (shrink)

Theories of consciousness divide over whether perceptual consciousness is rich or sparse in specific representational content and whether it requires cognitive access. These two issues are often treated in tandem because of a shared assumption that the representational capacity of cognitive access is fairly limited. Recent research on working memory challenges this shared assumption. This paper argues that abandoning the assumption undermines post-cue-based “overflow” arguments, according to which perceptual conscious is rich and does not require cognitive access. Abandoning it also (...) dissociates the rich/sparse debate from the access question. The paper then explores attempts to reformulate overflow theses in ways that don’t require the assumption of limited capacity. Finally, it discusses the problem of relating seemingly non-probabilistic perceptual consciousness to the probabilistic representations posited by the models that challenge conceptions of cognitive access as capacity-limited. (shrink)

What is the role of the imagination in scientific practice? Here I focus on the nature and role of invitations to imagine in certain scientific texts as represented by the example of Einstein’s Special Relativity paper from 1905. Drawing on related discussions in aesthetics, I argue, on the one hand, that this role cannot be simply subsumed under ‘supposition’ but that, on the other, concerns about the impact of genre and symbolism can be dealt with, and hence present no obstacle (...) to regarding imagination as appropriately belief-like. By applying the framework of ‘semi- propositional representations’ and ‘quasi-truth’ to this case I thereby offer a new unitary framework for understanding the epistemology of scientific imagination. (shrink)

In two recent articles, Nicholas Dixon has argued that the intent to hurt and injure opponents which is essential to mixed martial arts makes the sport intrinsically immoral. Although bondage, domination, sadism, and masochism also involves the intentional infliction of pain and injury, Dixon argues that it is morally permissible in many cases. In this paper, I examine the principle underlying Dixon's differentiation of MMA and BDSM. I argue that, when properly elaborated, that principle does not in fact condemn MMA (...) as intrinsically immoral, but rather implies that the attitudes and actions of most autonomously consenting amateur MMA fighters and some autonomously consenting professionals are prima facie morally permissible. (shrink)

The view that quantum particles cannot be regarded as individuals was articulated in the early days of the 'quantum revolution' and became so well-entrenched that French and Krause called it 'the Received View'. However it was subsequently shown that quantum statistics is in fact compatible with a metaphysics of particle individuality, subject to certain caveats. As a consequent it has been claim that there exists a kind of underdetermination of the metaphysics by the physics which in turn has been used (...) to motivate a form of 'notice' structural realism. In this essay I will review this purported underdetermination and the motivation for structural realism that it purportedly provides in the context of recent developments in both the philosophy of physics and metaphysics. I aim to conclude that such developments reinforce the underdetermination and allow one to respond to certain critical concerns regarding its motivational power. (shrink)

Like many other scientists, I was amused by news of the prank played by the NYU mathematical physicist Alan Sokal. Late in 1994 he submitted a sham article to the cultural studies journal Social Text, in which he reviewed some current topics in physics and mathematics, and with tongue in cheek drew various cultural, philosophical and political morals that he felt would appeal to fashionable academic commentators on science who question the claims of science to objectivity.

The verbs cause, enable, and prevent express beliefs about the way the world works. We offer a theory of their meaning in terms of the structure of those beliefs expressed using qualitative properties of causal models, a graphical framework for representing causal structure. We propose that these verbs refer to a causal model relevant to a discourse and that “A causes B” expresses the belief that the causal model includes a link from A to B. “A enables/allows B” entails that (...) the model includes a link from A to B, that A represents a category of events necessary for B, and that an alternative cause of B exists. “A prevents B” entails that the model includes a link from A to B and that A reduces the likelihood of B. This theory is able to account for the results of four experiments as well as a variety of existing data on human reasoning. (shrink)

Why was the great philosopher Spinoza expelled from his Portuguese-Jewish community in Amsterdam? Nadler's investigation of this simple question gives fascinating new perspectives on Spinoza's thought and the Jewish religious and philosophical tradition from which it arose.

This book is a fresh examination of Thucydides' treatment of Alcibiades in his History of the Peloponnesian War, Alcibiades' significance in the History, and his relation to Thucydides' political themes.

In recent years there has been a notable increase in the use of phenomenology as a research method, particularly in educational research. With the rise of phenomenology as a research method, confusion has also arisen concerning what counts as phenomenology, and how best to practice phenomenological research in non-philosophical contexts. Consequently, this article will be concerned with three issues: firstly, to contextualise the debate, I provide a brief overview of three popular and influential approaches to phenomenology as a research method: (...) (1) Giorgi’s descriptive phenomenological method; (2) van Manen’s hermeneutic phenomenology; and, (3) Smith’s interpretative phenomenological analysis; secondly, for the sake of conceptual clarity, I then turn my attention to a critical discussion of these approaches and argue that these approaches tend to converge phenomenology into either a descriptive or interpretative focus that essentially transforms phenomenology into a kind of solipsist subjectivism; and, lastly, to progress the debate forward, I argue that it makes sense to look beyond the qualitative or educational research literature to successful applications of phenomenology in non-philosophical contexts because there are plenty of relevant resources that can offer significant theoretical and methodological support to researchers. (shrink)

The French philosopher and theologian Nicolas Malebranche was one of the most important thinkers of the early modern period. A bold and unorthodox thinker, he tried to synthesize the new philosophy of Descartes with religious Platonism. This is the first collection of essays to address Malebranche's thought comprehensively and systematically. There are chapters devoted to Malebranche's metaphysics, his doctrine of the soul, his epistemology, the celebrated debate with Arnauld, his philosophical method, his occasionalism and theory of causality, his philosophical theology, (...) his account of freedom, his moral philosophy, and his intellectual legacy. (shrink)

Emerging technologies such as cloud computing, augmented and virtual reality, artificial intelligence and robotics, among others, are transforming the field of manufacturing and industry as a whole in unprecedent ways. This fourth industrial revolution is consequentially changing how operators that have been crucial to industry success go about their practices in industrial environments. This short paper briefly introduces the notion of the Operator 4.0 as well as how this novel way of conceptualizing the human operator necessarily implicates human values in (...) the technologies that constitute it. Similarly, the design methodology known as value sensitive design (VSD) is drawn upon to discuss how these Operator 4.0 technologies can be design for human values and, conversely, how a potential value-sensitive Operator 4.0 can be used to strengthen the VSD methodology in developing novel technologies. (shrink)

Bovine tuberculosis is a controversial animal health policy issue in England, which impacts farmers, the public, cattle and badgers. Badgers act as a wildlife reservoir of disease. Policy options for badger control include do nothing, badger culling, and badger vaccination. This paper argues for mandatory Animal Welfare Impact Assessment for all policy that significantly affects sentient animals. AWIA includes species description, and AWIA analysis stages. In this paper, AWIA is applied to impacts of bovine TB policy options on cattle and (...) badgers. Over 4 years, 85,000 badgers will be culled to prevent the slaughter of ~17,750 cattle over 9 years. Hence, about five badgers are culled for every cow which avoids slaughter. The AWIA analyses the impact of badger vaccination on cows and badgers based on a set of stated assumptions. The AWIA estimates badger vaccination to reduce the number of cows slaughtered by 11,600, i.e. a 12.5% reduction. Additional to the harm of killing, culling has greater welfare impacts on badgers compared to non-culling options. Actors in animal health and welfare policy were interviewed about the concept of AWIA. Policy actors supported the idea of AWIA to provide objective data to feed into policy making. The paper concludes with the proposal that AWIA is a necessary stage of just policy making where sentient animals are impacted by government policy. (shrink)

In a number of publications, Gerald Gaus has presented an ambitious account of political morality that gives the ideal of public justification pride of place. This article critically discusses Gaus’s characterization and defense of the ideal of public justification in politics. It also presents an account and an argument in support of first-person political justification.