The concept of an ecological niche (econiche) has been used in a variety of ways, some of which are incompatible with a relational or functional interpretation of the term. This essay seeks to standardize usage by limiting the concept to functional relations between organisms and their surroundings, and to revise the concept to include epistemic relations. For most organisms, epistemics are a vital aspect of their functional relationships to their surroundings and, hence, a major determinant of their econiche. Rejecting the (...) traditional dualism of organism and environment, an econiche is defined as the reciprocal (dual) of a functionally specified class of organisms (FSTU). From this perspective, an econiche necessarily implies a certain type of organism, and a class of functionally similar organisms implies a special econiche.The econiche concept is also discussed in relation to other ecological terms that reflect the distributional patterns of organisms, such as habitat, and the concept of an empty niche is criticized. (shrink)

In this important book, Thomas R. Flynn reinterprets and evaluates Sartre's social and political philosophy, arguing that the existential ethics of Sartre's ...

Abstract Advances in technology now make it possible to monitor the activity of the human brain in action, however crudely. As this emerging science continues to offer correlations between neural activity and mental functions, mind and brain may eventually prove to be one. If so, such a full comprehension of the electrochemical bases of mind may render current concepts of ethics, law, and even free will irrelevant. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 1-5 DOI 10.1007/s11948-012-9351-1 Authors Thomas (...) R. Scott, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, USA Journal Science and Engineering Ethics Online ISSN 1471-5546 Print ISSN 1353-3452. (shrink)

This article examines some of the main tenets of competition theory in light of the theory of evolution and the concept of an ecological niche. The principle of competitive exclusion and the related assumption that communities exist at competitive equilibrium - fundamental parts of many competition theories and models - may be violated if non-equilibrium conditions exist in natural communities or are incorporated into competition models. Furthermore, these two basic tenets of competition theory are not compatible with the theory of (...) evolution. Variation in ecologically significant environmental factors and non-equilibrium in population numbers should occur in most natural communities, and such changes have important effects on community relations, niche overlap, and the evolution of ecosystems. Ecologists should view competition as a process occurring within a complexdynamic system, and should be wary of theoretical positions built upon simple laboratory experiments or simplistic mathematical models.In considering the relationship between niche overlap and competition, niche overlap should not be taken as a sufficient condition for competition; many factors may prevent or diminish competition between populations with similar resource utilization patterns. The typically opposing forces of intraspecific and interspecific competition need to be simultaneously considered, for it is the balance between them that in large part determines niche boundaries. (shrink)

This article presents a network perspective on whistleblowing. It considers how whistleblowing affects, and is affected by, the preexisting distribution of power inside and outside an organization, where power is conceptualized as deriving from the network positions of the key actors. The article also highlights four characteristic features of whistleblowing: third‐party detriment, local subversion, appeal to central or external power, and reasonable expectation of concern. The feature of local subversion succinctly explains why whistleblowing is difficult. The feature of appeal to (...) central or external power highlights that contrary to the perception of a democratizing phenomenon, whistleblowing tends to redistribute discretion away from local power toward more central power. This suggests a need for caution about institutional measures to promote whistleblowing in contexts where governance is already highly centralized. (shrink)

A nineteenth-century aristocrat, Nishi Amane (1829-1897) was one of the first Japanese to assert the supremacy of Western culture. He was sent by his government to Leiden to study the European social sciences; on his return to Japan shortly before the climactic Meiji Restoration of 1868 he introduced and adapted European utilitarianism and positivism to his country's intellectual world. To modernize, Nishi held, Japan must cast off the bonds of the Confucian world-view in order to adopt new principles of empirical (...) scholarly investigation and new standards of self-improvement. Though a Confucian by upbringing, Nishi became thoroughly committed to Western intellectual values in his programs for the new Japanese society. In his roles of teacher, writer, and government administrator, he was influential at one of the most critical times in Japan's history. Originally published in 1970. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Thomas R. Flynn - Dark Feelings, Grim Thoughts: Experience and Reflection in Camus and Sartre - Journal of the History of Philosophy 46:1 Journal of the History of Philosophy 46.1 179-180 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Thomas R. Flynn Emory University Robert C. Solomon. Dark Feelings, Grim Thoughts: Experience and Reflection in Camus and Sartre. Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. ii + 241. Cloth, $35.00. This study in existentialist thought is a collection of (...) essays, some previously published, in defense of the thesis that existentialist thought, at least in these works, is the articulation of our pre-reflective experience that yields an immediacy and a richness often sacrificed when one turns to abstract reflection—as Solomon believes Sartre does in Being and Nothingness in.. (shrink)

University of Utrecht, Department of Philosophy, Heidelberglaan 6, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands. Tel.: +31 30 253 28 74, Email: Thomas.Nys{at}phil.uu.nl ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//-->Measures in public health care seem vulnerable to charges of paternalism: their aim is to protect, restore, or promote people's health, but the public character of these measures seems to leave insufficient room for respect for individual autonomy. This paper wants to explore three challenges to these charges: Measures in (...) PHC are aimed to protect, restore or promote ‘deep autonomy’, Measures in PHC are directed at the public and, as such, they do show respect for autonomy, and Some measures in PHC can be justified on grounds of justice and need not be defended as cases of ‘justified paternalism’. Although charges of unjustified paternalism in PHC might still be relevant, we should at least face these different challenges. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The view that numerical difference entails qualitative difference has come under attack from various quarters. One classical attack, advanced by Black, involves possible worlds which are symmetrical. In a symmetrical world, it is claimed, the identity of indiscernibles is false. I argue that such attacks are mistaken, basically because they confuse epistemological issues (such as, how to specify a quality difference) with ontological ones (such as, whether there is such a quality difference). In brief, though there may be some reasons (...) for doubting the necessity of the Identity of lndiscernibles, the possibility of a symmetrical world is not one of them. (shrink)

Covering the entire trajectory of his religious life, this book identifies and analyzes the foundations of political and social order in the philosophy of Pope Benedict XVI. Thomas R. Rourke explains Benedict's belief in the value of the Christian tradition's contribution to a contemporary politics of reason.

After reviewing how Jean Wahl interprets the early Marcel, specifically his Metaphysical Journal, in a seminal work whose title captured the philosophical spiritof the 1930s, Vers le concret (“Toward the Concrete”), I discuss the existentialist style of philosophizing, offer five criteria for judging a philosopher to be an existentialist and submit Marcel’s work to each. I turn to the appropriateness of calling him a neo-Socratic philosopher, an appellation he seemed to prefer, and conclude with some observations of how this mixture (...) of the Socratic and the existentialist places Marcel in the lineage of those like Michel Foucault and Pierre Hadot who speak of philosophy less as a doctrine and more as a way of life. (shrink)

The Page target article is interesting because of apparent coverage of many psychological phenomena with simple, unified neural techniques. However, prototype phenomena cannot be covered because the strongest response would be to the first-learned stimulus in each category rather than to a prototype stimulus or most frequently presented stimuli. Alternative methods using distributed coding can also achieve portability of network knowledge.

Neuroconstructivist modeling can be usefully extended with algorithms that build their own topology and recruit existing knowledge, effectively constructing a hierarchy of network modules. Possible benefits include allowing abilities to emerge naturally, in a way that affords objective study, deeper insights, and more rapid progress, and provides more serious consideration of the implications of constructivism.

Sartre and Foucault were two of the most prominent and at times mutually antagonistic philosophical figures of the twentieth century. And nowhere are the antithetical natures of their existentialist and poststructuralist philosophies more apparent than in their disparate approaches to historical understanding. In Volume One of this authoritative two-volume study, Thomas R. Flynn conducted a pivotal and comprehensive reconstruction of Sartrean historical theory. This long-awaited second volume offers a comprehensive and critical reading of the Foucauldian counterpoint. A history, theorized (...) Foucault, should be a kind of map, a comprehensive charting of structural transformations and displacements over time. Contrary to other Foucault scholars, Flynn proposes an "axial" rather than a developmental reading of Foucault's work. This allows aspects of Foucault's famous triad of knowledge, power, and the subject to emerge in each of his major works. Flynn maps existentialist categories across Foucault's "quadrilateral," the model that Foucault proposes as defining modernist conceptions of knowledge. At stake is the degree to which Sartre's thought is fully captured by this mapping, whether he was, as Foucault claimed, "a man of the nineteenth century trying to think in the twentieth.". (shrink)

The 1968 My Lai Massacre in South Vietnam and shocking events at Abu Graibh prison in Iraq in 2003 show that the behaviour of some in the American military has descended into barbarism. How strong is the military's commitment to avoiding misconduct and atrocity? This timely and compelling book asks critical questions and raises sobering issues the Australian Army can't ignore. Leading military personnel, aid workers, commentators and scholars discuss the Australian Army's commitment to behaving ethically and the challenges associated (...) with contemporary warfare. With chapters on social media and inciting violence, cyberweapons, and special operations and humanitarian deployments, 'Ethics Under Fire' offers a rare insight into the key issues facing the modern army, from technology and tactics to terrorism"--Back cover. (shrink)

We understand the workings of the human body as a series of interdependent physiological relationships: muscle interacts with bone as the heart responds to hormones secreted by the brain, all the way down to the inner workings of every cell. To make an organism function, no one component can work alone. In light of this, why is it that the accepted understanding that the physical phenomenon of the mind is attributed only to the brain? In The Embodied Mind, internationally renowned (...) psychiatrist Dr. Thomas R. Verny sets out to redefine our concept of the mind and consciousness. He brilliantly compiles new research that points to the mind's ties to every part of the body. The Embodied Mind collects disparate findings in physiology, genetics, and quantum physics in order to illustrate the mounting evidence that somatic cells, not just neural cells, store memory, inform genetic coding, and adapt to environmental changes-all behaviors that contribute to the mind and consciousness. Cellular memory, Verny shows, is not just an abstraction, but a well-documented scientific fact that will shift our understanding of memory. Verny describes single-celled organisms with no brains demonstrating memory, and points to the remarkable case of a French man who, despite having a brain just a fraction of the typical size, leads a normal life with a family and a job. The Embodied Mind shows how intelligence and consciousness-traits traditionally attributed to the brain alone-also permeate our entire being. Bodily cells and tissues use the same molecular mechanisms for memory as our brain, making our mind more fluid and adaptable than we could have ever imaged. (shrink)

Hühn and Dierksmeier argue that a better understanding of Adam Smith’s work would improve business ethics research and education. I worry that their approach encourages two scholarly sins. First, anachronistic historiography in which we distort Smith’s ideas by making him answer questions about contemporary debates in CSR theory. Second, treating him as a prophet by assuming that finding out what Smith would have thought about it is the right way to answer such questions.

This monograph analyzes the moral reasoning behind people's proposed consequences for wrongdoers and compares group modes of moral decision making.

Across Europe, national leaders and ordinary citizens alike face the problems and opportunities raised by increasing economic and political interdependence. Interdependence between nations creates new dilemmas in every sphere of activity. In The Netherlands: Negotiating Sovereignty in an Interdependent World, Thomas Rochon offers a comparative focus and a strong conceptualization of small-state issues applied to present the Netherlands experience.Although all countries face issues of sovereignty and adjustment to international forces, the Dutch have addressed these issues more explicitly and over (...) a longer span of time. How have the Dutch gone about the transformation from global power to small state? What lessons have they learned along the way that might be applied elsewhere in Europe, not to mention the United States? Rochon addresses these issues and provides background information on the people, culture, government, and economy of the country. In the final chapter, he summarizes the Dutch experience and explains that what unites the Netherlands with other industrial nations is how the country copes with change. (shrink)

The authors' attempt to explore the ability of animals to monitor how certain they are of their choice behavior, necessarily fails both in their effort to include “higher” mammals (such as monkeys and dolphins) in the class of metacognitive organisms (humans) and in their conclusion that “lower” organisms are not capable of similar behavior.