Meiotic recombination is one of the main sources of genetic variation, a fundamental factor in the evolutionary adaptation of sexual eukaryotes. Yet, the role of variation in recombination rate and other recombination features remains underexplored. In this review, we focus on the sensitivity of recombination rates to different extrinsic and intrinsic factors. We briefly present the empirical evidence for recombination plasticity in response to environmental perturbations and/or poor genetic background and discuss theoretical models developed to explain how such plasticity could (...) have evolved and how it can affect important population characteristics. We highlight a gap between the evidence, which comes mostly from experiments with diploids, and theory, which typically assumes haploid selection. Finally, we formulate open questions whose solving would help to outline conditions favoring recombination plasticity. This will contribute to answering the long‐standing question of why sexual recombination exists despite its costs, since plastic recombination may be evolutionary advantageous even in selection regimes rejecting any non‐zero constant recombination. (shrink)

Several philosophers have proposed Knowledge-Based Decision Theories (KDTs)—theories that require agents to maximize expected utility as yielded by utility and probability functions that depend on the agent’s knowledge. Proponents of KDTs argue that such theories are motivated by Knowledge-Reasons norms that require agents to act only on reasons that they know. However, no formal derivation of KDTs from Knowledge-Reasons norms has been suggested, and it is not clear how such norms justify the particular ways in which KDTs relate knowledge and (...) rational action. In this paper, I suggest a new axiomatic method for justifying KDTs and providing them with stronger normative foundations. I argue that such theories may be derived from constraints on the relation between knowledge and preference, and that these constraints may be evaluated relative to intuitions regarding practical reasoning. To demonstrate this, I offer a representation theorem for a KDT proposed by Hawthorne and Stanley (2008) and briefly evaluate it through its underlying axioms. (shrink)

Most mainstream attempts to understand the “placebo effect” invoke expectancy theory, arguing that expecting certain outcomes from a treatment or intervention can manifest those outcomes. Expectancy theory is incompatible with the phenomena of placebo responses, more appropriately named “meaning responses.” The expectancy account utilizes reflexive consciousness to connect a world of conceptual representations to mechanical physiology. An alternative account based upon Merleau-Ponty's motor intentionality argues that the body understands and is capable of responding to meanings without the need for any (...) conceptual or linguistic content. A motor intentional framework of meaning poses dramatic implications for the interpretation of clinical trials and in the clinical practice of medicine. Most strongly, it argues that the empathic physician can facilitate the physiologic effects of treatments through skillful participation and manipulation of the meaning response. (shrink)

Students systematically and deliberately apply rule‐based but erroneous algorithms to solving unfamiliar arithmetic problems. These algorithms result in erroneous solutions termed rational errors. Computationally, students' erroneous algorithms can be represented by perturbations or bugs in otherwise correct arithmetic algorithms (Brown & VanLehn, 1980; Langley & Ohilson, 1984; VanLehn, 1983, 1986, 1990; Young S O'Sheo, 1981). Bugs are useful for describing how rational errors occur but bugs are not sufficient for explaining their origin. A possible explanation for this is that rational (...) errors are the result of incorrect induction from examples. This prediction is termed the “induction hypothesis” (VanLehn, 1986). The purpose of the present study was to: (a) expand on post formulations of the induction hypothesis, and (b) use a new methodology to test the induction hypothesis more carefully than has been done previously. The first step involved teaching participants a new number system called NewAbacus, a written modification of the abacus system. The second step consisted of dividing them into different groups, where each individual received an example of only one port of the NewAbacus addition algorithm. During the third and final step, participants were instructed to solve both familiar and unfamiliar types of addition problems in NewAbacus. The induction hypothesis was supported by using both empirical and computational investigations. (shrink)

We study the representation of attitudes to risk in Jeffrey’s decision-theoretic framework suggested by Stefánsson and Bradley :602–625, 2015; Br J Philos Sci 70:77–102, 2017) and Bradley :231–248, 2016; Decisions theory with a human face, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017). We show that on this representation, the value of any prospect may be expressed as a sum of two components, the prospect’s instrumental value and the prospect’s intrinsic value. Both components have an expectational form. We also make a distinction between (...) a prospect’s overall intrinsic value and a prospect’s conditional intrinsic value given each one of its possible outcomes and argue that this distinction has great explanatory power. We explore the relation between these two types of intrinsic values and show that they are determined at the level of preferences. Finally, we explore the relation between the intrinsic values of different prospects and point to a strong restriction on this relation that is implicit in Jeffrey’s axioms. We suggest a natural interpretation to this restriction. (shrink)

The article concerns the medieval history of the strategic city al-Raqqa, situated at the junction of the Balīkh and Euphrates Rivers. After an overview of the city’s middle Islamic history, gathered from Islamic textual sources and archaeological finds, it focuses on the city’s history during the fifth/eleventh century, which is also its most obscure period, on which the textual sources are silent and archaeological finds are scanty. Eleventh century al Raqqa is revealed through several documents from the Cairo Geniza, which (...) tell the story of the al- Lādhiqī family, whose members occupied leadership positions in the local Jewish community and around. Through the saga of the al-Lādhiqīs, some light is shed on the dimorphic rule exercised by the Bedouin tribe of Banū Numayr on the city and on the local Jewish community and the ways it integrated in the city and in the wider network of Jewish communities. (shrink)

En el marco de un estudio sobre la evolución del género trágico desde el siglo IV a.C. hasta Bizancio, nos detenemos en la Exagogé de Ezequiel para proponer un texto y una versión castellana, a la vez que en el comentario destacamos los rasgos que la hacen pertenecer a dicho género y su valor como antecedente de piezas bizantinas. In the context of a study on the evolution of the tragic genre from the IV century B.C. to Byzantium, we stop (...) in the Exagoge, the work of Ezechiel, in order to propose a text and a Spanish version ; at the same time, in our commentary we emphasise the characteristics which make it to belong to this genre and its values as precedent of Byzantine plays. (shrink)

In this masterful work of historical scholarship, Zeev Sternhell, an internationally renowned Israeli political scientist and historian, presents a controversial new view of the fall of democracy and the rise of radical nationalism in the twentieth century. Sternhell locates their origins in the eighteenth century with the advent of the Anti-Enlightenment, far earlier than most historians. The thinkers belonging to the Anti-Enlightenment represent a perspective that is antirational and that rejects the principles of natural law and the rights of (...) man. Sternhell asserts that the Anti-Enlightenment was a development separate from the Enlightenment and sees the two traditions as evolving parallel to one another over time. He contends that J. G. Herder and Edmund Burke are among the real founders of the Anti-Enlightenment and shows how that school undermined the very foundations of modern liberalism, finally contributing to the development of fascism that culminated in the European catastrophes of the twentieth century. (shrink)

The broad, ancient notion of the “soul” was replaced by Descartes with a more narrow notion of the “mind.” As well as limiting the scope of the soul, Descartes separated it from the body, giving the soul a substantive status. These two features gave rise to severe conceptual problems which remain unsolved till the present day. I believe that retaining some features of the ancient notion of the “soul”—particularly those found in Aristotle’s view—may resolve many of these problems. As an (...) alternative approach I suggest the following three assumptions concerning the nature of the soul : the soul consists of dispositional and actualized states and not of internal, isolated entities; physiological and mental states are not actually separate but belong to two different levels of description, hence the relation between them is that of correlation and not of causality; mental and physical states can be arranged along a spectrum ranging from simple to more complex states. This approach treats mental properties just as common sense and science treat other natural properties. Thus, many of the traditional problems concerning the mind-body gap disappear. Though the approach presented here returns, in some aspects, to the ancient, broad notion of the soul, I will continue to use the term “mind” which is used more today. (shrink)

Under the post-metaphysical sky “old” humanistic-oriented education is possible solely at the cost of its transformation into its negative, into a power that is determined to diminish human potentials for self-exaltation. Nothing less than total metamorphosis is needed to rescue the core of humanistic genesis: the quest for edifying Life and resistance to the call for “home-returning” into the total harmony that is promised to us within nothingness.

The book elucidates the complex relationship between Jewish philosophy and general philosophy. At the same time it examines Jewish philosophy as an independent discipline of thought. The issue of particular and characteristic problems of Jewish thought is taken up in the third part of the book. Other philosophical topics - from the general as well as the Jewish angle - are the quiddity of philosophy, its aims and tasks, its value and purpose, and the relations between philosophy, religion and theology, (...) as reflected in general and Jewish thought. The concluding sections of the book highlight several basic problems of Jewish philosophy: its sources of inspiration and its influence, the motifs for philosophizing, the relation between reason and revelation, and lastly, the principal transformations in Jewish philosophy with the passage from medievalism to modernity. (shrink)

We investigate and develop further two models, the GRW model and the K model, in which the Schrödinger evolution of the wave function is spontaneously and repeatedly interrupted by random, approximate localizations, also called “self-reductions” below. In these models the center of mass of a macroscopic solid body is well localized even if one disregards the interactions with the environment. The motion of the body shows a small departure from the classical motion. We discuss the prospects and the difficulties of (...) observing this anomaly. As far a the influence of the surroundings on submacroscopic objects (like dust particles) is concerned, we show that the estimates obtained recently in the theory of continuous measurements and in the K model are compatible. Also, we elaborate upon the relationship between the models. Firstly, borrowing a line of thought from the K model, we find the transition region between macroscopic and microscopic behaviors in the GRW model. Secondly, we refine the propagation rule of the wave function in the K model with the help of the time-evolution equation proposed in the GRW model. (shrink)

The sensation-perception distinction did not appear before the seventeenth century, but since then various formulations of it have gained wide acceptance. This is not an historical accident and the article suggests an explanation for its appearance. Section 1 describes a basic assumption underlying the sensation-perception distinction, to wit, the postulation of a pure sensory stage--viz. sensation--devoid of active influence of the agent's cognitive, emotional, and evaluative frameworks. These frameworks are passive in that stage. I call this postulation the passivity assumption. (...) Section 2 suggests three major reasons for the emergence of this assumption in the seventeenth century: the mental-physical gap, the causal theory of perception, and epistemological considerations regarding the status of the sensory given. In the last section a critical discussion is presented. The passivity assumption is found to have serious empirical and theoretical flaws. (shrink)

The relationship between emotions and argumentation is not always clear. I attempt to clarify this issue by referring to three basic questions: (1) Do emotions constitute a certain kind of argumentation?; (2) Do emotions constitute rational argumentation?; (3) Do emotions constitute efficient argumentation? I will claim that there are many circumstances in which the answer to these questions is positive. After describing such circumstances, the educational implications of the connection between emotions and argumentation will be indicated.

Jesus has been accused of committing a fallacy (of denying the antecedent) at John 8:47. Careful analysis of this text (1) reveals a hitherto unrecognized valid form of argument which can superficially look like the predicate-logic analogue of denying the antecedent; (2) shows that determining whether a published text can be fairly charged with committing a fallacy may require (but often does not get) extensive and detailed analysis; (3) acquits Jesus of the charge; and thereby (4) conflnns a claim by (...) Michael Burke that published arguments can seldom be fairly charged with denying the antecedent, or analogous fallacies. (shrink)

In the existing expositions of the Károlyházy model, quantum mechanical uncertainties are mimicked by classical spreads. It is shown how to express those uncertainties through entities of the future unified theory of general relativity and quantum theory.

The Business of Identity: Jews, Muslims, and Economic Life in Medieval Egypt. By Phillip I. Ackerman-Lieberman. Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Cultures. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2014. Pp. xvi + 446. $65.

Nos proponemos analizar el personaje de Aseneth, protagonista de la novela judeohelenística José y Aseneth en función de su decisión de abandonar su vida anterior para adoptar la creencia monoteísta. A partir de ella reflexionaremos sobre identidad y el fenómeno del prosélito, su 'aceptación' dentro de la comunidad judía y fuera de ella, por lo cual nos valdremos de algunas de las fuentes históricas y literarias que atestiguan la existencia del prosélito y su inserción en una sociedad en una época (...) de transición entre el mundo pagano y el cristiano. The paper analyzes the character of Aseneth, main character of the Hellenistic Jewish novel Joseph and Aseneth according to his decision of leaving his former life to adopt the monotheistic belief. From this point we will meditate on identity and the phenomenon of the proselyte, its 'acceptance' inside the Jewish community and outside it, so we will use some of the historical and literary sources that testify the existence of proselyte and its insertion into a society in a time of transition between the pagan and the Christian world. (shrink)

Medieval Jerusalem: Forging an Islamic City in Spaces Sacred to Christians and Jews. By Jacob Lassner. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017. Pp. xxv + 242. $75.