Evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) has undergone dramatic transformations since its emergence as a distinct discipline. This paper aims to highlight the scope, power, and future promise of evo-devo to transform and unify diverse aspects of biology. We articulate key questions at the core of eleven biological disciplines—from Evolution, Development, Paleontology, and Neurobiology to Cellular and Molecular Biology, Quantitative Genetics, Human Diseases, Ecology, Agriculture and Science Education, and lastly, Evolutionary Developmental Biology itself—and discuss why evo-devo is uniquely situated to substantially improve (...) our ability to find meaningful answers to these fundamental questions. We posit that the tools, concepts, and ways of thinking developed by evo-devo have profound potential to advance, integrate, and unify biological sciences as well as inform policy decisions and illuminate science education. We look to the next generation of evolutionary developmental biologists to help shape this process as we confront the scientific challenges of the 21st century. (shrink)

Discursive social psychology is used here to study the reconstruction of an event, a homicide, by lay people. Fourteen propositions are outlined to guide discourse analysis, since the epistemological basis of such analysis is somewhat different from that of formal experimental inquiry. An actual discourse is then analyzed, with special emphasis on the evidence used to support the final conclusion of guilt.

The forfeiture thesis is posed as an independent thesis in moral philosophy according to which agents forfeit (or lose) rights if they perform certain act-types. According to many, this thesis plays a crucial role in the justification of (legal) punishment. In this paper, I argue that the forfeiture thesis is unnecessary – we can simply dismiss it without any substantive loss. Echoing an aspect of the specificationist approach to rights, the reason is that we may replace the forfeiture thesis with (...) an exception clause in the very content of the right not to be subjected to hard treatment: P has no right not to be subjected to hard treatment simpliciter, but a right not to be subjected to hard treatment unless P performs an act-type φ – e.g., murdering an innocent person. This alternative has substantive advantages over the forfeiture thesis, which, in turn, shows that the former cannot be reduced to the latter. (shrink)

The forfeiture thesis is posed as an independent thesis in moral philosophy according to which agents forfeit (or lose) rights if they perform certain act-types. According to many, this thesis plays a crucial role in the justification of (legal) punishment. In this paper, I argue that the forfeiture thesis is unnecessary – we can simply dismiss it without any substantive loss. Echoing an aspect of the specificationist approach to rights, the reason is that we may replace the forfeiture thesis with (...) an exception clause in the very content of the right not to be subjected to hard treatment: P has no right not to be subjected to hard treatment simpliciter, but a right not to be subjected to hard treatment unless P performs an act-type φ – e.g., murdering an innocent person. This alternative has substantive advantages over the forfeiture thesis, which, in turn, shows that the former cannot be reduced to the latter. (shrink)

The much-discussed “claimability objection” holds that it is unjustified to believe that all individuals have a human right to subsistence because the bearers of the correlative duties are not sufficiently determined. This argument is based on the so-called “claimability-condition”: S has a right to P if and only if the duty-bearer is sufficiently determined. Practice-based theorists defend the human right to subsistence by arguing that if we take the existing human rights practice seriously, there is no indeterminacy about the allocation (...) of duties. In this paper, I challenge this (apparently compelling) defense of the human right to subsistence with a dilemma. If the claimability condition is true, the practice-based defense fails to undermine the claimability objection because the duty-bearer is determined in some, but not all, cases. If practice-based theorists reject the claimability condition, they generate an account of human rights that is problematic from the practical perspective because it may contain duties that are unable to guide action. (shrink)

Is it justified to hold that an agent S has a (moral) right to P if the duty-bearer is not specified? There is an intense ongoing debate on this question. There are two positions in the literature. On the one hand, O´Neill´s much-discussed account of rights holds that it is justified to say that an agent S has a right to P if and only if the duty-bearer is sufficiently determined – i.e. if and only if it is clear against (...) whom S may claim her right to P (O’Neill 1986, 1988, 1996, 2000, 2005, 2016). Call this, the ‘claimability condition’. On the other hand, interest-based theorists argue that it can be justified to say that an agent S has a right to P even if the duty-bearer is not sufficiently determined (Caney 2007; Griffin, 2008; Raz 1988; Tasioulas 2007; see also: Etinson, 2013; Ypi 2010). Who (if anyone) is correct in this fundamental discussion about the very nature of rights? In this paper, I provide an answer to this crucial question. Neither O´Neill nor interest-based theorists provide good reasons to justify their positions. However, I argue, the claimability condition is an existence condition of rights justified on the basis of their action-guiding character. The reason is that if the duty-bearer is not specified, the content of the right (its correlative obligation) does not sufficiently guide what the agent should do because it is indeterminate who is required to act (or refrain from acting). (shrink)

To advance understanding of the mechanisms allowing for team coordination (TC) in complex motor actions, we conducted a qualitative study with eight elite hand-to-hand circus acrobats. Data collection consisted of field observations, an open-ended interview with the participants’ head coach, and focus group interviews with all acrobats. Data analysis yielded three higher order themes: TC, collective efficacy (CE), and TC-CE linkage. Teammates’ shared and complementary mental models, as well as implicit and explicit communication dynamics, emerged as formative sub-themes of TC; (...) self-efficacy and other’s-efficacy emerged as reflective sub-themes of CE. Our findings also suggest that TC is likely inter-related to CE in a systemic fashion. Practitioners should encourage the development of both shared and complementary models of thinking, while promoting verbal and non-verbal communication skills. Finally, increasing teammates’ confidence in themselves and in their teammates can help in the development of CE as well as the enhancement of TC. (shrink)

Studies in social psychology inadvertently call for a subject's reconstruction of past behaviors when using interviews, questionnaires, or personality inventories. Since subjects' past behaviors are unobservables, subjects reconstruct their past retroductively. However, since the behaviors are not perceptually observed, such inquiry is decontextualized and probabilistic. Hence, reconstructions are frequently organized in terms of commonsense plausibility and personal accountability rather than causality. It is proposed that such inquiry may be improved by having subjects not only endorse preformatted material, but also by (...) providing warrants for subjects' endorsements. The provision of warrants has been shown to structure past reality perceptions of laypersons . The provision of warrants not only recontextualizes recall of past behaviors but also discloses historical continuity which, in turn, suggests higher probabilities of future behaviors. (shrink)

The present volume is intended as an all-round introduction to constructivism. Here constructivism is to be understood in the wide sense, and covers in particular Brouwer's intuitionism, Bishop's constructivism and A.A. Markov's constructive recursive mathematics. The ending "-ism" has ideological overtones: "constructive mathematics is the (only) right mathematics"; we hasten, however, to declare that we do not subscribe to this ideology, and that we do not intend to present our material on such a basis.

The first part of this paper argued that the traditional application of the Cave to the Line was not intended by Plato, and led to a misunderstanding of both similes. The Cave, it was said, is attached to the simile of the Sun and the Line by the visible region outside the cave, which is a reintegration of the symbolism of sun, originals and images in the sunlight, and the new system of objects inside the cave is compared and contrasted (...) with the natural objects in the visible outside. As we know that the natural symbolism illustrates the Platonic education, our main task in this paper will be to find the meaning of the cave, untrammelled by the associations of the lower line. (shrink)

I would like to begin with the role of philosophy in solving ecological problems, emphasizing two aspects of its role: the struggle against hostile ideology and the organizing and guiding of activity in the sphere of the development of science and the shaping of its problems. This role of Marxist-Leninist philosophy clearly appears in the complex interdisciplinary problem of the interaction between nature and society.

Purpose. To examine the existential anthropology of G. Marcel and E. Minkowski, in order to demonstrate the necessity of distinguishing the universal-spiritual, as human in human being, apart from the individual-existential in him, and to reveal the hierarchical correlation of biosocial, existential and spiritual spheres in personality. Theoretical basis. Within existential philosophy the author differentiates two separate traditions and proceeds from the insufficiency of the distinction of existential sphere, proposed by phenomenological tradition, showing the necessity of its correlation with the (...) spiritual sphere as a sphere of humanity, proposed by non-phenomenological tradition of G. Marcel and E. Minkowski. Originality. The author presents the anthropological conception of G. Marcel and E. Minkowski, in which human personality is understood as unity of individual-existential and universal-spiritual, which requires a special trans-empirical field of culture, which contains senses, images and symbols of humanity. Also, the author presents the recent developments of existential thinkers in distinguishing existential and spiritual dimensions, both not reducible to the physical and social dimensions. Conclusions. In both existential traditions, the specifically human was founded as a trans-biological and trans-social phenomenon, which appears as indefinable and non-predetermined. But in first tradition, humanity is understood as an existence, as a unique individuality, "project", variant of humanity, equivalent to other variants, and universal is understood as a community of human condition in the world. While in the second tradition, the universal is understood as spiritual. Thus, horizontal level of our private existence, as the process of movement from birth to death, is supplemented by vertical of human, universal ideals and images. Humanity appears as a task, on the way to which human being transcends beyond the limits of his individual "self" to the "super-individual", through inclusion into spiritual community, into universal culture. (shrink)

Decisions by industry sponsors to end clinical trials early for commercial reasons have been the subject of controversy. I argue that the principal consideration in assessing these decisions ought to be the way in which the termination would affect the trial’s risk–benefit relationship. If there is not yet sufficient benefit to be gained from the study to offset the risks to which participants were exposed and it is expected that important scientific information would be obtained if the trial were continued, (...) early termination constitutes an unethical alteration of the risk−benefit relationship. This violates the grounds on which permission is given to conduct human research, patients consent to participate, and investigators agree to conduct studies. These knowable and avoidable changes in risk–benefit relationship should generally be seen as impermissible. (shrink)

We prove a strong boundedness theorem for dilators: if A ⊆ DIL is Σ 1 1 , then there is a recursive dilator D 0 such that ∀ D ∈ A.

This new edition brings Farquharson's authoritative 1944 translation up to date and includes a helpful introduction and notes for the student and general reader. Rutherford includes a selection of letters from Marcus to his tutor Fronto--most of which date from his earlier years--that offer personal detail and help to fill out the somber portrait of the emperor that is found in the Meditations.

This paper is a survey of V.A. Smirnovs main results in modern logic.

This volume brings together the religious and philosophical writings of the founders of Russian religious philosophy, Aleksei Khomiakov and Ivan Kireevsky. Both began their intellectual careers in the literary world of the 1820s. The texts collected here make the philosophical concepts of Sobornost (community, universality, wholeness, ecumenicity) and integral knowledge, available to western readers. Based on the primacy of the heart, the spiritual wholeness of the human being and the cognitive will, integral knowing moves beyond rationality to union with the (...) object of knowledge in knowing. This book provides an introduction to Russian religious philosophy, and a profound, meditative text for anyone concerned with human and spiritual unity. Also included are two responses to Slavophile ideas by the prominent Russian philosophers Pavel Florensky and Nikolai Berdiaev. (shrink)

Open theism argues that traditional responses to the problem of evil fail to provide comfort amidst suffering because of their notion of metaphysical determinism and over-dependence on Greek philosophy. Open theists argue that the best solution to the problem of evil lies in our understanding of the nature of God’s power, which has been relinquished due to his love, the open nature of creation, and the creatures’ inherent powers. This study argues that the open-theistic notion of divine power is reductionistic (...) because it does not consider coercive power as part of divine power. Further, the open theistic logic-of-love defence propagates a loveless God who respects his covenant with the beloved more than the beloved. Finally, the study argues that the open theists’ notions of divine omniscience and divine power are not viable; they raised many questions and objections and, therefore, created room for despair rather than comfort in adversity. (shrink)

Is there any link between the doctrine of logical fatalism and prime numbers? What do logic and prime numbers have in common? The book adopts truth-functional approach to examine functional properties of finite-valued Łukasiewicz logics Łn+1. Prime numbers are defined in algebraic-logical terms and represented as rooted trees. The author designs an algorithm which for every prime number n constructs a rooted tree where nodes are natural numbers and n is a root. Finite-valued logics Kn+1 are specified that they have (...) tautologies if and only if n is a prime number. It is discovered that Kn+1 have the same functional properties as Łn+1 whenever n is a prime number. Thus, Kn+1 are 'logics' of prime numbers. Amazingly, combination of logics of prime numbers led to uncovering a law of generation of classes of prime numbers. Along with characterization of prime numbers author also gives characterization, in terms of Łukasiewicz logical matrices, of powers of primes, odd numbers, and even numbers. (shrink)