George McGhee’s book “Convergent Evolution: limited forms most beautiful” provides an extensive survey of biological convergence. This paper has two main aims. First, it examines the theoretical claims McGhee makes about convergent evolution—specifically criticizing his use of a total morphospace to understand contingency and his assumption that functional constraints are non-contingent. Second, it sketches a group of important conceptual challenges facing researchers interested in convergence.

Beginning with Zagzebski (The Philosophical Quarterly 44:65–73, 1994), some philosophers have argued that there can be no solution to the Gettier counterexamples within the framework of a fallibilist theory of knowledge. If true, this would be devastating, since it is believed on good grounds that infallibilism leads to scepticism. But I argue here that these purported proofs are mistaken and that the truthmaker solution to the Gettier problems is both cogent and fallibilist in nature. To show this I develop the (...) notion of evidence of a state of affairs, a crucial concept in the truthmaker theory. I also argue that a common principle of the transmission of evidence through entailment is false, and the cause of much of the trouble. (shrink)

There is growing evidence that dopamine replacement therapy (DRT) used to treat Parkinson’s Disease can cause compulsive behaviours and impulse control disorders (ICDs), such as pathological gambling, compulsive buying and hypersexuality. Like more familiar drug-based forms of addiction, these iatrogenic disorders can cause significant harm and distress for sufferers and their families. In some cases, people treated with DRT have lost their homes and businesses, or have been prosecuted for criminal sexual behaviours. In this article we first examine the evidence (...) that these disorders are caused by DRT. If it is accepted that DRT cause compulsive or addictive behaviours in a significant minority of individuals, then the following ethical and clinical questions arise: Under what circumstances is it ethical to prescribe a medication that may induce harmful compulsive behaviours? Are individuals treated with DRT morally responsible and hence culpable for harmful or criminal behaviour related to their medication? We conclude with some observations of the relevance of DRT-induced ICDs for our understanding of addiction and identify some promising directions for future research and ethical analysis. (shrink)

A proof is presented that a form of incompleteness in Quantum Mechanics follows directly from the use of unbounded operators. It is then shown that the problems that arise for such operators are not connected to the non- commutativity of many pairs of operators in Quantum Mechanics and hence are an additional source of incompleteness to that which allegedly flows from the..

Inspired by the writings of J. M. Hinton (1967a, 1967b, 1973), but ushered into the mainstream by Paul Snowdon (1980–1, 1990–1), John McDowell (1982, 1986), and M. G. F. Martin (2002, 2004, 2006), disjunctivism is currently discussed, advocated, and opposed in the philosophy of perception, the theory of knowledge, the theory of practical reason, and the philosophy of action. But what is disjunctivism?

Deleuze and Memorial Culture is a detailed study of contemporary forms of public remembrance. Adrian Parr considers the different character traumatic memory takes throughout the sphere of cultural production and argues that contemporary memorial culture has the power to put traumatic memory to work in a positive way. Drawing on the conceptual apparatus of Gilles Deleuze, she outlines the relevance of his thought to cultural studies and the wider phenomenon of traumatic theory and public remembrance. This book offers a (...) revision of trauma theory that presents trauma not simply as a definitive experience and implicitly negative, but an experience that can foster a sense of hope and optimism for the future. (shrink)

Anscombe seems to think that, even though “the knowledge that a man has of his intentional actions” is not “knowledge by observation”, it can be aided by observation. My aim in this essay is to explain how I think we should understand this thought. I suggest that, in a central class of cases, knowledge of one's intentional action is knowledge whose canonical linguistic expression is an utterance of the form “I am doing something to that G": knowledge in which the (...) subject, at once, knows himself “as self" (and so, not by observation), and knows an outer object “as other” (and so, by observation). To characterise this knowledge either as knowledge by observation, or as knowledge not by observation, is to characterise it in a manner that abstracts away from its fundamental unity. (shrink)

Since 1969, when Bas van Fraassen wrote 'Facts and Tautological Entailments', it has been assumed that if facts, or states of affairs, exist at all, they can only play the role of truthmakers for propositions if the truthmaker relation is defined in a relevantist revision of classical logic. Greg Restall revived this notion in 1996, and it has since been discussed positively by Stephen Read. I argue in this paper that this was always a mistake. The truthmaking relation between facts (...) and propositions can indeed be made sense of-but no relevantist revision of classical logic is required. The correspondence theory of truth can thus be shown to have been essentially correct all along. (shrink)

Anscombe seems to think that, even though “the knowledge that a man has of his intentional actions” is not “knowledge by observation”, it can be aided by observation. My aim in this essay is to explain how I think we should understand this thought. I suggest that, in a central class of cases, knowledge of one's intentional action is knowledge whose canonical linguistic expression is an utterance of the form “I am doing something to that G": knowledge in which the (...) subject, at once, knows himself “as self" (and so, not by observation), and knows an outer object “as other” (and so, by observation). To characterise this knowledge either as knowledge by observation, or as knowledge not by observation, is to characterise it in a manner that abstracts away from its fundamental unity. (shrink)

We defend a realist account of history: past facts are discoveries not creations. We show how ‘moderate’ realists, who admit the critical role of perspective, while insisting on history’s metaphysical independence from historians, can accommodate Paul Roth’s arguments in favor of irrealism. Moreover, our position is consistent with a dynamic past: as history unfurls past events gain new properties. Realism is necessary, we argue, to capture substantive disputes within history. It also grounds history’s reflexivity: the point of the continual re-examination (...) of history turns in part on there being mind-independent past facts to be had. (shrink)

This article seeks to answer the following questions: is Quentin Skinner right to claim that actions in the past should not be described by means of concepts not available at the time those actions occurred? And is Ian Hacking right to claim that such descriptions do not merely describe but actually change the past? The author begins by arguing that it is not clear precisely what Skinner is claiming and shows how, under the pressure of criticism, his methodological strictures collapse (...) into trivialities. The author then argues that, although Hacking has given us no reason to accept his claim, we can make sense of it by appealing to the idea of a "Cambridge change." The author concludes by suggesting that as long as we are exercising the right kind of concepts, a suitably modified version of Hacking 's conclusion can be retained. Key Words: action • history • changes in the past • Quentin Skinner • Ian Hacking. (shrink)

David Sepkoski and Michael Ruse’s edited collection The Peolobiological Revolution covers the changes in paleontological science in the last half-century. The collection should be of interest to philosophers of science (particularly those interested in non-reductive unity) as well as historians. I give an overview of the content and major themes of the volume and draw some lessons for the philosophy of science along the way. In particular, I argue that the history of paleontology demands a new approach to philosophical delineation (...) of sciences. (shrink)

Thought experiments play a role in science and in some central parts of contemporary philosophy. They used to play a larger role in philosophy of science, but have been largely abandoned as part of the field’s “practice turn”. This chapter discusses possible roles for thought experimentation within a practice-oriented philosophy of science. Some of these roles are uncontroversial, such as exemplification and aiding discovery. A more controversial role is the reliance on thought experiments to justify philosophical claims. It is proposed (...) that if we adopt an underlying empiricist view of concepts, then thought experiments can be seen as affording us contact with scientific practice, despite their seemingly a priori character. The advantages and drawbacks of thought experiments are discussed via comparison with case studies, on the one, and simulations on the other hand. The chapter closes with some remarks on how to combine thought experiments with other methods. (shrink)

Impaired control over drug use is a defining characteristic of addiction in the major diagnostic systems. However there is significant debate about the extent of this impairment. This qualitative study examines the extent to which leading Australian addiction neuroscientists and clinicians believe that addicted individuals have control over their drug use and are responsible for their behaviour. One hour semi-structured interviews were conducted during 2009 and 2010 with 31 Australian addiction neuroscientists and clinicians (10 females and 21 males; 16 with (...) clinical experience and 15 with no clinical experience). Although many addiction neuroscientists and clinicians described uncontrolled or compulsive drug use as characteristic of addiction, most were ambivalent about whether or not addicted people could be said to have no control of their drug use. Most believed that addicted individuals have fluctuating levels of impaired control over their drug use but they nonetheless believed that addicted persons were responsible for their behaviour, including criminal behaviour engaged in to fund their drug use. Addiction was not seen as exculpating criminal behaviour but as a mitigating factor. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 9, Page 57-59, September 2012.

This study examined the recall of car and food advertisements within either a car or food television program to investigate the relationship between recall, program content, and viewer involvement. The participants, 92 sixth-form students, aged between 16–17 years, were randomly assigned to one of four conditions. As predicted, advertisements placed within a program of dissimilar content were recalled significantly better than if placed within a program of similar content. A gender bias in recall was found with females recalling female-orientated products (...) significantly better than males. Viewer-involvement ratings factored onto three factor clusters: enjoyable, cheerful, and humorous. Negative correlations were shown between cheerfulness and recall in the car program, and positive correlations were shown between cheerfulness and recall in the food program. Finally, implications of the results were considered. (shrink)

I develop an account of homology and homoplasy drawing on their use in biological inference and explanation. Biologists call on homology and homoplasy to infer character states, support adaptationist explanations, identify evolutionary novelties and hypothesize phylogenetic relationships. In these contexts, the concepts must be understood phylogenetically and kept separate: as they play divergent roles, overlap between the two ought to be avoided. I use these considerations to criticize an otherwise attractive view defended by Gould, Hall, and Ramsey & Peterson. By (...) this view, homology and homoplasy can only be delineated qua some level of description, and some homoplasies (parallelisms) are counted as homologous. I develop an account which retains the first, but rejects the second, aspect of that view. I then characterize parallelisms and convergences in terms of their causal role. By the Strict Continuity account, homology and homoplasy are defined phylogenetically and without overlaps, meeting my restriction. Convergence and parallelisms are defined as two types of homoplasy: convergent homoplasies are largely constrained by external factors, while parallelisms are due to internal constraints. (shrink)

In this paper, drawing on phenomenological and clinical literature, we will describe shame as a resonant emotion where the subjects involved are intertwined with one another thanks to two pre-reflective features of selfhood: embodiment and common sense. Furthermore, we will pay particular attention to the notion of intercorporeality, as it reflects the fact that our self, since birth, is essentially relational and embodied. In doing so, we will use the case of autism spectrum disorder as a paradigmatic situation and we (...) will claim that the difficulties experienced by autistic subjects in feeling shame (and other complex emotions) are primarily due to the lack or the impairments in the domains of intercorporeality and common sense. In this view, shame reveals its complex nature and it is synonymous with a bodily and essentially relational emotion. (shrink)

The target article argues for the modularity of language interpretive processes without the usual criterion that a module be informationally encapsulated. It is the encapsulation criterion, however, that gives modularity most of its testability. Without the criterion of encapsulation, testing whether relatively automatic comprehension processes use their own unique resource is a very tricky matter.

In his Analytical Philosophy of History, published in 1965, Arthur Danto made a path‐breaking, but largely unacknowledged contribution to the philosophy of action. Davidson's sentences are to the effect that someone has done something: their verbs bear the past tense and the perfective aspect. Danto's sentences are to the effect that someone is doing something: their verbs bear the present tense and the imperfective aspect. Danto's sentences are central to the language of action. Philosophers of action who unreflectively employ the (...) abstract sentences assume that their meaning takes care of itself, and as such fail to have in mind the concrete sentences in which their meaning consists. The fantasy of basic action is the fantasy of action without acting. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 2, Page 12-14, February 2012.

This article examines Nietzsche’s engagement with romanticism. It contrasts his early romantic period, and the influence of Goethe, Hölderlin, and Richard Wagner, with his later attempts to “cure himself” of all romanticism. It considers the extent to which Nietzsche shared Goethe’s famous equation of the classical with health and the romantic with sickness—which Nietzsche most often calls decadence. It argues that there are deep programmatic and even textual affinities between Nietzsche’s Zarathustra and Hölderlin’s Hyperion. It was fundamentally through his engagement (...) with Wagner that Nietzsche first came to realize that romanticism actually embodied a life-denying repudiation of this world rather than a genuine path to cultural renewal. (shrink)

Uto pia has had am ple dis cus sion and re - quires per ma nent re for mu la tion in each at tempt at def i ni tion or dis cus sion. The changes pro - duced on the his tor i cal and philo soph i cal plane to wards the end of the XXth cen tury im posed a re vi sion of this con cept, es pe cially..