Artificial intelligence is poised to eliminate millions of jobs, from finance to truck driving. But artisanal products are valued precisely because of their human origins, and thus have some inherent “immunity” from AI job loss. At the same time, artisanal labor, combined with technology, could potentially help to democratize the economy, allowing independent, small-scale businesses to flourish. Could AI, robotics and related automation technologies enhance the economic viability and environmental sustainability of these beloved crafting professions, perhaps even expanding their niche (...) to replace some job loss in other sectors? In this paper, we compare the problems created by the current mass production economy and potential solutions from an artisanal economy. In doing so, the paper details the possibilities of utilizing AI to support hybrid forms of human–machine production at the microscale; localized and sustainable value chains at the mesoscale; and networks of these localized and sustainable producers at the macroscale. In short, a wide range of automation technologies are potentially available for facilitating and empowering an artisanal economy. Ultimately, it is our hope that this paper will facilitate a discussion on a future vision for more “generative” economic forms in which labor value, ecological value and social value can circulate without extraction or alienation. (shrink)

The economy for artisanal products, such as Navajo rugs or Pashmina shawls are often threatened by mass-produced fakes. We propose the use of AI-based authentication as one part of a larger system that would replace extractive economies with generative circulation. In this case study we examine initial experiments towards the development of a cell phone-based authentication app for kente cloth in West Africa. We describe the context of weavers and cloth sales; an initial test of a machine learning algorithm for (...) distinguishing between real and fake kente, and an outline of the next stages of development. (shrink)

There is now a general consensus amongst philosophers in the values in science literature that values necessarily play a role in core areas of scientific inquiry. We argue that attention should now be turned from debating the value-free ideal to delineating legitimate from illegitimate influences of values in science, a project we dub “The New Demarcation Problem.” First, we review past attempts to demarcate the uses of values and propose a categorization of the strategies by where they seek to draw (...) legitimacy from. Next, we propose a set of desiderata for what we take to be a satisfactory solution and present a case study where conflicting sets of values clearly impinge on science, but where the legitimacy of their influence is ambiguous. We use these desiderata and the case study to illustrate what we take to be the strengths and weaknesses of current strategies. To be clear, our goal is not to answer the question we pose, but to articulate a framework within which a solution can be judged. (shrink)

Stephen John has recently suggested that the ethics of communication yields important insights as to how values should be incorporated into science. In particular, he examines cases of “wishful speaking” in which a scientific actor endorses unreliable conclusions in order to obtain the consequences of the listener treating the results as credible. He concludes that what is wrong in these cases is that the speaker surreptitiously relies on values not accepted by the hearer, violating what he terms “the value-apt ideal”. (...) I expand on this view by integrating into it Miranda Fricker’s account of testimonial injustice. I find testimonial injustice can arise in a manner unanticipated by Fricker, specifically that a credibility excess given to a speaker typically reduces the ability of others in the epistemic community to transmit knowledge, a phenomenon I term “collateral epistemic injustice”. I argue that this possibility entails that receivers have an ethical obligation to assign credibility judiciously. A further consequence of this view is that the value-apt ideal is insufficient. Because audience members have an obligation to assign credibility judiciously, a speaker cannot merely rely on shared values, they must also be open about the extent to which their conclusions depend on those values. Thus, both wishful speaking and obscuring the value-dependent nature of a conclusion makes one an unreliable source of information. Accordingly, other community members have an ethical obligation to ignore a speaker that frequently engages in either. (shrink)

It is generally agreed that the interpretation of information, in any form, is context-dependent. The goal of the recent Ontology Summit 2018 was to explore the various relationships spanning ontol...

Review of William of Ockham, Questions on Virtue, Goodness, and the Will, ed. and tr. Eric W. Hagedorn (Cambridge University Press, 2021), in Metascience (2021.

As a version of creationism—which claims that fictional charac- ters are created by authors who write characters into existence by penning their names in their works—abstract creationism claims that fictional objects are abstract entities. However, I want to modify the conception of what constitutes a fictional object. In short, I am going to give a defense of abstract creationism that offers answers to the questions, as outlined by Stuart Brock, of ontology, identity, and plenitude by developing a claim that—except for (...) rigidly referring proper names—fictional terms and nonfictional terms are all abstract objects.Working off the debates surrounding abstract creationism, and with a nod to D. M. Armstrong's... (shrink)

Jonathan Bennett engages with the thought of six great thinkers of the early modern period: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume. While not neglecting the historical setting of each, his chief focus is on the words they wrote. What problem is being tackled? How exactly is the solution meant to work? Does it succeed? If not, why not? What can be learned from its success or failure? For newcomers to the early modern scene, this clearly written work is an (...) excellent introduction to it. Those already in the know can learn how to argue with the great philosophers of the past, treating them as colleagues, antagonists, students, teachers. In this first volume, Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz receive particular attention. (shrink)

America’s increasing obesity problem requires federal, state, and local lawyers, policymakers, and public health practitioners to consider legal strategies to encourage healthy eating and physical activity. The complexity of the legal landscape as it affects obesity requires an analysis of coordination across multiple sectors and disciplines. Government jurisdictions can be viewed “vertically,” including the local, state, tribal, and federal levels, or “horizontally” as agencies or branches of government at the same vertical level. Inspired by the successful tobacco control movement, obesity (...) prevention advocates seek comprehensive strategies to “normalize” healthy behaviors by creating environmental and legal changes that ensure healthy choices are the default or easy choices. With many competing demands on diminishing municipal budgets, strategic coordination both vertically and horizontally is essential to foster the environmental and social changes needed to reverse the obesity epidemic. (shrink)

The underdetermination thesis poses a threat to rational choice of scientific theories. We discuss two arguments for the thesis. One draws its strength from deductivism together with the existence thesis, and the other is defended on the basis of the failure of a reliable inductive method. We adopt a partially subjective/objective pragmatic Bayesian epistemology of science framework, and reject both arguments for the thesis. Thus, in science we are able to reinstate rational choice called into question by the underdetermination thesis.

Throughout the book, Bennett offers a variety of thoughtful suggestions on recovering and strengthening the collegium. He also describes the key intellectual and moral virtues that lie at the heart of the academy's mission to advance learning. Specific strategies for implementing this relational model within the academy are provided, with special attention to the constructive role that chairpersons and deans can play.

Datafication of social life affects what society regards as knowledge. Jasanoff’s regimes of sight framework provides three ideal-type models of authorised knowing in environmental data practice. This paper applies Jasanoff's framework for analysing intelligence practice through an exploratory empirical study of crime and intelligence practitioners in a selection of police services in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. The paper argues that the ‘view from somewhere’ captures the essence of existing police intelligence practices in the four countries but (...) the ‘view from nowhere’ is emerging as a possible future for police intelligence – an approach promoted by technology companies and supported mainly by police leaders and managers. The paper investigates the challenges and limits of a shift by police from VFS to VFN in the production of intelligence; the challenges are primarily political, which threaten the dominance of police contextual knowledge over ‘scientific’ knowledge. These political challenges also have symbolic and material implications. The paper concludes that, because of these challenges, a complete shift from VFS to VFN is not likely to happen. At best the two models might co-exist with the latter subordinate to the imperatives of the former, resulting in further tension between sworn officers and civilians, organisational inertia, as well as technologies that may be under-utilised or abandoned. (shrink)

Some philosophers argue that the state and its citizens stand in a morally privileged position vis-à-vis one another but not towards other states or citizens. However, many of those people, particularly philosophical liberals, also hold that morally insignificant differences, such as place of birth, sex, or ethnicity, should not affects rights, liberties, and life prospects. On the face of it, these two sets of ideas appear incompatible and point to a conflict in some liberal thought. Liberal philosophers, like John Rawls, (...) have attempted to reconcile these conflicting ideas. His attempt has attracted a great deal of criticism, especially from those liberals attracted to a more cosmopolitan point of view. In this paper, we use Aristotelian virtue ethics as the basis upon which to reconcile liberalism and patriotism. We argue that the state should be understood as an agent that stands in a special relationship to its citizens (of philia). The state’s virtue depends, in part, on it giving those citizens preferential treatment with regard to justice compared to citizens of other countries. Similarly, if the citizen is to be just in her relations with her own state, she must behave in special ways towards that state as compared to other states. Certain forms of justice only arise in relationships of particular kinds. (shrink)

We examine arguments for and against the use of mechanistic evidence in assessing treatment efficacy and find that advocates of EBM+ and their critics have largely been talking past each other due to difference in focus. We explore aducanumab for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease as a case which may speak to the role of EBM+ in pharmaceutical regulation. The case suggests the debate may be more fruitful if philosophers confine debates to particular domains of medical science and weigh in (...) prospectively instead of relying on historical cases where outcomes are known and which are susceptible to hindsight bias. (shrink)

An unprecedented level of confidence has recently crystallized around a new hypothesis of how living placental mammals share a pattern of common descent. The major groups are afrotheres (e.g., aardvarks, elephants), xenarthrans (e.g., anteaters, sloths), laurasiatheres (e.g., horses, shrews), and euarchontoglires (e.g., humans, rodents). Compared with previous hypotheses this tree is remarkably stable; however, some uncertainty persists about the location of the placental root, and (for example) the position of bats within laurasiatheres, of sea cows and aardvarks within afrotheres, and (...) of dermopterans within euarchontoglires. A variety of names for sub‐clades within the new placental mammal tree have been proposed, not all of which follow conventions regarding priority and stability. More importantly, the new phylogenetic framework enables the formulation of new hypotheses and testing thereof, for example regarding the possible developmental dichotomy that seems to distinguish members of the newly identified southern and northern radiations of living placental mammals. (shrink)

The growth factor progranulin (PGRN) regulates cell division, survival, and migration. PGRN is an extracellular glycoprotein bearing multiple copies of the cysteine‐rich granulin motif. With PGRN family members in plants and slime mold, it represents one of the most ancient of the extracellular regulatory proteins still extant in modern animals. PRGN has multiple biological roles. It contributes to the regulation of early embryogenesis, to adult tissue repair and inflammation. Elevated PGRN levels often occur in cancers, and PGRN immunotherapy inhibits the (...) growth of hepatic cancer xenografts in mice. Recent studies have demonstrated roles for PGRN in neurobiology. An autosomal dominant mutation in GRN, the gene for PGRN, leads to neuronal atrophy in the frontal and temporal lobes, resulting in the disease frontotemporal lobar dementia. In this review we will discuss current knowledge of the multifaceted biology of PGRN. (shrink)

In his New Essays on Human Understanding, Leibniz presents an extended critical commentary on Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Leibniz read some of Locke’s work in English and then, a few years later, the whole of it in French, a language in which he was more comfortable. Over a period of about two further years, on and off, he wrote his New Essays, which he finished at about the time Locke died and which was not published until about half a (...) century after Leibniz’s death. (He left them unpublished partly because they had been motivated by a hope of getting Locke to reply, and Locke’s death put an end to that; though his character made it a forlorn hope in any case.) The New Essays has been an important work: for one thing, Kant read it on its first appearance, and scholars say that this was a decisive event in his philosophical development. Anyway, given that this is one of Leibniz’s only two philosophical works of substantial book length, in all the torrent that poured from his pen, and given also that it is focused - critically but with respect and careful attentiveness - on the greatest classic of English philosophy, it is surprising that the New Essays had to wait until 1981 for a usable English translation.1 In 1896 there was published a sort of translation by A. G. Langley;2 but it is inaccurate far beyond the bounds of normal incompetence, as well as being grimly unreadable for stylistic reasons. As Chesterton once said about The Origin of Species, it is surprising how many people think they have read it, but I'll bet that nobody alive has slogged through the Langley version from cover to cover. It is a pity that the work was not decently available in English for nearly three centuries, because even for those who can read the French of, say, Descartes, Leibniz’s French is difficult. He reserved his native German for writings on history and politics, using French and Latin for philosophy and mathematics; presumably French was chosen for the New Essays because Leibniz wanted to respond to a popular work by a popular work.. (shrink)

The logical empiricists often appear as a foil for feminist theories. Their emphasis on the individualistic nature of knowledge and on the value-neutrality of science seems directly opposed to most feminist concerns. However, several recent works have highlighted aspects of Carnap's views that make him seem like much less of a straightforwardly positivist thinker. Certain of these aspects lend themselves to feminist concerns much more than the stereotypical picture would imply.

This is a paper about model-building and overfitting in normative ethics. Overfitting is recognized as a methodological error in modeling in the philosophy of science and scientific practice, but this concern has not been brought to bear on the practice of normative ethics. I first argue that moral inquiry shares similarities with scientific inquiry in that both may productively rely on model-building, and, as such, overfitting worries should apply to both fields. I then offer a diagnosis of the problems of (...) overfitting in moral inquiry and explain how our current practice seems worryingly susceptible to such problems. I conclude by giving suggestions for how we might avoid overfitting when doing normative ethics. (shrink)

Although women have long been participants in martial arts and other contact sports, the introduction of a women’s division in the Ultimate Fighting Challenge in 2012 brought women in combat sports into the media spotlight in an arguably unprecedented way. Yet, the increasing acceptance of women’s participation in combat sports does not necessarily mean that these sports are equally accessible to people of all genders. This article, extending insights from Iris Marion Young’s “Throwing Like a Girl,” will argue that the (...) modalities of feminine bodily existence pose barriers to women’s success in combat sports. Young discusses ways in... (shrink)

Dans The Subjection of Women (1869), Mill fait bien plus que prôner l’égalité civique des hommes et des femmes : il entreprend une véritable révolution épistémologique pour déconstruire les représentations naturalisantes du caractère féminin. S’il compare d’abord la condition des femmes à celle des esclaves, c’est pour ensuite l’en distinguer, car la persistance de l’inégalité des sexes est en contradiction avec les principes juridiques des sociétés modernes. Il est donc attentif à la situation singulière du problème de l’assujettissement des femmes (...) : il ne s’agit pas de chercher à faire une « révolution sociale au nom d’un droit abstrait », mais de déraciner les préjugés qui expliquent la permanence archaïque de l’inégalité des sexes. C’est l’occasion d’une réflexion sur la construction de la domination patriarcale comme habitude sociale, par l’influence de l’éducation sur le caractère féminin. (shrink)

The authors draw on their extensive early years experience to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date review of the key issues in the field of early childhood care and education. In this fully updated and revised new edition, rewritten to include the new Early Years Foundation Stage, students will find that this text now meets the needs of students on Foundation degrees, Early Childhood Degrees and the new Early Years Professional qualification. Topics covered in this essential textbook include: an overview of (...) the principles of effective practice discussions on equal opportunities and children's rights an update of the latest development theories relating to brain development and how children learn and the difficulties children may face in their learning investigations into what working with parents really means consideration of the different early years systems in operation summaries of key management issues and useful information on how to address them comparison with European perspectives on early years care and education the importance of play in children's early learning. Readers of this second edition will also find the expansion of existing chapters in order to include topics such as inclusion, transitions, child protection in relation to the internet and partnerships with parents. The book covers the whole age range from birth to eight years with a special section on the birth to three years age group. Each chapter is fully referenced and has case studies or reflective practice boxes within the text. Informative and engaging, the book challenges the reader to think about how underlying theory may be reflected in practice. It will be essential reading for all students who are studying for early childhood qualifications at levels four, five and six. (shrink)

The study's purpose was to estimate the variety of foods consumed within standard and ethnic food categories by three groups of women between 18 and 35 years of age. Foreign-born Chinese women [N = 21], Chinese-American women [N = 20] and white American women [N = 23] kept 4-day food records, after instruction. Analysis of variance showed that the mean number of different foods consumed by the foreign-born Chinese was significantly [p < 0.05] lower than those eaten by the other (...) two groups for breads/cereals, dairy products, ethnic foods, fats, meats, sweets/sugars, and vegetable categories. White American women consumed significantly more dairy products and legumes/nuts than either of the groups of Chinese women. Diets of the Chinese-American women were more nutrient dense than those of the women in the other groups, containing significantly more energy, riboflavin, iron, folacin, and calcium than those of the foreign-born Chinese women. The percentage of kilocalories derived from fat [33–34%] did not differ among groups. 95% of foreign-born and 85% of Chinese-American women affirmed their ethnic identification by consuming foods belonging to Chinese cuisine; whereas, the percentage [30%] of white American women selecting Chinese food was significantly lower. Mexican and Italian foods were selected by significantly more white and Chinese-American women than by foreign-born Chinese women. Approximately 20% of both groups of Chinese women, but 49% of white American subjects, ate Japanese food. Chinese-American women retained a preference for Chinese food, similar to that of the foreign-born Chinese women. However, the Chinese-American women consumed cheeses, legumes, raw vegetables in salads, and foods from Italian and Mexican cuisines, indicating their acceptance of foods commonly consumed by white American women. Dietary acculturation among the Chinese-American women improved their diets over those of the foreign-born Chinese women and these results support the theory that consumption of a greater variety of foods increases nutrient density of diets. (shrink)

Faculty workload inequities have important consequences for faculty diversity and inclusion. On average, women faculty spend more time engaging in service, teaching, and mentoring, while men, on average, spend more time on research, with women of color facing particularly high workload burdens. We explore how faculty members perceive workload in their departments, identifying mechanisms that can help shape their perceptions of greater equity and fairness. White women perceive that their departments have less equitable workloads and are less committed to workload (...) equity than white men. Women of color perceive that their departments are less likely to credit their important work through departmental rewards systems than white men. Workload transparency and clarity, and consistent approaches to assigning classes, advising, and service, can reduce women’s perceptions of inequitable and unfair workloads. Our research suggests that departments can identify and put in place a number of key practices around workload that will improve gendered and racialized perceptions of workload. (shrink)

Recently there has been a resurgence of philosophical interest in love, resulting in a wide variety of accounts. Central to most accounts of love is the notion of caring about your beloved for his sake. Yet such a notion needs to be carefully articulated in the context of providing an account of love, for it is clear that the kind of caring involved in love must be carefully distinguished from impersonal modes of concern for particular others for their sakes, such (...) as moral concern or concern grounded in compassion. That is, we might say, the kind of caring that is central to love must be somehow distinctly intimate. The trouble is to cash out these firm intuitions in a satisfactory way. (shrink)

There are some philosophical questions that can be answered without attention to the social context in which evidence is produced and distributed.ing away from social context is an excellent way to ignore messy details and lay bare the underlying structure of the limits of inference. Idealization is entirely appropriate when one is essentially asking: In the best of all possible worlds, what am I entitled to infer? Yet, philosophers’ concerns often go beyond this domain. As an example I examine the (...) debate on mechanistic evidence and then reevaluate a canonical case study in this debate. I show that for the assessment of actual evidence, produced in a world that is far from ideal, omission of the social aspects of medical epistemology leads philosophers to draw the wrong lessons from cases they take as paradigmatic cases for their views. I close by arguing that social epistemology provides an avenue to incorporate these complications and provides the necessary framework to understand medical evidence. (shrink)

Open Access: This paper will connect literature on epistemic injustice with literature on victims and perpetrators, to argue that in addition to considering the credibility deficit suffered by many victims, we should also consider the credibility excess accorded to many perpetrators. Epistemic injustice, as discussed by Miranda Fricker, considers ways in which someone might be wronged in their capacity as a knower. Testimonial injustice occurs when there is a credibility deficit as a result of identity-prejudicial stereotypes. However, criticisms of Fricker (...) have pointed out that credibility is part of a more complex system that includes both deficits and excesses. I will use these points to argue that we should look closer at sources of credibility excess in cases of sexual assault. This means that in addition to considering sources of victim blaming by looking at ways in which “ideal” victims are constructed, we also need to consider ways in which “ideal” perpetrators are constructed. (shrink)

Industry is a major source of funding for scientific research. There is also a growing concern for how it corrupts researchers faced with conflicts of interest. As such, the debate has focused on whether researchers have maintained their integrity. In this article we draw on both the history of medicine and formal modeling to argue that given methodological diversity and a merit-based system, industry funding can bias a community without corrupting any particular individual. We close by considering a policy solution (...) that may seem to promote unbiased inquiry but that actually exacerbates the problem without additional restrictions. (shrink)

Context: Comparing the Covid-19 related experiences of vulnerable groups can help to improve public health.?The United States and the United Kingdom are both characterized by underfunded public health in the context of racist systems. We reviewed differences in Covid-19 outcomes between groups in the US and UK and compared intergroup differences between the two countries. Methods: The scoping review analyzed articles published in English during the Covid-19 pandemic focusing on the US or the UK. Using Scopus and PubMed, research articles (...) were chosen based on titles, abstracts, and relevance to the research question. Certain demographic groups known to be differentially affected by Covid-19 were chosen a priori for inclusion. Data was extracted by the first author and reviewed by senior authors. 63 studies met the inclusion criteria. Results: Two studies compared the US and UK. One found that minority status is an important social determinant of health (SDOH) of Covid-19 related health outcomes in both countries, likely through association with other SDOH. Another found that the risk of confirmed infection was higher in African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans in the US and in African-Caribbean/Black-Africans, South-Asians, and Mixed-race people in the UK, compared with their respective White peers. Asian ethnicity is subject to different definitions in the US and the UK. Individual articles focusing on either the US or the UK also found that, in both countries, essential workers were impacted; those with disabilities were more often affected by Covid-19 related comorbidities in both countries. In addition, in both the US and the UK, people living in multigenerational families were more susceptible to Covid-19. Misclassification of causes of morbidity and mortality was noted in both countries. Discussion and conclusion: A limited literature indicates that, in both the US and UK, non-White populations were more affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, possibly due to association of SDOH with racist systems. Racial definitions differ between these countries and this needs further research. In both countries, data focused on LGBTQ+ groups and people with disabilities is lacking. (shrink)

Private companies provide by far the most funding for scientific research and development. Nevertheless, relatively little attention has been paid to the dynamics of industry‐funded research by philosophers of science. This paper addresses this gap by providing an overview of the major strengths and weaknesses of industry research funding, together with the existing recommendations for addressing the weaknesses. It is designed to provide a starting point for future philosophical work that explores the features of industry‐funded research, avenues for addressing concerns, (...) and strategies for making research funded by the private sector as fruitful as possible. (shrink)

Cet article d'histoire éditoriale fait le point sur les neuf éditions de l'anthologie titrée Cantiques de Maisonfleur, de 1580 à 1613, son expansion et ses recompositions, et sur son éclatement dans d'autres recueils de 1591 à 1621. La coprésence de poèmes dus à des auteurs de cour connus comme catholiques et à des poèmes de spiritualité réformée ou écrits par des poètes réformés (pasteurs) fait l'objet d'un examen sous l'angle de la construction éditoriale. Selon notre hypothèse, le recueil essaie moins (...) d'unir les deux confessions qu'il ne tente de concilier le statut de sujet du roi de France, attaché à la monarchie des Valois, et de fidèle réformé. Poètes présents dans l'anthologie : Jérôme de Maisonfleur, Valagre, T. de Sautemont, Marin Le Saulx, Yves Rouspeau, A. de La Roche-Chandieu, Belleau, Du Bellay, Ronsard, Desportes, Malherbe, Bertaud, Du Perron, Pibrac, A. Favre, et autres. (shrink)

This book is a practical guide for K-12 educators as well as parents of students who are identified as being in the top academic percentiles of the population.

Comme son titre l’indique, l’ouvrage de Gérard Lalonde (G.L.) a pour ambition d’aborder les cultes d’Athéna Itōnia selon une approche spatiale. L’étude est divisée en quatre parties qui correspondent aux quatre régions étudiées — Thessalie, Béotie, Attique et Amorgos. Le cadre temporel s’étend de la préhistoire grecque jusqu’à l’époque romaine, ce qui permet à l’A. de poser la question de l’origine du culte et son évolution. Dans cette optique est convoqué un vaste corpus qui inclut les sourc...

The phenomenology of emotions has traditionally been understood in terms of bodily sensations they involve. This is a mistake. We should instead understand their phenomenology in terms of their distinctively evaluative intentionality. Emotions are essentially affective modes of response to the ways our circumstances come to matter to us, and so they are ways of being pleased or pained by those circumstances. Making sense of the intentionality and phenomenology of emotions in this way requires rejecting traditional understandings of intentionality and (...) so coming to see emotions as a distinctive and irreducible class of mental states lying at the intersection of intentionality, phenomenology, and motivation. (shrink)