Our decision-theoretic states are not luminous. We are imperfectly reliable at identifying our own credences, utilities and available acts, and thus can never be more than imperfectly reliable at identifying the prescriptions of decision theory. The lack of luminosity affords decision theory a remarkable opportunity — to issue guidance on the basis of epistemically inaccessible facts. We show how a decision theory can guarantee action in accordance with contingent truths about which an agent is arbitrarily uncertain. It may seem that (...) such advantages would require dubiously adverting to externalist facts that go beyond the internalism of traditional decision theory, but this is not so. Using only the standard repertoire of decision-theoretic tools, we show how to modify existing decision theories to take advantage of this opportunity. These improved decision theories require agents to maximize conditional expected utility — expected utility conditional upon an agent’s actual decision situation. We call such modified decision theories ‘self-confident’. These self-confident decision theories have a distinct advantage over standard decision theories: their prescriptions are better. (shrink)

Ancient Greek philosophers claimed that the adequate understanding of a particular subject can be achieved only when its nature, or essence, is properly defined. This view furnished the core teachings of late medieval natural philosophers, and was often reaffirmed by early modern philosophers such as Bacon and Descartes. Yet during the second half of the seventeenth century, a radical transformation was to take place that led a to the emergence of a recognisably modern cultures of empirical research.Experimental Philosophy and the (...) Birth of Empirical Science focuses on the works of Robert Boyle, John Locke, and Isaac Newton, the most notable exponents of the experimental philosophy in the late seventeenth century, and explores this transformation to a modern viewpoint that seeks to understand phenomena by seeking explanatory correlations between the empirical properties of the universe.Experimental Philosophy and the Birth of Empirical Science offers a novel solution to one of the major problems in the history of early modern science and philosophy, while addressing received views concerning these problems. It provides a new perspective on the Scientific Revolution and the rise of modern science and offers new tools for science studies in general, by showing how the problem of human understanding and the problem of explanation are central to the evolution of science, and how we can combine historical and sociological approaches to study modern science from this perspective. (shrink)

© 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.Genetic studies have identified single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with the risk of prostate cancer. It remains unclear whether such genetic variants are associated with disease aggressiveness. The NCI-SPORE Genetics Working Group retrospectively collected clinicopathologic information and genotype data for 36 SNPs which at the time had been validated to be associated with PC risk from 25,674 cases with PC. Cases were grouped according to race, Gleason score and aggressiveness. Statistical analyses were used to compare the frequency (...) of the SNPs between different disease cohorts. After adjusting for multiple testing, only PC-risk SNP rs2735839 was significantly and inversely associated with aggressive and high-grade disease in European men. Similar associations with aggressive and high-grade disease were documented in African-American subjects. The G allele of rs2735839 was associated with disease aggressiveness even at low PSA levels in both European and African-American men. Our results provide further support that a PC-risk SNP rs2735839 near the KLK3 gene on chromosome 19q13 may be associated with aggressive and high-grade PC. Future prospectively designed, case-case GWAS are needed to identify additional SNPs associated with PC aggressiveness. (shrink)

In his essay “Critique of Violence,” Walter Benjamin argued that only certain types of strikes can be considered revolutionary, while others—i.e., most bread and butter, or “political” strikes—tacitly rely on the violent logics of the state. This paper suggests, however, that by reading Benjamin against himself and applying his discussion of “pure means” to those “political” strikes, the extent to which even these basic collective actions represent effective “strategies of resistance” becomes evident. This framework requires an interdisciplinary approach (...) to radical labor studies, combining political theory with history in order to identify and analyze past instances of joyful community-building during strikes. Relying also on a historical case study—the 1926 miners’ lockout in South Wales—and Benjamin’s own writings on the discipline of history, this paper contends that strikes, and the “alternative communities” they encourage workers and their families to build, present enormous revolutionary potential. When theory and history are studied together, and when we pay close attention to the actual tactics of solidarity that make up strike actions, this potential is uncovered. (shrink)

Nefesh HaTzimtzum provides the single most comprehensive and accessible presentation of the teachings and worldview of the Vilna Gaon's primary student, Rabbi Chaim Volozhin. It is focused on Rabbi Chaim's magnum opus, Nefesh HaChaim, a work that has lain in almost total obscurity for nearly two centuries due to its deep Kabbalistic subject matter. Nefesh HaTzimtzum opens up the real depth of the ideas presented in Nefesh HaChaim together with all of Rabbi Chaim's related writings, making them (...) accessible to the public for the first time in any language. In addition to the complete English translation, Nefesh HaTzimtzum includes the full facing page Hebrew text of Nefesh HaChaim and many other writings by Rabbi Chaim, along with in-depth explanations, an informative historical overview, an easily consumable innovative presentation layout and a full index. After centuries of confusion, extensive clarification is provided of the central Kabbalistic concept of Tzimtzum, or the secret of how an infinite God occupies a finite world. Most importantly, it unequivocally demonstrates that the key Kabbalists, including the Vilna Gaon, Rabbi Chaim Volozhin and the Baal HaTanya, all unanimously agreed on the underlying principles of the concept of Tzimtzum and that contrary to widespread historical misunderstanding, there was no fundamental dispute about the philosophical principles of Judaism between the Hasidim and the Mitnagdim. Based on this Nefesh HaTzimtzum shows that both Nefesh HaChaim and Sefer HaTanya present the same methodology for serving God which is rooted in their identical understanding of the concept of Tzimtzum. Nefesh HaTzimtzum is published in two volumes which are sold separately. This volume contains the complete Hebrew text of Nefesh HaChaim which is brought to life by an illuminating translation and incisive commentary. It additionally provides extensive translated source material necessary to properly understand the basic text. The text is further complemented by an informative introduction which includes a historical overview. (shrink)

El objetivo general de este artículo es interrogar el lugar de la crítica a la idea de progreso en la filosofía de Walter Benjamin, argumentando que las raíces de su pensamiento político podrían encontrarse en el misticismo cabalista. La intención principal es determinar, siguiendo a Benjamin, algunas de las principales características de la creencia en el progreso como problema y su relación con una determinada normatividad histórica. Este recorrido permitirá elucidar la relación que, según el autor, mantendría una (...) comprensión procesualista y lineal de la historia con una actitud político-intelectual apoyada en el conformismo y la indiferencia. Por último, se propone considerar la original interpretación sobre la temporalidad que aparece en una vertiente del misticismo judío, el cabalismo de Isaac Luria de Safed, actualizada en forma heterodoxa por Benjamin, que permitiría comprender desde un nuevo punto de vista, conforme a la argumentación presentada, el vínculo temporal que supone la idea de tradición y rememoración en el materialismo histórico benjaminiano. (shrink)

In this essay the visual arts of the machine age morph into literature and theory and then back again to images, gestures, and thought.

Résumé éditeur : This book tells two intertwined stories, centered on twentieth-century moral philosophers Elizabeth Anscombe, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot, and Iris Murdoch. The first is the story of four friends who came up to Oxford together just before WWII. It is the story of their lives, loves, and intellectual preoccupations; it is a story about women trying to find a place in a man's world of academic philosophy. The second story is about these friends' shared philosophical project and their (...) unintentional creation of a school of thought that challenged the dominant way of doing ethics. That dominant school of thought envisioned the world as empty, value-free matter, on which humans impose meaning. This outlook treated statements such as “this is good” as mere expressions of feeling or preference, reflecting no objective standards. It emphasized human freedom and demanded an unflinching recognition of the value-free world. The four friends diagnosed this moral philosophy as an impoverishing intellectual fad. This style of thought, they believed, obscured the realities of human nature and left people without the resources to make difficult moral choices or to confront evil. As an alternative, the women proposed a naturalistic ethics, reviving a line of thought running through Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas, and enriched by modern biologists like Jane Goodall and Charles Darwin. The women proposed that there are, in fact, moral truths, based in facts about the distinctive nature of the human animal and what that animal needs to thrive.". (shrink)

Crucially, blame can be addressed to its targets, as an implicit demand for recognition. But when we ask whether offenders would actually appreciate this demand, via a sound deliberative route from their existing motivations, we face a puzzle. If they would, their offense reflects a deliberative mistake, and blame’s hostility seems unnecessary. If they wouldn’t, addressing them is futile, and blame’s emotional engagement seems unwarranted. To resolve this puzzle, I develop an account of blame as a proleptic response to indeterminacy (...) in its target’s reasons, yielding attractive accounts of blame’s relation both to internal reasons claims and to free will. (shrink)

An apparently increasing number of philosophers take free will skepticism to pose a serious challenge to some of our practices. This must seem odd to many—why should anyone think that free will skepticism is relevant for our practices, when nobody seems to think that other canonical forms of philosophical skepticism are relevant for our practices? Part of the explanation may be epistemic, but here I focus on a metaethical explanation. Free will skepticism is special because it is compatible with ‘basic (...) moral reasons’—moral reasons acknowledged by all mainstream ethicists—and other minds and induction skepticism are not. One example is our reason not to intentionally harm others. Practical seriousness about other minds and induction skepticism undermines this reason, but practical seriousness about free will skepticism only undermines a potential overrider of this reason, that is, the reason of retribution. (shrink)

Duty and Healing positions ethical issues commonly encountered in clinical situations within Jewish law. The concept of duty is significant in exploring bioethical issues, and this book presents an authentic and non-parochial Jewish approach to bioethics, while it includes critiques of both current secular and Jewish literatures. Among the issues the book explores are the role of family in medical decision-making, the question of informed consent as a personal religious duty, and the responsibilities of caretakers. The exploration of contemporary ethical (...) problems in healthcare through the lens of traditional sources in Jewish law is an indispensable guide of moral knowledge. (shrink)

This paper explores the prospects of radical hope for addressing the devastation of the Covid-19 pandemic. Hope is useful for conceptualizing the proper balance between too much fear and too little about our uncertain future. First, I describe the ethical challenge of the pandemic as a wicked problem. Because accepted ethical theories fail to motivate solutions, wicked problems pressure us to develop our value systems, exercise moral imaginations, and discover creative solutions. Second, I develop an Aristotelian account of radical hope, (...) drawing from ancient philosophy, virtue ethics, and recent climate ethics. Radical hope is a novel form of courage, which balances the goal of external success, that something good will emerge from the tragedy, against the goal of living well for its own sake through practical wisdom. I conclude by applying some lessons to our present situation. (shrink)

Contains twenty-one of the papers presented at the 3rd Islam and Bioethics International Conference held April 14-16, 2010, in Manavgat, Antalya, Turkey.

ABSTRACT Ruetsche claims that an abstract C*-algebra of observables will not contain all of the physically significant observables for a quantum system with infinitely many degrees of freedom. This would signal that in addition to the abstract algebra, one must use Hilbert space representations for some purposes. I argue to the contrary that there is a way to recover all of the physically significant observables by purely algebraic methods. 1Introduction 2Preliminaries 3Three Extremist Interpretations 3.1Algebraic imperialism 3.2Hilbert space conservatism 3.3Universalism 4Parochial (...) Observables 4.1Parochial observables for the imperialist 4.2Parochial observables for the universalist 5Conclusion. (shrink)

It is well known that the process of quantization—constructing a quantum theory out of a classical theory—is not in general a uniquely determined procedure. There are many inequivalent methods that lead to different choices for what to use as our quantum theory. In this paper, I show that by requiring a condition of continuity between classical and quantum physics, we constrain and inform the quantum theories that we end up with.

This volume is the first-ever collection of essays devoted to the Lurianic concept of tsimtsum. It contains eighteen studies in philosophy, theology, and intellectual history, which demonstrate the historical development of this notion and its evolving meaning: from the Hebrew Bible and the classical midrashic collections, through Kabbalah, Isaac Luria himself and his disciples, up to modernity (ranging from Spinoza, Böhme, Leibniz, Newton, Schelling, and Hegel to Scholem, Rosenzweig, Heidegger, Benjamin, Adorno, Horkheimer, Levinas, Jonas, Moltmann, and Derrida).

This essay argues that post-analytic philosophy finds its origins not only in an invented tradition—that of ‘analytic philosophy’—but also in an invented dilemma: namely, the response to the allegedly overweening dominance of ‘positivism’ in American philosophy. I begin by surveying the problems with the folk wisdom about positivism and analytic philosophy. This pervasive narrative locates the emergence of post-analytic philosophy after a period of hegemony for logical positivism and cognate philosophical subfields. Taking seriously evidence indicating a distinct overlap in the (...) construction of the analytic and post-analytic traditions, I return to the founding moment of American analytic philosophy in the years immediately following World War II. What we see, I suggest, is not a reaction against a clearly defined and powerful logical positivist mainstream, but the careful, piecewise co-ordination of what would become characteristic ‘analytic’ modes of argument, problematics, and tool kits. Willard Van Orman Quine played a central role in this process, and for this reason I focus on the circumstances in which his field-defining 1951 article, ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’ was written and received. I conclude with the claim that both analytic and post-analytic philosophers relied on a peculiar image of the failure of logical positivism, and of the opportunities that failure presented. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Joseph Priestley's Criticisms of David Hume's Philosophy RICHARD H. POPKIN ONE OF HUME'S MOST FAMOUS CRITICS, the great scientist Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), is scarcely mentioned or studied in the Hume literature.' Perhaps because of the course philosophy followed after Hume, the Scottish Common Sense critics and the German ones connected with Kant are given almost all of the attention. In this paper 1 shall try to correct this oversight, (...) and examine the background of Priestley's critique of Hume, both in terms of Priestley's scientific and religious views and in terms of Hume's influence at the time. I shall then evaluate the merits of Priestley's critique and attempt to determine whether it deserves further study or should be returned to the obscurity it has been in for almost two centuries. 2 Joseph Priestley was a nonconforming minister whose progressively radical views caused him to lose various posts. Eventually he became a millenarian, convinced that crucial signs of the end of the world were at hand: the events of the French Revolution; the purported discovery of the Lost Tribes in Afghanistan by Sir William Jones; plans or hopes for the Jews to return to Palestine and join forces with the Christians. After years of religious wanderings Priestley ended up a millenarian Unitarian, much in the tradition of Sir Isaac Newton, whose religious writing he used extensively, and of Newton's successor, William Whiston? Priestley taught science in various schools and was immensely influenced by David Hartley's Observations on Man. He found in Hartley's theory of association of ideas a naturalistic way of explaining human mental life. And in Hartley's millenarian views he located the sort of theology he was seeking. Priestly later reedited Hartley, including introductory essays about some of the more difficult aspects of his mechanistic psychology.' (Coleridge, who was deeply impressed by ' T. E. Jessop, A Bibliography of David Hume and of the Scottish Philosophy from l-)'ancis Hutcheson to Lord Balfour (New York, 1966), lists the titles of Priestley's works relevant to Hume. However, there appear to be no discussions of Priestley on Hume listed in this work or in Roland Hill, A Bibliography of David Hume from 1930 (York, 1971). E. C. Mossner, The Life of David Hume (Edinburgh, 1954), mentions Priestley's criticisms of Hume, but only as these were made in connection with criticisms of Beattie. Joseph Priestley, Memoirs of Dr. Joseph Priestley to the Year 1795, written by Himself, with a Continuation to the time of his decease by his son, Joseph Priestley, ed. T. Cooper (London, 1806). It is also of some interest that Priestley attacked Reid, Beattie, and Oswald a few years before challenging Hume. He seemed to think that he had disposed of the Scottish Philosophy for all time. Thus Priestley was certainly no part of the mainstream of Hume's opponents in Britain. See Memoirs, pp. 78-79n, and n. 16 below. ' On Priestley's career, see his Memoirs. Modern biographies deal principally with his scientific achievements and ignore or play down his theological concerns. For an extended discussion of Priestley's millenarian views, see Clarke Garrett, Respectable Folly (Baltimore, 1975), pp. 126-143. " Priestley, Hartley's Theory of the Human Mind, on the Principle of the Association of Ideas... (London, 1775). [437] 438 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Hartley, probably read Priestley's edition of his works.) For the most part, Priestley wrote long and controversial works on theology. His scientific achievements stem from his friendship with Benjamin Franklin and Richard Price, who encouraged him to write a history of discoveries in electricity. Franklin provided the resources for making the equipment. On the basis of the new material in his work, Priestley was nominated to the Royal Society by Franklin and Price. s Priestley's most famous scientific works came thereafter--his discovery of oxygen and his work on how the human body used oxygen. Later still, he became entangled in a controversy with Lavoisier over the phlogiston theory, Priestley upholding it, the French chemist opposing it. 6 Priestley was also active in politics, supporting radical causes. He supported John Wilkes, of whom Hume thoroughly disapproved, and was an early... (shrink)

Background Executive functions (EFs) not only play an important role in shaping adolescent’s goal-directed, future-oriented cognitive skills under relatively abstract, non-affective conditions (Cool EF), but also under motivationally significant, affective conditions (Hot EF). Empirical evidence suggest a link between EF, exercise and physical activity, specifically elite adult athletes appear to outperform amateur athletes in Cool EF; however, no previous studies have examined the relationship between Hot and Cool EFs and impulsivity during the developmentally sensitive period of adolescence comparing different types (...) of sport (open- vs. closed-skills), and levels (elite athletes vs. amateurs). Methods A total 86 boys and girls between 13 and 15 years of age (mean: 14.0, SD : 0.79) from different sports (track-and-field; team handball) were recruited. Participants were further divided into two groups: (a) 40 elite, and (b) 46 amateur athletes. They completed four Cool EF tasks including Trail-Making Test, Trail-Walking-Test, Flanker task, n-back-task, and one Hot EF task on Game of Dice task. Data on subjective impulsivity (UPPS Impulsive Behavior Scale; Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-15) was also collected. Results There was a significant overall effect for expertise in favor of elite athletes (Wilks’ Lambda = 0.61, F (14,69) = 3.19, p = 0.001, η p 2 = 0.393), but no overall main effect for type of sport or an interaction for expertise by type of sport. Specifically, elite athletes showed significantly better performances on dual tasks. For Hot EF, there were no main effects for type of sport, expertise level, training experience or training duration. We also found positive correlations among Cool EF and impulsivity measures, and between Hot EF and Impulsivity, but no significant relationship between Cool and Hot EF. Conclusion The current understanding of the decisive cognitive abilities does not correspond to sporting reality, so that the tests frequently used are not sensitive enough to distinguish between elite and amateur athletes or different sports. However, it should also be remembered that the factors underlying complex sporting performance are multidimensional and are obviously difficult to trace back to selected partial aspects. Without being able to answer this question conclusively, we proposed a 4-D classification of experimental paradigms, in which we differentiate between tasks of different specificity, between Cool and Hot EF, and between task complexity, and type of sport. (shrink)

Pickering, Newton-Howes, and Young argue for an externalist view on assessing decision-making capacity. Pickering, Newton-Howes, and Young argue the harmful consequences of a person’s...

L'étude Partir-Revenir analyse les rythmes de l'habiter à travers l'absence domestique, ces moments où tout ou partie des habitants partent de chez eux pour le travail ou les loisirs, et qui influencent les manières dont ils investissent leurs maisons. L'absence à la croisée des rythmes de l'habiter et de la mobilité Menée par le sociologue Benjamin Pradel et la photographe Hortense Soichet, elle a bénéficié du soutien de Leroy Merlin Source et du Forum Vies Mobiles dans un partenariat articulant, (...) dans - Sociologie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

The rhetoric of Revolutionary America successfully cast King George III as an oppressive tyrant who crushed his North American colonists through excessive fiscal demands and political constraints. Yet for nearly a century prior to the Revolution, the English king had occupied a vital and overwhelmingly positive role in the political imagination of his colonial subjects. In this insightful new book on the subject, Benjamin Price argues that for most of the eighteenth century North American colonists viewed themselves as Englishmen, (...) loyal to the monarchy and to the English constitution as recast by the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Price astutely analyzes the political ideology of kingship in colonial America, concluding that it was only on the very eve of the Revolution that most colonists rejected the vision of the king as a 'nursing father,' that is, as a 'benevolent and just' protector of their lives, property, civil rights, and religious freedom. This fresh and exciting book should find a wide readership among historians of colonial America, early modern England, and Anglo-American political theory. (shrink)

“Sophisticated” theories of welfare face two potentially devastating criticisms. They are based upon two claims: that theories of welfare should be tested for what they imply about newborn infants and that even if a theory of welfare is intended to apply only to adults, we might still have sufficient reason to reject it because it implies an implausible divergence between adult and neonatal welfare. It has been argued we ought reject sophisticated theories of welfare because they have significantly counterintuitive implications (...) about neonatal welfare and because they imply an implausible divergence between the welfare of adults and that of newborns. I argue against both claims. (shrink)

Psychophysics measures the attributes of perceptual experience. The question of whether some of these attributes should be interpreted as more fundamental, or “real,” than others has been answered differently throughout its history. The operationism of Stevens and Boring answers “no,” reacting to the perceived vacuity of earlier debates about fundamentality. The subsequent rise of multidimensional scaling (MDS) implicitly answers “yes” in its insistence that psychophysical data be represented in spaces of low dimensionality. I argue the return of fundamentality follows from (...) a trend toward increasing epistemic humility. Operationism exhibited a kind of hubris in the constitutive role it assigned to the experimenter’s presuppositions that is abandoned by the algorithmic methods of MDS. This broad epistemic trend is illustrated by following the trajectory of research on a particular candidate attribute: tonal volume. (shrink)

Summary Until recently it was believed that Christian Huygens’ earliest publication of his pendulum invention was Horologium of 1658. He published the more famous general treatise, Horologium Oscillatorium, fifteen years later in 1673. Two years ago, an article1 suggesting an unknown collaboration in developing the clock pendulum between Huygens and the Paris clockmaker Isaac Thuret, presented the evidence of Benjamin Martin, an 18th century educationalist and retailer of scientific material. Martin described a Huygens publication of 1657 and reproduced (...) the illustration it contained. This illustration shows a different clock from the one drawn in Horologium and different also from those previously considered as Huygens’ earliest surviving examples. However, the illustration is similar to part of a plate in Horologium Oscillatorium and this similarity caused one historian to cast doubt on the existence of the 1657 publication.2 This article, with information presented for the first time, seeks to prove the existence of that work and thereby establish it in the canon of Huygens’ writings while re-examining the invention in the light that it casts. 1Whitestone, Sebastian, ‘The Identification and Attribution of Christiaan Huygens’ First Pendulum Clock', Antiquarian Horology, December (2008), 201–222. 2Plomp, R., ‘Letter', Antiquarian Horology, December (2009), 714–17. See also author's reply, ibid, 717–19. (shrink)

Critiques of transhumanism from Christian theologians and philosophers often focus on the movement’s disdain for the human body. These criticisms are expressed in a number of different ways. Some argue that the transhumanists’ disdain is a new form of Gnosticism, while others argue that it leads to real violence against real human bodies. When such criticisms turn to identify the particular sin of which transhumanism is guilty, they sometimes identify vainglory as the besetting sin, but more often than not pride (...) is the sin named. After all, what is transhumanism – with its various proposals for bringing about the posthuman, which is some future being with capabilities so far beyond the human so as to border on godlike – but the latest iteration of the primal sin of humans wanting to become God on their own terms? -/- While such criticisms are valid, they do not capture the depth of transhumanism’s offense from a Christian perspective. Pride and vanity are indeed two of the deadly sins of transhumanism, but there are others at play as well. Moreover, pride is the root of all sin, so saying that pride is the problem is not necessarily helpful. We must find the particular ways in which pride manifests itself. I will argue that the sin of acedia (sometimes spelled accidie), found in ancient lists of the deadly sins, is a primary sin of transhumanism. In so doing, I hope to contribute to a more complete diagnosis of the transhumanist project from a Christian perspective, and I hope to further show why transhumanism is at odds with Christianity, contra the claims of the Christian Transhumanist Association. It should also be stated up front that this article may raise more questions than it answers. Accordingly, it should be seen as an invitation for further research, not as a definitive assessment of acedia in transhumanism. (shrink)

The matter must be attacked from more sides! This is particularly advisable in morals, where the aim is not only to satisfy our desire for knowledge, but to better ourselves.between 1791 and 1792, karl leonhard reinhold, inaugural chair in Critical Philosophy at the University of Jena and popular advocate for the Kantian revolution, received and responded to a series of letters from Salomon Maimon. In the exchange, Maimon reiterated those skeptical doubts regarding the account of a priori synthetic judgments in (...) the Critique of Pure Reason that he had introduced in his Essay on Transcendental Philosophy and that had gained him a modicum of recognition on the German philosophical scene. He made plain his view... (shrink)