A general account of modeling in physics is proposed. Modeling is shown to involve three components: denotation, demonstration, and interpretation. Elements of the physical world are denoted by elements of the model; the model possesses an internal dynamic that allows us to demonstrate theoretical conclusions; these in turn need to be interpreted if we are to make predictions. The DDI account can be readily extended in ways that correspond to different aspects of scientific practice.

Hyman (1999, 2006) argues that knowledge is best conceived as a kind of ability: S knows that p iff S can φ for the reason that p. Hyman motivates this thesis by appealing to Gettier cases. I argue that it is counterexampled by a certain kind of Gettier case where the fact that p is a cause of the subject’s belief that p. One can φ for the reason that p even if one does not know that p. So knowledge (...) is not best conceived as an ability of this kind. (shrink)

This long-awaited book replaces Hughes and Cresswell's two classic studies of modal logic: _An Introduction to Modal Logic_ and _A Companion to Modal Logic_. _A New Introduction to Modal Logic_ is an entirely new work, completely re-written by the authors. They have incorporated all the new developments that have taken place since 1968 in both modal propositional logic and modal predicate logic, without sacrificing tha clarity of exposition and approachability that were essential features of their earlier works. The book (...) takes readers from the most basic systems of modal propositional logic right up to systems of modal predicate with identity. It covers both technical developments such as completeness and incompleteness, and finite and infinite models, and their philosophical applications, especially in the area of modal predicate logic. (shrink)

Saul Kripke, in a series of classic writings of the 1960s and 1970s, changed the face of metaphysics and philosophy of language. Christopher Hughes offers a careful exposition and critical analysis of Kripke's central ideas about names, necessity, and identity. He clears up some common misunderstandings of Kripke's views on rigid designation, causality and reference, and the necessary a posteriori and contingent a priori. Through his engagement with Kripke's ideas Hughes makes a significant contribution to ongoing debates on, (...) inter alia, the semantics of natural kind terms, the nature of natural kinds, the essentiality of origin and constitution, the relative merits of 'identitarian' and counterpart-theoretic accounts of modality, and the identity or otherwise of mental types and tokens with physical types and tokens. No specialist knowledge in either the philosophy of language or metaphysics is presupposed; Hughes's book will be valuable for anyone working on the ideas which Kripke made famous in the philosophy world. (shrink)

Dementia affects millions of people throughout the world. Thinking through Dementia offers a critique of the main models used to understand dementia-the biomedical, neuropsychological, and social constructionist. It discusses clinical issues and cases, together with philosophical work that might help us to better understand and treat this illness.

I argue that evidentialism should be rejected because it cannot be reconciled with empirical work on bias in cognitive and social psychology.

Many assume that whenever government is entitled to make a law, it is entitled to enforce that law coercively. I argue that the justification of legal authority and the justification of governmental coercion come apart. Both in ideal theory and in actual human societies, governments are sometimes entitled to make laws that they are not entitled to enforce coercively.

Increasingly the body is a possession that does not belong to us. It is bought and sold, bartered and stolen, marketed wholesale or in parts. The professions - especially reproductive medicine, transplant surgery, and bioethics but also journalism and other cultural specialists - have been pliant partners in this accelerating commodification of live and dead human organisms. Under the guise of healing or research, they have contributed to a new 'ethic of parts' for which the divisible body is severed from (...) the self, torn from the social fabric, and thrust into commercial transactions -- as organs, secretions, reproductive capacities, and tissues -- responding to the dictates of an incipiently global marketplace. Breaking with established approaches which prioritize the body as 'text', the chapters in this book examine not only images of the body-turned-merchandise but actually existing organisms considered at once as material entities, semi-magical tokens, symbolic vectors and founts of lived experience. The topics covered range from the cultural disposal and media treatment of corpses, the biopolitics of cells, sperm banks and eugenics, to the international trafficking of kidneys, the development of 'transplant tourism', to the idioms of corporeal exploitation among prizefighters as a limiting case of fleshly commodity. This insightful and arresting volume combines perspectives from anthropology, law, medicine, and sociology to offer compelling analyses of the concrete ways in which the body is made into a commodity and how its marketization in turn remakes social relations and cultural meanings. (shrink)

[I] Divine Simplicity: God and His Existence Types of Divine Simplicity Of the properties ascribed to God in Aquinas' natural theology, we may call one sort ...

This article draws on a five-year, multi-sited transnational research project on the global traffic in human organs, tissues, and body parts from the living as well as from the dead as a misrecognized form of human sacrifice. Capitalist expansion and the spread of advanced medical and surgical techniques and developments in biotechnology have incited new tastes and traffic in the skin, bones, blood, organs, tissues, marrow and reproductive and genetic marginalized other. Examples drawn from recent ethnographic research in Israel, the (...) Palestinian Authority and Turkey serve to cast light on the dark side of organs harvesting and transplantation. The article focuses on the dangers of the `fetishized kidney' for both sellers and buyers, for whom this new commodity has become an organ of opportunity and an organ of last resort. The bodily sacrifice is disguised as a donation, rendered invisible by its anonymity, and hidden under the medical rhetoric of `life saving' and `gift giving'. It suggests that the ultimate fetish as recognized long ago by Ivan Illich is the idea of `life' as object of manipulation. (shrink)

. The ability to enforce the provisions of a code of conduct influences whether the code is effective in shaping behavior. Enforcement relies in part on the willingness of organization members to report violations of the code, but research from the business and educational environment suggests that fewer than half of those who observe code violations follow their organizations procedures for reporting them. Based on a review of the literature in the business and educational environments, and a survey of 3605 (...) students at a mid-sized comprehensive university, this paper attempts to make conceptual sense of the non-reporting phenomenon. We present a conceptual framework based on four distinct factors which we have labeled: (1) factual non-responsibility; (2) moral non-responsibility; (3) consequential exoneration; and, (4) functional exoneration. Each of these factors suggest a different remedial strategy as well as provide a theoretical foundation for future research. Testable propositions for future research are developed, and some implications for organization leaders are discussed. (shrink)

This paper addresses five questions: First, what is trajectory of Western liberal ethics and politics in defining life, rights and citizenship? Second, how will neuro-remediation and other technologies change the definition of death for the brain injured and the cryonically suspended? Third, will people always have to be dead to be cryonically suspended? Fourth, how will changing technologies and definitions of identity affect the status of people revived from brain injury and cryonic suspension? I propose that Western liberal thought is (...) working towards a natural end, a “telos.” In response to a variety of biotechnologies, law and public opinion in liberal democracies will be forced to make explicit that the rights of a living thing are determined by its level of consciousness. I discuss the way that technology will force three clarifications about the value of consciousness, at the beginning, the end and boundaries of human life. Sentience and personhood will become the basis of moral concern, regardless of its media. Just as human rights have become independent of race, gender and property, rights will become independent of being a breathing human being. But even as we make this transition, the cryonically preserved are still likely to be considered dead for pragmatic reasons, albeit with gradually increasing rights as technology makes their reanimation increasingly probable. I suggest that it could be acceptable to cryonicists that the frozen continue to be defined as dead if assisted suicide can be legalized. Under a liberal assisted suicide policy cryonicists might be allowed to carry out suspension before a declaration of death, preserving the maximum amount of neural information. The gradual redefinition of life and personal identity in terms of psychological continuity will also have consequences for the legal status of the reanimated. If, due to information loss, the reanimated do not meet a threshold of psychological continuity, they may be considered new persons. Cryonicists may therefore wish to specify ahead of time whether they are still interested in being reanimated if pre-animation assessment suggests that the result will not meet the necessary threshold of continuity. Finally, I touch on the way that neural technology will fundamentally problematize the separate, autonomous self on which liberal democratic values are based, leading to a legal and political Singularity. It is this looming neural Singularity that makes the proposed liberal democratic telos a final stage in humanistic thought, before it is superceded by something radically different. (shrink)

Transhumanism, the belief that technology can transcend the limitations of the human body and brain, is part of the family of Enlightenment philosophies. As such, transhumanism has also inherited the internal tensions and contradictions of the broad Enlightenment tradition. First, the project of Reason is self-erosive and requires irrational validation. Second, although most transhumanists are atheist, their belief in the transcendent power of intelligence generates new theologies. Third, although most transhumanists are liberal democrats, their belief in human perfectibility and governance (...) by reason can validate technocratic authoritarianism. Fourth, transhumanists are divided on the balance between democracy and the market. Fifth, teleological expectations of unstoppable progress are in tension with awareness of the indeterminacy of the future. Sixth, transhumanists are divided between advocates of ethical universalism and ethical relativism. Seventh, the rational materialist denial of discrete persistent selves calls into question the transhumanist project of individual longevity and enhancement. (shrink)

In this paper I consider, in connection with dementia, two views of the person. One view of the person is derived from Locke and Parfit. This tends to regard the person solely in terms of psychological states and his/her connections. The second view of the person is derived from a variety of thinkers. I have called it the situated-embodied-agent view of the person. This view, I suggest, more readily squares with the reality of clinical experience. It regards the person as (...) embedded in a history and culture. The human person is also an embodied agent. I contend that this view encourages a more appropriate approach towards the ethical issues that arise in dementia and towards people with dementia. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of ‘passivity’ is a key to his account of perception. For Merleau-Ponty, perception is the way in which we are involved in the world, and it is on perception that the functions of understanding, reason, and reflection ultimately rest. While in his Phenomenology of Perception it is already clear that passive and active are intertwined, from a series of lectures he gave in 1954–5 we learn that inauguration or ‘institution’ arises out of a passivity that is not merely (...) an absence of activity. I show how the thoroughly temporal status of the subject as ‘instituting’ distinguishes it from a certain model of the ‘constituting’ subject. Next, I argue that, to grasp the sense in which Merleau-Ponty intends ‘passivity’, we must recognize its mediating or transitional status. Specifically, I examine terms that arise repeatedly in his analysis of the Freudian account of the unconscious — namely, ‘pivot’ and ‘enjambment’ — to show how they reveal the peculiar status of a passivity that operates through a dialectic focused on its transitional terms rather than on opposing poles. Finally, I suggest the exchange between passivity and institution that Merleau-Ponty has in mind can be illuminated through consideration of late Palaeolithic cave paintings, where the rock itself seems to begin an expression that the artist completes. (shrink)

First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Though political philosophers often presuppose that coercive enforcement is fundamental to law, many legal philosophers have doubted this. This article explores doubts of two types. Some legal philosophers argue that given an adequate account of coercion and coerciveness, the enforcement of law in actual legal systems will generally not count as coercive. Others accept that actual legal systems enforce many laws coercively, but they deny that law has a necessary connection with coercion. There can be individual laws that lack coercive (...) sanctions, and it is at least conceptually possible for there to be a legal system that lacks coercive enforcement altogether. This article then examines why most political philosophers and some legal philosophers have been reluctant to treat the conceptual possibility of non-coercive law as significant. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that foreign sponsors of research in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are morally required to ensure that their research benefits the broader host community. There is no agreement, however, about how much benefit or what type of benefit research sponsors must provide, nor is there agreement about what group of people is entitled to benefit. To settle these questions, it is necessary to examine why research sponsors have an obligation to benefit the broader host community, not (...) only their subjects. Justifying this claim is not straightforward. There are three justifications for an obligation to benefit host communities that each apply to some research, but not to all. Each requires a different amount of benefit, and each requires benefit to be directed toward a different group. If research involves significant net risk to LMIC subjects, research must provide adequate benefit to people in LMICs to avoid an unjustified appeal to subjects’ altruism. If research places significant burdens on public resources, research must provide fair compensation to the community whose public resources are burdened. If research is for profit, research sponsors must contribute adequately to the upkeep of public goods from which they benefit in order to avoid the wrong of free-riding, even if their use of these public goods is not burdensome. (shrink)

This paper canvasses recent arguments in favor of commercial markets in human transplant kidneys, raising objections to those arguments on grounds of the role of injustice, exploitation, and coercion in compromising the autonomy of those most likely to sell a kidney, namely, the least well off members of society.

Locke thought that it was impossible for there to be two things of the same kind in the same place at the same time. I offer (what looks to me like) a counterexample to that principle, involving two ships in the same place at the same time. I then consider two ways of explaining away, and one way of denying, the apparent counterexample of Locke's principle, and I argue that none is successful. I conclude that, although the case under discussion (...) does not refute Locke's principle, it constitutes a serious challenge to it. (shrink)

A principal challenge facing the progressive bioethics project is the crafting of a consistent message on biopolitical issues that divide progressives. -/- The regulation of enhancement technologies is one of the issues central to this emerging biopolitics, pitting progressive defenders of enhancement, “technoprogressives,” against progressive critics. This essay [PDF] will argue that technoprogressive biopolitics express the consistent application of the core progressive values of the Enlightenment: the right of individuals to control their own bodies, brains and reproduction according to their (...) own conscience, under democratic states that work for the public good. -/- Insofar as left bioconservatives want to ensure the safety of therapies and their equitable distribution, these concerns can be addressed by thorough and independent regulation and a universal health care system, and a progressive bioethics of enhancement can unite both enthusiasts and skeptics. Insofar as bioconservative concerns are motivated by deeper hostility to the Enlightenment project however, by assertion of pre-modern reverence for human uniqueness for instance, then a common program is unlikely. -/- imageAfter briefly reviewing the political history and contemporary landscape of biopolitical debates about enhancement, the essay outlines three meta-policy contexts that will impact future biopolicy: the pressure to establish a universal, cost-effective health insurance system, the aging of industrial societies, and globalization. Technoprogressive appeals are outlined that can appeal to key constituencies, and build a majority coalition in support of progressive change. Finally, some guiding principles for a technoprogressive approach to biopolicy are offered. (shrink)

A recent argument in favor of a free market in human organs claims that such a market enhances personal autonomy. I argue here that such a market would, on the contrary, actually compromise the autonomy of those most likely to sell their organs, namely, the least well off members of society. A Marxian-inspired notion of exploitation is deployed to show how, and in what sense, this is the case.

This paper will discuss the origin of the human mind, and the qualitative discontinuity between human and animal cognition. We locate the source of this discontinuity within the language faculty, and thus take the origin of the mind to depend on the origin of the language faculty. We will look at one such proposal put forward by Hauser et al. (Science 298:1569-1579, 2002), which takes the evolution of a Merge trait (recursion) to solely explain the differences between human and animal (...) cognition. We argue that the Merge-only hypothesis fails to account for various aspects of the human mind. Instead we propose that the process of lexicalisation is also unique to humans, and that this process is key to explaining the vast qualitative differences. We will argue that lexicalisation is a process through which concepts are reformatted to be able to take on semantic features and to take part in grammatical relations. These are both necessary conditions for a grammatical mind and the increased ability to express conceptual content. We therefore propose a possible explanans for the discontinuity between humans and animals, namely that merge with lexicalisation (and consequently semantic features and grammatical relations) is a minimal requirement for the human mind. (shrink)

Originally published in 1965. This is a textbook of modern deductive logic, designed for beginners but leading further into the heart of the subject than most other books of the kind. The fields covered are the Propositional Calculus, the more elementary parts of the Predicate Calculus, and Syllogistic Logic treated from a modern point of view. In each of the systems discussed the main emphases are on Decision Procedures and Axiomatisation, and the material is presented with as much formal rigour (...) as is compatible with clarity of exposition. The techniques used are not only described but given a theoretical justification. Proofs of Consistency, Completeness and Independence are set out in detail. The fundamental characteristics of the various systems studies, and their relations to each other are established by meta-logical proofs, which are used freely in all sections of the book. Exercises are appended to most of the chapters, and answers are provided. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:EMBODIED HUMAN AGENTS INHABITING A MATERIAL WORLD? CHARLES T. HUGHES Chapman University Orange, California I. /n;troduction HE CONCEPT of a "logically possible world" has roven useful in the investigation of issues within many ranches of philosophy, including the philosophy of religion.1 Since this paper includes an analysis of one "possible worlds" objection to Christian theism, based upon the problem of evil, it will prove useful to preface my (...) discussion with a paragraph which summarizes some of the ideas important to the logic of possible worlds. Each logically possible world contains a complete set of compossible facts, which includes the past, present, and future of its objects, properties, and relations. Those complete sets of compossible facts, each of which describes the way the actual world could have been, have in common the truth of all logically necessary propositions (for example, 2 +2 = 4, "Circles cannot be squared "), and the falsity of all logically impossible propositions (for example, 2 +6 = 7, " Circles can be squared"), but differ in their truth values with respect to at least some logically contingent propositions (for example, "Elephants exist" is true in one or more possible worlds but false in all others, and "Unicorns exist " is true in one or more possible worlds but false in all others). An impossible world includes an affirmation of the falsity of at least one necessary proposition (for example,,.._,(2 +2 = 4)), and/or affirms the truth of at least one logical1 See Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), chapters IX and X. 389 390 CHARLES T. HUGHES ly impossible proposition (for example, " Logically necessary propositions are false in all possible worlds ").2 The actual world, which is our world, is that complete set of compossible propositions which describe the way things actually are. The actual world, therefore, differs from other possible worlds in that all of its contingent propositions correspond to the past, present, and future of all of the objects, properties, and relations which actually obtain. There is an on-going debate about the nature and ontological status of possible worlds and their objects.3 The purpose of this paper is to analyze and reject a particular "possible worlds" objection to Christian theism, based upon the problem of evil, which is not frequently discussed in philosophical literature. The problem is this : If God must actualize a possible world in order to provide human agents with the initial stage of existence they require to develop freely as rational, moral, and religious beings, who choose their own destinies, why did God not create them as incorporeal agents within an immaterial world which would, by its very nature, eliminate the physical dimension of evil and suffering which plagues the actual world? For it seems, prima facie, that God could have realized his purposes by actualizing an immaterial world, populated with human-like incorporeal agents, thereby avoiding all of the terrible evil and suffering made possible by physicality. Therefore, the existence of the actual physical world, with all its evil and suffering, is evidence against the existence of God.4 In order to show that the previously stated objection from evil could pose a genuine threat to theism, I will first identify some of my important assumptions in this paper, and then outline particular Christian ideas to determine how the " possible worlds " 2 For an argument that some impossible propositions are not self-contradictory, see Linda Zagzebski, " What If the Impossible Had Been Actual," in Michael D. Beatty, ed., Christian Theism aml the Problems of Philosophy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), pp. 165-183. a Compare, for example, the positions of D. M. Armstrong, A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) and D. Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986). 4 Some interesting discussion of this type of problem can be found in Austin Farrer, Love Almighty and Ills Unlimited (London: Collins, 1962), pp. 69-76. EMBODIED HUMAN AGENTS 391 objection to Christian theism could arise in the first place. After that, I will discuss the nature of the " possible worlds " objection and how, in principle, it might be rebutted by theists who possess a great amount of... (shrink)

InThe Hemlock Cupshe reveals the human heart of the man, and relates a story that is as relevant now as it has ever been. From the Trade Paperback edition.

The informative and engaging essays in the foregoing collection suggest several interesting concepts that deserve further research and reflection. Over the past decade, the “social construction of technology” has become a concept often explored by historians (Bijker, Hughes, and Pinch 1987). Even though it has performed the useful function of discrediting technological determinism, the concept suggests too narrow a set of influences that shape technology. Two other concept, “nature-shaped technology” and “culture-shaped technology,” convey the character of technology more effectively. (...) To designate “nature” as a shaper of technology reminds us that in a relatively prisine world the designer of technology negotiates with natural forces more than with human-built ones. To see culture as a shaper of technology suggests a broader range of influences affecting technology, not simply the social. “Shaping” conveys the notion of influence and avoids that of determinism better than “construction.”. (shrink)

Williamson (2000) appeals to considerations about when it is natural to say that a hypothesis is consistent with one’s evidence in order to motivate the claim that all and only knowledge is evidence. It is argued here that the relevant considerations do not support this claim, and in fact conflict with it.