A study of American Indian youths illustrates competing pressures between research and ethics. A stakeholder-researcher team developed three plans to protect participants. The first allowed participants to skip potentially upsetting interview sections. The second called for participants flagged for abuse or suicidality to receive referrals, emergency 24-hr clinical backup, or both. The third, based on the community's desire to promote service access, included giving participants a list of service resources. Interviewers gave referrals to participants flagged as having mild problems, and (...) reported participants with serious problems to supervisors for clinical backup. Participants seldom chose to skip sections, so data integrity was not compromised. However, participants did have more problems than expected (e.g., 1 in 3 had thought about suicide, 1 in 5 had attempted suicide, and 1 in 4 reported abuse), so service agencies were not equipped to respond. Researchers must accept the competing pressures and find ethically appropriate compromises that will not undermine research integrity. (shrink)

Homology is a natural kind concept, but one that has been notoriously elusive to pin down. There has been sustained debate over the nature of correspondence and the units of comparison. But this continued debate over its meaning has focused on defining homology rather than on its use in practice. The aim of this chapter is to concentrate on the practices of homologizing. I define “homologizing” to be a concept-in-use. Practices of homologizing are kinds of rule following, the satisfaction of (...) which demarcates a category—that of being a homologue. Identifying, explaining, discovering, and understanding are exchanges that connect practice to concept through the performance of a rule by practitioners. These practices are constitutive of natural kinding activities. If homologizing is a kind of kinding, consideration of these practices of discovery, tracking, and identification not only clarifies the meaning, use, and progression of the concept of homology, but provides further understanding of the processes and progression of natural kinds and kinding practices in general. (shrink)

Discussions over whether these natural kinds exist, what is the nature of their existence, and whether natural kinds are themselves natural kinds aim to not only characterize the kinds of things that exist in the world, but also what can knowledge of these categories provide. Although philosophically critical, much of the past discussions of natural kinds have often answered these questions in a way that is unresponsive to, or has actively avoided, discussions of the empirical use of natural kinds and (...) what I dub “activities of natural kinding” and “natural kinding practices”. The natural kinds of a particular discipline are those entities, events, mechanisms, processes, relationships, and concepts that delimit investigation within it—but we might reasonably ask: How are these natural kinds discovered?, How are they made?, Are they revisable?, and Where do they come from? A turn to natural kinding practices reveals a new set of questions open for investigation: How do natural kinds explain through practice?, What are natural kinding practices and classifications and why should we care?, What is the nature of natural kinds viewed as a set of activities?, and How do practice approaches to natural kinds shape and reconfigure scientific disciplines? Natural kinds have traditionally been discussed in terms of how they classify the contents of the world. The metaphysical project has been one which identifies essences, laws, sameness relations, fundamental properties, and clusters of family resemblances and how these map out the ontological space of the world. But actually how this is done has been less important in the discussion than the resultant categories that are produced. I aim to rectify these omissions and suggest a new metaphysical project investigating kinds in practice. (shrink)

There is a vast literature within philosophy of mind that focuses on artificial intelligence, but hardly mentions methodological questions. There is also a growing body of work in philosophy of science about modeling methodology that hardly mentions examples from cognitive science. Here these discussions are connected. Insights developed in the philosophy of science literature about the importance of idealization provide a way of understanding the neural implausibility of connectionist networks. Insights from neurocognitive science illuminate how relevant similarities between models and (...) targets are picked out, how modeling inferences are justified, and the metaphysical status of models. (shrink)

In this article, I consider recent debates on the notion of procreative liberty, to argue that reproductive freedom can be understood as a form of positive freedom—that is, the freedom to make oneself according to various ethical and aesthetic principles or values. To make this argument, I draw on Michel Foucault’s later work on ethics. Both adopting and adapting Foucault’s notion of ethics as a practice of the self and of liberty, I argue that reproductive autonomy requires enactment to gain (...) meaning within the life contexts of prospective parents. Thus, I propose a shift away from the standard negative model of freedom that sees it solely as a matter of noninterference or nonimpedance, a view advocated by major commentators such as John Harris and John Robertson. Instead, reproduction should be understood as a deeply personal project of self-making that integrates both negative and positive freedom. (shrink)

Charles S. Peirce’s semiotics uniquely divides signs into: i) symbols, which pick out their objects by arbitrary convention or habit, ii) indices, which pick out their objects by unmediated ‘pointing’, and iii) icons, which pick out their objects by resembling them (as Peirce put it: an icon’s parts are related in the same way that the objects represented by those parts are themselves related). Thus representing structure is one of the icon’s greatest strengths. It is argued that the implications of (...) scaffolding education iconically are profound: for providing learners with a navigable road-map of a subject matter, for enabling them to see further connections of their own in what is taught, and for supporting meaningful active learning. Potential objections that iconic teaching is excessively entertaining and overly susceptible to misleading rhetorical manipulation are addressed. (shrink)

Stoic work on ambiguity represents one of the most innovative, sophisticated and rigorous contributions to philosophy and the study of language in western antiquity. This book is both a comprehensive survey of the often difficult and scattered sources, and an attempt to locate Stoic material in the rich array of contexts, ancient and modern, which alone can guarantee full appreciation of its subtlety, scope and complexity. The comparisons and contrasts which this book constructs will intrigue not just classical scholars, and (...) philosophers, but also logicians, theoretical linguists, communication theorists and historians of grammar and of literary theory. The Stoics on Ambiguity is designed to be intelligible to readers with no Greek or Latin. (shrink)

Ethical reasoning and decision-making may be thought of as 'professional skills', and in this sense are as relevant to efficient clinical practice as the biomedical and clinical sciences are to the diagnosis of a patient's problem. Despite this, however, undergraduate medical programmes in ethics tend to focus on the teaching of bioethical theories, concepts and/or prominent ethical issues such as IVF and euthanasia, rather than the use of such ethics knowledge (theories, principles, concepts, rules) to clinical practice. Not surprisingly, many (...) students and clinicians experience considerable difficulty in using what they know about ethics to help them make competent ethical decisions in their day-to-day clinical practice. This paper describes the development of a seminar programme for teaching senior medical students a more systematic approach to ethical reasoning and analysis and clinical decision-making. (shrink)

Parameterized complexity has, so far, been largely confined to consideration of computational problems as decision or search problems. However, it is becoming evident that the parameterized point of view can lead to new insight into counting problems. The goal of this article is to introduce a formal framework in which one may consider parameterized counting problems.

Abstract:While many aspects of stock and option based compensation for corporate officers remain controversial, we suggest that the growing trend for similar practices in favor of boards of directors will prove to be even more contentious. High-ranking corporate managers do not set their own salaries nor authorize their own stock options. By contrast, boards of directors do, in fact, set their own compensation packages. Other potential conflicts of interest include setting option performance targets, stock buybacks, stock option resets and reloads, (...) consolidations (mergers and acquisitions), and service on multiple boards. As trust is the most valuable commodity in a capitalist society, we suggest that these potential conflicts of interest and related outcomes may ultimately serve to erode any anticipated benefits of director stock compensation. (shrink)

Leibniz entertained the idea that, as a set of “striving possibles” competes for existence, the largest and most perfect world comes into being. The paper proposes 8 criteria for a Leibniz-world. It argues that a) there is no algorithm e.g., one involving pairwise compossibility-testing that can produce even possible Leibniz-worlds; b) individual substances presuppose completed worlds; c) the uniqueness of the actual world is a matter of theological preference, not an outcome of the assembly-process; and d) Goedel’s theorem implies that (...) there can be no algorithm for producing optimal worlds, assuming an optimal world contains truth-discerning creatures, though this is not to say that such worlds cannot arise naturally. (shrink)

The ability to distinguish between our own actions and those of an external agent is a fundamental component of normal human social interaction. Both low- and high-level mechanisms are thought to contribute to the sense of movement agency, but the contribution of each is yet to be fully understood. By applying small and incremental perturbations to realistic visual feedback of the limb, the influence of high-level action intentions and low-level motor predictive mechanisms were dissociated in two experiments. In the first, (...) participants were induced to claim agency over movements that were subject to large perturbations and to deny agency over self-produced unperturbed movements despite the application of motor corrections by low-level mechanisms. A control experiment confirmed that if reaches met with their intended goal then they were more likely to be attributed to the agent, regardless of the discrepancy between the actual and seen positions of the limb. (shrink)

Although interest in the subject of human-resource marketing is growing among researchers and practitioners, there have been remarkably few studies on the effects on employees of how benevolent their organization is. This article looks at the link between the presumption of organizational benevolence and the well-being of employees at work. The results of an empirical study of 595 employees show that the presumption of organizational benevolence is positively linked to employee well-being. The effect is indirect, as it is mediated by (...) the perceived level of organizational support. The existence of a link between employee well-being and intention to quit the company is also confirmed. (shrink)

Recently there have been strong reactions against the Enlightenment idea of the self, originating with Descartes, as a unitary “I” defined as wholly self-legislating and self-identical. It has become commonplace to stress the dialogic disposition of the self and affirm not only the social dimension of selfhood, but also its ineradicable embodiment. Of course, taken too far, such a view can reduce the self to a mere play of impersonal material forces or temporal flows; such is the “post-modern” self envisaged (...) by Gilles Deleuze, who sought to rid subjectivity of all forms of interiority, coherence, integrity and consistency. It is…. (shrink)

Commentators on the work of Catharine Macaulay acknowledge her influence on the pioneering feminist writing of Mary Wollstonecraft. Yet despite Macaulay's interest in equal education for women, these commentators have not considered that Macaulay offered a self-contained, sustained argument for the equality of women. This paper endeavors to show that Macaulay did produce such an argument, and that she holds a place in the development of early feminism independent of her connections with Wollstonecraft.

Comment Œdipe en est-il arrivé à commettre deux crimes, le parricide et l’inceste? En se référant aux concepts de constellation œdipienne (S. Leclaire) et de configuration œdipienne (H. Faimberg), l’auteur étudie les personnages de la famille d’Œdipe. On voit ainsi qu’avant d’être parricide et incestueux, Œdipe est un enfant que ses parents veulent tuer. C’est aussi un enfant qui a été recueilli et adopté, mais sans en avoir connaissance, ni connaître ses origines. L’Œdipe roi de Sophocle se présente comme le (...) travail de remise en ordre des repères généalogiques brouillés par les mensonges de ses parents. Freud comparait la construction de cette pièce à un travail de psychanalyse. (shrink)

In the wake of the digital, some have recommended that we abandon the tedium of teaching handwriting to children in service of promoting “more creative” digital literacies. Others worry that an early diet of keyboard and screen may have deleterious effects on children's social, emotional, and cognitive development, as well as their physical well-being. Yet in this debate, the algorithmic scripts and digital surfaces underwriting these new reading, writing, and mathematical practices are, with a few notable exceptions, almost exclusively ignored. (...) In this essay, Catherine Adams asks whether the digital, and the reading and writing spaces it affords, are of consequence to our habits of thinking and ways of being, particularly in light of the possible obsolescence of pen and paper in schools. She shows that writing using a word processor is no mere mechanical pressing of keys, but an intricate ballet of writerly reading eyes and readerly writing hands, caught up in a dynamic environment of algorithmic paratexts and copy-cut-paste thinking. (shrink)

Cet article fournit les principaux résultats de la mission effectuée en mai 2011 dans le cadre du projet concernant la sculpture architecturale byzantine de la côte occidentale de la mer Noire. La première partie présente et décrit les ensembles architecturaux d’où proviennent les sculptures sur lesquelles ont été prélevés des échantillons de marbre. La seconde partie a trait aux caractéristiques spécifiques des marbres analysés : vingt échantillons de marbre prélevés sur des sculptures provenant surtout de Sozopol, mais aussi d’Obzor et (...) de Pomorie, ont été analysés afin de connaître leur provenance. Les différentes méthodes d’analyses ont montré que la majorité des échantillons étaient issus de l’île de Proconnèse. Néanmoins, quatre des vingt échantillons présentent une composition minéralogique et chimique différente de celle des marbres de Proconnèse : deux sont en marbre pentélique, un autre en marbre de Thasos et le dernier est très probablement en marbre local. (shrink)

This dissertation examines how the distinction between what is said and what is implicated should be applied to metaphorical language. I claim that metaphor has been incorrectly held to belong to the domain of pragmatics---what is implicated by an utterance---and I argue that metaphorical interpretations can and should be regarded as constituting what is said. ;The first two chapters develop the case against two implicature accounts of metaphor: Grice's account of metaphor as conversational implicature, and the relevance-theoretic account of metaphor (...) as 'loose talk' developed by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson. Two reasons to dispute these characterizations of metaphor as implicature are developed by examining dissimilarities between alleged metaphorical implicatures and more typical cases of implicature. The third chapter focuses on the notion of what is said in cases of literal language, and explores where and how the line between what is said and what is implicated should be drawn for several controversial cases. I argue for a view of such cases according to which considerable contextual variation is taken to fall within the realm of what is said. With this view of what is said in place, the final two chapters of the dissertation explore how a semantic account of metaphor might go. Two existing semantic accounts are examined, and difficulties with each are discussed. Finally, a characterization of metaphorical content is proposed, and an alternative semantic account is developed. (shrink)

Hume is not known for his theory of the benevolence we owe to distant strangers. One might suppose that he would deny that an obligation so contrary to our natural habits and predilections could be well-founded.

This chapter contains section titled: Two Seekers After Truth Coincidence and Divergence The Good World Doctrine Appendix: Passages Relating to Shared Doctrines in Augustine and Descartes References and Further Reading.

Chris Darke _Light Readings: Film Criticism and Screen Arts_ London: Wallflower Press, 2000 ISBN 1903364078 206 pp.

Les instruments de musique nous permettent de fabriquer des sons musicaux, c'est-à-dire des sons désindicialisés (proposés pour eux-mêmes à l'écoute sans assignation à leur cause) et articulés les uns aux autres en un système réel ou supposé. Mais la fabrication n'est pas la seule voie de production de tels sons. Ils peuvent aussi simplement être produits par une décision d'écoute - par une oreille a priori capable d'installer cette désindicialisation et cette articulation, autrement dit par l'oreille d'un être parlant. Ce (...) n'est donc pas parce qu'ils font de la musique que les êtres humains ont un « corps harmonique», c'est parce qu'ils ont acquis un corps harmonique (un corps d'être parlant) qu'ils peuvent faire et entendre de la musique. Cela pourrait aussi expliquer pourquoi nous pouvons être sourds à certaines formes de musique. (shrink)

Three major strategies exist for the protection of endangered habitat and species: (1) land acquisition programs, (2) government legislation and regulatory agencies, and (3) "stewardship" programs that are voluntary and community-based. While all of these strategies have merit, we suggest that stewardship holds particular advantages and should be considered more often as a strategy of first choice. In this article, we examine the Municipal Wetland Stewardship program of Newfoundland, a popular and successful Canadian policy for the local protection of wetlands. (...) Important issues are at stake: competing philosophical foundations for managerial ecology, the value of "local ecological knowledge," principles of community-based conservation, the question of whether stewardship empowers local communities or controls them from afar, and ethical conflicts around American colonialism, hunting, and ecotourism. The results suggest that despite some potentially problematic ironies, the Newfoundland program provides a model for a public policy aimed both at the pragmatics of biophysical sustainability and at the ideals of environmental ethics, social justice, and democratic politics. (shrink)

I offer a Darwinian perspective on the existence of aesthetic interests, tastes, preferences, and productions. It is distinguished from the approaches of Denis Dutton and Geoffrey Miller, drawing instead on Richard O. Prum's notion of biotic artworlds. The relevance of neuroaesthetics to the philosophy of art is defended.

Margaret Wilson, who died last year, has been described as the most eminent English-language historian of early modern philosophy of her generation. She was President of the Leibniz Society of North America for four years, from 1986 to 1990. Within this organization she is remembered both for her contributions to Leibniz-studies and for her attention to and support of younger researchers and her governing role in the Society. Her Harvard Ph.D. dissertation on “Leibniz’s Doctrine of Necessary Truth,” written under the (...) supervision of Morton White, was completed in 1965, and she went on to write a number of papers on Leibniz in the late 1960s and early-to-mid 1970s, including “Leibniz and Materialism,” “Confused Ideas” and “Leibniz’s Dynamics and Contingency in Nature,” returning to Leibniz in the late 1980s and early 1990s with such articles as “Compossibility and Law” and “The Phenomenalisms of Leibniz and Berkeley. ” Over the course of her career, Wilson published two books, her dissertation, which appeared in a series issued by Garland in 1990, and Descartes, published by Routledge and Kegan Paul in 1978, as well as more than thirty papers on seventeenth and eighteenth century philosophy, nearly all of which are included in the recent volume from Princeton University Press, Ideas and Mechanism. She held a number of research awards and honorary fellowships, including a Fellowship in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences to which she was elected in 1992. (shrink)

In this fascinating but sometimes baffling book, the reader engages with a series of conditionals like the following: “If [the psychiatrist] Clérimbault manifests a delirium, it is because he discovers the tiny hallucinatory perceptions of ether addicts in the folds of clothing”. “If Leibniz’s principles [of identity and sufficient reason] appear to us as cries, it is because each one signals the presence of a class of beings that are themselves crying and draw attention to themselves by these cries...”. Deleuze’s (...) study is concerned with Leibniz and with leibnizianism; with the Baroque considered as a historical period and with the baroque considered as a persistent impulse in architecture, decoration, and in human thinking and system construction. Baroque and baroque are explorations, in his view, of curvilinearity, and Deleuze explores Leibniz’s use of mathematical analogies from topology, projective geometry and the calculus. But his attention in the book is mainly fixed on two Leibnizian images. The first image is that of the two-storied house, typically represented in baroque painting by an angelic realm in the upper half of the picture hovering above the human realm. In Leibniz’s writings, this translates into the world of matter and the world of intelligent, self-conscious spirits on the upper level. The second image is that of the fold, which appears in the pleats and draperies of Baroque costume, sculpture, and interior decoration, and which reappears in Leibniz’s mind-as-folded curtain, in his enveloped organisms, preformed under folds, and in the continuum, from whose recesses ever more numbers or particles can be pulled out. In clothing, waves, the brain, pleats of all sorts, surface disappears into interior. Deconstruction! But is it philosophy? Yes! Though Deleuze pulls his comparison-objects out of every corner of contemporary French culture, they are never arbitrary, and the book is focused clearly on its subject. (shrink)