DCPS is a connectionist production system interpreter that uses distributed representations. As a connectionist model it consists of many simple, richly interconnected neuron‐like computing units that cooperate to solve problems in parallel. One motivation for constructing DCPS was to demonstrate that connectionist models are capable of representing and using explicit rules. A second motivation was to show how “coarse coding” or “distributed representations” can be used to construct a working memory that requires far fewer units than the number of different (...) facts that can potentially be stored. The simulation we present is intended as a detailed demonstration of the feasibility of certain ideas and should not be viewed as a full implementation of production systems. Our current model only has a few of the many interesting emergent properties that we eventually hope to demonstrate: It is damage‐resistant, it performs matching and variable binding by massively parallel constraint satisfaction, and the capacity of its working memory is dependent on the similarity of the items being stored. (shrink)

Clarke proposes a conception of philosophy that provides an alternative to the reductions of materialism and the search for normative principles. Philosophy's proper role is to describe similarities and differences among differing levels of language, specifically the familiar level of discourse within an ordinary language shared by all and the specialized discourses of social institutions such as science, law, and the arts. By constructing a logical framework in which these comparisons and contrasts can be made, philosophy performs the indispensable role (...) of promoting the integration of disparate elements of our culture. (shrink)

The Guise of the Good thesis has received much attention since Anscombe's brief defence in her book Intention. I approach it here from a less common perspective - indirectly, via a theory explaining how it is that moral behaviour is even possible. After setting out how morality requires the employment of a fundamental test, I argue that moral behaviour involves orientation toward the good. Immoral behaviour cannot, however, involve orientation to evil as such, given the theory of evil as privation. (...) There must always be orientation to good of some kind for immorality even to be possible. Evil can, nevertheless, be intended, but this must be carefully understood in terms of the metaphysic of good and evil I set out. Given that metaphysic, the Guise of the Good is a virtual corollary. (shrink)

Although Mealey's account provides several interesting hypotheses, her integration across disparate samples renders the value of her explanation for psychopathy ambiguous. Recent evidence on Psychopathy Checklist-identified samples (Hare, 1991) suggests primary emotional and cognitive deficits inconsistent with her model. Whereas high-anxious psychopaths display interpersonal deficits consistent with Mealey's hypotheses, low-anxious psychopaths' deficits appear more sensitive to situational parameters than predicted.

The goal of this paper is to increase interest in Cicero’s “De Officiis” as both a textbook and resource for developing curricula at the secondary and post-secondary level. The paper begins by tracing the extensive influence that the work has had in ethics, political philosophy, literature, and education before proceeding to an explanation for why its influence has waned since the nineteenth century. Next, the paper contends that “De Officiis” addresses some of the most relevant and pressing questions in ethics. (...) Finally, the paper provides suggestions on how the work can be used in the classroom. (shrink)

I argue that (a) the phenomenon characteristic of pragmatic presupposition, is distinct from (b) the phenomenon characteristic of semantic presupposition, and that there are sentences exhibiting (a) alone. I apply this to Stalnaker's defense of van Fraassen's theory of semantic presupposition against Karttunen. I show that, since Stalmaker fails to distinguish (a) from (b), this defense amounts to an unsuccessful attempt to explain pragmatically the supposed instances of (b) in Karttunen's counter-examples. I observe that, given the distinction between (a) and (...) (b), we can salvage from Stalnaker the strategy of discounting certain of Karttunen's counter-examples which exhibit not (b) but merely (a). (shrink)

Farm to institution (FTI) efforts aim to increase the amount of locally produced foods, typically fruits and vegetables, served by institutions such as schools, colleges, hospitals, senior meal sites, and correctional facilities. Scholars have cited these efforts as contributing to public health and community-based food systems goals. Prior research has found that relationships based on shared values have played a critical role in motivating and sustaining FTI efforts. We review previous studies, discussing values that motivate participation, and affect practices and (...) relationships in FTI supply chains. We use semi-structured interviews to better understand supply chain actors’ values and motivations and how they affect behaviors, with the aim of informing efforts to increase the scope and effectiveness of FTI efforts. All participants are currently engaged in FTI efforts. We find a mix of social and economic values were present for farmers, distributors, and buyers. Our implications focus on the importance of shared values and relationships, the benefit of local food for businesses along the supply chain, and the potential of non-school institution markets as entry points for farmers. (shrink)

BackgroundAs suggested by Shook and Giordano, understanding and therefore addressing the urgent international governance issues around globalizing bio-medical/technology research and applications is limited by the perception of the underlying science.MethodsA philosophical methodology is used, based on novel and classical philosophical reflection upon existent literature, clinical wisdoms and narrative theory to discover a meta-science and telos of humankind for the development of a relevant and defendable global biomedical bioethics.ResultsIn this article, through pondering an integrative systems approach, I propose a biomedical model (...) that may provide Western biomedicine with leadership and interesting insight into the unity beyond the artificial boundaries of its traditional divisions and the limit between physiological and pathological situations. A unified biomedicine, as scientific foundation, might then provide the basis for dissolution of similar reflected boundaries within bioethics. A principled and communitarian cosmopolitan bioethics may then be synonymous with a recently proposed principled and communitarian cosmopolitan neuroethics based on a novel objective meta-ethics. In an attempt to help facilitate equal and inclusive participation in inter-, multi-, and transdisciplinary intercultural discourse regarding the aforementioned international governance issues, I offer: a meta-science derived through considering the general behaviour of activity, plasticity and balance in biology and; a novel thought framework to encourage and enhance the ability for self-evaluation, self-criticism, and self-revision aimed at broadening perspective, as well as acknowledging and responding to the strengths and limitations of extant knowledge.ConclusionsThrough classical philosophical reflection, I evolve a theory of medicine to discover a telos of humankind which in turn provides an ‘internal’ moral grounding for a proposed global biomedical bioethics. (shrink)

Virtuousness refers to the pursuit of the highest aspirations in the human condition. It is characterized by human impact, moral goodness, and unconditional societal betterment. Several writers have recently argued that corporations, in addition to being concerned with ethics, should also emphasize an ethos of virtuousness in corporate action. Virtuousness emphasizes actions that go beyond the “do no harm” assumption embedded in most ethical codes of conduct. Instead, it emphasizes the highest and best of the human condition. This research empirically (...) examines the buffering and amplifying effects of virtuousness in organizations. The study hypothesizes that virtuousness has a positive effect on organizations because amplifying dynamics make subsequent virtuous action more likely, and buffering dynamics reduce the harmful effects of downsizing. The study reveals that two types of virtuousness – tonic and phasic – are associated with these effects. (shrink)

What is the cultural value of illegal works that violate the copyrights of popular fiction? Why do they persist despite clear and stringent intellectual property laws? Drawing on the disciplines of new media, law, and literary studies, Illegal Literature suggests that extralegal works such as fan fiction are critical to a system that spurs the evolution of culture. Reconsidering voices relegated to the cultural periphery, David S. Roh shows how infrastructure--in the form of legal policy and network distribution--slows or (...) accelerates the rate of change. He analyzes the relationship between intellectual property rights and American literature in two recent copyright disputes. And, in comparing American fan fiction and Japanese dojinshi, he illustrates how infrastructure and legal climates detract from or encourage fledgling creativity. Illegal Literature fills a crucial gap between the scholarly and the popular by closely examining several modes of marginalized cultural production. Roh makes the case for protecting an environment conducive to literary heresy, the articulation of an accretive rather than solitary authorial genius, and the idea that letting go rather than holding on is important to a generative creative process. In a media ecology inundated by unauthorized materials, Illegal Literature argues that the proliferation of unsanctioned texts may actually benefit literary and cultural development. (shrink)

Necessity and sufficiency are the building blocks of all successful explanations. Yet despite their importance, these notions have been conceptually underdeveloped and inconsistently applied in explainable artificial intelligence, a fast-growing research area that is so far lacking in firm theoretical foundations. In this article, an expanded version of a paper originally presented at the 37th Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence, we attempt to fill this gap. Building on work in logic, probability, and causality, we establish the central role of (...) necessity and sufficiency in XAI, unifying seemingly disparate methods in a single formal framework. We propose a novel formulation of these concepts, and demonstrate its advantages over leading alternatives. We present a sound and complete algorithm for computing explanatory factors with respect to a given context and set of agentive preferences, allowing users to identify necessary and sufficient conditions for desired outcomes at minimal cost. Experiments on real and simulated data confirm our method’s competitive performance against state of the art XAI tools on a diverse array of tasks. (shrink)

Discussion of the ethics of clinical trials in lower income countries has been dominated by concern over double standards. Most prominently, clinical trials of interventions that are less effective than the worldwide best treatment methods typically are not permitted in higher income countries. Commentators conclude that permitting such trials in lower income countries involves an ethical double standard. Despite significant attention to this concern, and its influence over prominent guidelines for research in lower income countries, there has been little analysis (...) of what constitutes an ethical double standard in clinical research. The present article attempts to address this gap in the literature. This analysis finds that ethical double standards involve a kind of disrespect, and yields a three-step decision procedure for evaluating when trials of less than the worldwide best methods raise this concern. Application of this procedure reveals that permitting these trials in lower income countries rarely involves an ethical double standard. Instead, the real challenge is determining when clinical trials of interventions that are less effective than the worldwide best represent a permissible and effective response to differences in access to healthcare between higher income and lower income countries. To protect research subjects, without blocking clinical trials that have the potential to improve health in lower income countries, research review committees and other stakeholders should focus on this issue, not on ethical double standards. (shrink)

mix of the concrete and the abstract (if we include universals, laws, propositions and the like), but whichever of these is the case, the world is not purely abstract, as a formal structure is. One might claim, however, that the world is a structure1 in the sense that it instantiates a structure and is nothing else. In other words, all there is to the..

In response to recent corporate ethical and financial disasters there has been increased pressure on business schools to improve their teaching of corporate ethics. Accreditation bodies, such as the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), now require member institutions to develop the ethical awareness of business students, either through a dedicated subject or an integrated coverage of ethics across the curriculum. This paper describes an institutional approach to the incorporation of a comprehensive multi-disciplinary ethics framework into the business (...) curriculum. We discuss important implications for the assessment of ethics within institutional assurance practices, and address critical issues related to the support of academics whenrequired to incorporate new ethics material within their subject which may be outside their field of expertise. As an example, the successful application of the framework within the marketing discipline is presented and discussed. (shrink)

Ketamine is a dissociative drug that has been used medically since the 1970s primarily as an anesthetic agent but also for various psychiatric applications. Anecdotal reports and clinical research suggest substantial potential for ketamine as a treatment in conjunction with psychological interventions. Here, we review historical and modern approaches to the use of ketamine with psychotherapy, discuss the clinical relevance of ketamine’s acute psychoactive effects, propose a unique model for using esketamine with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and suggest considerations for (...) moving medication-assisted psychotherapy forward as a field. (shrink)

The distinction between the essence of an object and its properties has been obscured in contemporary discussion of essentialism. Locke held that the properties of an object are exclusively those features that ‘flow’ from its essence. Here he follows the Aristotelian theory, leaving aside Locke’s own scepticism about the knowability of essence. I defend the need to distinguish sharply between essence and properties, arguing that essence must be given by form and that properties flow from form. I give a precise (...) definition of what the term of art ‘flow’ amounts to, and apply the distinction to various kinds of taxonomic issues. (shrink)

The first English-language collection devoted to Hegel’s Philosophy of Subjective Spirit.

An empirical law or evidence which supports a theory tends to have the greatest scientific value when it seemed improbable before it was investigated. Evidence which falsifies a theory tends to have the greatest value when it seemed probable that the investigation would confirm the theory. A scientist who wishes to optimize his contribution to knowledge probably will investigate most frequently hypotheses which seem neither very probable nor very improbable of being confirmed. This strategy leads neither to a maximum number (...) of confirmations of a theory, nor to a set of tests which are maximally severe. (shrink)

Until the discovery of catalytic RNA, the notion that all enzymes are proteins had seemed incontrovertible. Now the existence of RNA enzymes has been confirmed in a variety of contexts. What is known about the chemistry of RNA‐catalyzed reactions is reviewed below, with particular attention to the self‐splicing rRNA intron of Tetrahymena thermophila and the processing of pre‐tRNA molecules by RNase P.