Removing the Commons defends a Lockean Left-Libertarian account of the moral conditions in which people may remove, either via use or appropriation, natural resources from the commons. I conclude that self-owning agents may remove natural resources from the commons just so long as they leave others the competitive value of their removal in a way that best affords others an equal opportunity for welfare.

To date, emotion research has primarily focused on the experience and display of the emoter. However, of equal, if not more, importance is how such displays impact and guide the behavior of an observer. We incorporate a functionalist framework of emotion to examine the development of differential responding to discrete emotion, theorize on what may facilitate its development, and hypothesize the functions that may underlie such behavioral responses. Although our review is focused primarily on development, the theoretical and methodological ideas (...) laid out are relevant for researchers of emotion at all ages. (shrink)

There have been several recent attempts to refute objective consequentialism on the grounds that it implies the absurd conclusion that even the best of us act wrongly. Some have argued that we act wrongly from time to time; others have argued that we act wrongly regularly. Here I seek to strengthen reductio arguments against objective consequentialism by showing that objective consequentialism implies that we almost never act rightly. I show that no matter what you do, there is almost certainly something (...) else you could do that would have even better consequences. If objective consequentialism is true, the ratio of the number of your right actions to the number of your wrong actions is very close to zero. (shrink)

We investigate properties of propositional modal logic over the classof finite structures. In particular, we show that certain knownpreservation theorems remain true over this class. We prove that aclass of finite models is defined by a first-order sentence and closedunder bisimulations if and only if it is definable by a modal formula.We also prove that a class of finite models defined by a modal formulais closed under extensions if and only if it is defined by a -modal formula.

We present evidence that mainstream Anglophone philosophy is insular in the sense that participants in this academic tradition tend mostly to cite or interact with other participants in this academic tradition, while having little academic interaction with philosophers writing in other languages. Among our evidence: In a sample of articles from elite Anglophone philosophy journals, 97% of citations are citations of work originally written in English; 96% of members of editorial boards of elite Anglophone philosophy journals are housed in majority-Anglophone (...) countries; and only one of the 100 most-cited recent authors in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy spent most of his career in non-Anglophone countries writing primarily in a language other than English. In contrast, philosophy articles published in elite Chinese-language and Spanish-language journals cite from a range of linguistic traditions, as do non-English-language articles in a convenience sample of established European-language journals. We also find evidence that work in English has more influence on work in other languages than vice versa and that when non-Anglophone philosophers cite recent work outside of their own linguistic tradition it tends to be work in English. (shrink)

Since the late 1980s, the human genetics and genomics research community has been promising to usher in a “new paradigm for health care”—one that uses molecular profiling to identify human genetic variants implicated in multifactorial health risks. After the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003, a wide range of stakeholders became committed to this “paradigm shift,” creating a confluence of investment, advocacy, and enthusiasm that bears all the marks of a “scientific/intellectual social movement” within biomedicine. Proponents of this (...) movement usually offer four ways in which their approach to medical diagnosis and health care improves upon current practices, arguing that it is more “personalized,” “predictive,” “preventive,” and “participatory” than the medical status quo. Initially, it was personalization that seemed to best sum up the movement's appeal. By 2012, however, powerful opinion leaders were abandoning “personalized medicine” in favor of a new label: “precision medicine.” The new label received a decisive seal of approval when, in January 2015, President Obama unveiled plans for a national “precision medicine initiative” to promote the development and use of genomic tools in health care. (shrink)

Violations of the Bell inequalities in EPR-Bohm type experiments have set the literature on the metaphysics of microscopic systems to flirting with some sort of metaphysical holism regarding spatially separated, entangled systems. The rationale for this behavior comes in two parts. The first part relies on the proof, due to Jon Jarrett [2] that the experimentally observed violations of the Bell inequalities entail violations of the conjunction of two probabilistic constraints. Jarrett called these two constraints locality and completeness. We prefer (...) the terminology of locality and factorizability.[3] The first part of the rationale for metaphysical holism urges that only Jarrett’s locality allows for “peaceful coexistence” between any model of EPR-Bohm type experiments and special relativity. Factorizability, it is suggested, must be jettisoned. (shrink)

I argue that recent evidence about our self-serving biases has radical implications for the epistemology of peer disagreement. I conclude that much of the time when you are disagreeing with someone you regard as your epistemic peer, you should not merely move halfway to her judgment, as The Equal Weight View has it. That is not conciliatory enough. Surprisingly often, you should be at least weakly confident that you are wrong, and that your disputant is right.

Recently, Doolittle and Inkpen formulated a thought provoking theory, asserting that evolution by natural selection was responsible for the sideways evolution of two radically different kinds of selective units (also called Domains). The former entities, termed singers, correspond to the usual objects studied by evolutionary biologists (gene, genomes, individuals, species, etc.), whereas the later, termed songs, correspond to re‐produced biological and ecosystemic functions, processes, information, and memes. Singers perform songs through selected patterns of interactions, meaning that a wealth of critical (...) phenomena might receive novel evolutionary explanations. However, this theory did not provide an empirical approach to study evolution in such a broadened context. Here, we show that analyzing songs and singers, using patterns of interaction networks as a common ontology for both, offers a novel, actionable, inclusive and mathematical way to analyze not only the re‐production but also the evolution and fitness of biological and ecosystemic interconnected processes. (shrink)

Carroll Izard completed his dissertation in 1952, beginning a career spanning more than six decades that coincided with clinical psychology maturing as a profession, and the birth of clinical science and cognitive neuroscience. Izard’s focus on discrete emotions as evolved systems that organize information, prepare responses, and shape the development of personality and relationships persisted through his career, despite “emotions” often being overshadowed by psychodynamic, behavioral, or cognitive perspectives. His theoretical work anticipated and now integrates contemporary neuroscience and relational perspectives. (...) Exploration of discrete emotions has kept lines of inquiry open that enrich our understanding of psychopathology. Izard also embraced clinical science, combining basic research with effectiveness studies addressing the unmet need for mental health services via emotion-focused interventions. (shrink)

This essay examines the connection between the concept of autonomy and the concept of an ideal, moral self in Kant’s practical philosophy. Its central thesis is that self-legislation does not rest on the capacity to exempt oneself from nature’s causal network. Instead, it rests on the practical capacity for identification with what Kant calls an individual’s “moral personality.” A person’s ability to identify with this morally ideal version of himself gives shape to his will, enabling him to decide how to (...) act on the basis of reasons that do not stem from desires or inclinations. It thus makes possible a form of volition that is autonomous rather than heteronomous. (shrink)

Part I of this essay supports the anti-egalitarian conclusion that individuals may readily become entitled to substantially unequal extra-personal holdings by criticizing end-state and pattern theories of distributive justice and defending the historical entitlement doctrine of justice in holdings. Part II of this essay focuses on a second route to the anti-egalitarian conclusion. This route combines the self-ownership thesis with a contention that is especially advanced by G.A. Cohen. This is the contention that the anti-egalitarian conclusion can be inferred from (...) the self-ownership thesis without the aid of additional controversial premises. Cohen advances this contention, not because he wants to support the anti-egalitarian conclusion, but rather because he wants to emphasize the need for one to reject the self-ownership thesis if one is to reject the anti-egalitarian conclusion. In Part II of this essay, I support this second route to the anti-egalitarian conclusion by reinforcing Cohen's special contention while rejecting his challenges to the self-ownership thesis. Cohen's special contention is reinforced by way of an explanation of why the redistributive state must trench upon some people's self-ownership rights. One important challenge to the self-ownership thesis is answered through the articulation of a new and improved Lockean proviso. Another challenge offered by Cohen is answered by arguing that the philosophical costs of denying the self-ownership thesis are as great as the self-ownership libertarian maintains. Thus, I defend both of the key elements of self-ownership libertarianism, the self-ownership thesis and the anti-egalitarian conclusion. (shrink)

Written in debate format, this book covers developing fields such as social cognition, as well as classic areas such as memory, learning, perception and categorization. The links between emotion and memory, learning, perception, categorization, social judgements, and behavior are addressed.

Offers a history of the philosophy of time and a comparison of the ways of conceiving the temporal, concentrating on European philosophy and its impact the connection between time and money in Western civilization.

Some recent work in mathematical chemistry is discussed. It is claimed that quantum mechanics does not provide a conclusive means of classifying certain elements like hydrogen and helium into their appropriate groups. An alternative approach using atomic number triads is proposed and the validity of this approach is defended in the light of some predictions made via an information theoretic approach that suggests a connection between nuclear structure and electronic structure of atoms.

The second volume in the Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers.

Si Casque d’or est avant tout une tragédie amoureuse, c’est aussi un chef-d’œuvre de mise en scène dosant dialogues et silences, économisant les mouvements de caméra, instaurant une esthétique qui lui est propre et qui fera date. Non dénuée de critique sociale , le film se distingue d’abord par le réquisitoire lancé en faveur du bonheur contre le tragique de la vie, mettant à ce titre en scène le jeu d’une certaine fatalité.Le présent ouvrage se propose, en explorant les recoins (...) de ce film mythique, d’en sonder philosophiquement la beauté et le sens. (shrink)

An overview of Epicurus' thoughts about politics and society, including his attitude toward political engagement, his account of friendship, and his account of justice.

In this paper I argue, against the current consensus, that the right to withdraw from research is sometimes alienable. In other words, research subjects are sometimes morally permitted to waive their right to withdraw. The argument proceeds in three major steps. In the first step, I argue that rights typically should be presumed alienable, both because that is not illegitimately coercive and because the general paternalistic motivation for keeping them inalienable is untenable. In the second step of the argument, I (...) consider three special characteristics of the right to withdraw, first that its waiver might be exploitative, second that research involves intimate bodily access, and third that it is irreversible. I argue that none of these characteristics justify an inalienable right to withdraw. In the third step, I examine four considerations often taken to justify various other allegedly inalienable rights: concerns about treating yourself merely as a means as might be the case in suicide, concerns about revoking all your future freedoms in slavery contracts, the resolution of coordination problems, and public interest. I argue that the motivations involved in these four types of situations do not apply to the right to withdraw from research. (shrink)

Consider the existence of six identical trees of the same species across a variety of environments. The first tree is in a wild and isolated landscape. The second is in a wilderness park. The third is in a heavily forested “tree plantation” owned by International Paper. The fourth is in the Ramble in Central Park. The fifth is in a suburban yard. The sixth is inside the six-story atrium of a Manhattan skyscraper. This paper begins with the intuition that the (...) identical trees have different values because they exist in different environments and biological-social contexts. To understand the different evaluations of the trees we must think along a spectrum that incorporates both axiology and ontology. This thought experiment is useful in exploring arguments about both the management and the preservation of the natural world. The conclusion is that we must think along a spectrum of natural being and value to understand the dualism between humanity and nature and thereby avoid the domination of the natural environment. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre and Jan Patočka claim to go beneath the phenomenal correlation between the subject and the world discovered by Husserl in order to account for it from a more fundamental plane. Their going below the “universal a priori of correlation” allows them to describe it more thoroughly. But we wish to show that Sartre’s description remains dependent on a philosophical realism which prevents him from accounting for the genesis of the correlation. Patočka, however, achieves just this thanks to his (...) conception of an originary appearing. To verify this thesis, we will investigate the status of the body in both authors, so far as a successful account of the body should ensure the connection between the original plane and the openness to the world characteristic of the subject. Recognizing this function in the body, we ask if either Sartre’s or Patočka’s philosophy grants to the body the place it deserves and suggest that only Patočka achieves this, while Sartre is prevented from doing so by his realism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Matter and Spirit in the Age of Animal MagnetismEric G. WilsonDuring the Romantic period, writers on both sides of the Atlantic explored the sleepwalker as a merger of holiness and horror. Emerging when scientific thinkers for the first time were connecting spirit to electricity and magnetism, the somnambulist became to certain Romantics a disclosure of the difficulty of harmonizing unseen and seen, agency and necessity. This problem prominently arose (...) in Anton Mesmer's late eighteenth-century experiments in animal magnetism, in which the sleepwalker proved a paradox: an opaque revelation of transparent currents and an unconscious vehicle of sophisticated thought. Romantics such as Coleridge embraced the somnambulist as an embodiment of these troubles involved in relating motion and meaning. Coleridge and those who responded to him saw in the hypnotized human this sobering possibility: the invisible requires the visible to make itself manifest while the visible needs the invisible to become significant. 1 This is sublime and sinister: to elevate a material form to spiritual power is transcendence; to sink the boundless into a body is grotesque.Here I explore the philosophical implications of animal magnetism, the place of the sleepwalker in the history of ideas, and the role of the hypnotized human in Romantic writers, especially Coleridge. I also meditate on relationships between matter and spirit, machine and human, word and thing. Along the way, I place the history of ideas and the works of Romantic writers in mutually illuminating dialogues. The literary texts shed fresh light on philosophical problems while the ideas reveal hidden literary elements.The somnambulistic trance had been around long before Mesmer's magnetic sleeps. For centuries, shamans had used auto-hypnosis to sound [End Page 329] their souls and other-hypnosis to cure their tribe-members' ailments. However, somnambulism could not become a scientific phenomenon until Europeans in laboratories began to study electricity and magnetism. In the early modern period, Paracelsus argued that a vital fluid courses through the cosmos. The human being draws this flow like a magnet attracts force. When the body pulls to itself evil effluvia, it falls ill. To return patients to health, Paracelsus placed magnets on painful areas. He hoped to extract the unwanted current and return it to the cosmic swirl. 2 In "magnetizing" spirit, Paracelsus opened a door for empirical inquiry into the invisible world. In 1600, William Gilbert claimed that magnets correspond to the earth: both are animated by universal attraction and repulsion. 3 By the end of the seventeenth-century, Newton proposed that things are impelled by a force that draws and repels. Newton's theory of gravity inspired natural philosophers of the next centuries to search for a principle of which the magnet and the spark are manifestations. 4During the second half of the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth, natural philosophers explored electricity and magnetism with unprecedented precision. In 1752, Benjamin Franklin revealed the mystery of lightning and perhaps the spark of life. 5 Inspired by Franklin, F. C. Oetinger, J. L. Fricker, and Prokop Divisch developed a theology of electricity, based on the belief that God is the electrical current. 6 Later in the century, Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta debated over whether the galvanic flow might be the origin and principle of life itself. 7 A few years before Franklin harvested lightning, John Michell argued that the magnetic force is not constrained to lodestones but is possibly pervasive. Some years later, Franz Aepinus suggested that magnetism and electricity manifest a deep energy. Soon after, C. A. de Coulomb discovered the mathematical law by which electrical and magnetic forces operate (Whittaker, pp. 50–59).These findings led to the breakthroughs of the nineteenth century. 8 In 1807, Humphry Davy hypothesized that chemical elements interact through electromagnetic affinity or repulsion. 9 In 1820, H. C. Oersted demonstrated the correspondence between electricity and magnetism. The same year, A. M. Ampere formulated the laws by which electrical and magnetic currents interact (Whittaker, pp. 81–86). Michael Faraday in 1831 revealed electromagnetic induction and thus inaugurated a second Copernican revolution: he showed that matter is not solid and discrete but a field of electromagnetic energy. 10 The dreams of [End... (shrink)

Explaining digital impacts on social movements requires moving beyond technological determinism by addressing two underdeveloped questions: How does political strategy shape the use of information and communication technologies? And how do divergent uses of ICTs influence movement outcomes? This study addresses these questions by examining the 2018 educator walkouts in Oklahoma and Arizona—statewide actions initiated through rank-and-file Facebook groups. To explain why the strike in Arizona was more effective than in Oklahoma, despite more auspicious conditions for success in the latter, (...) this study shows that the impact of ICTs is mediated by leaders’ strategic choices. Whereas Oklahoma’s strike was marked by mobilization without organization—scaling up protest without an organizational foundation—Arizona used digital tools to build, rather than eschew, organization. Digital impacts further depend on the nature of the contentious performance itself, since the efficacy limitations of relying solely on ICTs are particularly pronounced for actions like strikes. (shrink)

Perhaps the most pressing challenge for singularism—the predominant view that definite plurals like ‘the students’ singularly refer to a collective entity, such as a mereological sum or set—is that it threatens paradox. Indeed, this serves as a primary motivation for pluralism—the opposing view that definite plurals refer to multiple individuals simultaneously through the primitive relation of plural reference. Groups represent one domain in which this threat is immediate. After all, groups resemble sets in having a kind of membership-relation and iterating: (...) we can have groups of groups, groups of groups of groups, etc. Yet there cannot be a group of all non-self-membered groups. In response, we develop a potentialist theory of groups according to which we always can, but do not have to, form a group from any sum. Modalizing group-formation makes it a species of potential, as opposed to actual or completed, infinity. This allows for a consistent, plausible, and empirically adequate treatment of natural language plurals, one which is motivated by the iterative nature of syntactic and semantic processes more generally. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

The miracle argument for scientific realism can be cast in two forms: according to the miraculous theory argument, realism is the only position which does not make the empirical successes of particular theories miraculous. According to the miraculous choice argument, realism is the only position which does not render the fact that empirically successful theories have been chosen a miracle. A vast literature discusses the miraculous theory argument, but the miraculous choice argument has been unjustifiably neglected. I raise two objections (...) to Richard Boyd's defense of the latter: (1) we have no miracle free account of the emergence of take-off theories and (2) the anti-realist can account for the non-miraculous choice of empirically successful theories by attributing mere empirical adequacy to background theory. I argue that the availability of extra-empirical criteria that are arguably truth conductive but not theory-laden suffices to answer (1), and the unavailability of extra-empirical criteria that are conductive to empirical adequacy but not necessarily to truth (and are also not theory-laden) constitutes to reply to (2). The prospects for a realist victory are at least somewhat promising, on a controversial assumption about the rate at which empirically successful theories emerge. (shrink)

The idea that there is incommensurability in science has been controversial since its popularization by Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend. While incommensurability in science does have significant implications for understanding science and its development, much of the controversy about incommensurability appears to be at least in part due to a lack of clarity about exactly what is being claimed, what that claim implies, and how the claim is justified. This can easily be seen in recent literature, which has continued to (...) struggle to delineate a coherent account of incommensurability in science, with some opponents attempting to undercut its legitimacy entirely, and others attempting to accept it in some weakened form, so as to downplay its significance for our understanding of science. For this reason, a clear, precise and unambiguous statement of incommensurability, its causes, consequences and implications may help to demystify something that has proven to be especially difficult to pin down. The remainder of the paper attempts to explain much of the confusion surrounding incommensurability on the basis of metaincommensurability, in an attempt to expose the exact nature of the relationship between incommensurability and scientific realism more clearly. (shrink)

Richard Swinburne’s formulation of the argument from evil is representative of a pervasive way of understanding the challenge evil poses for theistic belief. But there is an error in Swinburne’s formulation : he fails to consider possible deontological constraints on God’s legitimate responses to evil. To demonstrate the error’s significance, I show that some important objections to Swinburne’s theodicy admit of a novel answer once we correct for Swinburne’s Lapse. While more is needed to show that the resultant “deontological theodicy” (...) succeeds, its promise highlights the significance of Swinburne’s Lapse and the prospects for theodicy it has obscured. (shrink)

Following the publication of the papers collected in Harold Garfinkel’s _Studies in Ethnomethodology_, ethnomethodology, at least for Garfinkel, became wedded to a developing conception of and comparison with disciplinary sociology. At the heart of the envisioned disciplinary revolution lay a claim to ethnomethodology’s distinguishing phenomenal domain and central research directive, that people are continually engaged in the witnessable work of organizing what they are doing as they are doing it. This paper is a critique of the Garfinkelian ethnomethodology that actually (...) developed: the paper illustrates Garfinkel’s minimal engagement in field research, with Garfinkel seeming to be neither concerned about nor particularly good at it. No one was trained in the rigors of field work and, far from taking up the detailed, real-world examination of the autochthonous organization of immediately present, ongoing activities, ethnomethodological studies were indistinguishable praxeologically from disciplinary sociology, much as they are today. Never moored to its intended phenomenal domain, the ethnomethodological project became a wonderland for theorists, apologists, and general partisans, the privates and generals in a cause that they little understood. (shrink)

Le terme « réalisme » en théorie du droit désigne une posture générale, mais demeure assez flou. En réalité, deux écoles de pensée assez radicalement éloignées, quoiqu'à peu près contemporaines, ont contribué à donner les bases du réalisme moderne et actuel : le réalisme américain et le réalisme scandinave. Cette présentation vise à caractériser ces deux écoles, individuellement et comparativement, en fonction de leur contexte d'apparition, de leur conception du réalisme ou du réductionnisme empirique, et en fonction des conséquences de (...) leur mobilisation. (shrink)

These short notes are intended to supplement the lectures and text ntroduce some of the basic concepts of Modal Logic. The primary goal is to provide students in Philosophy 151 at Stanford University with a study guide that will complement the lectures on modal logic. There are many textbooks that you can consult for more information. The following is a list of some texts (this is not a complete list, but a pointer to books that I have found particularly useful).

Le phénomène de la vie regroupe un ensemble d’articles rédigés par Jonas sur une période allant de 1950 à 1965. Tout en ayant eu pour projet d’y exposer une théorie achevée de la vie, comme de nombreux appendices et transitions entre les articles en témoignent, l’auteur reconnaît cependant que son livre consiste avant tout en une succession d’essais, au sens de tentatives et d’expérimentations, en vue de faire émerger une essence de la vie. On peut dès lors se demander quelles (...) seraient les gr... (shrink)

The probabilistic approach to human reasoning is exemplified by the information gain model for the Wason card selection task. Although the model is elegant and original, several key aspects of the model warrant further discussion, particularly those concerning the scope of the task and the choice process of individuals.

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is currently reserved predominantly for bridging patients to a different destination therapy, but the use of ECMO as a destination therapy itself (ECMO-DT...

While agreeing with Seana Shiffrin that any free speech theory must depend on assumptions about our need for free thinking, I am sceptical about her claim that her thinker-based approach provides the best explanation for freedom of speech. Her argument has some similarities with Mill’s argument from truth and with self-development theories, though it improves on the latter. But the thinker-based approach does not show why political discourse, broadly construed, is protected more strongly in all jurisdictions than gossip and sexually (...) explicit speech. Nor does it explain why the ‘mass’ speech of corporations and the mailings of political parties and charities are fully protected by provisions such as the First Amendment. My article concludes with some reflections on the relationship of abstract political theory such as Shiffrin’s to constitutional law; abstract theory must inevitably make some compromises if it is fully to explain constitutional jurisprudence. (shrink)