Summary While historians have dealt with the origins of the concept of drug receptors in the work of Paul Ehrlich (1854–1915) and John N. Langley (1852–1925) as well as with some of its applications in modern pharmaceutical research, the history of the receptor theory as such has been neglected. Discussing major developments and conceptual changes in receptor theory between about 1910 and 1960 (including relevant contributions by A. V. Hill, A. J. Clark, J. H. Gaddum, E. J. Ariëns and (...) others), this paper attempts to fill this gap in historiography. It provides a case study of the unfolding of research under a new paradigm, but it considers also contemporary criticism and scepticism. By the early 1960s, quantitative investigations of drug action and interpretations of the experimental findings in terms of the receptor concept had become constitutive of the emerging field of ‘molecular pharmacology’. Even then, however, receptors were still hypothetical entities. (shrink)

In the first chapter of his Knowledge and Lotteries, John Hawthorne argues that thinkers do not ordinarily know lottery propositions. His arguments depend on claims about the intimate connections between knowledge and assertion, epistemic possibility, practical reasoning, and theoretical reasoning. In this paper, we cast doubt on the proposed connections. We also put forward an alternative picture of belief and reasoning. In particular, we argue that assertion is governed by a Gricean constraint that makes no reference to knowledge, and that (...) practical reasoning has more to do with rational degrees of belief than with states of knowledge. (shrink)

People who report believing in God fear death. They also experience grief when someone they love dies. Philosophers and social scientists sometimes claim that this can only be plausibly explained by the hypothesis that people who claim to believe in God do not really believe in God. I show that this is mistaken. I identify three independently plausible explanations of why people who genuinely believe in God would have these behaviors and attitudes. First, there is an evolutionary explanation of why (...) the fear of death would be resilient even if one genuinely believes God has good things in store for us after death. Second, people often fear low probability outcomes. It may be that religious people are afraid of hell or the cessation of existence even if they judge those outcomes to have a low probability. Third, belief in God is typically combined with views according to which death is accompanied by the permanent loss and radical transformation of important relationships. (shrink)

Thomas E. Hill, Jr.; Servility and Self-Respect, The Monist, Volume 57, Issue 1, 1 January 1973, Pages 87–104, https://doi.org/10.5840/monist197357135.

Many philosophers and members of the public think it is wrong to procreate. If one wants children, it is permissible to adopt. But procreation is allegedly impermissible because there is some respect in which adoption is better than procreation. I show that such objections are unsound.

Some feminists hold that surrogacy contracts should be unenforceable or illegal because they contribute to and perpetuate unjust gender inequalities. I argue that in developed countries, surrogacy contracts either wouldn't have these negative effects or that these effects could be mitigated via regulation. Furthermore, the existence of a regulated surrogacy market is preferable on consequentialist grounds.

My goal is to formulate a theory of introspection that can be integrated with a strongly reductionist account of sensations that I have defended elsewhere. In pursuit of this goal, I offer a skeletal explanation of the metaphysical nature of introspection and I attempt to resolve several of the main questions about the epistemological status of introspective beliefs.

Quantum field theory provides the framework for many fundamental theories in modern physics, and over the last few years there has been growing interest in its historical and philosophical foundations. This anthology on the foundations of QFT brings together 15 essays by well-known researchers in physics, the philosophy of physics, and analytic philosophy.Many of these essays were first presented as papers at the conference?Ontological Aspects of Quantum Field Theory?, held at the Zentrum fr interdisziplin„re Forschung, Bielefeld, Germany. The essays contain (...) cutting-edge work on ontological aspects of QFT, including: the role of measurement and experimental evidence, corpuscular versus field-theoretic interpretations of QFT, the interpretation of gauge symmetry, and localization.This book is ideally suited to anyone with an interest in the foundations of quantum physics, including physicists, philosophers and historians of physics, as well as general readers interested in philosophy or science. (shrink)

Chalmers’s anti-materialist argument runs as follows.

This book offers original essays by leading philosophers of religion representing these new approaches to theological problems such as incarnation.

In an important and widely cited paper, Zerilli, Knott, Maclaurin, and Gavaghan (2019) argue that opaque AI decision makers are at least as transparent as human decision makers and therefore the concern that opaque AI is not sufficiently transparent is mistaken. I argue that the concern about opaque AI should not be understood as the concern that such AI fails to be transparent in a way that humans are transparent. Rather, the concern is that the way in which opaque AI (...) is opaque is very different than the way in which humans are opaque. What matters is the degree to which the opaque processes of a class of decision makers are stable, uniform, and safe. The degree to which such processes have these features in humans is higher than the degree to which such processes have these features in opaque AI. And therefore we should require AI to be more transparent than humans. (shrink)

It is often assumed that all lucky events are significant. The thought is that a chancy event such as winning the lottery is lucky for you in part because it affects your interests or well-being. But whether you win an Absurdist Raffle in which there are no prizes, is, intuitively, not a matter of luck. This is because this event—even if chancy—is not significant for any subject. However, a few philosophers have recently claimed not only that luck does not necessarily (...) involve a significance condition but that we should not view luck involving claims in terms of significance. After reviewing the literature on this topic, I argue that lucky events are significant. A significance condition is necessary to distinguish between different kinds of luck: practical, epistemic, and moral. All lucky events are significant and chancy, but they can be significant for subjects in different ways. For example, an event is epistemically lucky for you if it is epistemically significant and chancy, but such events need not affect your practical interests or moral standing. Furthermore, I argue that events that are chancy but not significant should be thought of in terms of chance and not luck. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the coordination challenge a partial cartel faces when payoff asymmetries between potential cartel insiders and potential cartel outsiders are large. We introduce two experimental treatments: a standard treatment where a complete cartel can be supported in a Nash equilibrium and a modified treatment where a complete cartel and a partial cartel can both be supported in a Nash equilibrium. To assess the role of communication both treatments are additionally run with a “chat option,” yielding four treatments in (...) total. Our results show that subjects frequently reject the formation of partial cartels in the modified treatments. In all treatments with communication subjects are more likely to form complete cartels than partial cartels. The implications of these results are important for antitrust: payoff asymmetries between cartel members and outsiders may jeopardize the formation of partial cartels. Yet complete cartels may be formed instead, if institutional mechanisms with frequent communication are used to form cartels. (shrink)

Aims The purpose of this literature review was to explore the psychosocial implications of long-term survival for people affected by cancer by systematically examining published research evidence. Key findings 283 abstracts of papers were retrieved and checked and 33 studies relating to the implications of long-term survival subjected to detailed scrutiny. This review suggests that the majority of long-term cancer survivors cope well and enjoy good QoL. However, there are areas of concern which warrant attention. Whilst this review did not (...) set out to review physical problems experienced in the long-term, long-term physical consequences of cancer and its treatment were associated with poorer QoL and more psychological distress and sexual problems. Other long term concerns included anxiety regarding recurrence, financial difficulties and reduced social and emotional support. Long term survivors of lung, head and neck cancers appear particularly vulnerable to long term problems although there were few studies involving people with these cancers in this review. A number of limitations in the current evidence base were highlighted. Little research was conducted in the UK and raises questions as to the relevance of the findings for a different environment or culture where patients may have different attitudes to cancer survival and receive different treatments. Also, when looking at practical issues for long-term survivors such as ability to obtain insurance, or employment matters, then country-specific factors will be important. (shrink)

This research poses the question of whether it is possible to optimize modern legislative drafting by integrating LLM-based systems into the lawmaking process to address the pervasive challenge of misinformation and disinformation in the age of AI. While misinformation is not a novel phenomenon, with the proliferation of social media and AI, disseminating false or misleading information has become a pressing societal concern, undermining democratic processes, public trust, and social cohesion. AI can be used to proliferate disinformation and misinformation through (...) fake news and deepfakes; can AI also be used for beneficial purposes to develop the antidote legislation combatting these challenges? Leveraging the capabilities of LLMS, such as ChatGPT and others, can present a promising direction for optimizing legislative drafting. By proposing the methodological approach of an AI bun, this article explores an important approach in which LLMS can support lawmakers and policy experts in crafting legislation. The article contributes to the discourse through a nuanced understanding of the opportunities and challenges in harnessing LLM-powered tools for legislative innovation. Ultimately, it underscores the transformative potential of LLMs as a potential resource for lawmakers seeking to navigate decision-making while developing legislation on an example of navigating the intricate landscape of misinformation and disinformation regulation in the age of AI. (shrink)

This report is the product of the Arts-and-Humanities Research Council’s Connected Communities programme. The specific project being undertaken at the University of Liverpool is entitled Philosophy of Religion and Religious Communities: Defining Beliefs and Symbols. The aim of the Liverpool project as a whole is to consider the contribution philosophy of religion can make to recent debates surrounding legal cases alleging religious discrimination. Its orienting question runs, ‘when, if ever, is it acceptable to prohibit the use of religious symbols?’. The (...) present report scrutinises in detail the way in which Article 9 of the European Convention of Human Rights has been utilised in recent judgments concerning the uses of religious symbolism. It argues that since 1995, Strasbourg jurisprudence, followed, to some extent, by domestic jurisprudence, has displayed what we call ‘the practical turn’. This we analyse as the turn away from seeing actions solely in the light of the antecedent beliefs that they manifest to seeing actions and the practices that they compose in their own right alongside beliefs. The practical turn can, we consider, be given several slightly different detailed readings. One such is that it is the turn from consideration of high-level theoretical systems of belief (such as religions), to which actions and practices are considered subservient, to consideration of individual low-level practical beliefs on an equal footing with the actions that naturally flow from them. (shrink)

Sixteenth Century philosophy was a unique synthesis of several philosophical frameworks, a blend of old and new, including but not limited to scholasticism, humanism, Neo-Thomism, Aristotelianism, and Stoicism. It was a century that witnessed culturally and philosophically significant moments whose impact still is felt today—some examples include the emergence of Jesuits, the height of the witchcraze, the Protestant Reformation, the rise of philosophical skepticism, Pietro Pomponazzi’s controversial reexamination of traditional understandings of the soul’s mortality, and the deflation of the metaphysical (...) status of substantial forms. Unlike most historical overviews of this moment in philosophy’s history, The Routledge Companion to Sixteenth Century Philosophy does not simplify this colorful period with the application of the dichotomies traditionally applied to this century, such as the misguidingly clear line once drawn between scholasticism and humanism. The Companion includes essays covering the following astonishingly diverse set of topics: philosophical methodologies of the time, the importance of the discovery of the new world, the rise of classical scholarship, trends in logic and logical theory, Nominalism, Avveroism, Neo-Thomism, the Jesuits, the Reformation, Neo-stoicism, the soul’s immortality, witchcraft, Skepticism, the philosophies of language and science and politics, Cosmology, women’s rights, the nature of the understanding, causality, ethics, freedom of the will, natural law, the emergence of the individual in society, the nature of wisdom, and the love of god. And, throughout, the Companion seeks not to compartmentalize these philosophical matters, but instead to show that close attention paid to their continuity may help reveal both the diversity and the profound coherence of the philosophies that emerged in the sixteenth century. (shrink)

I will be concerned in these pages with the views that Gilbert Harman puts forward in his immensely stimulating paper Self-Reflexive Thoughts.¹ Harman maintains that self referential thoughts are possible, and also that they are useful. I applaud both of these claims. An example of a self referential thought is the thought that every thought, including this present one, has a logical structure. I feel sure that this thought exists, for I have entertained it on a number of occasions. Moreover, (...) I feel that it is extremely useful. Without deploying it, how could we tell the whole truth about the nature of thoughts? (shrink)

Department of Philosophy Brown University Providence, RI 02915.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1909 Edition.

The essays in this book criticise the new positivism in education policy, whereby education is systematically reduced to those things that can be measured by so-called 'objective' tests. School curricula have been narrowed with an emphasis on measurable results in the 3 R’s and the ‘quality’ of university departments is now assessed by managerial exercises based on commercial audit practice. As a result, the traditional notion of liberal arts education has been replaced by utilitarian productivity indices.

In this paper, I examine critically Kimberley Brownlee’s descriptive criteria for identifying when a person has a conscientious moral conviction. Then, I contrast her conception of conscience with other ideas of conscience, including a religious conception, a relativist conception, and those of Butler and Kant. The concepts examined here are central in her argument that, if civil disobedience is grounded in citizens’ conscience-based conscientious convictions, then it deserves legal and moral protection.

Since the early 1990s, politicians, policymakers, the media and academics have increasingly focused on religion, noting the significant increase in the number of cases involving religion. As a result, law and religion has become a specific area of study. The work of Professor Norman Doe at Cardiff University has served as a catalyst for this change, especially through the creation of the LLM in Canon Law in 1991 and the Centre for Law and Religion in 1998. Published to mark the (...) twenty-fifth anniversary of the LLM in Canon Law and to pay tribute to Professor Doe's achievements so far, this volume reflects upon the interdisciplinary development of law and religion. (shrink)

Zillmann's mood-management theory has acquired a prominent place in media psychology and makes reliable predictions about people's hedonistically motivated mood regulation via entertainment offerings. However, the full potential for explaining affect regulation through media usage has not been exhausted so far. Therefore, we aim at an integrative view of the field based on empirical findings from communication studies as well as on the background of contemporary theories of mood and emotion. The purpose of this analysis is to argue towards an (...) integrative theoretical perspective which considers both unconscious and conscious/reflected processes of affect regulation through media, supplements the hedonistic motive with other non-hedonistic, instrumental motives of affect regulation, looks at selection behavior as well as at other behavioral and cognitive strategies of affect regulation, and encompasses individual attributes. (shrink)

Theories and Methods is the one compulsory unit on the AEB and Interboard syllabuses. This guide outlines the main sociological perspectives, and discusses three main approaches: positivism, phenomenology and critical social research. The topic-book format should be suitable for linear and modular courses, and there are sample questions and skills advice.

The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Genetics and Eugenics in Berlin-Dahlem was the centre of scientific racism in Nazi Germany. Its bad history culminated in a research project to analyse the molecular basis of racial differences in the susceptibility to various infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. Josef Mengele, a former postdoc of the director of the institute, Otmar von Verschuer, collected blood samples and other material in Auschwitz from families and twins of Jews and Gypsies. The blood samples were (...) analysed by Günther Hillmann in the Berlin laboratory of Nobel Prize winner Adolf Butenandt. Butenandt had just moved to Tübingen. The project was paid for by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Butenandt, Hillmann and von Verschuer made scientific careers in the Federal Republic. To the present day this past has not been acknowledged by the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft as part of its history. (shrink)

This volume focuses on the authorial voice in antiquity, exploring the different ways in which authors presented and projected various personas. In particular, it questions authority and ascription in relation to the authorial voice, and considers how later readers and authors may have understood the authority of a text's author.