Two dogmas of empiricism, by W. V. Quine.--In defense of a dogma, by H. P. Grice and P. F. Strawson.--The analytic and the synthetic: an untenable dualism, by M. G. White.--Synonymity, by B. Mates.--The meaning of a word, by J. L. Austin.--Meaning and synonymy in natural languages, by R. Carnap.--Analytic-synthetic, by J. Bennett.--On "analytic," by R. M. Martin.--Selected bibliography (p. [188]-196).

The current study examined whether Callous-Unemotional (CU) traits, a core component of psychopathy, modulate neural responses of participants engaged in a social exchange game. In this task, participants were offered an allocation of money and then given the chance to punish the offerer. Twenty youth participated and responses to both offers and the participant’s punishment (or not) of these offers were examined. Increasingly unfair offers were associated with increased dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) activity but this responsiveness was not modulated (...) by CU traits. Increasing punishment of unfair offers was associated with increased dACC and anterior insula activity and this activity was modulated by CU traits. Higher CU trait participants showed a weaker association between activity and punishment level. These data suggest that CU traits are associated with appropriate expectations of other individual’s normative behavior but weaker representations of such information when guiding behavior of the self. (shrink)

Youths with disruptive behavior disorders and psychopathic traits showed reduced amygdala responses to fearful expressions under low attentional load but no indications of increased recruitment of regions implicated in top- down attentional control. These findings suggest that the emotional deficit observed in youths with disruptive behavior disorders and psychopathic traits is primary and not secondary to increased top- down attention to nonemotional stimulus features.

In a “mixed bag” 2023-2024 session, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a series of decisions both favorable and antithetical to public health and safety. Taking on tough constitutional issues implicating gun control, misinformation, and homelessness, the Court also avoided substantive reviews in favor of procedural dismissals in key cases involving reproductive rights and government censorship.

The amount of information conveyed by linguistic conventions depends on their precision, yet the codes that humans and other animals use to communicate are quite ambiguous: they may map several vague meanings to the same symbol. How does semantic precision evolve, and what are the constraints that limit it? We address this question using a multiplayer gaming app, where individuals communicate with one another in a scaled-up referential game. Here, the goal is for a sender to use black and (...) class='Hi'>white symbols to communicate colors. We expected that the players’ mappings between symbols and colors would grow more specific over time, through a selection process whereby precise mappings are preferentially copied. We found that players become increasingly more precise in their use of symbols over the course of their interactions. This trend did not, however, result from selective copying of precise mappings. We explore the implications of this result for the study of lexical ambiguity, Zipf's Law of Meaning, and disagreements over semantic conventions. (shrink)

Books reviewed in this article:Roger Crisp and Brad Hooker (eds), Well–being and Morality: essays in honour of James GriffinJames Griffin, Value JudgementJohn O’Neill, The Market: ethics, knowledge and politicsE. F. Paul, F. D. Miller and J. Paul (eds), Human FlourishingJoseph Raz, Engaging ReasonL. W. Sumner, Welfare, Happiness and Ethics.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Classics and the Uses of ReceptionJames Bradley WellsCharles Martindale and Richard F. Thomas, eds. Classics and the Uses of Reception. Classical Receptions. Malden: Blackwell, 2006. xiv + 335 pp. 20 black-and-white figs. Paper, $36.95.Passion and parrhesia characterize this collection of twenty-three essays on applications of reception theory and practice to classical studies. Charles Martindale and Richard F. Thomas originally conceived of this project as an invitation to (...) "wider debate about the uses of reception within classics" (2). This volume is the product of an admirably collaborative process, which did not serve to put contributors on message with any particular ideological or theoretical stance but created a forum for sustained dialogue, a sort of salon whose doors are now open to broader participation. Classics and the Uses of Reception throws down challenges to conventional ways of thinking about texts, history, modes of perception, and styles of analysis; this willingness to take a stand gives the collection its passionate quality.Some authors speak to the capacity that reception has for enabling classics to join the fray of contemporary intellectual life with more commitment and to become more attractive to today's students. The essays are intensely self-reflexive and practice a confrontational parrhesia that dismantles assumptions, admits its faults, and prefers open-endedness to gift-wrapped conclusions. This book is a provocation, not a primer, even if there are many fine illustrations of what reception theory and practice look like—and it is not a point of entry for research on, say, pastoral poetry, Sophocles' Antigone, or the Venus de Milo. Prospective readers who hope to find here the footing necessary to make their own receptionalist forays will still need to read their Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser, although many essays do describe the intellectual genealogy of reception, both in its theoretical dimensions and in terms of particular topics in classical studies. These topics are appealingly diverse.Diverse too—or divergent in this case?—are the rhetorical strategies of the essays in the collection. In addition to authors who conform to the generic parameters of the expository essay, some authors adopt an insistently centrifugal style that replicates the openendedness of the point of reception, the moment of interaction between a text and its interlocutor. I get that, but I had trouble with the essays that read like theory interloping. I use theory and savor the specificity [End Page 135] of definition, the hyperqualification of thought aspiring to exactitude sans simplicity for its own sake, and complex sentence structure that is a reflex of the ideas it conveys, so if I locate some of the essays in this collection on the spectrum of, at one end, stupefying displays of jargon, and, at the other, postmodern-cute, we are talking about the alienation of an interested reader. In what follows, I summarize, necessarily crudely, the contents of the twenty-three essays in Classics and the Uses of Reception.The first two essays, Martindale's "Introduction: Thinking Though Reception" (1–13) and William W. Batstone's "Provocation: The Point of Reception Theory" (14–20), preface the two sections of the book, "Part I: Reception in Theory" and "Part II: Studies in Reception." A core thread in Classics and the Uses of Reception is the problem of history, which Martindale weighs vis-à-vis reception specifically as it pertains to classics. In light of key tenets of reception theory—first, that meaning is situated but not instantiated and, second, that meaning is a product of the dialogue that emerges in the interface of two horizons of expectations, that of the classical text, broadly conceived to include all communicative media, and that of the reader—reception in classics offers the prospect of retooling how the discipline approaches history so that classicists might more rigorously disclose present dimensions of their encounters with antiquity. Batstone's essay addresses a danger to which virtually any methodology is susceptible: to command an analytical vista impervious to the hints—indeed, responsibility to acknowledge—that what we see has something to do with us. Easing over a palette of thinkers that includes Kristeva, Gadamer, Heidegger, Bakhtin, Lacan, and Freud, Batstone's discussion of subjectivity and... (shrink)

On Humour and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible. Edited by Y. T. Radday and A. Brenner.The Trouble With Kings: The Composition of rhe Book of Kings in the Deuteronomistic History. By Steven L. McKenzie.Sacred Space: An Approach to the Zheology of the Epistle to the Hebrews. By Marie E. Isaacs.Fourth Ezra: A Commentary on the Book of Fourth Ezra. By Michael Edward StonePaul the Convert: iShe Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee. By Alan F. Segal.Creative Biblical Exegesis: Christian (...) and Jewish Hermeneutics through the Centuries. Edited by Benjamin Uffenheimer and Henning Graf Reventlow.The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook of Patristic Escharology. By Brian E. Daley.The Emergence of the Laity in the Early Church. By Alexandre Faivre, translated by David Smith.Pastoral Life and Practice in the Early Church. By Carl A. Volz.The Making of the Creeds. By Frances Young.La correzione fratenia in s. Agosrino. By Agostino Clerici.Beaup and Revelation in the Thought of St Augustine. By Carol Harrison.Grace, Politics and Desire. Edited by Hugo Meynell.Boerhius and Aquinas. By Ralph McInerny.The Weight of Glory. A Vision and Practice for Christian Faith: The Future of Liberal Theology. Edited by D. W. Hardy and P. H. Sedgwick.Atonenrent and Incarnation. By Vernon White.Tragic Method and Tragic Theology: Evil in Contemporary Drama and Religious Thought. By L. D. Bouchard.Parmenides of Elea, Fragments: A Text and Translation, with an Introduction. By David Gallop.Language, Thought and Falsehood in Ancient Greek Philosophy. By Nicholas Denyer.Weakness of the Will. By Justin Gosling.Knowledge and the Sciences in Medieval Philosophy. Vol. I, edited by Monica Asztalos, John E. Murdoch and Ilkka Niiniluoto.Episcopal Power and Norenrine Sociev. 1000–1320. By George W. Dameron.Matins, Lauds and Vespers for St David's Day. By Owain Tudor Edwards.More's ‘Utopia’. By Dominic Baker‐Smith.Frontiers of Heresy: The Spanish Inquisitionfrom the Basque Lands to Sicily. By William Monter.Inquisition and Society in the Kingdom of Valencia, 1478–1834, By Stephen Haliczer.The Fear of Hell: Images of Damnation and Salvation in Early Modern Europe. By Piero Camporesi, translated by Lucinda Byatt.Lucrecia's Dreams: Politics and Prophecy in Sixteenth‐Centun Spain. By Richard L. Kagan.Heresy and Mysticism in Sixteenth‐Century Spain: The Alumbrados. By Alastair Hamilton.Japan's Encounter with Christianiry: The Catholic Mission in Pre‐Modern Japan. By Neil S. Fujita.Galileo, Bellannine and the Bible. By Richard J.Augustine Baker's Inner Light: A Study in English Recusant Spirituality. By James Gaffney.The Prorestarit Evaqelical Awakening. By W. R. Ward.The Study of Anglicanism. Edited by Stephen Sykes and John Booty.The Anglican Tradition: A Handbook of Sources. Edited by G. R. Evans and J. Robert Wright.The Restoration Church of England, 1646‐1689. By John Spurr.Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People. By Jon Butler.A Woman Styled Bold: The Life of Cornelia Connelly, 1809–1879. By Radegunde Flaxman.Cane Ridge: America's Pentecost. By Paul K. Conkin.Revivalism and Social Change: Christianio, Nation Building and the Market in the Nineteenth‐Century United States. By George M. Thomas.Church and State: The English Experience. By Adrian Hastings.Evelyn Underhill: Artist of the Infinite Life. By Dana Greene.Northern Ireland: Fairh and Faction. By Maurice Irvine.The Tragedy of Belief: Division, Politics, arid Religion in Ireland. By John Fulton.Shattered Vows: Exodus from the Priesthood. By David Rice.Making Saints: Inside the Vatican: Who Become Saints, Who Do Not, and Why. By Kenneth L. Woodward.Ecclesiae Memoria: Miscellanea in onorr del R. P. Josef Metzler, O. M. I. Edited by Willi Henkel. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:News from the President’s Council on BioethicsF. Daniel Davis (bio) and Diane M. Gianelli (bio)As most readers of this column already know, the President's Council on Bioethics went through a major transition during the past year when Leon Kass—in October 2005—handed the chairman's gavel over to Georgetown University's Edmund Pellegrino. Dr. Kass has remained on the Council as a member.1When the gavel change took place, the Council's phone started (...) ringing. Everyone wanted to know the same thing: What topics would the Council take up this term? Dr. Pellegrino's answer was always the same: The Council's agenda would be established through a consultative process with the members themselves and with an eye to those problems and controversies in bioethics to which we, as a body, can make a contribution.Taking its cue from the list of potential topics suggested by members, the Council—over the course of the next several meetings—listened to experts on such topics as children and bioethics (with a focus on children in clinical research), organ transplantation, and that oft-cited-but-hard-to-define concept, "human dignity."The latter topic entered the arena of discussion because it is a concept that is cited frequently in the bioethics literature, and it is also one that has figured prominently in Council discussions and documents. Although the concept is widely invoked, there is no universal understanding of what it means, and it is not easy to encapsulate into a one-size-fits-all definition. Indeed, some critics maintain that appeals to human dignity are fig leaves used to camouflage unconvincing arguments. So between December 2005 and April 2006, the Council devoted several sessions to various perspectives on "human dignity: its meaning, its foundations, and its relevance to bioethics." After hearing from James Childress, Patricia Churchland, Daniel Sulmasy, and Paul Weithman2 on the topic, the Council decided to issue a volume of approximately 20 essays, some by Council members and others by scholars from a variety of relevant disciplines.3 The volume is expected to encompass a broad array of opinion on the topic of human dignity and is scheduled to be published next spring."Children" were also the focus of several sessions during the past year. The Council's last report addressed care giving for the elderly.4 After it was issued, several members suggested it was time to focus on the youngest members of [End Page 375] society. The challenge, of course, was to find a topic that was both timely and relevant—and one about which the Council was uniquely qualified to make a contribution. A number of experts in a variety of related fields testified before the Council about possible issues it could explore: newborn screening for genetic disorders; decision-making standards for those who lack capacity; ethical issues in neonatal and pediatric intensive care; pharmacology and psychiatric disorders in children; and children and clinical research. In addition, a number of groups and individuals involved in related topics met with staff to discuss their interests and concerns.This exploratory engagement with facets of the broad topic of children and bioethics led the Council to focus, more narrowly, on a cluster of issues concerning newborn screening for genetic disorders—a topic on which it is likely that the Council will issue a white paper, possibly by next summer. The stimulus for this particular focus has been the American College of Medical Genetics's recommendation that all newborns in the U.S. be screened for a panel of 29 disorders.5 Currently, each state decides for its residents which conditions are subject to mandated screening, so it is possible to get early diagnoses of treatable disorders in one geographical area but not in another. Proponents of screening find the federal approach to mandated screening more equitable. Potential ethical problems, however, exist with the proposal. Some want to ensure that newborns are screened only for treatable conditions on grounds that it would be too burdensome to discover one is carrying the gene for a late-onset disease that cannot be prevented. Others want to make sure that insurance coverage for individuals and their families is... (shrink)

Woodward's long awaited book is an attempt to construct a comprehensive account of causation explanation that applies to a wide variety of causal and explanatory claims in different areas of science and everyday life. The book engages some of the relevant literature from other disciplines, as Woodward weaves together examples, counterexamples, criticisms, defenses, objections, and replies into a convincing defense of the core of his theory, which is that we can analyze causation by appeal to the notion of manipulation.

Journal of Religious Ethics, Volume 50, Issue 1, Page 7-19, March 2022.

Public health ethics, like the field of public health it addresses, traditionally has focused more on practice and particular cases than on theory, with the result that some concepts, methods, and boundaries remain largely undefined. This paper attempts to provide a rough conceptual map of the terrain of public health ethics. We begin by briefly defining public health and identifying general features of the field that are particularly relevant for a discussion of public health ethics.Public health is primarily concerned with (...) the health of the entire population, rather than the health of individuals. Its features include an emphasis on the promotion of health and the prevention of disease and disability; the collection and use of epidemiological data, population surveillance, and other forms of empirical quantitative assessment; a recognition of the multidimensional nature of the determinants of health; and a focus on the complex interactions of many factors—biological, behavioral, social, and environmental—in developing effective interventions. (shrink)

I, for one, am grateful to Peter Ubel, Karen Scherr, and Angela Fagerlin (2017) for their important and illuminating reflections on medical decision making, particularly in the context of preferenc...

Argues that Wittgenstein's early ethical notion of agreement with the world pivoted to become his later therapeutic notion of agreement with living forms, which satisfies the conditions necessary for a full therapeutic philosophy.

It is noted that Popper separates the creation of concepts, conjectures, hypotheses and theories—the context of invention—from the testing thereof—the context of justification—arguing that only the latter is susceptible of rigorous logical analysis. Efforts on the part of others to shift or eradicate the demarcation established by this distinction are discussed and the relationship of these considerations to the claims of “strong artificial intelligence” is pointed out. It is argued that the mode of education of scientists, as well as reports (...) of celebrated scientists, support Popper's judgement in this matter. An historical episode from Faraday's later career is used to illustrate the historiographical strength of Lakatos' “methodology of research programs.”. (shrink)

From sex abuse scandals to the treatment of adjunct professors, universities are mired in thorny ethical questions. In this book, Keenan exposes the problems that arise from the lack of professional ethics in the college environment, then proposes concrete solutions for issues ranging from athletics and adjuncts to tuition and salaries.

In Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain, Stefan Collini deploys a fiercely skeptical wit against what he calls the "absence thesis": the cliché view of England as a land peculiarly lacking in intellectuals. The brio and aggression with which he demolishes this longstanding myth serve a paradoxical double function, marking his own claim to a place in the specifically English and male tradition of writing that he so effectively deconstructs.

This paper explores the relation of Foucault’s notion of counter-conduct to the Stoic notion of oikeiosis. Initially, oikeisosis is set against Platonic homoiosis, specifically as discussed in the Alcibiades, which provides what Foucault calls the “Platonic model” of conduct. The paper examines what Foucault means by “care of the self” and points to its difference from the Delphic maxim “know yourself” that centered on a principle of homoiosis, or ethical transcendence. Noting how the problematic of care of the self leads (...) to what Foucault calls “the government of conduct,” the paper considers the possibility of “counter-conduct.” Given that Foucault has argued that the autonomy of conduct has been rendered invisible through its “juridification,” this paper proceeds with a genealogy of the codification of morals in natural law theory. This culminates with the sixteenth century return to Stoicism in the person of Grotius. Showing that a certain conception of counter-conduct present in Gerson is transformed in natural law theory into a juridical grounding of the government of conduct, this paper draws out the immanent relation of conduct and counter-conduct in the notion of appropriation. Arguing that Grotius has fundamentally misunderstood the concept of oikeiosis, which he takes from Cicero and which subtends his theory of appropriation, this paper suggests that a return to the early Stoic formulation of oikeiosis allows for a rethinking of the problem of the government of conduct. A certain moralization of action, irreducible to codification that is present in early Stoic thought provides a model of “counter-conduct.” Ultimately, “care of the self,” as it is given in Stoic philosophy, relates the subject of action to the principle of ethical immanence that grounds Foucault’s critique of the subject. (shrink)

The Faith of a Physicist: Reflections of a Bottom‐Up Thinker John PolkinghornJudaism and the Doctrine of Creation Norbert Samuelson.

_Considers the notable similarities between the thought of Confucius and Wittgenstein._.

The explanation of inertia based on “Mach's principle” is briefly revisited and an experiment whereby the gravitational origin of inertia can be tested is described. The test consists of detecting a small stationary force with a sensitive force sensor. The force is presumably induced when a periodic transient Mach effect mass fluctuation is driven in high voltage, high energy density capacitors that are subjected to 50 kHz, 1.3 kV amplitude voltage signal, and threaded by an alternating magnetic flux of the (...) same frequency. An effect of the sort predicted is shown to be present in the device tested. It has the expected magnitude and depends on the relative phase of the Mach effect mass fluctuation and the alternating magnetic flux as expected. The observed effect also displays scaling behaviors that are unique to Mach effects. Other tests for spurious signals suggest that the observed effect is real. (shrink)