We show that the exterior algebra bundle over a curved spacetime can be used as framework in which both the Dirac and the Einstein equations can be obtained. These equations and their coupling follow from the variational principle applied to a Lagrangian constructed from natural geometric invariants. We also briefly indicate how other forces can potentially be incorporated within this geometric framework.

Increasingly, functional and evolutionary research has highlighted the important contribution emotion processing makes to complex human social cognition. As such, it may be asked whether neural structures involved in emotion processing, commonly referred to as limbic structures, have been impacted in human brain evolution. To address this question, we performed an extensive evolutionary analysis of multiple limbic structures using modern phylogenetic tools. For this analysis, we combined new volumetric data for the hominoid (human and ape) amygdala and 4 amygdaloid nuclei, (...) hippocampus, and striatum, collected using stereological methods in complete histological series, with previously published datasets on the amygdala, orbital and medial frontal cortex, and insula, as well as a non-limbic structure, the dorsal frontal cortex, for contrast. We performed a parallel analysis using large published datasets including many anthropoid species (human, ape, and monkey), but fewer hominoids, for the amygdala and 2 amygdaloid subdivisions, hippocampus, schizocortex, striatum, and septal nuclei. To address evolutionary change, we compared observed human values to values predicted from regressions run through a) nonhuman hominoids and b) nonhuman anthropoids, assessing phylogenetic influence using phylogenetic generalized least squares regression.Compared with other hominoids, the volumes of the hippocampus, the lateral nucleus of the amygdala, and the orbital frontal cortex were, respectively, 50%, 37%, and 11% greater in humans than predicted for an ape of human hemisphere volume, while the medial and dorsal frontal cortex were, respectively, 26% and 29% significantly smaller. Compared with other anthropoids, only human values for the striatum fell significantly below predicted values. Overall, the data present support for the idea that regions involved in emotion processing are not necessarily conserved or regressive, but may even be enhanced in recent human evolution. (shrink)

Sport aesthetics is an important but often marginalized field in the philosophy of sport. Kinetic Beauty offers a comprehensive, principled, pluralist introduction to the philosophical aesthetics of sport. The book tackles a wide variety of issues in the philosophical aesthetics of sport, proposing a five-level analysis that coordinates extant scholarship on the same conceptual map, reveals gaps in the literature, and motivates a fresh perspective on stubborn debates and novel topics in the field. This is an excellent resource for professors (...) and students in the philosophy of sport, sport aesthetics, general aesthetics, and the philosophy of art. It is also a fascinating read for those working in kinesiology, sport studies, philosophy, art, and aesthetics. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop, motivate and offer a qualified defense of a version of satisficing consequentialism (SC). I develop the view primarily in light of objections to other versions of SC recently posed by Ben Bradley. I motivate the view by showing that it (1) accommodates the intuitions apparently supporting those objections, (2) is supported by certain ‘common sense’ moral intuitions about specific cases, and (3) captures the central ideas expressed by satisficing consequentialists in the recent literature. Finally, I (...) offer a qualified defense of the view that consists in showing that it meets Bradley’s criteria for being a version of satisficing consequentialism that is ‘worth considering’. Specifically, it is a version of SC that solves certain problems for maximizing consequentialism and yet does not permit the gratuitous prevention of goodness. (shrink)

Libet-style experiments and volitions -- The need for an analysis of human agency -- An Aristotelian account of human agency -- Compatibilist concerns -- Choices and voluntary conduct -- Neuronal mechanisms and voluntary conduct -- A metaphysical framework : voluntary agency, emergence and downward causation.

The nature and time course of sleep onset (hypnagogic) mentation was studied in the home environment using the Nightcap, a reliable, cost-effective, and relatively noninvasive sleep monitor. The Nightcap, linked to a personal computer, reliably identified sleep onset according to changes in perceived sleepiness and the appearance of hypnagogic dream features. Awakenings were performed by the computer after 15 s to 5 min of sleep as defined by eyelid quiescence. Awakenings from longer periods of sleep were associated with (1) an (...) increase in reported sleepiness, (2) a decrease in the length of mentation reports, (3) a decrease in the frequency of reports of normal, wake-like thoughts, (4) an increase in the frequency of ''unusual thoughts,'' and (5) increased frequencies of formal dream features, including visual hallucination, self-representation, fictive movement, narrative plot, and bizarreness. While sleep-onset reports can include all features of rapid eye movement (REM) dream reports, the number of such features is markedly reduced at sleep onset, suggesting that this mentation is a greatly diminished version of REM dreaming. (shrink)

I begin by examining how genetics drivesschizophrenia research, and raise both familiar andrelatively novel criticisms of the evidence putativelysupporting the genetic basis of schizophrenia. Inparticular, I call attention to a set of concernsabout the effects of placentation on concordance ratesof schizophrenia in monozygotic twins, which furtherweakens the case for schizophrenia''s so-called stronggenetic component. I then underscore two criticalpoints. First, I emphasize the importance of takingseriously considerations about the complexity of bothontogenesis and the development of hereditarydiseases. The recognition of developmentalconstraints and (...) supports is crucial, for attention todevelopment exposes the naivete of too many models ofgene action in the aetiology of disease. Secondly, Iattend to those schizophreniologists who ignoremethodological criticisms and thus presume a geneticbasis for schizophrenia, and then seek the schizophrenic genotype lacking an adequatephenotype. In response I attempt to demonstrate thenecessity of a sustained effort at characterizing thephenotype of schizophrenia as an enabling conditionfor the whole enterprise of psychiatric genetics – andfor psychiatry itself. Without the organism-levelphenotype, research at the level of genes will remainunproductive – assuming of course that research at thegenetic level is appropriate at all. (shrink)

As we reread Mary Shelley's Frankenstein at two hundred years, it is evident that Victor Frankenstein is both a mad scientist (fevered, obsessive) and a bad scientist (secretive, hubristic, irresponsible). He's also not a very nice person. He's a narcissist, a liar, and a bad “parent.” But he is not genuinely evil. And yet when we reimagine him as evil—as an evil scientist and as an evil person—we can learn some important lessons about science and technology, our contemporary society, and (...) ourselves. (shrink)

Unlike Martin‐Löf randomness and Schnorr randomness, computable randomness has not been defined, except for a few ad hoc cases, outside of Cantor space. This paper offers such a definition (actually, several equivalent definitions), and further, provides a general method for abstracting “bit‐wise” definitions of randomness from Cantor space to arbitrary computable probability spaces. This same method is also applied to give machine characterizations of computable and Schnorr randomness for computable probability spaces, extending the previously known results. The paper contains a (...) new type of randomness—endomorphism randomness—which the author hopes will shed light on the open question of whether Kolmogorov‐Loveland randomness is equivalent to Martin‐Löf randomness. The last section contains ideas for future research. (shrink)

I follow Etienne Balibar in understanding Freud as not only an important thinker of transindividuality alongside Spinoza and Marx, but also the one that pushes an ontology of relations to its full development. In response to Balibar I critically examine Freud, who, outside of Group Psychology and the Analysis of Ego, often referred individual and collective development to the family as the primal scene. I also explore how it would be possible to conceive of a concept of social relations that (...) recognizes the social and transindividual basis of subjectivity. Ultimately, it is not a matter of deciding whether Freud is a transindividual thinker, but of understanding that an ontology of relations can privilege no particular scene or social institution, such as family or the, economy. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Dealing primarily with implications rather than foundations, and focusing downstream at the expense of upstream prevention, mainstream bioethics is at a toxic watershed. Through an extended analysis of the Environmental Genome Project (EGP), we offer new tools from the philosophy of science and from critical epidemiology to help bioethics to move ahead. Our aim in this paper is not to resolve the moral and conceptual problems we reveal, but rather to outline ways to prevent such problems from arising in (...) future research. (shrink)

The claims that learning systems must build causal models and provide explanations of their inferences are not new, and advocate a cognitive functionalism for artificial intelligence. This view conflates the relationships between implicit and explicit knowledge representation. We present recent evidence that neural networks do engage in model building, which is implicit, and cannot be dissociated from the learning process.

This article examines a largely neglected theme in Kant scholarship, which concerns the importance of conscience in understanding Kant’s account of moral imputation. It is my contention that conscience, contrary to many traditional interpretations of Kant, plays a central role in grasping the lived experience of moral agency insofar as it brings into light the burden that autonomy places upon us. When approached from this angle, Kant’s account of conscience, far from undermining the coherence of his position, actually bolsters it (...) by showing his sensitivity to the ambiguity that underlies our moral experiences as embodied agents. The reason that conscience plays such a pivotal role for Kant stems from its intermediating function, which serves to reflect both the ontological reality of freedom, as well as that of the summum bonum, the relationship between happiness and virtue. What the Kantian account of conscience attests, then, is that it is only in discerning the limits imposed by our own facticity—our vulnerability as willing beings—that the weight of autonomy can properly reveal itself as the inexorable trial of being free. (shrink)

This book explores policy innovation for same-sex couples throughout the Americas and includes same-sex marriage legislation, civil unions, and other new developments for same-sex couples throughout the Americas at both national and sub-national levels. This scholarship is innovative because though much has been written regarding developments in North America, there is very little work dealing with recent developments in the rest of the Americas.

Social Theory, Performativity and Professional Power—A Critical Analysis of Helping Professions in England Drawing from interviews and ethnographic research, evidence is provided to suggest a sense of "anxiety" and "regret" amongst state social workers and case managers working on the "front-line" within local authority social service departments. There have been a number of theoretical approaches that have attempted to ground the concept of "power" to understand organizational practice though Foucauldian insights have been most captivating in illuminating power relations and subject (...) positioning. In order to theoretically interrogate the relationship between social theory and professional power, we draw from the neo-Foucauldian work of American Social Philosopher Judith Butler—especially regarding Butler's (1990, 1993 and 1998) powerful work on "performativity" and its relationship to social work. We also attempt to examine the "distances" between the social work role and social workers narratives through an examination of notions of "anxiety" and "regret" in the face of the professionalisation of state social work. (shrink)

"Trust" and Professional Power: Towards a Social Theory of Self This paper sets out to delve into the relationship trust and professional authority in the context of health care. Understood in its micro-political terms and conceived as impacting on individualorganisational levels and the socio-political; this relationship stands at the interface of competingpressures working to produce the increasing complexity of social life. “Trust” is inextricably linked withuncertainty and complexity while professional authority rests on the specialist knowledge claimed bythe range of experts (...) and technologists that inhabit the spaces through which social life is governed andcomplexity managed. (shrink)

The Political Treatise is relatively overlooked in Spinoza's corpus. This is especially true in Anglo-American contexts, where scholarship has been slow to engage with Spinoza's political philosophy, at the expense of a correct understanding of his metaphysics. The reasons for the lack of interest in the Political Treatise are numerous. The immediate and most often cited reason is its incompleteness. Not only does it break off unfinished, but it does so at precisely the point that is essential to its argument; (...) the discussion of democracy. That Spinoza refers to democracy as the "completely absolute state" while leaving the chapter on democracy incomplete would seem to doom Spinoza's... (shrink)

Focusing specifically on Hegels analysis of Dutch genre painting in the Lectures on Aesthetics, Jason Miller argues that Hegel regards modern art not as a failure to convey the deepest interests of a culture or society, but as a welcome liberation of art in which it comes to reflect the diversity and complexity of human experience.

The purist/partisan distinction has dominated recent discussions of sport spectatorship and sport aesthetics. The focus of such discussions, however, has been sport in general or, often implicitly, team sports in particular. Here, using mixed martial arts (MMA) as a case study, we argue that specific aspects of the sport in question can significantly affect how the purist/partisan distinction plays out for viewers. MMA’s status as an individual combat sport mitigates, in illuminating ways, the partisanship displayed so prominently among fans of (...) team sports. We also examine the role of external attitudes – in both the betting subculture of MMA and purist attitudes toward individual combat sports and martial arts – in shaping MMA spectatorship. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy called the conjunction fallacy. It discusses a case of Linda who was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice and also participated in antinuclear demonstrations. The chapter applies the concept the present fallacy to the Linda Problem by using a Venn diagram. When one needs to determine the relative probability of different scenarios, one way to prevent himself/herself from making the conjunction fallacy is to determine whether (...) any of the options is a subset of any other. If so, he/she can conclude that the subset option is not more probable. This rule works because a specific event can never be more likely than a general event that encompasses the specific event. The chapter explains why people are so frequently drawn in by the conjunction fallacy. (shrink)

This chapter examines the real status of the scientific theory of evolution and what people mean by intelligent design. More generally, it explores the proper relationship between science and religion, not to mention politics, in early 21st century America. These concepts are examined through the inquiring minds and sharp tongues of Jon Stewart, Lewis Black of the “Evolution, Schmevolution” series, and former Daily Show “correspondent” Ed Helms.

How does a complex organism develop from a relatively simple, homogeneous mass? The usual answer is: through the (context‐dependent) execution of species‐specific genetic instructions specifying the development of that organism. Commentators are sometimes skeptical of this usual answer, but of course not all commentators, and not always for the same reasons. Here I attempt to lay bare the logical structure of the usual answer through an extended analysis of the heuristics and methodological principles at play in the exploration and explanation (...) of development—and also to show a critical ambiguity that renders the usual answer suspect. (shrink)

While the social and ecological landscape of the twenty-first century is worlds away from the historical-cultural context in which the biblical myth-symbols of the image of God and the knowledge of good and evil first emerged, Philip Hefner's understanding that Homo sapiens image God as created co-creators presents a plausible starting point for constructing a second naïveté interpretation of biblical anthropology and a fruitful concept for envisioning and enacting our human future.

Model organismism—the over-reliance on model organisms without sufficient attention to the adequacy of the models—continues to hobble our understanding of human brains and behaviors. I outline the problem of model organismism in contemporary biology and biomedicine, and discuss the virtues of a genuinely comparative biology for understanding ourselves, our evolutionary history, and our place in nature.

The Human Genome Project is nearing completion, and shortly we will have access to the complete genetic sequence of an average human being. Hopes are high that the sequence will contribute profoundly to medicine in particular, but also to our understanding of our evolutionary past. Of course, detractors have long insisted that because the HGP represents a victory for formalism in biology, determining the function of DNA sequences will remain an outstanding problem for at least the next several decades. Moreover, (...) it is not clear that having the complete sequence will be significantly useful to biologists seeking to understand gene function in the first place. What can we expect in the postgenomic era? ;I reject the very idea that a complete, encapsulated sequence of a human genome is foundational to biological understanding. I set my investigation within the framework of the ancient debate between preformationists and epigenecists. I survey and conceptually analyze arguments on both sides, especially as they relate to the separation of genetics and embryology in the early part of the twentieth century. I identify modern variants of both preformationism and epigenesis, and note their reconciliation in the form of a Modern Consensus on development established after the neo-Darwinian Synthesis in biology in the 1940s. ;Drawing on recent work in molecular and developmental biology, I challenge the seeming intuitiveness of the Modern Consensus and its subsumption of developmental concerns under the aegis of molecular genetics. I then propose and defend an alternative synthesis of preformationism and epigenesis, and of genetics and developmental biology, according to which development does not reduce to mere gene activation. I underscore the practical benefit of my perspective through a lengthy discussion of the psychiatric genetics approach to schizophrenia. (shrink)

This article explores Gadamer’s description of time(s) and situates it within his aesthetic account and hermeneutics. Bringing together all of Gadamer’s major discussions on time, I develop a consistent account which I then challenge. Whereas Heidegger famously describes transcendental temporality with an emphasis on futurity, Gadamer accentuates a historical temporal awareness and itsdiscontinuous nature. Gadamer’s notion of time is best understood, paradoxically, as a timeless temporality, when time is defined as the sequential movement along discrete points. I argue that Gadamer’s (...) unique description of temporality, which has been largely ignored by scholars, is essential to his understanding of experience and, therefore, to our understanding of his philosophical hermeneutics. (shrink)

Birth to Death: Science and Bioethics is a series of newly commissioned—though not always new or original—essays on a variety of topics in bioethics. The editors, David Thomasma and Thomasine Kushner, offer a broad interpretation of the meaning of bioethics; in addition to showcasing some of the usual concerns of bioethics, they include several topics usually absent from such volumes. While the collection is unusually broad, it is also unusually shallow.