In this paper, I analyze George Gaylord Simpson's response to the molecularization of evolutionary biology from his unique perspective as a paleontologist. I do so by exploring his views on early attempts to reconstruct phylogenetic relationships among primates using molecular data. Particular attention is paid to Simpson's role in the evolutionary synthesis of the 1930s and 1940s, as well as his concerns about the rise of molecular biology as a powerful discipline and world-view in the 1960s. I argue that Simpson's (...) belief in the supremacy of natural selection as the primary driving force of evolution, as well as his view that biology was a historical science that seeks ultimate causes and highlights contingency, prevented him from acknowledging that the study of molecular evolution was an inherently valuable part of the life sciences. (shrink)

Theory of Mind (ToM) is the cognitive achievement that enables us to report our propositional attitudes, to attribute such attitudes to others, and to use such postulated or observed mental states in the prediction and explanation of behavior. Most normally developing children acquire ToM between the ages of 3 and 5 years, but serious delays beyond this chronological and mental age have been observed in children with autism, as well as in those with severe sensory impairments. We examine data from (...) studies of ToM in normally developing children and those with deafness, blindness, autism and Williams syndrome, as well as data from lower primates, in a search for answers to key theoretical questions concerning the origins, nature and representation of knowledge about the mind. In answer to these, we offer a framework according to which ToM is jointly dependent upon language and social experience, and is produced by a conjunction of language acquisition with children's growing social understanding, acquired through conversation and interaction with others. We argue that adequate language and adequate social skills are jointly causally sufficient, and individually causally necessary, for producing ToM. Thus our account supports a social developmental theory of the genesis of human cognition, inspired by the work of Sellars and Vygotsky. How are we to decide whether to take reason to be an essentially private thing that can, however, turn on a public display when it chooses to do so, or, like conversing, to be an essentially social skill, which can, however, be retained a while through periods of solitary confinement? (Annette Baier, The Commons of the Mind, p. 5). The squirrel does not infer by induction that it is going to need stores next winter as well (Wittgenstein, On Certainty§ 287). The problem of thought and language thus extends beyond the limits of natural science and becomes the focal problem of historical human psychology, i.e. of social psychology. Consequently, it must be posed in a different way (Vygotsky, Thought and Language, p. 51). From the very first days of the child's development his activities acquire a meaning of their own in a system of social behaviour and, being directed towards a definite purpose, are refracted through the prism of the child's environment. The path from object to child and from child to object passes through another person. This complex human structure is the product of a developmental process deeply rooted in the links between individual and social history (Vygotsky, Mind in Society, p. 30). (shrink)

The doctrine of informed consent, borrowed from the law of torts, cannot be readily transplanted into therapeutic settings. The broader, as yet unrealized, idea of informed consent, which suggests that parties must make decisions jointly, should guide interactions between physicians and patients or investigators and subjects.

People do not choose to suffer from catastrophic illnesses, but considerable human choice is involved in the ways in which the participants in the process treat and conduct research on these diseases. Catastrophic Diseases draws a powerful and humane portrait of the patients who suffer from these illnesses as well as of the physician-investigators who treat them, and describes the major pressures, conflicts, and decisions which confront all of them. By integrating a discussion of "facts" and "values," the authors highlight (...) the forces which affect new developments in medicine—such as kidney and heart transplants—and the controversial issues they generate. Katz and Capron explore these issues through the use of dual conceptual perspectives. Their study first examines and evaluates the authority which should be vested in each of the chief participants in the catastrophic disease process—the physician-investigator, the patient-subject and his relatives, the professionals, and the state. Challenging questions are raised concerning medical education, informed consent, and professional responsibility. The authors next explore how the roles and capacities of the participants vary not only according to the basic issues they face but also according to the point in decision-making at which these issues arise. The process of investigating and treating catastrophic diseases, the authors believe, can thus usefully be divided into three decision-making stages—the formulation of policy, the administration of research and therapy, and the review of the decisions and their consequences. In conclusion, Katz and Capron demonstrate the need for a variety of individuals and groups with diverse values to be involved in decision-making in a manner which will not unnecessarily impede the scientific investigation of these diseases. (shrink)

Based on the author's nearly 30 years' of teaching introductory philosophy — and his observations of where beginning readers run into difficulty — this compact “primer” gives readers the basic tools they need to explore philosophical reading and writing for the first time. Provides insights and strategies for helping readers get started with reading, thinking about, and discussing philosophical concepts and writing short philosophical essays about what they've been reading and thinking; includes a new chapter that illustrates techniques for probing (...) beneath the expository surface of a given question to uncover the inevitable structure of presuppositions and problems underlying it. (shrink)

So who is that behind the face in the mirror? Better yet, what is that? What is the uncanny sense that one is an experiencing agent, a reflecting self? Can we explain consciousness? With Jay Lambert, Peter Caws, and Floyd Tesmer.

We examine market reactions to publicly held multinational firms announcing their affiliation with the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). The UNGC is a voluntary initiative to support four areas of United Nations viz. Human Rights, Labor, Environmental, and Anti-Corruption. Because firms must file annual Communication on Progress (COP) reports toward these initiatives, we argue this creates a differentiating transparency of interest to stakeholders. Using a sample of 175 global firms, we find support to the theory for joining the UNGC. Returns (...) differ markedly, however, between multinational firms headquartered in the United States (negative) and Europe (positive). We also find that failing to complete the annual COP generates a negative market reaction. (shrink)

Race or ethnic identity, despite its imprecise categorization, is a useful means of identifying population differences in mechanisms of disease and treatment effects. Therefore, race and other arbitrary demographic and physiological variables have appropriately served as a helpful guide to clinical management and to clinical trial participation. The African-American Heart Failure Trial was carried out in African-Americans with heart failure because prior data had demonstrated a uniquely favorable effect in this subpopulation of the drug combination in BiDil. The remarkable effect (...) of the drug in reducing mortality in this study has illuminated an important new mechanism of therapy for heart failure. Application of these findings need not be confined to the population studied, but the observation highlights the need for more precise ways to identify individual responsiveness to therapy. (shrink)

Instead of another federal advisory panel to identify ethical principles governing human subjects research, it is time we had a national board with authority to regulate and review such research.

According to Hume, the idea of a persisting, self-identical object, distinct from our impressions of it, and the idea of a duration of time, the mere passage of time without change, are mutually supporting "fictions". Each rests upon a "mistake", the commingling of "qualities of the imagination" or "impressions of reflection" with "external" impressions (perceptions), and, strictly speaking, we are conceptually and epistemically entitled to neither. Among Kant's aims in the First Critique is the securing of precisely these entitlements. Like (...) Hume, he acknowledges the correlativity of the notions of temporal duration and persisting self-identical objects (i.e., continuant substances). Unlike Hume, however, he undertakes to establish the legitimacy or objective validity of the schematized category of substance and, correspondingly, of the representation of time as a formal unity with duration as one of its modes. (shrink)

The participation of adolescents in genetic research engenders unusual problems concerning the nature of their informed consent. In this study we analyze 70 consent documents collected from genetics investigators in the United States who conduct research with children and adolescents. We find that many consent documents do not reflect either the current or the developing ethical and legal standards for research with adolescents and that in many cases the documents are simply confusing or unclear. We make recommendations for change to (...) reflect more adequately the changing perspective concerning the autonomous decision-making capacity of adolescents. (shrink)

In this essay, I first consider what the implications of global climate change will be regarding issues of equity. Secondly, I consider two types of proposals which focus on sustainable emissions and subsistence rights respectively. Thirdly, I consider where these proposal types conflict. Lastly, I argue under plausible assumptions, these two proposals actually imply similar policies regarding global climate change.

Trisvabh vanirdeśa (Treatise on the Three Natures) is Vasubandhu's most mature and explicit exposition of the Yogc c ra doctrine of the three natures and their relation to the Buddhist idealism Vasubandhu articulates. Nonetheless there are no extent commentaries on this important short test. The present work provides an introduction to the text, its context and principal philosophical theses; a new translation of the text itself; and a close, verse-by-verse commentary on the text explaining the structure of Yogacara/Cittamatra idealism and (...) comparing it to Western versions of transcendental idealism. In particular, I show how the doctrine of the three natures is used to make idealism coherent in a Buddhist context and how it sheds light on the structure and evolution of transcendental idealism in Europe. (shrink)

Owen Flanagan has recently argued for the claim that "the overall spirit--of Quine's philosophy warrants [a]--robust, realistic, and cognitivist picture of ethics." I believe that Flanagan's interpretation of Quine's philosophy is mistaken. Specifically, I argue that the overall spirit of Quine's philosophy, especially his treatment of cognitive meaning, warrants a noncognitivist and thus antirealist account of normative ethics My argument helps explain what Quine means when he wrote that ethics is methodologically infirm as compared to science.

Biographical sketches show how six writers and public figures prepared for their deaths.

The first longevity revolution began in the middle of the 19th century, accelerated through the first half of the 20th century, and led to the first and only quantum leap in human life expectancy.In the 20th century alone, life expectancy at birth in most developed nations rose by about 30 years. The first three quarters of the century were notable for gains made at younger and middle ages, and in the last quarter century, old age mortality declined. Nothing in history (...) has ever come close to the magnitude of this benefit to humanity. The rise in life expectancy occurred swiftly because the primary beneficiaries of advances in public health and... (shrink)

After having promoted and then tacitly abandoned the rhetoric of postmodernism, Zygmunt Bauman settled on the metaphor of a modernity that was growing more ‘liquid’ and ‘lighter’ than before. This essay explores the strengths and weaknesses of these metaphors, and attempts to contextualize Bauman’s insights in what has been called by the historian Yuri Slezkine the ‘Mercurian’ culture of diasporic Jewish life.

De Villiers and de Villiers (2000) propose that the acquisition of the syntactic device of sentential complementation is a necessary condition for the acquisition of theory of mind (ToM). It might be argued that ToM mastery is simply a consequence of grammatical development. On the other hand, there is also good evidence (Garfield, Peterson & Perry 2001) that social learning is involved in ToM acquisition. We investigate the connection between linguistic and social-cognitive development, arguing that pretence is crucially involved in (...) the acquisition of ToM. We demonstrate that successful understanding of pretence discourse, including the syntactic and semantic properties of sentential complements in the context of verbs of pretence, develops well before ToM as measured by standard tests of false belief understanding. We argue that pretence plays a crucial role in cognitive development, allowing children to gain familiarity with mental representations that fail to accord with reality, and allowing them to learn the syntax and semantics of verbs taking sentential complements, thus enabling conversational exchange involving embedded complement clauses and the acquisition of ToM. We also demonstrate that the developmental track of pretence and ToM allows us to see how social, conceptual and linguistic development work together to scaffold the development of the understanding of mind. We conclude that children’s early involvement in pretend play and conversation paves the way both for their subsequent development of a ToM-based understanding of the mind as a guiding network of propositional attitudes, and for their further development of syntactic competence with complementation for doxastic and epistemic verbs. (shrink)

We examine market reactions to the stock options backdating scandal in a slightly unusual way, but focusing on firms who were not perceived to have had a backdating concern, but were instead linked to firms who did have a backdating concern. These linkages can be found via board interlocks and the roles those directors perform. In addition we examine the linkages which occur from shared professional services firms, such as auditors and outside legal counsel. That these potential conduits are available (...) is not in question, but rather, do investors perceive the conduits are used to pass along information about backdating stock options? We then ask if affiliation with dominant audit and legal services firms ameliorates or exacerbates those investor market reactions. We find that firms linked to the scandalized firms also face negative reactions, which are worsened when they also are serviced by professional services firms who are themselves are also linked to the managerial practice. (shrink)

Among Carl Schmitt's most notable and controversial contributions to political theory was his claim that “all the significant concepts of the modern doctrine of the state are secularized theological concepts.” First formulated in 1922 in his Political Theology, this contention remained constant throughout his long career, as evidenced by its return in his Political Theology II, published in 1970. Here Schmitt's Cadtholic background was clearly apparent, for in so arguing, he was recapitulating the familiar topos of biblical prefiguration in which (...) the New Testament was understood as realizing the latent meaning of the Old. Viewing modern politics as merely the secularized version of a prior theology allowed Schmitt to develop his strong notion of the sovereign as a profane divinity with virtually all of the omnipotent attributes of its alleged sacred predecessor. (shrink)

Remarks such as 'I am in pain' and 'I think that it's raining' present opportunity for reflection and theory. Ostensibly such remarks report what one feels or thinks. But we do not in conversation treat these remarks as we do ordinary reports. If I ask you about the weather and you say, "I think it's raining," I can't complain that you told me just about your thoughts, and not about the weather. It is often held, moreover, when we do take (...) such remarks as revealing the speaker's mental states, those remarks are not subject to the kind of challenges that are in place with ordinary reports. Indeed, such remarks are often taken to exhibit some kind of epistemic privilege, and some have even maintained that one cannot be wrong when one says such things. (shrink)

This chapter explicates Theodor W. Adorno's dialectical engagement with inauthenticity and genuineness, two of the central tropes of his mature philosophy. The chapter discusses the extent to which Adorno's critique of genuineness in Minima Moralia and elsewhere was itself deeply indebted to Walter Benjamin's defense of mechanical reproduction against the aura and his notion of the mimetic faculty. It quickly becomes apparent that many of his “own” ideas betray precisely the kind of inauthenticity that he defended against the jargon. Or (...) if one wants to rely on his critical use of the term, it shows the non-auratic authenticity of the intellectual who knows himself not to be in full possession of his own ideas. Paradoxically, in his very lack of originality, his reworking without entirely duplicating many of his friend's most arresting ideas, Adorno took upon himself the stigma he urged everyone to embrace. (shrink)

If the sun is indeed setting on the cold war, there is reason to wonder whether Hegel’s Owl of Minerva should not be scheduled for further flights. Hegel was critical of political and economic liberalism as well as revolutionary egalitarianism. To the extent that actual capitalism and actual socialism have conformed to these positions in practise, Hegel’s double-edged critique has current applications. Sketched in broad strokes, Hegel’s position has a certain elegant symmetry. Revolutionary egalitarian movements tend to “put politics in (...) command,” to make political life dominant over civil society. On the other hand, the effects of liberalism tend in the opposite direction, to create a political life which is dominated by civil society. At the bottom of Hegel’s objections we find the claim that all members of a community have a right not to be excluded from the satisfactions that are offered by its way of life. Neither a community whose political life is dominated by civil society nor one where civil society is repressed by politics can honor his right. (shrink)

If agents motivated only by self-interested reasons practice different degrees of ethical environmental behavior at least partly because they hold different notions of what is in their self-interest, then the nature of our self-interest conceptions is a central issue in environmental ethics. Unless set by biology, as seems unlikely from the evidence, the breadth of the individual self-interest conception we each develop must depend on the specific experiences we are each contingently exposed to in our lives. If nurturing a stronger (...) environmental ethic within our society is a goal, if that ethic depends at least in part on how we individually conceive of our self-interest, and if the development of each of our self-interest conceptions responds contingently to input from others, then these reflections lead to normative considerations that reach beyond the standard ethical questions regarding how to act to others that concern, antecedently, whether to act at all. (shrink)

In A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari offer a description of what they call ‘nomad art’ by detailing its three primary characteristics: close-range vision, haptic space, and abstract line. In an attempt to unpack the significance of this provocative term, this paper will sketch the provenance of the first two of these characteristics, both of which come from Deleuze and Guattari's particular reading of Alois Riegl. Together, close-range vision and haptic space delineate the synaesthetic vision of the artist as well (...) as the space s//he creates in the work. Walter Benjamin will be invoked as a sort of phantom link between Riegl and Deleuze, a link that will both provide the proper orientation towards the central aspect of the haptic — against a Phenomenology of affect — as well as inject the necessary political significance into the discussion of nomad art. (shrink)

The popularity of films like Titanic betokens a massive shift in the nature of aesthetic spectatorship in our time. The contemplative, distanced viewer who is able to judge from afar the spectacle before him or her, has been replaced by a more proximate, involved "kinaesthetic" subject whose body is stimulated as much as his or her eye. This is evident not only in mass culture with amusement thrill rides and the return of what has been called the "cinema of attractions"; (...) this new spectator can also be discerned in avant-garde culture, as shown by the Sensation exhibition of Young British Artists which caused such a stir in London and New York. This spectator is especially attracted to simulacral scenes of destruction and catastrophe, in which he or she is virtually immersed. If aesthetic judgement is to be a model for its political counterpart, as has been argued by theorists like Lyotard and Arendt, it cannot do so on the basis of this aesthetics of violent immersion. (shrink)

Earlier views associated cognition with the cortex, and the will with sub-cortical non-cognitive structures. But an emerging perspective is that cognition runs throughout the central nervous sys- tem, including areas typically linked to motor control. It is an important realization that perceptual/effector systems are pregnant with cognitive resources. Staying the course to achieve one 's goals amidst diverse pulls is the primary function of the will. One adaptation is to pre-commit oneself to future recursive actions consistent with one's plans. Diverse (...) brain regions are tied to the conflicts of competing interests that require willpower to persevere towards our longer-term goals. While it is debatable to what extent we are conscious of our willpower and its causal efficacy, the concept of the will is a fundamental category in understanding our mental architecture and a piece of our evolutionary history. (shrink)

In these original and imaginative essays, delivered as the Tanner Lectures at the University of California, Berkeley in 2005, the philosopher Axel Honneth attempts to rescue the concept of reification by recasting it in terms of the philosophy of recognition he has been developing over the past two decades.