There is a thriving debate over what aspects of our capacity to produce and understand language are special. My concern here is a key part of this wider debate: Is speech special? In particular, my focus is on speech perception, and whether it is special. This isn’t just one but a number of different questions. Too frequently, these very different questions are not clearly distinguished and kept apart. I discuss a framework for distinguishing various versions of the question, Is speech (...) perceptually special? Focusing on a particular class of questions, I make a proposal about the sense in which speech is perceptually special. According to this account, the capacity to perceive speech is an acquired perceptual skill, and involves learning to hear language-specific types of biologically-significant sounds. This account illuminates the significance of interlocution in understanding what makes the perception of speech distinctive. (shrink)

Drawing upon the practice of caregiving and the insights of feminist care ethics, I offer a phenomenology of caregiving through the work of Eva Feder Kittay and Emmanuel Lévinas. I argue that caregiving is a material dialectic of embodied response involving moments of leveling, attention, and interruption. In this light, the Levinasian opposition between responding to another's singularity and leveling it via parity-based principles is belied in the experience of care. Contra much of response ethics’ and care ethics’ respective literatures, (...) this dialectic suggests that they are complementary in ways that productively illuminate themes of each. I conclude by suggesting that when response and care ethics are thought together through the experience of caregiving, such labors produce finite responsibility with infinite hope. (shrink)

Advances in medicine have brought us the stethoscope, artificial kidneys, and computerized health records. They have also changed the doctor-patient relationship. This book explores how the technologies of medicine are created and how we respond to the problems and successes of their use. Stanley Joel Reiser, MD, walks us through the ways medical innovations exert their influence by discussing a number of selected technologies, including the X-ray, ultrasound, and respirator. Reiser creates a new understanding of thinking about how health (...) care is practiced in the United States and thereby suggests new methods to effectively meet the challenges of living with technological medicine. As healthcare reform continues to be an intensely debated topic in America, Technological Medicine shows us the pros and cons of applying technological solutions health and illness. (shrink)

This book originated at a small and informal workshop held in December of 1992 in Idyllwild, a relatively secluded resort village situated amid forests in the ...

We analyze the precise modal commitments of several natural varieties of set-theoretic potentialism, using tools we develop for a general model-theoretic account of potentialism, building on those of Hamkins, Leibman and Löwe [14], including the use of buttons, switches, dials and ratchets. Among the potentialist conceptions we consider are: rank potentialism, Grothendieck–Zermelo potentialism, transitive-set potentialism, forcing potentialism, countable-transitive-model potentialism, countable-model potentialism, and others. In each case, we identify lower bounds for the modal validities, which are generally either S4.2 or S4.3, (...) and an upper bound of S5, proving in each case that these bounds are optimal. The validity of S5 in a world is a potentialist maximality principle, an interesting set-theoretic principle of its own. The results can be viewed as providing an analysis of the modal commitments of the various set-theoretic multiverse conceptions corresponding to each potentialist account. (shrink)

This paper introduces the philosophy of Grace Andrus de Laguna in order to renew interest in it. I show that, in the 1910s and 1920s, she develops ideas and arguments that are also found playing key roles in the development of analytic philosophy decades later. Further, I describe her sympathetic, but acute, criticism of pragmatism and Heideggerian ontology, and situate her work in the tradition of American, speculative philosophy. Before 1920, we will see, de Laguna appeals to multiple realizability to (...) undermine reductionism in science, to support perspectival, scientific realism and, with help from a private language argument, to favour the view that mental states are classified by behavioural, teleological roles over what came to be called ‘type physicalism’. Her view of speech, mostly developed in the 1920s, tells us that its primary role is coordinating group behaviour rather than expressing thoughts. Belief is understood in terms of its causal role, including its causal relations to other kinds of mental states, when coordinating group behaviour. Thought is similarly understood. In developing her theory of mind, de Laguna rejects the pragmatist claims that belief can be reduced to dispositions to behaviour and that thought’s function is to address specific, rather than general, problems. She also favours meaning holism and rejects the analytic–synthetic distinction. In later work, de Laguna argues that individuals’ activity of self-maintenance brings universals, conceived of as irreducible potentialities, into being and makes them increasingly determinate. Further, she identifies the existence of all individuals with forms of self-maintenance and takes the existence of people to include maintenance of the cultural world. Such a unified treatment of existence, she holds, permits making its evolution intelligible. Heidegger’s view of being is rejected for not permitting this. All de Laguna’s work, we will see, fits a vision of philosophy as the systematic, imaginative and naturalistic examination of being as well as a source of criticism of science. (shrink)

Lack of specificity around stakeholder identity remains a serious obstacle to the further development of stakeholder theory andits adoption in actual practice by business managers. Nowhere is this shortcoming more evident than in stakeholder theory’s treatment of the constituency known as “community.”In this paper we attempt to set forth what we call “the Problem of Community” as indicative of the definitional problems of stakeholdertheory. We then begin the process of gaining greater specificity around our notions of community and the role (...) of community in stakeholder theory and management. In doing so, we identify the emergence of two fairly new forms of community that we believe are particularly relevant to the stakeholder theorist and practicing manager. These two new variants of community—the virtual advocacy group and the community of practice—extend the notion of community in new directions, which have strikingly different implications for stakeholder theory and practice. (shrink)

This paper shows that during the first half of the 1960s The Journal of Philosophy quickly moved from publishing work in diverse philosophical traditions to, essentially, only publishing analytic philosophy. Further, the changes at the journal are shown, with the help of previous work on the journals Mind and The Philosophical Review, to be part of a pattern involving generalist philosophy journals in Britain and America during the period 1925-1969. The pattern is one in which journals controlled by analytic philosophers (...) systematically promote a form of critical philosophy and marginalise rival approaches to philosophy. This pattern, it is argued, helps to explain the growing dominance of analytic philosophy during the twentieth century and allows characterising this form of philosophy as, at least during 1925-1969, a sectarian form of critical philosophy. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper is concerned with the reasons for the emergence and dominance of analytic philosophy in America. It closely examines the contents of, and changing editors at, The Philosophical Review, and provides a perspective on the contents of other leading philosophy journals. It suggests that analytic philosophy emerged prior to the 1950s in an environment characterized by a rich diversity of approaches to philosophy and that it came to dominate American philosophy at least in part due to its effective promotion (...) by The Philosophical Review’s editors. Our picture of mid-twentieth-century American philosophy is different from existing ones, including those according to which the prominence of analytic philosophy in America was basically a matter of the natural affinity between American philosophy and analytic philosophy and those according to which the political climate at the time was hostile towards non-analytic approaches. Furthermore, our reconstruction suggests a new perspective on the nature of 1950s analytic philosophy. (shrink)

The lottery preparation, a new general kind of Laver preparation, works uniformly with supercompact cardinals, strongly compact cardinals, strong cardinals, measurable cardinals, or what have you. And like the Laver preparation, the lottery preparation makes these cardinals indestructible by various kinds of further forcing. A supercompact cardinal κ, for example, becomes fully indestructible by <κ-directed closed forcing; a strong cardinal κ becomes indestructible by κ-strategically closed forcing; and a strongly compact cardinal κ becomes indestructible by, among others, the forcing to (...) add a Cohen subset to κ, the forcing to shoot a club Cκ avoiding the measurable cardinals and the forcing to add various long Prikry sequences. The lottery preparation works best when performed after fast function forcing, which adds a new completely general kind of Laver function for any large cardinal, thereby freeing the Laver function concept from the supercompact cardinal context. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that if we challenge some tacit assumptions of narrow rationality that endure in much of entrepreneurial studies, we can elevate entrepreneurial ethics beyond mere external constraints on rational action, and move toward fuller integration of ethics as an intrinsic part of the process of value creation itself. To this end, I propose the concept of practical wisdom as a framework for exploring entrepreneurial decision making and action that can broaden the scope of our research to (...) recognize entrepreneurship as an inherendy normative enterprise. Specifically, I suggest that a framework built upon a concept of practical wisdom enables us to adopt a richer and more complex view of entrepreneurial decision making that is well suited to the dynamic and uncertain context of entrepreneurship. Further, this framework enriches our view of entrepreneurial ethics to include consideration of the personal character, values, and purpose of the entrepreneur. By examining entrepreneurship through a lens of practical wisdom, we can open up new avenues of fruitful inquiry for scholars of entrepreneurship. (shrink)

is it possible to have a first-person experience of our own agency? In nineteenth-century France, this question was subject to intense philosophical debate. The two figures primarily associated with each side of the debate were Maine de Biran and Charles Renouvier. Biran developed powerful objections to Hume's arguments that purported to prove the impossibility of the experience of one's inner causal force. These objections were the match that lit this philosophical fire, and formed the foundation of the philosophy of the (...) French spiritualist school; a school that included Félix Ravaisson, Jules Lachelier, Émile Boutroux, and Henri Bergson.1... (shrink)

For all the talk there has been lately about privilege, few have commented on the moral obligations that are associated with having privilege. Those who have commented haven't gone much beyond the idea that the privileged should be conscious of their privilege, should listen to those who don't have it. Here we want to go further, and build an account of the moral obligations of those with a particular kind of privilege: race privilege. In this paper we articulate an understanding (...) of race privilege, say how a person can know when she has it, and argue that a race-privileged person has obligations to offset her privilege. We make concrete suggestions for how she can, at least approximately, do this. We use particular racial group disparities in the United States as our running example throughout the paper, although our conclusions generalize. (shrink)

The dream solution of the continuum hypothesis would be a solution by which we settle the continuum hypothesis on the basis of a newly discovered fundamental principle of set theory, a missing axiom, widely regarded as true. Such a dream solution would indeed be a solution, since we would all accept the new axiom along with its consequences. In this article, however, I argue that such a dream solution to $\mathrm {CH}$ is unattainable.

Infinite time Turing machines extend the operation of ordinary Turing machines into transfinite ordinal time. By doing so, they provide a natural model of infinitary computability, a theoretical setting for the analysis of the power and limitations of supertask algorithms.

The theoretical foundations of climate science have received little attention from philosophers thus far, despite a number of outstanding issues. We provide a brief, non-technical overview of several of these issues – related to theorizing about climates, climate change, internal variability and more – and attempt to make preliminary progress in addressing some of them. In doing so, we hope to open a new thread of discussion in the emerging area of philosophy of climate science, focused on theoretical foundations.

Biologists and historians often present natural history and molecular biology as distinct, perhaps conflicting, fields in biological research. Such accounts, although supported by abundant evidence, overlook important areas of overlap between these areas. Focusing upon examples drawn particularly from systematics and molecular evolution, I argue that naturalists and molecular biologists often share questions, methods, and forms of explanation. Acknowledging these interdisciplinary efforts provides a more balanced account of the development of biology during the post-World War II era.

This article investigates the history of the relation between idealism and pragmatism by examining the importance of the French idealist Charles Renouvier for the development of William James's ‘Will to Believe’. By focusing on French idealism, we obtain a broader understanding of the kinds of idealism on offer in the nineteenth century. First, I show that Renouvier's unique methodological idealism led to distinctively pragmatist doctrines and that his theory of certitude and its connection to freedom is worthy of reconsideration. Second, (...) I argue that the technical vocabulary and main structure of the argument from the ‘Will to Believe’ depend upon Renouvier's idealist theory of knowledge and psychology of belief, and that taking account of this line of influence is of crucial importance for establishing the correct interpretation of James's work. (shrink)

“Intervention” is not synonymous with “care.” For an intervention to constitute care—which patients should have a right to access—it must be technically feasible and licit. Now these criteria do not prove sufficient; numerous archaic interventions remain feasible and legally permissible, yet are now bywords for spurious care. Therefore, we propound another necessary condition for an intervention to become care: the physician must rationally judge the intervention to be conducive to the patient’s good. Consequently, the right of access-to-care relies on physicians (...) being free to practice medicine in accord with their consciences, conscience being the rational faculty with which they judge the reasonableness of even mundane medical decisions. Since physicians operate as part of a community, it is further necessary to consider when central bodies may reasonably compel physicians to engage in interventions that the physician believes are not consistent with the patient’s good and/or are not congruent with the purposes of medicine. (shrink)

Experimental taxonomy was a diverse area of research, and botanists who helped develop it were motivated by a variety of concerns. While experimental taxonomy was never totally a taxonomic enterprise, improvement in classification was certainly one major motivation behind the research. Hall's and Clements' belief that experimental methods added more objectivity to classification was almost universally accepted by experimental taxonomists. Such methods did add a new dimension to taxonomy — a dimension that field and herbarium studies, however rigorous, could not (...) duplicate. Nonetheless, experimental techniques were never completely divorced from traditional taxonomic methods. In practice, all experimental taxonomists employed a combination of descriptive and experimental methods. Most researchers freely acknowledged a debt to traditional taxonomy. Furthermore, the greater rigor of twentieth-century taxonomy was not due entirely to experimentalism. Both the experimental and descriptive aspects of taxonomy were improved by the increased use of quantitative methods, particularly statistics.52From the beginning, a number of experimental taxonomists were interested primarily in classification. But many approached their research from fields other than taxonomy. These botanists were concerned primarily with ecological and genetic problems rather than with classification. There is little indication that they drew a sharp distinction: for example, taxonomic and cytogenetic conclusions were interwoven in Babcock and Stebbins' 1938 study of Crepis 53 (this was even more true of Babcock's final mongraph on the genus, published in 1947). Similarly, the extensive series of monographs, “Experimental Studies on the Nature of Species,” initiated by the Carnegie Institution group in 1940 combined ecological, cytogenetic, and taxonomic conclusions. Indeed, the significance of the major projects completed by experimental taxonomists was largely due to the fact that they were comprehensive studies rather than strictly taxonomic or cytogenetic.In a general sense, the primary motivation behind much of experimental taxonomy was evolutionary. Beginning in the second decade of the century Hall and Clements exhorted taxonomists to take an explicitly evolutionary perspective on research. Hall undoubtedly spoke for the majority of experimental taxonomists when he stated, “If there be anything at all to organic evolution, then taxonomy is dealing with the products of evolution and it is this that gives to taxonomy both its highest mission and its greatest responsibility.”54Aside from a common interest in evolution, however, the theoretical orientations of experimental taxonomists were varied. This diversity is strikingly illustrated by the evolutionary views of members of the Carnegie Institution research group. Experimental taxonomy was initiated by Clements as one aspect of his Lamarckian study of adaptation and speciation. In contrast, Hall's research was inspired by a broad concern for evolutionary problems. Hall rarely referred to specific evolutionary mechanisms; rather, he applied a general conception of evolutionary processes to deduce phylogenetic relationships. His later associates at the Carnegie Institution explicitly dissociated themselves from Clements' theoretical framework. The neo-Darwinian interpretations of adaptation and speciation presented by Clausen, Keck, and Hiesey could hardly have been more different than those of Clements. However, this major shift in theoretical orientation should not obscure significant similarities between the research of Clements and later Carnegie workers. In terms of research problems and methodology, the first volume of “Experimental Studies on the Nature of Species” was an extension of the Clementsian research program. Clausen, Keck, and Hiesey's monograph was the mature discussion of transplant experimentation that Clements had very tentatively initiated during the first decades of the twentieth century. The bond that linked the members of the Carnegie Institution research group to experimental taxonomists in general was one of shared methodology rather than common theoretical orientation. While Clements' evolutionary views were eventually repudiated, his enthusiasm for innovative experimental methods was shared by later workers.The development of experimental taxonomy faced significant problems. During the period 1920–1950 this area of botanical research remained a hybrid discipline. The aims and scope of experimental taxonomy were never articulated in a completely unified manner. Consequently, even among experimental taxonomists, there were disagreements over the relation of their research to other botanical endeavors. Even though experimental taxonomy had close ties with general taxonomy, a number of experimental taxonomists questioned the “taxonomic” nature of their research55. Even to the extent that this hybrid discipline could be identified as a branch of taxonomy, problems arose. Taxonomists, as we have seen, were justifiably skeptical of what appeared to be a rapid influx of untested methods and ideas. Experimental taxonomists were not merely incorporating well-accepted methods from ecology and cytogenetics; during the period 1920–1950 the fields from which experimental taxonomists borrowed were themselves undergoing major theoretical and methodological changes. Despite problems and conflicts, experimental taxonomists did contribute improvements to classification. Furthermore, they made significant contributions to plant ecology and evolutionary genetics.The development of experimental taxonomy indicates that twentieth-century botanists were not necessarily isolated in naturalist and experimentalist camps. The joint session of taxonomists, cytologists, and geneticists at the 1926 International Congress of Plant Sciences indicates communication among specialists fairly early in the century. The papers and commentaries presented during this session do not reveal the hostility and intolerance that supposedly characterized encounters between experimentalists and naturalists. Nor do they suggest incompatible conceptual worlds separating geneticists and taxonomists.Discussions between taxonomists and other specialists were not limited to a single international congress. Particularly during the 1930s discussions among specialists appear to have been fairly widespread. Groups such as the Biosystematists and the Society for the Study of Systematics in Relation to General Biology served as forums for discussion among biologists from a variety of disciplines. The naturalist-experimentalist dichotomy tends to obscure the broad research interests of a number of prominent twentieth-century botanists. Most of the experimental taxonomists cannot be characterized adequately as either naturalists or experimentalists. Traditionally trained taxonomists such as Hall, Keck, and Turrill throughout their careers participated in both experimental and herbarium research. And a number of specialists in fields other than taxonomy took an active interest in taxonomic problems, not necessarily limited to experimental aspects. For example, Anderson suggested a number of innovations to make herbarium collections more amenable to statistical analysis.This historical study of experimental taxonomy indicates a different relationship between experimentalism and taxonomy than that portrayed by the naturalist-versus-experimentalist dichotomy. F. E. Clements originated experimental taxonomy as a revolt against descriptive botany. In retrospect, this revolution was not vigorously waged and was not successfully completed. Experimental taxonomy was never an entirely experimental approach to botanical research. Even the most ardent advocates of experimentalism relied heavily on methods inherited from traditional taxonomy. Moderate exponents of experimental taxonomy stressed the compatibility of experimental methods, field observation, and herbarium techniques. Attempts to fuse cytogenetics, ecology, and taxonomy during the period 1920–1950 resulted in an impressive body of research. However, this fusion constituted neither a repudiation of descriptive botany nor a complete revision of taxonomic theory of practice. (shrink)

We introduce the $\Sigma _1$ -definable universal finite sequence and prove that it exhibits the universal extension property amongst the countable models of set theory under end-extension. That is, the sequence is $\Sigma _1$ -definable and provably finite; the sequence is empty in transitive models; and if M is a countable model of set theory in which the sequence is s and t is any finite extension of s in this model, then there is an end-extension of M to a (...) model in which the sequence is t. Our proof method grows out of a new infinitary-logic-free proof of the Barwise extension theorem, by which any countable model of set theory is end-extended to a model of $V=L$ or indeed any theory true in a suitable submodel of the original model. The main theorem settles the modal logic of end-extensional potentialism, showing that the potentialist validities of the models of set theory under end-extensions are exactly the assertions of S4. Finally, we introduce the end-extensional maximality principle, which asserts that every possibly necessary sentence is already true, and show that every countable model extends to a model satisfying it. (shrink)

The twentieth century witnessed a dramatic increase in the use of statistics by biologists, including systematists. The modern synthesis and new systematics stimulated this development, particularly after World War II. The rise of "the statistical frame of mind " resulted in a rethinking of the relationship between biological and mathematical points of view, the roles of objectivity and subjectivity in systematic research, the implications of new computing technologies, and the place of systematics among the biological disciplines.

A cardinal κ is tall if for every ordinal θ there is an embedding j: V → M with critical point κ such that j > θ and Mκ ⊆ M. Every strong cardinal is tall and every strongly compact cardinal is tall, but measurable cardinals are not necessarily tall. It is relatively consistent, however, that the least measurable cardinal is tall. Nevertheless, the existence of a tall cardinal is equiconsistent with the existence of a strong cardinal. Any tall cardinal (...) κ can be made indestructible by a variety of forcing notions, including forcing that pumps up the value of 2κ as high as desired. (shrink)

This volume brings together a collection of essays that explore in a new way how unacknowledged moral concerns are integral to debates in the philosophy of mind.The radical suggestion of the book is that we can make sense of the internal dynamics and cultural significance of these debates only when we understand the moral forces that shape them. Drawing inspiration from a variety of traditions including Wittgenstein, Lacan, phenomenology and analytic philosophy, the authors address a wide range of topics including (...) the mind/body-problem, the problem of other minds, subjectivity and objectivity, the debates on mindreading, naturalism, reductive physicalism, representationalism and the ‘E-turn’; Dennett’s heterophenomenology, McDowell’s neo-Kantianism, Wittgenstein’s ‘private language’ considerations and his notion of an ‘attitude towards a soul’; repression, love, conscience, the difficulties of self-understanding, and the methods and aims of philosophy. Through a combination of detailed, immanent criticism and bold constructive work, the authors move the discussion to a new level, beyond humanistic or conservative critiques of naturalism and scientism. (shrink)

The Gap Forcing Theorem, a key contribution of this paper, implies essentially that after any reverse Easton iteration of closed forcing, such as the Laver preparation, every supercompactness measure on a supercompact cardinal extends a measure from the ground model. Thus, such forcing can create no new supercompact cardinals, and, if the GCH holds, neither can it increase the degree of supercompactness of any cardinal; in particular, it can create no new measurable cardinals. In a crescendo of what I call (...) exact preservation theorems, I use this new technology to perform a kind of partial Laver preparation, and thereby finely control the class of posets which preserve a supercompact cardinal. Eventually, I prove the ‘As You Like It’ Theorem, which asserts that the class of κ -directed closed posets which preserve a supercompact cardinal κ can be made by forcing to conform with any pre-selected local definition which respects the equivalence of forcing. Along the way I separate completely the levels of the superdestructibility hierarchy, and, in an epilogue, prove that the notions of fragility and superdestructibility are orthogonal — all four combinations are possible. (shrink)

A pointwise definable model is one in which every object is \loos definable without parameters. In a model of set theory, this property strengthens $V=\HOD$, but is not first-order expressible. Nevertheless, if \ZFC\ is consistent, then there are continuum many pointwise definable models of \ZFC. If there is a transitive model of \ZFC, then there are continuum many pointwise definable transitive models of \ZFC. What is more, every countable model of \ZFC\ has a class forcing extension that is pointwise definable. (...) Indeed, for the main contribution of this article, every countable model of Gödel-Bernays set theory has a pointwise definable extension, in which every set and class is first-order definable without parameters. (shrink)

Small forcing always ruins the indestructibility of an indestructible supercompact cardinal. In fact, after small forcing, any cardinal κ becomes superdestructible--any further <κ--closed forcing which adds a subset to κ will destroy the measurability, even the weak compactness, of κ. Nevertheless, after small forcing indestructible cardinals remain resurrectible, but never strongly resurrectible.

Laver [L] and others [G-S] have shown how to make the supercompactness or strongness of κ indestructible by a wide class of forcing notions. We show, alternatively, how to make these properties fragile. Specifically, we prove that it is relatively consistent that any forcing which preserves $\kappa^{<\kappa}$ and κ+, but not P(κ), destroys the measurability of κ, even if κ is initially supercompact, strong, or if I1(κ) holds. Obtained as an application of some general lifting theorems, this result is an (...) "inner model" type of theorem proved instead by forcing. (shrink)

This fresh and engaging work by noted philosopher Joel Kupperman centers on "value"--in the sense of what is worth having or worthy being in life. Kupperman looks first at how judgments of values manifest themselves, whether there can be evidence for them, and whether a realistic account is appropriate. Kupperman then goes on to examine the relations between judgments of value and those of what it is best to do, and whether value has any proper role in social policy. (...) Kupperman rejects the notion that there is any one primary value, and argues instead for a pluralistic understanding of value. He contends that value must be viewed as strongly contextual; the value of a particular set of experiences in one's life can depend heavily on how they fit in or provide contrast with other elements. (shrink)

The main theorem of this article is that every countable model of set theory 〈M, ∈M〉, including every well-founded model, is isomorphic to a submodel of its own constructible universe 〈LM, ∈M〉 by means of an embedding j : M → LM. It follows from the proof that the countable models of set theory are linearly pre-ordered by embeddability: if 〈M, ∈M〉 and 〈N, ∈N〉 are countable models of set theory, then either M is isomorphic to a submodel of N (...) or conversely. Indeed, these models are pre-well-ordered by embeddability in order-type exactly ω1+ 1. Specifically, the countable well-founded models are ordered under embeddability exactly in accordance with the heights of their ordinals; every shorter model embeds into every taller model; every model of set theory M is universal for all countable well-founded binary relations of rank at most OrdM; and every ill-founded model of set theory is universal for all countable acyclic binary relations. Finally, strengthening a classical theorem of Ressayre, the proof method shows that if M is any nonstandard model of PA, then every countable model of set theory — in particular, every model of ZFC plus large cardinals — is isomorphic to a submodel of the hereditarily finite sets 〈 HFM, ∈M〉 of M. Indeed, 〈 HFM, ∈M〉 is universal for all countable acyclic binary relations. (shrink)

Using the lottery preparation, we prove that any strongly unfoldable cardinal $\kappa$ can be made indestructible by all.

In this article, I argue that in his 1838 De l'habitude, Félix Ravaisson uses the analysis of habit to defend a Leibnizian monadism. Recent commentators have failed to appreciate this because they read Ravaisson as a typically post-Kantian philosopher, and underemphasize the distinct context in which he developed his work. I explore three key claims made by interpreters who argue that Ravaisson should be read as a Schellingian, and show [i] that these claims are incompatible with the text of De (...) l'habitude and [ii] how they have obscured from view the monadism at the heart of this work. This article is divided into two sections. First, I explain the importance of Victor Cousin and Maine de Biran for the development of nineteenth-century French philosophy. Second, I argue that to understand the structure of De l'habitude, it should be read as a critique of Cousin's philosophical method and a demonstration of the superiority of Biran's Leibniz-inspired introspective method. Like Biran, Ravaisson believes tha.. (shrink)

In developing their policy on paediatric medical assistance in dying (MAID), DeMichelis, Shaul and Rapoport decide to treat euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide as ethically and practically equivalent to other end-of-life interventions, particularly palliative sedation and withdrawal of care (WOC). We highlight several flaws in the authors’ reasoning. Their argument depends on too cursory a dismissal of intention, which remains fundamental to medical ethics and law. Furthermore, they have not fairly presented the ethical analyses justifying other end-of-life decisions, analyses and decisions (...) that were generally accepted long before MAID was legal or considered ethical. Forgetting or misunderstanding the analyses would naturally lead one to think MAID and other end-of-life decisions are morally equivalent. Yet as we recall these well-developed analyses, it becomes clear that approving of some forms of sedation and WOC does not commit one to MAID. Paediatric patients and their families can rationally and coherently reject MAID while choosing palliative care and WOC. Finally, the authors do not substantiate their claim that MAID is like palliative care in that it alleviates suffering. It is thus unreasonable to use this supposition as a warrant for their proposed policy. (shrink)

© 2013 The Editors of The Philosophical QuarterlyWhy did matter matter for Descartes and Leibniz? The answer, Kurt Smith argues in this thought‐provoking book, is that without it mathematics would be unintelligible. A world without matter is insufficient for mathematics because the immaterial cannot be divided into discrete quantities. Without a divisible material structure, the determinate unities necessary for the additive quantities in turn necessary for mathematics are unactualisable. God needs matter to institute mathematics. However, with the creation of matter, (...) mathematical intelligibility necessarily follows. Smith's main aim, therefore, is to show that Descartes and Leibniz believed the biconditional: ‘Mathematics is intelligible if, and only if, matter exists’.The bulk of the book is dedicated to ‘analysis’ and ‘synthesis’. For Smith, analysis is a kind of transcendental process by which one discovers the basic conceptual categories necessary for the possibility of any object under investigation. A triangle's... (shrink)

Applying the seed concept to Prikry tree forcing P μ , I investigate how well P μ preserves the maximality property of ordinary Prikry forcing and prove that P μ Prikry sequences are maximal exactly when μ admits no non-canonical seeds via a finite iteration. In particular, I conclude that if μ is a strongly normal supercompactness measure, then P μ Prikry sequences are maximal, thereby proving, for a large class of measures, a conjecture of W. Hugh Woodin's.

Autonomy is one of the most contested concepts in philosophy and psychology. Much of the disagreement centers on the form of reflexivity that one must have to count as genuinely self-governing. In this essay, we argue that an adequate account of autonomy must include a distinct requirement of accurate self-assessment, which has been largely ignored in the philosophical focus on agents' ability to evaluate the desirability of acting on certain impulses or values. In our view, being autonomous (i.e., self-guiding) involves (...) understanding the extent to which one has the capacities required for one's intended actions. On both clinical grounds (drawn from cases of frontal brain injury) and conceptual grounds, we argue that one's autonomy is diminished to the extent to which one's ability to assess one's capacities is impaired. (shrink)

Beginning in the mid-1930s the comparative physiologists Laurence Irving and Per Fredrik Scholander pioneered the study of diving mammals, particularly harbor seals. Although resting on earlier work dating back to the late nineteenth century, their research was distinctive in several ways. In contrast to medically oriented physiology, the approaches of Irving and Scholander were strongly influenced by natural history, zoology, ecology, and evolutionary biology. Diving mammals, they argued, shared the cardiopulmonary physiology of terrestrial mammals, but evolution had modified these basic (...) adaptive processes in extreme ways. In particular, seals’ remarkable ability to hold breath, lower metabolism, produce energy anaerobically, and resist asphyxiation, provided a sharp contrast with terrestrial mammals, including humans. This diving physiology was an extreme elaboration of a general regulatory mechanism that allowed seals and other diving mammals to remain active underwater for extended periods. The decrease in heart rate referred to as bradycardia or the “diving reflex” was highly developed in diving mammals, but also found in less developed form in many other organisms faced by asphyxia. It therefore served as a kind of “master switch” for lowering metabolism in diving, hibernation, parturition, drowning, and other physiological responses involving lack of oxygen. Studying bradycardia unified a wide diversity of physiological phenomena, while also providing a context for contrasting the physiological responses of various species, including humans. Conducted in the laboratory and the field, this research served as a bridge between a comparative physiological ecology focused on non-human species and a human-centered general physiology. (shrink)

We consider a set-theoretic version of mereology based on the inclusion relation ⊆ and analyze how well it might serve as a foundation of mathematics. After establishing the non-definability of ∈ from ⊆, we identify the natural axioms for ⊆-based mereology, which constitute a finitely axiomatizable, complete, decidable theory. Ultimately, for these reasons, we conclude that this form of set-theoretic mereology cannot by itself serve as a foundation of mathematics. Meanwhile, augmented forms of set-theoretic mereology, such as that obtained by (...) adding the singleton operator, are foundationally robust. (shrink)

The Necessary Maximality Principle for c. c. c. forcing with real parameters is equiconsistent with the existence of a weakly compact cardinal. (© 2005 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim).

We analyze the effect of replacing several natural uses of definability in set theory by the weaker model-theoretic notion of algebraicity. We find, for example, that the class of hereditarily ordinal algebraic sets is the same as the class of hereditarily ordinal definable sets; that is, $\mathrm{HOA}=\mathrm{HOD}$. Moreover, we show that every algebraic model of $\mathrm{ZF}$ is actually pointwise definable. Finally, we consider the implicitly constructible universe Imp—an algebraic analogue of the constructible universe—which is obtained by iteratively adding not only (...) the sets that are definable over what has been built so far, but also those that are algebraic over the existing structure. While we know that $\mathrm{Imp}$ can differ from $L$, the subtler properties of this new inner model are just now coming to light. Many questions remain open. (shrink)

Among the topics discussed in Thomas Kuhn'sThe Structure of Scientific Revolutions, those of education, training, and pedagogy are apt to seem the least compelling. Certainly, the earliest debates aboutStructurefocused on other, more controversial, matters: incommensurability, meaning change, the rationality of theory choice, normal science—the list goes on. Over the past two decades, however, a growing concern among historians and sociologists of science with the nature of scientific apprenticeship has stimulated greater appreciation of the importance of questions of teaching and learning (...) to the philosophical position sketched inStructure. This paper seeks to develop further our understanding of these issues as they bear on Kuhn's theory of science. (shrink)

We introduce the strongly uplifting cardinals, which are equivalently characterized, we prove, as the superstrongly unfoldable cardinals and also as the almost-hugely unfoldable cardinals, and we show that their existence is equiconsistent over ZFC with natural instances of the boldface resurrection axiom, such as the boldface resurrection axiom for proper forcing.

Ecology has often been characterized as an immature scientific discipline. This paper explores some of the sources of this alleged immaturity. I argue that the perception of immaturity results primarily from the fact that historically ecologists have based their work upon two very different approaches to research.