Graphical AbstractThe third annual meeting of the EpiGeneSys network brought together epigenetics and systems biologists to report on collaborative projects that apply quantitative approaches to understanding complex epigenetic processes. The figure shown represents one meeting highlight, which was the unexpected emergence of genotype versus epigenotype in control of cell state.

I discuss three recent counterexamples to the transitivity of grounding due to Jonathan Schaffer. I argue that the counterexamples don’t work and draw some conclusions about the relationship between grounding and explanation.

A logic of grounding where what is grounded can be a collection of truths is a “many-many” logic of ground. The idea that grounding might be irreducibly many-many has recently been suggested by Dasgupta. In this paper I present a range of novel philosophical and logical reasons for being interested in many-many logics of ground. I then show how Fine’s State-Space semantics for the Pure Logic of Ground can be extended to the many-many case, giving rise to the Pure Logic (...) of Many-Many Ground. In the second, more technical, part of the paper, I do two things. First, I present an alternative formalization of plg; this allows us to simplify Fine’s completeness proof for plg. Second, I formalize plmmg using an infinitary sequent calculus and prove that this formalization is sound and complete. (shrink)

Jon Elster has written a comprehensive, wide-ranging book on the emotions in which he considers the full range of theoretical approaches. Drawing on history, literature, philosophy and psychology, Elster presents a complete account of the role of the emotions in human behaviour. While acknowledging the importance of neurophysiology and laboratory experiment for the study of emotions, Elster argues that the serious student of the emotions can learn more from the great thinkers and writers of the past, from Aristotle to Jane (...) Austen. He attaches particular importance to the work of the French moralists, notably La Rochefoucauld, who demonstrated the way esteem and self-esteem shape human motivation. The book also maintains a running dialogue with economists and rational-choice theorists. Combining methodological and theoretical arguments with empirical case-studies and written with Elster's customary verve and economy, this book has great cross-disciplinary appeal. (shrink)

Could φ’s partially grounding ψ itself be a partial ground for ψ? I show that it follows from commonly accepted principles in the logic of ground that this sometimes happens. It also follows from commonly accepted principles that this never happens. I show that this inconsistency turns on different principles than the puzzles of ground already discussed in the literature, and I propose a way of resolving the inconsistency.

The question Jon Elster addresses in this challenging book is what binds societies together and prevents them from disintegrating into chaos and war. He analyses two concepts of social order: stable, predictable patterns of behaviour, and co-operative behaviour. The book examines various aspects of collective action and bargaining from the perspective of rational-choice theory and the theory of social norms. It is a fundamental assumption of the book that social norms provide an important kind of motivation for action that is (...) irreducible to rationality. The book represents a major statement by Elster, which will be of particular interest to political scientists, political philosophers, sociologists, and economists. (shrink)

Using only uncontentious principles from the logic of ground I construct an infinitely descending chain of ground without a lower bound. I then compare the construction to the constructions due to Dixon and Rabin and Rabern.

Jon Stewart's study is a major re-evaluation of the complex relations between the philosophies of Kierkegaard and Hegel. The standard view on the subject is that Kierkegaard defined himself as explicitly anti-Hegelian, indeed that he viewed Hegel's philosophy with disdain. Jon Stewart shows convincingly that Kierkegaard's criticism was not of Hegel but of a number of contemporary Danish Hegelians. Kierkegaard's own view of Hegel was in fact much more positive to the point where he was directly influenced by some of (...) Hegel's work. Any scholar working in the tradition of Continental philosophy will find this an insightful and provocative book with implications for the subsequent history of philosophy in the twentieth century. The book will also appeal to scholars in religious studies and the history of ideas. (shrink)

This article explores the nature and theoretical import of a hitherto neglected class of fictions which we term ‘self-involving interactive fictions’. SIIFs are interactive fictions, but they differ from standard examples of interactive fictions by being, in some important sense, about those who consume them. In order to better understand the nature of SIIFs, and the ways in which they differ from other fictions, we focus primarily on the most prominent example of the category: video-game fictions. We argue that appreciating (...) the self-involving nature of video-game fictions is key to understanding various otherwise puzzling phenomena concerning the ways in which consumers respond to them. Video-game fictions are, however, far from being the only extant example of this class; and we suggest that the recent philosophical interest in video games would be better focused on the wider class of self-involving interactive fictions. (shrink)

How do we form aesthetic judgements? And how should we do so? According to a very prominent tradition in aesthetics it would be wrong to form our aesthetic judgements about a particular object on the basis of anything other than first-hand acquaintance with the object itself (or some very close surrogate) and, in particular, it would be wrong to form such judgements merely on the basis of testimony. Further this tradition presupposes that our actual practice of forming aesthetic judgements typically (...) meets, or at least approximates, this ideal. In this paper I target this descriptive claim and argue—by appeal to some empirical work concerning belief polarization and echo chambers in aesthetics—that our actual practice of forming aesthetic judgements is heavily dependent on social sources such as testimony. I then briefly consider what normative implications this descriptive claim may have. (shrink)

Seemingly natural principles about the logic of ground generate cycles of ground; how can this be if ground is asymmetric? The goal of the theory of decycling is to find systematic and principled ways of getting rid of such cycles of ground. In this paper—drawing on graph-theoretic and topological ideas—I develop a general framework in which various theories of decycling can be compared. This allows us to improve on proposals made earlier by Fine and Litland. However, it turns out that (...) there is no unique method of decycling. An important upshot is that the notion of asymmetric ground may be indeterminate. (shrink)

Ageism has unfortunately become a salient phenomenon during the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, triage decisions based on age have been hotly discussed. In this article, I first defend that, although there are ethical reasons (founded on the principles of benefit and fairness) to consider the age of patients in triage dilemmas, using age as a categorical exclusion is an unjustifiable ageist practice. Then, I argue that ageism during the pandemic has been fueled by media narratives and unfair assumptions which have (...) led to an ethically problematic group homogenization of the older population. Finally, I conclude that an intersectional perspective can shed light on further controversies on ageism and triage in the post-pandemic future. (shrink)

Why is it that we cannot legitimately make certain aesthetic assertions – for instance that ‘Guernica is harrowing’ or that ‘The Rite of Spring is strangely beautiful’ – on the basis of testimony alone? In this paper I consider a species of argument intended to demonstrate that the best explanation for the impermissibility of such assertions is that a particular view of the norms of aesthetic belief – pessimism concerning aesthetic testimony – is correct. I begin by outlining the strongest (...) instance of such ‘arguments from assertion’ and demonstrating that it presents a powerful motivation for embracing pessimism; the view that it is illegitimate to form aesthetic beliefs on the basis of testimony alone. I then go on to argue that, appearances notwithstanding, the pessimist’s opponents – optimists concerning aesthetic testimony – are able to provide an explanation for the impermissibility of these assertions which is at least as good as, and in some respects better than, that offered by their pessimist. The explanation I propose draws on some important work on signalling in aesthetics, by Denis Dutton and others, to argue that the problem with such assertions is closely parallel to the problem Dutton claims is generated by forgeries. Those making such assertions misrepresent a piece of aesthetic labour as their own, when, in fact, it is the work of another. I also explore the wider implications of this view for debates in aesthetic epistemology and beyond. (shrink)

Jon Erling Litland’s “Meta-Ground” is concerned with the question: If A grounds B, what grounds the fact that A grounds B? His chapter begins by discussing what turns on this question. The chapter then compares the two main existing solutions to the problem of meta-ground. It ends by discussing how the problem of meta-ground is connected to other issues in the theory of ground and what are the main issues for future research.

Unusability pessimism has recently emerged as an appealing new option for pessimists about aesthetic testimony—those who deny the legitimacy of forming aesthetic beliefs on the basis of testimony. Unusability pessimists argue that we should reject the traditional pessimistic stance that knowledge of aesthetic matters is unavailable via testimony in favour of the view that while such knowledge is available to us, it is unusable. This unusability stems from the fact that accepting such testimony would violate an important non-epistemic norm of (...) belief formation. In this article I present an objection to unusability pessimism and argue that Robert Hopkins, the view's most prominent defender, fails to motivate adequately the claim that there are such non-epistemic belief norms. The cases which putatively legitimize usability norms can be explained by appeal to more familiar norm types: epistemic norms of belief formation, and non-epistemic norms which govern action other than belief formation. The intent of this article is not primarily negative, however, and I will also argue that understanding why the unusability position fails helps us to identify a promising new direction for the pessimist's opponents who wish to defend the legitimacy of forming aesthetic beliefs on the basis of testimony. (shrink)

Controversial industry sectors, such as alcohol, gambling, and tobacco, though long-established, suffer organizational legitimacy problems. The authors consider various strategies used to seek organizational legitimacy in the U.K. casino gambling market. The findings are based on a detailed, multistakeholder case study pertaining to a failed bid for a regional supercasino. They suggest four generic strategies for seeking organizational legitimacy in this highly complex context: construing, earning, bargaining, and capturing, as well as pathways that combine these strategies. The case analysis and (...) proposed bidimensional model of generic legitimacy-seeking strategies contribute to limited literature on organizational legitimacy in controversial industry sectors. In addition, beyond organizations active in controversial contexts, this study and its implications are useful for individuals and organizations supporting or opposing the organizational legitimacy of organizations in controversial industries. (shrink)

Jon Roffe shows how Empiricism and Subjectivity is the precursor for some of Deleuze's most well-known philosophical innovations. For those already familiar with Deleuze, he emphasises its novelty within his corpus. And, for all readers, he shows how it outlines Deleuze's powerful and striking theory of subjectivity, and of philosophy itself. Empiricism and Subjectivity is Gilles Deleuze's first book, and yet it is infrequently read and poorly understood. In fact, it constitutes a unique project in its own right, deserving of (...) the same close study that is now widely given to other, more well-known works. (shrink)

Tome I: Afrikaans to Dutch -- Tome II: English -- Tome III: Estonian to Hebrew -- Tome IV: Hungarian to Korean -- Tome V: Latvian to Ukrainian -- Tome VI: Figures A-H -- Tome VII: Figures I-Z.

In browsing the contents of this book, my first thought was, “Well, sure, to a hammer everything looks like a nail.” Or, more cryptically to those in earshot, I uttered, “Well, sure, once you've made it through Ulysses everything can sound like Joyce.” But the joy and mental workout of All Future Plunges come not from nitpicking particular Joycean tropes or images but rather from considering Joyce as a cultural phenomenon for all who followed to engage with, immerse themselves in, (...) and speak to. His works anchor Vergara's five case studies in twentieth-and twenty-first-century Russian literature (Olesha, Nabokov, Bitov, Sokolov, and Shishkin). Joyce is deployed as a source of intertexts and influences and as the lens through which the Russian works are read. Vergara includes “points of contact” for each author to show knowledge of Joyce as well as the context in which Joyce was being read and discussed in Soviet, émigré, and post-Soviet literary spheres. The framing work on intertextuality is significant in its own right and leads to compelling notions of how literary influences can be detected and discussed. Behind it all looms the bespectacled presence of Joyce (gazing out from the book's cover in pop-art primary colors) with his Oedipal tensions, modern epic style, bawdy language, and sonorous prose. But essentially what Vergara's book gives us is a glimpse of creative and smart people reading the work of another creative smart person.Vladimir Nabokov, an outspoken devotee of Joyce, had a peculiar rationale for not believing in heaven. He wrote that even if, in the afterlife, he found himself in paradise surrounded by all of his dead loved ones, he would not be able to shake the gnawing doubt that at any point these beloved phantoms might pull off their masks and reveal themselves to be demons. After reading All Future Plunges, a similar fear may grip the reader of modernist literature—that the many varied and nuanced references we find in these works may one day all prove to be simply myriad instantiations of Joyce in disguise. But even when that happens, I suppose we may still think to call it heaven. (shrink)

The claim that corporations are not people is perhaps the most frequently voiced criticism of the United States Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. There is something obviously correct about this claim. While the nature and extent of obligations with respect to group agents like corporations and labor unions is far from clear, it is manifest in moral understanding and deeply embedded in legal practice that there is no general requirement to treat them like natural persons. Group (...) agents may be denied rights to marry, vote, or run for public office. More generally the need to guard against discrimination, the core injustice in racism and sexism, has no direct application to the case of group agents. There is also something obviously incorrect about the claim that corporations are not people. The legal practice of treating some group agents as persons under law is ancient, found already in Roman law at the time of Justinian. In this essay I propose that reflection on this tension reveals that fundamental revision to the doctrine of legal personhood is needed. More specifically I propose that legal personhood be decomposed into at least two elements—standing and liability—and that legal systems reject the principle that an entity possesses one just in case it possesses the other. The import of this change ramifies broadly. Decomposing legal personhood not only enables a satisfactory account of the status of corporations and labor unions, who as such have liability but not standing, it also enables a satisfactory account of the status of those who as such have standing but not liability: severely mentally disabled persons, very young children, and non-human animals with phenomenal consciousness but lacking capacities to understand reasons and justifications. (shrink)

In “Proof-Theoretic Justification of Logic”, building on work by Dummett and Prawitz, I show how to construct use-based meaning-theories for the logical constants. The assertability-conditional meaning-theory takes the meaning of the logical constants to be given by their introduction rules; the consequence-conditional meaning-theory takes the meaning of the logical constants to be given by their elimination rules. I then consider the question: given a set of introduction rules \, what are the strongest elimination rules that are validated by an assertability (...) conditional meaning-theory based on \? I prove that the intuitionistic introduction rules are the strongest rules that are validated by the intuitionistic elimination rules. I then prove that intuitionistic logic is the strongest logic that can be given either an assertability-conditional or consequence-conditional meaning-theory. In “Grounding Grounding” I discuss the notion of grounding. My discussion revolves around the problem of iterated grounding-claims. Suppose that \ grounds \; what grounds that \ grounds that \? I argue that unless we can get a satisfactory answer to this question the notion of grounding will be useless. I discuss and reject some proposed accounts of iterated grounding claims. I then develop a new way of expressing grounding, propose an account of iterated grounding-claims and show how we can develop logics for grounding. In “Is the Vagueness Argument Valid?” I argue that the Vagueness Argument in favor of unrestricted composition isn’t valid. However, if the premisses of the argument are true and the conclusion false, mereological facts fail to supervene on non-mereological facts. I argue that this failure of supervenience is an artifact of the interplay between the necessity and determinacy operators and that it does not mean that mereological facts fail to depend on non-mereological facts. I sketch a deflationary view of ontology to establish this. (shrink)

The concept of quasi-cause is a relatively marginal one in the work of Gilles Deleuze, appearing briefly in The Logic of Sense and then Anti-Oedipus three years later. In part because of this marginality – the meagre degree to which it is integrated into the respective metaphysical system of the two works – it provides us with a useful vantage point from which to examine these systems themselves. In particular, a careful exposition of the two forms that the concept of (...) the quasi-cause takes provides us with an aperture on the shifting role of the concepts of the virtual and the intensive in Deleuze's ongoing project. In this paper, I will argue that, through this aperture, it is possible to see the displacement of the virtual in favour of the intensive. In turn, we can characterise Anti-Oedipus as the birth of a fully actualist Deleuzian metaphysics. (shrink)

ABSTRACTCritical Theory and contemporary psychoanalytic perspectives share many compatibilities in offering a constructive critique of society. Psychoanalysis teaches us that whatever values and ideals societies adopt, they are always mediated through unconscious psychic processes that condition the collective in both positive and negative ways, and in terms of relations of recognition and patterns of social justice. Contemporary critical theory may benefit from engaging post-classical and current trends in psychoanalytic thought that have direct bearing on the ways we conceive of and (...) observe how individuals operate within social collectives. In particular, Axel Honneth relies on psychoanalytic sources that are dated. Critical theory would profit from engaging post-object relations schools such as self psychology, analytical psychology, psychoanalytic intersubjectivity theory, relationality, and contemporary attachment theory that are more nuanced yet can supplement Winnicottian perspectives. Implications for contemporary theory need to reflect upon how the psychosocial matrix of self and society both facilitate and hinder optimal social arrangements and fabrics of justice as it takes up the question of normativity. It is within this context that I hope to introduce contemporary psychoanalytic paradigms that move beyond classical models yet complement redirecting shifts in emphasis both psychoanalysis and Critical Theory attempt to accomplish. I suggest that an applied psychoanalytic explication on social phenomenology can expand the interpretive depth and breadth of human relations and open up a permissible space for interdisciplinary discourse. Here new vistas emerge for a proposed synthesis between the two schools of thought. (shrink)

En el cristianismo, un elemento se eleva por sobre los demás en su darse: la gracia, dación gratuita que Dios otorga a su criatura. Principalmente, la gracia se entiende y estudia como aquel don dado a la naturaleza de la criatura para su complementación o perfección. Sin embargo, el tema no encuentra su agotamiento ahí, pues la gracia también puede ser dispensada para la finalización de un designio intrahistórico, tal como narran los Evangelios.

This paper examines a number of questions about the degree to which the clinical practice of medicine is affected, if at all, by the legal systems in four countries: Chile, Germany, Japan and the United States. The focus on these four countries in four different regions of the world offers a unique perspective within which to examine medical treatment decisions made by patients and their proxies or surrogates, the potential role for universal written instruments such as advance directives, the cross-professional (...) tensions between clinical and legal concerns in very distinct cultures, and the degree to which legal activities can change or affect clinical realities in the context of these different political and health care systems. We have incorporated, whenever relevant, the insights of many disciplines, including the social sciences, in analyzing the existing interrelations between law and behavior in this specific context. Der Beitrag untersucht, inwieweit die klinische Praxis in vier Ländern mit unterschiedlichen Rechtssystemen und Berufskulturen durch Rechtsnormen oder das Verständnis von Recht beeinflußt wird. Es wird gefragt, welche Funktion rechtliche Interventionen bei der Veränderung von Verhaltensnormen in unterschiedlichen Gesundheitssystemen haben können. Folgende Themenbereiche werden diskutiert: Entscheidungen über die medizinische Behandlung, die von Patienten und ihren Angehörigen oder Stellvertretern getroffen werden; die mögliche Rolle umfassender schriftlicher Verfügungen wie z.B. der Patiententestamente ; die berufsübergreifenden Spannungen zwischen medizinischen und rechtlichen Belangen in sehr unterschiedlichen Kulturen; der Einfluß, den gesetzgeberische Aktivitäten im Kontext der verschiedenen politischen und Gesundheitssysteme auf die medizinische Wirklichkeit haben. Bei ihrer Analyse der in diesem Zusammenhang bestehenden Beziehungen im Verhältnis von Recht und Verhalten haben die Autoren die Erkenntnisse vieler Disziplinen unter Einschluß der Sozialwissenschaften, soweit sie als relevant erscheinen, in ihren Beitrag eingearbeitet. (shrink)

Presenting results from a Norwegian empirical study of student texts and moral education textbooks, this article contributes to the evaluation and development of contextual approaches to moral education. Theoretical perspectives from Seyla Benhabib and Mark Tappan are discussed in the light of empirical data. In particular, while textbooks focus primarily on norm aspects of morality, student texts display interactions between relation‐oriented and norm‐oriented cultural tools, indicating a possible synthesis of care and justice aspects of morality, as suggested by Benhabib. A (...) hegemony of a ‘language of justice’ over a ‘language of care’, as suggested by Benhabib and Tappan, is possibly reflected in the uneven distribution of ethical perspectives in textbooks. Student texts, however, show close interactions between relation‐oriented and norm‐oriented aspects of morality, and also indicate a female superiority in the mastery of both norm‐oriented and relation‐oriented language. (shrink)

Jon Stewart, one of the world’s leading experts on the work of Søren Kierkegaard, has here compiled the most comprehensive single-volume overview of Kierkegaard studies currently available. Includes contributions from an international array of Kierkegaard scholars from across the disciplines Covers all of the major disciplines within the broad field of Kierkegaard research, including philosophy; theology and religious studies; aesthetics, the arts and literary theory; and social sciences and politics Elucidates Kierkegaard’s contribution to each of these areas through examining the (...) sources he drew upon, charting the reception of his ideas, and analyzing his unique conceptual insights into each topic Demystifies the complex field of Kierkegaard studies creating an accessible entry-point into his thought and writings for readers new to his work. (shrink)

This paper discusses reconciliation as a strategy to heal social wounds caused by dictatorial regimes or deep economic crises. The paper treats two such examples: The failed attempts of the Icelandic government to reach a deal with the UK and the Netherlands about the repayment of debts incurred by the bankrupt Landsbanki Íslands and the prosecution of Mr. Geir Haarde, formerly Prime Minister of Iceland. It is argued that although reconciliation strategies have in some cases been partially successful, it can (...) be counterproductive to prefer moral aspirations or goals, such as rebuilding trust after serious political, social or economic disintegration, to strictly legal ways of dealing with individual cases. As the case with Mr. Haarde shows, the endeavor to achieve moral goals using legal means can backfire in unexpected ways. (shrink)