This book revives a neglected but important topic in philosophy: the nature of substance. The belief that there are individual substances, for example, material objects and persons, is at the core of our common-sense view of the world yet many metaphysicians deny the very coherence of the concept of substance. The authors develop an account of what an individual substance is in terms of independence from other beings. In the process many other important ontological categories are explored: property, event, space, (...) time. The authors show why alternative theories of substance fail, and go on to defend the intelligibility of interacting spiritual and material substances. (shrink)

_The Divine Attributes_is an engaging analysis of the God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from the perspective of rational theology.

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems have demonstrated impressive performance across a variety of clinical tasks. However, notoriously, sometimes these systems are “black boxes.” The initial response in the literature was a demand for “explainable AI.” However, recently, several authors have suggested that making AI more explainable or “interpretable” is likely to be at the cost of the accuracy of these systems and that prioritizing interpretability in medical AI may constitute a “lethal prejudice.” In this paper, we defend the value of interpretability (...) in the context of the use of AI in medicine. Clinicians may prefer interpretable systems over more accurate black boxes, which in turn is sufficient to give designers of AI reason to prefer more interpretable systems in order to ensure that AI is adopted and its benefits realized. Moreover, clinicians may be justified in this preference. Achieving the downstream benefits from AI is critically dependent on how the outputs of these systems are interpreted by physicians and patients. A preference for the use of highly accurate black box AI systems, over less accurate but more interpretable systems, may itself constitute a form of lethal prejudice that may diminish the benefits of AI to—and perhaps even harm—patients. (shrink)

Sentimental cosmopolitans argue that cultivating empathy for distant others is necessary in order to motivate action to address global injustices. This paper accepts the basic premises of the senti...

This chapter contains section titled: Substance Among Other Categories Substance and Independence Spinoza's Divine Substance.

According to socio-relational theory, men and women encountered different ecologies in their evolutionary past, and, as a result of different ancestral selection pressures, they developed different patterns of emotional expressivity that have persisted across cultures and large human evolutionary time scales. We question these assumptions, and propose that social-cognitive models of individual differences more parsimoniously account for sex differences in emotional expressivity.

There appear to be at least two kinds of compound physical substances: compound pieces of matter, which have their parts essentially, and living organisms, which do not. Examples of the former are carbon atoms, salt molecules, and pieces of gold; and examples of the latter are protozoa, trees, and cats. Given that there are compound entities of these two kinds, and given that they can be created or destroyed by assembly or disassembly, questions naturally arise about the nature of the (...) causal relations which unite their parts. In answer to these questions, we first argue that the parts of a compound piece of matter are connected via a relation of dynamic equilibrium of attractive and repulsive forces. We then argue that the parts of an organic living thing are united in a different way: they are functionally connected in a broadly Aristotelian sense which is compatible with an ultimately non‐teleological, naturalistic biology. (shrink)

In their article ‘Ethical and technical challenges in compensating for harm due to solar radiation management geoengineering,’ Svoboda and Irvine argue that setting up a just system of compensation...

Religion, belief and culture should be recognized as potential sources of moral purpose and personal strength in healthcare, enhancing the welfare of both clinicians and patients amidst the experience of ill-health, healing, suffering and dying. Communication between doctors and patients and between healthcare staff should attend sensitively to the welfare benefits of religion, belief and culture. Doctors should respect personal religious and cultural commitments, taking account of their significance for treatment and care preferences. Good doctors understand their own beliefs and (...) those of others. They hold that patient welfare is best served by understanding the importance of religion, belief and culture to patients and colleagues. The sensitive navigation of differences between people's religions, beliefs and cultures is part of doctors' civic obligations and in the UK should follow the guidance of the General Medical Council and Department of Health. In particular, apparent conflict between clinical judgement or normal practices and a patient's culture, religion and belief should be considered carefully. Doctors' own religion or culture may play an important role in promoting adherence to this good practice. In all matters, doctors' conduct should be governed by the law and arrangements for conscientious objection that are in effect. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWe report the findings of an experimental study that tested the contributions of semiotic and critical discourse studies on immigration. Two-way analyses of variance were conducted to examine the effects of immigration terminology on measures of attribution and empathy. Our experiment revealed a statistically significant difference in attribution. Participants who received a narrative prompt with the term ‘illegal immigrant’ evaluated the character's situation with internal attribution, and thus deserving of any negative outcomes, such as racial profiling, deportation, and separation from (...) one's family. This finding is consistent with studies that have reported the concrete effects of immigrant labels on public opinion and policy, as migrants become scapegoats for macro-structural forces. Our experiment did not reveal an effect on empathy, demonstrating the complicated symbolic and material effects produced by immigration discourse. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page 196-198.

Lakoff (2016) describes an account of conceptual representation based in part on metaphor. Though promising, this account faces several challenges with respect to learning and development.

A novel experimental paradigm that measured theory change and confidence in participants' theories was used in three experiments to test the effects of anomalous evidence. Experiment 1 varied the amount of anomalous evidence to see if “dose size” made incremental changes in confidence toward theory change. Experiment 2 varied whether anomalous evidence was convergent or replicating. Experiment 3 varied whether participants were provided with an alternative theory that explained the anomalous evidence. All experiments showed that participants' confidence changes were commensurate (...) with the amount of anomalous evidence presented, and that larger decreases in confidence predicted theory changes. Convergent evidence and the presentation of an alternative theory led to larger confidence change. Convergent evidence also caused more theory changes. Even when people do not change theories, factors pertinent to the evidence and alternative theories decrease their confidence in their current theory and move them incrementally closer to theory change. (shrink)

Thomists typically emphasize and defend Aquinas’s “realist” approach to knowledge as an alternative to modern skepticism, but Aquinas is attuned to the common experience of uncertainty, and gives principled reasons for the limits of knowledge across various domains, including especially in the realm of human action. Virtue in general, and Thomistic practical wisdom specifically, can be understood as a habit for responsibly managing choice in the face of imperfect knowledge, unpredictable circumstances, and risk. Several modern specialized disciplines – especially economics, (...) psychology, and various applied social sciences – have highlighted interesting questions about uncertainty and its practical significance, especially in evaluating risk. Emphasizing the role of uncertainty in life is thus not only an invitation for Thomists to notice neglected aspects of Aquinas’s thought, but an opportunity to bring Aquinas’s writings into conversations in other disciplines. Catholic social teaching presents a particularly promising area to engage and learn from those other disciplines in the ongoing elaboration of Thomistic thought. (shrink)

Leibniz: Modal Metaphysics Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) served as the natural end of the rationalist tradition on the European continent, which included Descartes, Spinoza, and Malebranche. His philosophy was one of the major influences on Kant. Although Leibniz had many philosophical and intellectual interests, he was arguably most concerned with reconciling the freedom required for … Continue reading Leibniz: Modal Metaphysics →.

This article recovers James Brown Scott’s conviction in American exceptionalism, a belief that underlay both his institutional work as well as his understanding of the origins and trajectory of international law. In the first section, we discuss Scott’s interpretation of Hugo Grotius as part of his tactic to make US foreign affairs policies and perspectives more compelling by presenting them as universal. In the second section, we argue that Scott’s writings on the Spanish origins of international law were in fact (...) meant to protect Anglo-American hegemony and US influence in the Americas in the face of rapidly changing geopolitical pressures. In the final section we suggest that Scott’s US exceptionalism is reflected in his use of the United States Constitution and Supreme Court as a model for key international organizations. We conclude that Scott reframed Vitoria not to redress American bias but to enshrine it. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: God and the Nature of Morality Perfect Goodness and Consequences Perfect Virtue and Moral Rules Maximal Greatness and Moral Admirability.

This paper is a response to an article in Philosophia Christi by W. Paul Franks and Richard B. Davis entitled “Against a Postmodern Epistemology.” In this article, the authors offer a critique of James K. A. Smith. I respond to three of their particular criticisms in the following manner: by explaining the motivations behind rejecting a modern “correspondence theory of truth”; revealing what I take to be an invalid inference on the topic of scripture and interpretation; and offering an alternative (...) account of the “universality” of the gospel. (shrink)

Ontological pluralism is the view that there are ways of being. In this paper, we build a new case for ontological pluralism in the form of three contributions: (1) We offer a theoretically useful definition of ‘way of being’ as a positive principle of similarity and difference that is distinct from—and a prior condition for—having properties. (2) We develop a test for distinguishing ways of being from properties: features of entities that are conceptually redundant when represented as predicates in standard (...) predicate logic are ways of being. Finally, (3) we argue that there are ways of being, i.e., there are features of entities that satisfy the definition in (1), and pass the test outlined in (2). Along the way, we reply to objections against pluralism raised by Peter van Inwagen and Wouter Cohen, in an attempt to show that pluralism is well-motivated. (shrink)

I argue that the many disparate meanings of truth in John’s Gospel ought to be con­sidered “prolegomena” for any Christian truth theory. That is to say, insofar as any theory of truth in Christian philosophy fails to accommodate the multifaceted character of truth evidenced in John, it fails as a theory. After demonstrating some of the most important meanings of truth in John, I argue that the “correspondence” theory advocated by many contemporary Christian analytic philosophers is a reductionism when considered (...) in light of these prolegomena. Finally, I defend a more adequate alternative from Anselm’s De Veritate. (shrink)

Volume 25, Issue 4, June 2020, Page 486-488.

Influential scholar and savant Abraham Joshua Heschel combines an account of the life of medieval Jewish scholar Maimonides with an introduction to his writings and their place in the broader tradition of Jewish thought.

Joshua Foa Dienstag engages in a critical encounter with the work of Stanley Cavell on cinema, focusing skeptical attention on the claims made for the contribution of cinema to the ethical character of democratic life.

The genetic component of variations in human responses to pharmacological agents is called pharmacogenetics while the molecular basis for these variations are most often identified as pharmacogenomics. Pharmacogenomics as a field of scientific endeavor is so new that in the scientific literature the two terms are often used interchangeably. In fact, the search for new drugs at the molecular level start with the identification of variations in DNA sequences whose products produce alterations in the amino acid structure of the active (...) portion of a protein which are then identified with the clinical disorder in question. This process is just the reverse of standard pharmaceutical approaches which begin with exploration of the physiological and potentially the biochemical basis of the specific disorder under study. The completion of the first draft of the human genome in the first months of the new millenium has increased expectations that molecular genetic approaches to drug disovery and development will significantly shorten the time-frame of new drug testing, significantly reduce the level of adverse events and anable the design of drugs to treat those with unique disorders.Based on such rosy expectations and the potential economic opportunities afforded by those who obtain such patents, there has been a rush of patent applications both in the United States and in Europe by private industry and university laboratories conducting genomic research to secure the rights to specific DNA sequences and federal agencies attempting to place the control of such information in the public domaine. This paper will document and discuss from a historic prospective the public policy and bioethical issues associated with the availability of patents for drug development. (shrink)

New data of recent researches on genetics and epidemiology imply the idea of rapidly evolving viruses through DNA recombination, which leads to the establishment of new virus families, eventually adapted to the environmental conditions. Consequently the framework of the epidemiological studies widens, replacing the classic aspect of the bilateral virus—host coexistence.An holistic evolutionary approach, considering all the complex interrelationship among viruses, parasites and hosts, in conjugation with the environmental changes is developing.Molecular epidemiology and updated population models renew the health strategy (...) bringing together experts from the fields of population biology, evolution and infectious diseases.The related ethical issues, which consequently emerge should be faced accordingly. (shrink)

James V. Neel, one of the leading human geneticists of the 21st Century, has long been concerned about the consequences of human overpopulation and the accompanying destruction of the earth's ecosystem. His point of view, summarized in this paper, is contrasted with some recent optimistic projections presented by demographers and population biologists who believe the population bomb has been defused by evidence of a decrease in worldwide fertility along with a significant increase in food production. The authors of this paper (...) are not so optimistic and see a continuing need for concern rather than complacency based on ever increasing human wants and aspirations together with the minimal results of recent environmental summits. The case of HIV/aids is used to illustrate the evolutionary implications of the interaction between population dynamics and genetic change based on the concepts of population bottlenecks, genetic drift and founder effects. What becomes evident from this illustration is that epidemics by viral and other pathogens in the 21st Century can affect the size of human populations and thereby the course of the species' evolutionary makeup. The potential of evolutionary medicine and in particular molecular biology to improve our prediction capabilities and modulate some of the possible consequences is discussed. (shrink)