Recordings of neuronal activity in the monkey superior colliculus (SC) suggest that the two apparently independent effects of a visual distractor on both temporal (latency) and spatial (metrics) saccade parameters may be the result of lateral interactions between subpopulations of saccade-related neurons located at different sites on the motor map of the superior colliculus. One subpopulation is activated during the planing and initiation of a saccade; the other is activated by the appearance of a distractor. The inhibitory or facilitative nature (...) of this interaction depends on the distance between the distractor and the target and is consistent with the complex pattern of intrinsic and commissural collicular connections. (shrink)

Context: The dominant approach to the study of perception is representational/computational, with an emphasis on the achievements of the brain and the nervous system, which are taken to construct internal models of the world. Alternatives include ecological, embedded, embodied, and enactivist approaches, all of which emphasize the centrality of action in understanding perception. Problem: Despite sharing many theoretical commitments that lead to a rejection of the classical approach, the alternatives are characterized by important contrasts and points of divergence. Here we (...) focus on the enactive and ecological approaches, in particular, on how they construe the status of the environment and the content of perception. Method: We begin with a review of James Gibson’s ecological psychology, highlighting it as a psychology for all organisms not just humans. Against this backdrop, we consider enactivist arguments against direct perception - a central assertion of the ecological approach - and in favor of interpreting the activity of perceptual agents as a kind of construction of a perceptually meaningful world. Results: We assess the merits of this interpretation and we conclude that it cannot be grounded on fundamental principles such as thermodynamics and organism-environment mutuality. Implications: As a consequence, enactivism remains close to representationalism and entails a form of dualism. Constructivist content: We advance a criticism of the constructivist foundations of the enactive approach to perception. Perception-action mutuality at the heart of enactivism does not require mental construction; indeed, perception-action mutuality obviates construction. (shrink)

Because of cultural differences between East and West, any attempt at outright adaptation of Western ideas in Asia will undoubtly encounter problems, if not rejection. Transferring an idea from one place to another is just like transplanting an organ from a donor to a recipient—rejection is to be expected. Human cultures respond to new ideas from different value systems in very much the same way.Recently, biomedical ethics has received much attention in Asia. Fundamental advances in medicine have motivated medical scientists (...) to look at the ethical issues arising from this progress. Will the principles upheld by the bioethicists in the West meet the challenge in Asia? This article argues that Asian bioethicists must develop a bioethics responding to their own cultural contexts. If Western principles are adopted, then they must be re-interpreted and even modified, if necessary, in light of Asian beliefs. (shrink)

If the a priori is the proper subject matter of transcendental philosophy, then the problems of the a priori are also problems for transcendental philosophy. the idea that defines transcendental philosophy is the idea that there are stable general structures which are discernible in experience, provide the foundations of our knowledge of it, and collectively constitute an a priori which transcends experience and informs it. the a priori is traditionally conceived as a nexus of relations which is held to be (...) logically/temporally prior to experience and responsible for its organization. in this essay, i challenge this traditional (kantian) understanding of the a priori and set forth an alternative to it based on the writings of maurice merleau-ponty. the intent is to provide a new conception of transcendental philosophy. (shrink)

In their simplest form, hybrid languages are propositional modal languages which can refer to states. They were introduced by Arthur Prior, the inventor of tense logic, and played an important role in his work: because they make reference to specific times possible, they remove the most serious obstacle to developing modal approaches to temporal representation and reasoning. However very little is known about the computational complexity of hybrid temporal logics.In this paper we analyze the complexity of the satisfiability problem of (...) a number of hybrid temporal logics: the basic hybrid language over transitive trees; nominal Until logic; and referential interval logic. We discuss the effects of including nominals, the @ operator, the somewhere modality E, and the difference operator D. Adding nominals to tense logic leads for several frame-classes to an increase in complexity of the satisfiability problem from PSPACE to EXPTIME. On transitive trees, however, the satisfiability problem for this language can be decided in PSPACE. Along the way we make a detour through hybrid propositional dynamic logic: we establish upper bounds for a number of temporal logics by generalizing results due to Passy and Tinchev [29] and De Giacomo [16]. We conclude with some remarks on the relevance of our results to description logic, and draw attention to the utility of the spypoint technique for proving upper and lower bounds. (shrink)

Physicians have an ethical responsibility to their patients to offer the best available medical care. This responsibility conflicts with their role as gatekeepers of the limited health care resources available for all patients collectively. It is ethically untenable to expect doctors to face this trade-off during each patient encounter; the physician cannot be expected to compromise the wellbeing of the patient in the office in favour of anonymous patients elsewhere. Hence, as in other domains of public policy where individual and (...) collective interests conflict, some form of collective solution is required. Collective solutions may take the form of placing explicit resource constraints on resources available to physicians, or clinical practice guidelines that recognise cost-effective care as acceptable. Such solutions will be politically and ethically sustainable only if patients as citizens of the larger population accept the need for rationing of limited resources in health care. (shrink)

The first part of this paper examines the practice of informed treatment decisions in the protective medical system in China today. The second part examines how health care professionals in China perceive and carry out their responsibilities when relaying information to vulnerable patients, based on the findings of an empirical study that I had undertaken to examine the moral experience of nurses in practice situations. In the Chinese medical ethics tradition, refinement [jing] in skills and sincerity [cheng] in relating to (...) patients are two cardinal virtues that health care professionals are required to possess. This notion of absolute sincerity carries a strong sense of parental protectiveness. The empirical findings reveal that most nurses are ambivalent about telling the truth to patients. Truth-telling would become an insincere act if a patient were to lose hope and confidence in life after learning of his or her disease. In this system of protective medical care, it is arguable as to whose interests are being protected: the patient, the family or the hospital. I would suggest that the interests of the hospital and the family members who legitimately represent the patient's interests are being honoured, but at the expense of the patient's right to know. (shrink)

The requirement of gauge invariance for the Schwinger-DeWitt equations, interpreted as a manifestly covariant quantum theory for the evolution of a system in spacetime, implies the existence of a five-dimensional pre-Maxwell field on the manifold of spacetime and “proper time” τ. The Maxwell theory is contained in this theory; integration of the field equations over τ restores the Maxwell equations with the usual interpretation of the sources. Following Schwinger's techniques, we study the Green's functions for the five-dimensional hyperbolic field equations (...) for both signatures ± [corresponding to O(4, 1) or O(3, 2) symmetry of the field equations] of the proper time derivative. The classification of the Green's functions follows that of the four-dimensional theory for “massive” fields, for which the “mass” squared may be positive or negative, respectively. The Green's functions for the five-dimensional field are then given by the Fourier transform over the “mass” parameter. We derive the Green's functions corresponding to the principal part ΔP and the homogeneous function Δ 1 ; all of the Green's functions can be expressed in terms of these, as for the usual field equations with definite mass. In the O(3, 2) case, the principal part function has support for x2⩾τ2, corresponding to spacelike propagation, as well as along the light cone x2=0 (for τ=0). There can be no transmission ofinformation in spacelike directions, with this propagator, since the Maxwell field, obtained by integration over τ, does not contain this component of the support. Measurements are characterized by such an integration. The spacelike field therefore can dynamically establish spacelike correlations. (shrink)

This article analyzes US drone operations through a historical and ethnographic analysis of the remote split paradigm used by the US Air Force. Remote split refers to the globally distributed command and control of drone operations and entails a network of human operators and analysts in the Middle East, Europe, and Southeast Asia as well as in the continental United States. Though often viewed as a teleological progression of “unmanned” warfare, this paper argues that historically specific technopolitical logics establish the (...) conditions of possibility for the work of war to be divisible into discreet and computationally mediated tasks that are viewed as effective in US military engagements. To do so, the article traces how new forms of authorized evidence and expertise have shaped developments in military operations and command and control priorities from the Cold War and the “electronic battlefield” of Vietnam through the Gulf War and the conflict in the Balkans to contemporary deployments of drone operations. The article concludes by suggesting that it is by paying attention to divisions of labor and human–machine configurations that we can begin to understand the everyday and often invisible structures that sustain perpetual war as a military strategy of the United States. (shrink)

Today's modern car is an assemblage of mechanical and digital components, of metal panels that comprise its structure and silicon chips that run its functions. Communication and information studies scholars have interrogated the problematic aspects of the programs that run those functions, revealing serious issues surrounding privacy and security, worker surveillance, and racial, gendered, and class-based bias. This article contributes to that work by taking a step back and asking about the issues inherent not in the software running on these (...) chips, but on the microchips themselves. Using the lens of “chipification”—the process by which a device is rendered capable of reading and processing data through the embedding of microchips—this article explores how the integration of microchips also involves processes that are often borne from, replicate, or create troubling power dynamics of their own. It takes light-duty passenger vehicles as a case study into how chipification is radically reshaping such processes as resource allocation, labor flows, and cultural practices around car manufacture, use, repair, and modification. By naming the process of chipification, this article allows researchers to identify and analyze the ways that integrating data processing capabilities into everyday devices is not a frictionless practice, but rather one that implicates a variety of power dynamics within these massive industries. (shrink)

M. C. Dillon was widely regarded as a world-leading Merleau-Ponty scholar. His book Merleau-Ponty’s Ontology is recognized as a classic text that revolutionized the philosophical conversation about the great French phenomenologist. Dillon followed that book with two others: Semiological Reductionism, a critique of early-1990s linguistic reductionism, and Beyond Romance, a richly developed theory of love. At the time of his death, Dillon had nearly completed two further books to which he was passionately committed. The first one offers a highly original (...) interpretation of Nietzsche’s ontology of becoming. The second offers a detailed ethical theory based on Merleau-Ponty’s account of carnal intersubjectivity. The Ontology of Becoming and the Ethics of Particularity collects these two manuscripts written by a distinguished philosopher at the peak of his powers—manuscripts that, taken together, offer a distinctive and powerful view of human life and ethical relations. (shrink)

Le XI.ème Congrès International de Philosophie Médiévale de la Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale (S.I.E.P.M..) s’est déroulé à Porto (Portugal), du 26 au 30 août 2002, sous le thème général: Intellect et Imagination dans la Philosophie Médiévale. A partir des héritages platonicien, aristotélicien, stoïcien, ou néo-platonicien (dans leurs variantes grecques, latines, arabes, juives), la conceptualisation et la problématisation de l’imagination et de l’intellect, ou même des facultés de l’âme en général, apparaissaient comme une ouverture possible pour aborder (...) les principaux points de la pensée médiévale. Les Actes du congrès montrent que « imagination » et « intellect » sont porteurs d’une richesse philosophique extraordinaire dans l’économie de la philosophie médiévale et de la constitution de ses spécificités historiques. Dans sa signification la plus large, la théorisation de ces deux facultés de l’âme permet de dédoubler le débat en au moins six grands domaines: — la relation avec le sensible, où la fantaisie/l’imagination joue le rôle de médiation dans la perception du monde et dans la constitution de la connaissance ; — la réflexion sur l’acte de connaître et la découverte de soi en tant que sujet de pensée ; — la position dans la nature, dans le cosmos, et dans le temps de celui qui pense et qui connaît par les sens externes, internes et par l’intellect ; — la recherche d’un fondement pour la connaissance et l’action, par la possibilité du dépassement de la distante proximité du transcendant, de l’absolu, de la vérité et du bien ; — la réalisation de la félicité en tant qu’objectif ultime, de même que la découverte d’une tendance au dépassement actif ou mystique de toutes les limites naturelles et des facultés de l’âme ; — la constitution de théories de l’image, sensible ou intellectuelle, et de ses fonctions. Les 3 volumes d’Actes incluent les 16 leçons plénières et 112 communications, ainsi que les index correspondants (manuscrits ; noms anciens et médiévaux ; noms modernes ; auteurs). Le volume IV des Actes, contenant 39 communications et des index, est publié par la revue " Mediaevalia. Textos e Estudos ", du Gabinete de Filosofia Medieval de l’Universidade do Porto (volume 23, de 2004). Ouvrage publié avec l’appui de l’Universidade do Porto, de la Faculdade de Letras da U.P., du Departamento de Filosofia - F.L.U.P. et de la Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portugal). (shrink)

This volume sheds light on still unexplored issues and raises new questions in the main areas addressed by the philosophy of science. Bringing together selected papers from three main events, the book presents the most advanced scientific results in the field and suggests innovative lines for further investigation. It explores how discussions on several notions of the philosophy of science can help different scientific disciplines in learning from each other. Finally, it focuses on the relationship between Cambridge and Vienna in (...) twentieth century philosophy of science. The areas examined in the book are: formal methods, the philosophy of the natural and life sciences, the cultural and social sciences, the physical sciences, and the history of the philosophy of science. (shrink)

We give an example of a countable theory $T$ such that for every cardinal $\lambda \geq \aleph_2$ there is a fully indiscernible set $A$ of power $\lambda$ such that the principal types are dense over $A$, yet there is no atomic model of $T$ over $A$. In particular, $T$ is a theory of size $\lambda$ where the principal types are dense, yet $T$ has no atomic model.

Stanley, M.C., A Π12 singleton incompatible with 0#, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 66 27–88. A non-constructible Π12 singleton that is absolute for ω-models of ZF is produced by class forcing over the minimum model.

A frequent objection to the fine-tuning argument has been that although certain necessary conditions for life were admittedly exceedingly improbable, still, the many possible alternative sets of conditions were all equally improbable, so that no special significance is to be attached to the realization of the conditions of life. Some authors, however, have rejected this objection as fallacious. The object of this paper is to state the objection to the fine-tuning argument in a more telling form than has been done (...) hitherto, and to meet the charge of fallacy. (shrink)

The effects of school inspections on school improvement have been investigated only to a limited degree. The investigation reported on in this article is meant to expand our knowledge base regarding the impact of school inspections on school improvement. The theoretical framework for this research is partly based on the policy theory behind the Dutch Educational School Supervision Act (the latter includes assumptions about how school inspections lead to school improvement). Interviews and a survey with school inspectors gave insight into (...) how school inspectors implement the Supervision Act and how they assess schools, and stimulate schools to improve. The results of ten case studies showed that all schools started to improve after a school visit. The innovation capacity of the school and the school environment do not seem to contribute to school improvement after school inspections. No effects were found on school-improvement processes of the number of insufficient scores that schools received from inspectors, the extent of feedback and suggestions for improvement, and the number of agreements. The provision of feedback about weaknesses, the assessment of these weak points as unsatisfactory, and the agreements between an inspector and the school regarding improvement activities do appear to make a difference in promoting school improvement. (shrink)

Originally published in 1988, M.C. Dillon's classic study of Merleau-Ponty is now available in a revised second edition containing a new preface and a new chapter on "Truth in Art." Dillon's thesis is that Merleau-Ponty has developed the first genuine alternative to ontological dualism seen in Western philosophy. From his early work on the philosophical significance of the human body to his later ontology of flesh, Merleau-Ponty shows that the perennial problems growing out of dualistic conceptions of mind and body, (...) subject and object, immanence and transcendence can be resolved within the framework of a new way of thinking based on the exemplar of the worldly embodiment of thought. (shrink)

Considering the lack of substantive scientific or theoretical studies about ethics in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Latin America, this paper examines the context of an existent paradox, based upon the perspective of experts and academicians of Latin America and the Caribbean. These countries live different realities, due to their respective European cultural influences, as well as to racial and economic issues. Such facts impact the size and characteristics of their industries. On the other hand, the SMEs face (...) more similarities in the region, so they will be treated as a group in the discussion of ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Latin American SMEs. As this topic has not been sufficiently investigated in this geographic area, the objective of this exploratory study is to offer a contribution for future research. It raises the main dilemmas and intends to explain how legislation and common practices enable and perhaps lead SMEs to choose unethical strategies to survive and compete in the market. These enterprises are growing in number and in job creation, but do not participate in the Gross National Product in the same proportion. Informality, tax evasion and corruption are gradually caused or erode morality in business, but can contribute to corporate social responsibility in the region. The paper tries to show positive and negative aspects of apparently unethical practices and discusses challenging ways to solve complex problems that are common in most Latin America. (shrink)

In the context of a covariant mechanics with Poincaré-invariant evolution parameter τ, Sa'ad, Horwitz, and Arshansky have argued that for the electromagnetic interaction to be well posed, the local gauge function of the field should include dependence on τ, as well as on the spacetime coordinates. This requirement of full gauge covariance leads to a theory of five τ-dependent gauge compensation fields, which differs in significant aspects from conventional electrodynamics, but whose zero modes coincide with the Maxwell theory. The pre-Maxwell (...) fields may exchange mass with charged particles, permitting pair annihilation even at the classical level. The total mass-energy-momentum tensor of the fields and particles is conserved. The Green's functions for the fields provide spacelike and timelike support for correlations, as well as lightlike propagation. A τ-integration of the fields—singling out the massless photons—recovers the standard Maxwell theory, which then has the character of an equilibrium limit of the underlying microscopic dynamics. The pre-Maxwell theory also turns out to be the solution of the inverse problem in variational mechanics: it is shown to be the most general local gauge theory consistent with unconstrained commutation relations in four dimensions. Posed in this framework, the extension to n-dimensions, curved background space, and non-abelian gauge symmetry becomes straightforward. (shrink)

A class K of structures is controlled if for all cardinals λ, the relation of L∞,λ-equivalence partitions K into a set of equivalence classes . We prove that no pseudo-elementary class with the independence property is controlled. By contrast, there is a pseudo-elementary class with the strict order property that is controlled 69–88).

A new human life comes into being not when there is mere cellular life in a human embryo, but when the newly developing body organs and systems begin to function as a whole, the author argues. This is symmetrical with the dealth of an existing human life, which occurs when its organs and systems have permanently ceased to function as a whole. Thus a new human life cannot begin until the development of a functioning brain which has begun to co-ordinate (...) and organise the activities of the body as a whole. (shrink)

In this paper we will show that Hempel's covering law model can't deal very well with explanations that are based on incomplete knowledge. In particular the symmetry thesis, which is an important aspect of the covering law model, turns out to be problematic for these explanations. We will discuss an example of an electric circuit, which clearly indicates that the symmetry of explanation and prediction does not always hold. It will be argued that an alternative logic for causal explanation is (...) needed. And we will investigate to what extent non-monotonic epistemic logic can provide such an alternative logical framework. Finally we will show that our non-monotonic logical analysis of explanation is not only suitable for simple cases such as the electric circuit, but that it also sheds new light on more controversial causal explanations such as Milton Friedman's explanation of the business cycle. (shrink)

Purpose: Yerkish is an artificial language created in 1971 for the specific purpose of exploring the linguistic potential of nonhuman primates. The aim of this paper is to remind the research community of some important issues and concepts related to Yerkish that seem to have been forgotten or appear to be distorted. These are, particularly, its success, its promising aspects for future research and last but not least that it was Ernst von Glasersfeld who invented Yerkish: he coined the term (...) “lexigrams,” created the first 120 of them and designed the grammar that regulated their combination. Design: The first part of this paper begins with a short outline of the context in which the Yerkish language originated: the original LANA project. It continues by presenting the language itself in more detail: first, its design, focusing on its “lexigrams” and its “correlational” grammar, and then its use by the chimpanzee Lana in formulating sentences. The second part gives a brief introduction to the foundation of Yerkish in Silvio Ceccato’s Operational Methodology, particularly his idea of the correlational structure of thought and concludes with the main insights that can be derived from the Yerkish experiment seen in the light of Operational Methodology. Findings: Lana’s success in language learning and the success of Yerkish during the past decades are probably due to the characteristics of Yerkish, particularly its foundation in operational methodology. The operation of correlation could be what constitutes thinking in a chimpanzee and an attentional system could be what delivers the mental content that correlation assembles into triads and networks. Research implications: Since no other assessment or explanation of Lana’s performances has considered these foundational issues, a new research project or program should validate the above-mentioned hypotheses, particularly the correlational structure of chimpanzee thinking. (shrink)

Theories of truth and vagueness are closely connected; in this article, I draw another connection between these areas of research. Gupta and Belnap’s Revision Theory of Truth is converted into an approach to vagueness. I show how revision sequences from a general theory of definitions can be used to understand the nature of vague predicates. The revision sequences show how the meaning of vague predicates are interconnected with each other. The approach is contrasted with the similar supervaluationist approach.