There are two competing interpretations of the modern synthesis theory of evolution: the dynamical (also know as ‘traditional’) and the statistical. The dynamical interpretation maintains that explanations offered under the auspices of the modern synthesis theory articulate the causes of evolution. It interprets selection and drift as causes of population change. The statistical interpretation holds that modern synthesis explanations merely cite the statistical structure of populations. This paper offers a defense of statisticalism. It argues that a change in trait frequencies (...) in a population can be attributed only to selection or drift against the background of a particular statistical description of the population. The traditionalist supposition that selection and drift are description‐independent causes of population change leads the dynamical interpretation into a dilemma: it must face a contradiction or accept the loss of explanatory power. (shrink)

According to historical theories of biological function, a trait's function is determined by natural selection in the past. I argue that, in addition to historical functions, ahistorical functions ought to be recognized. I propose a theory of biological function which accommodates both. The function of a trait is the way it contributes to fitness and fitness can only be determined relative to a selective regime. Therefore, the function of a trait can only be specified relative to a selective regime. Apart (...) from its desirable pluralism, only this view of relational function can support the function/accident and function/malfunction distinctions commonly thought to be part of the concept of function. Furthermore, only relational function correctly characterizes the explanatory consequences of function attributions in evolutionary biology. (shrink)

The concept of the environment appears to be indispensably involved in adaptive explanation. Quite what its role is, however, is a matter of some dispute. The environment is customarily viewed as the dual of the organism; a wholly external, discrete, autonomous cause of evolution. On this view, the external environment is the principal cause of the adaptedness of form, and the determinant of what it is to be an adaptation. I argue that this conception of the environment neither adequately explains (...) nor individuates evolutionary adaptations. Instead, adaptation, properly construed, is an evolutionary response to affordances. The environment, traditionally construed, underdetermines an organism’s affordances. Instead, I argue that the environment takes its place in evolutionary models not as a discrete causal entity, but as an abstraction. (shrink)

This paper brings together several strands of thought from both the analytic and phenomenological traditions in order to critically examine accounts of cognitive enhancement that rely on the idea of cognitive extension. First, I explain the idea of cognitive extension, the metaphysics of mind on which it depends, and how it has figured in recent discussions of cognitive enhancement. Then, I develop ideas from Husserl that emphasize the agential character of thought and the distinctive way that conscious thoughts are related (...) to one another. I argue that these considerations are necessary for understanding why forms of cognitive extension may diminish our cognitive lives in different ways. This does not lead to a categorical rejection of cognitive enhancement as unethical or bad for human flourishing, but does warrant a conservative approach to the design and implementation of cognitive artifacts. (shrink)

A central project of Enlightenment thought is to ground claims to natural freedom and equality. This project is the foundation of Suchon’s view of freedom. But it is not the whole story. For, Suchon’s focus is not just natural freedom, but also the necessary and sufficient conditions for oppressed members of society, women, to avail themselves of this freedom. In this paper I, first, treat Suchon’s normative argument for women’s right to develop their rational minds. In Section 2, I consider (...) Suchon’s three necessary and sufficient conditions for freedom, and the manners in which women are blocked from meeting them. The normative argument together with the obstacles to women meeting the conditions for freedom raises the question of how to get women into a position where they can enjoy the freedom to which they are entitled. In Section 3, I outline Suchon’s answer: women must live a life without attachment. I argue this answer situates Suchon both chronologically and theoretically between the Béguines, a medieval women’s spiritual movement, and 20th century feminist separatism. I conclude that Suchon’s view of freedom is radical, both for its time and ours, and deserves greater attention from historians of philosophy and of feminist thought. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt is widely regarded as a political theorist who sought to rescue politics from ‘society’, and political theory from the social sciences. This conventional view has had the effect of distracting attention from many of Arendt’s most important insights concerning the constitution of ‘society’ and the significance of the social sciences. In this article, I argue that Hannah Arendt’s distinctions between labor, work and action, as these are discussed in The Human Condition and elsewhere, are best understood as a (...) set of claims about the fundamental structures of human societies. Understanding Arendt in this way introduces interesting parallels between Arendt’s work and both classical and contemporary sociology. From this I draw a number of conclusions concerning Arendt’s conception of ‘society’, and extend these insights into two contemporary debates within contemporary theoretical sociology: the need for a differentiated ontology of the social world, and the changing role that novel forms of knowledge play in contemporary society as major sources of social change and order. (shrink)

Despite 40 years of dialogue, debate still continues over whether psychedelics are capable of inducing genuine mystical experiences. This paper first reviews the arguments against this possibility and shows that all of them contain shortcomings. One reason the debate still continues is that there has been no adequate theory of mystical states and their relationship to the factors which produce them. Consequently a theory of mystical states based on Charles Tart’s systems model of consciousness is proposed. This theory suggests how (...) identical states of consciousness can be induced by very different means, including contemplative practices and chemical substances, and yet have different after-effects. Taken together, these ideas lead to the cautious conclusion that some psychedelics can induce genuine mystical experiences sometimes in some people, and that the current tendency to label these chemicals as entheogens may be appropriate. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“Normalizing” Intersex Didn’t Feel Normal or Honest to Me.Karen A. WalshI am an intersex woman with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS). My 57–year history with this has its own trajectory—mostly driven by medical events, and how I and my parents reacted. Most of my treatment by physicians has not been positive. It didn’t make me “normal” at all. I was born normal and didn’t require medical interventions. And by (...) the way, I’ve never been confused about who or what I am.Truthful disclosure didn’t come to me about my biology and what was done to me as an infant until I was 33, when I forced the issue by removing my medical records from my endocrinologist’s office. I learned that there was never full disclosure to my [End Page 119] parents either, and therefore there was no informed consent for the “corrective” surgeries performed on me as an infant. My parents were only told that their little girl would get cancer and would not have a normal development as a girl unless her “deformed ovaries” were removed, and that they should never discuss these problems with me. Thus, after having presented with an inguinal hernia and having exploratory surgery at age 16 months, my intra–abdominal testes were removed in a second surgery two months later. I was pronounced a “male pseudohermaphrodite,” a diagnosis that was shared neither with my parents nor with me.Years later, I discovered an article my surgeon published in 1960 in the Delaware Medical Journal about me and another intersex person he operated on (whom he labeled a “true hermaphrodite”). The article gives a very detailed pathology report of my gonads, but only two sentences regarding my welfare and the rationale for performing those surgeries. Dr. J. F. Kustrup wrote in this article, “These [two cases] emphasize the need for early diagnosis and treatment in order to avoid the possibility of malignant change and to permit these individuals to follow a normal psychosexual pattern.” And: “Hermaphroditism and pseudohermaphroditism are conditions in which early diagnosis and treatment are essential to avoid malignant degeneration and to allow the child some chance toward normal pyschic [sic] development.” I was grateful to find this article because it revealed the unfounded assumptions underpinning the recommendations for treatment, much of which continues today. Worse even than the sort of social prejudice that shapes treatment is the absence of evidence for what doctors treat as “necessary” interventions. For my syndrome, CAIS, there never was—and still is not—data to support the cancer scare, or the opinion that I’d be confused and not have a normal life.From about the age of four, I can remember being different and being stonewalled by my doctor and prevented by my parents from talking about it. The feelings and fears I tried to express were shushed away, and I could tell that my questions were upsetting everyone. Even if I had wanted to be complicit with their lame diversions and nonsensical explanations, the massive abdominal scars were there as a daily reminder and hinted at a very different story.The Road to Hell is Paved with Good IntentionsGrowing up, I was treated like a fascinoma and a lab rat at a major teaching hospital on the East Coast. All I learned from those doctors as a young kid was what it feels like to be ogled, photographed and probed by a roomful of white–coated male doctors. Dissociation made itself my friend, and helped me to cope through the annual genital and anal exams and probing. I thought I was a freak and I felt completely powerless to protect myself from them and their “care”.At my annual appointment at age 12, with my mom present, three doctors told me I was infertile. Learning that I couldn’t have kids really saddened and shocked me, but there was no opportunity to talk about my feelings—either that day, or any time afterward. I was told to stop crying. I remember them telling me that there was no one else like me and that this was a random genetic anomaly, thereby reinforcing the freakishness... (shrink)

C.C.E. Schmid’s doctrine of intelligible fatalism was immensely influential in the immediate reception of Kant’s philosophy. Existing treatments of this doctrine, largely neglected by modern scholarship, echo uncharitable interpretations espoused by Schmid’s contemporaries. I demonstrate that Schmid’s intelligible fatalism is more coherent and philosophically robust than hitherto recognized. I argue for a novel interpretation of Schmid’s account of rational agency, showing that intelligible fatalism is compatible with his conceptions of freedom, obligation, and imputation. Specifically, I argue that the role of (...) consciousness in this account carves out conceptual space for a distinction between the theoretical and the practical that is sufficient to render intelligible fatalism consistent with these conceptions. (shrink)

Philosophy of history is not a subject which has hitherto attracted much attention in this country. Preoccupation with the methods and achievements of the natural sciences, and distaste for the sort of rationale of history as a whole which Hegel and others offered under the title in the early nineteenth century, have served to make most British philosophers accord its problems only the most casual recognition. It is therefore all the more interesting to find an English writer of unusual powers (...) both of argument and expression, who was himself an historian of distinction in his special field, devoting a large part of his philosophical thinking to the problems of historical knowledge and their wider implications. Unfortunately, R. G. Collingwood was not able to begin the major work on philosophy of history, to writing which, as we are told in the introduction to the present book, he had looked forward for twenty-five years, until his powers were seriously affected by bad health, and he did not live to complete it. But though the full results of his thinking on the subject are lost, we are now able, thanks to the skilful work of his friend Professor T. M. Knox, to study what is in effect an extensive interim report on it. Professor Knox has produced The Idea of History largely on the basis of lectures which Collingwood prepared in 1936, supplemented by two essays already published which date from the same period and a certain amount of material from the unfinished Principles of History written in 1939. (shrink)

This essay amounts to a commentary on some of the leading doctrines of the Analogies of Experience, whose main contention I take to be that we should not be in possession of a unitary time-system unless certain things were true, and indeed necessarily true, of the world of experienced fact. A unitary time-system is one in which all temporal ascriptions—all dates and durations—are directly relateable; it makes sense inside such a system to ask of every supposed happening whether it preceded, (...) followed or was simultaneous with anything else which is taken to happen. Kant assumes, obviously correctly as it seems to me, that the temporal system we have at least purports to be unitary in this way. He also assumes, again as I see it uncontrovertibly, that statements assigning dates to events or durations to processes are intended to say something about the objective world, instead of to record what particular persons happen to feel. We do contrast real with apparent duration, but it is the former which necessarily occupies our primary attention, for only if we first fix the real position of some things in the temporal process can we speak effectively of the apparent position of other things. The real, here as elsewhere, is the normal, the apparent the deviant, and you cannot understand the deviant until you grasp that from which it deviates. Our chief aim in operating a system of temporal concepts must accordingly be to say what objectively is the case. (shrink)

We concur with Cohen Kadosh & Walsh (CK&W) that representation of numbers in the parietal cortex is format dependent. In addition, we suggest that all formats do not automatically, and equally, access analog magnitude representation in the intraparietal sulcus (IPS). Understanding how development, learning, and context lead to differential access of analog magnitude representation is a key question for future research.

One of the longest and most acrimonious polemics in the history of philosophy is between Antoine Arnauld and Nicolas Malebranche. Their central disagreements are over the nature of ideas, theodicy, and, the topic of this paper, grace. We offer the most in-depth English language treatment of their discussion of grace to date. Our focus is one particular aspect of the polemic: the power of finite agents to assent to grace. We defend two theses. First, we show that as the debate (...) progresses, the differences between Arnauld and Malebranche become, surprisingly, less pronounced—despite mutual accusations of Pelagianism and Calvinism. Our second thesis is developed to explain the outcome of the first. We argue that the employment of different methodologies to interrogate the relationship between efficacious grace and human power prohibits any possibility of reconciliation between Arnauld and Malebranche. (shrink)

Caregiving relationships are often characterized by an imbalance of power between the caregiver and her cared-for. The danger that this power will be abused is a source of serious moral concern. In this article, I argue that the risk of an abuse of power sometimes stems not from the possession of power itself, but from the very nature of caring relationships. This is because carers must be prepared to exercise non-minimal amounts of power over their cared-fors, even if doing so (...) is likely to cause the cared-for distress or even pain. This means that caring itself, rather than the malign influence of power dynamics, generates a risk of unintentional abuse. One of the ways in which this risk can be reduced, I argue, is by trying to avoid an exclusive focus on the outcomes of care, and by paying more attention to the way in which that care is delivered. (shrink)

Aristotle’s best human life is attained through theoretical contemplation, and Confucius’ is attained through practical cultivation of the social self. However, I argue that in the best human life for both Confucius and Aristotle, a form of theoretical contemplation must occur and can only occur with an ethical commitment to community life. Confucius, like Aristotle, sees that the best contemplation comes after later-life, greater-learning and is central to ethical and community life. Aristotle, like Confucius, sees the best contemplation as presupposing (...) full ethical commitment to community life. So, I argue for the theses that: on Aristotle’s view, the best human contemplation requires one be fully morally good; on Confucius’ view, to be fully morally good requires the best human contemplation; being fully morally good for both requires commitment to the good of others and the community. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to address the recently renewed debate pertaining to esotericism, secret messages encoded within writings from antiquity, especially in the writings of Plato. The question of esotericism has assumed a prominent role within debates concerning the history of political thought. Ever since Leo Strauss offered his suspicion that there were secrets ‘buried in the writings of the rhetoricians of antiquity’, the idea that philosophers deliberately concealed their true beliefs in a way that few could detect (...) has been fiercely debated. More recently, the research of J.B. Kennedy has made international headlines for discovering a musical pattern embedded within Platonic writings, a pattern that Kennedy insists is evidence of Plato’s Pythagorean allegiance. The theses proffered by Strauss and Kennedy are empty doctrines of esotericism, or empty esotericisms. These doctrines insinuate the presence of secret or coded writing within Platonic dialogues but reveal no actual secret. These theses of esotericism falsely represent Plato as hyper-cryptic.Without actually providing substantive content, these notions of esotericism compel the reader to merely negate the exoteric writings of Plato, which actually render his already heterodox writings as commonplace and orthodox. (shrink)

Originally published in 1963. An outline of the metaphysical positions held by such major philosophers as Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hegel, Kant, Hume, Moore, Bradley, Wittgenstein. The author maintains - controversially - that metaphysical arguments have a close bearing on religious and moral beliefs.

Book Information Necessary Goods: Our Responsibilities to Meet Others' Needs. Edited by Gillian Brock. Rowman and Littlefield. Lanham, MD. 1998. Pp. ix + 238. Hardback, US$63.00. Paperback, US$23.95.

The axiom of comparability has been a fundamental part of mathematical choice theory from its beginnings. This axiom was a natural first assumption for a theory of choice originally constructed to explain decision making where other assumptions such as continuous divisibility of choice spaces could legitimately also be made. Once the generality of application of formal choice theory becomes apparent, it also becomes apparent that both continuity assumptions and the axiom of comparability may be unduly restrictive and lead to the (...) neglect of decision situations which are important and which can be handled on a modified axiom set. These considerations bear on the philosophical analysis of the concept of rational decision. (shrink)

A personalist account of persons -- Persons as beyond good and evil -- Reality transcends itself in persons -- God as the seal of the personal -- Art as the radiance of persons in reality -- History as the memory of persons -- Politics of the person.

Though predictive processing approaches to the mind were originally applied to exteroceptive perception, i.e., vision and action, recent work has started to explore the role of interoceptive perception, i.e., emotion and affect. This article builds on this work by extending PP beyond emotion to the construction of emotional dispositions. I employ principles from dynamical systems theory and PP to provide a model of how dispositional anger can develop in response to early experiences of psychosocial stress. The model is then deployed (...) to explain the established link between psychosocial stress in early life and the appearance of certain organic disease phenotypes in later life. This phenomenon can appear mysterious when viewed through the standard biomedical explanatory lens, which has difficulty accounting for the causal influence of subjective perceptions and evaluations of the social and material environment on the development of organic disease processes. The model provided presents such cases as instances of developmental mismatch. They occur when an organism develops an emotional disposition that leads them to make habitually-biased appraisals of what the social environment affords. The model provides a novel explanation of certain organic disease phenotypes with top-down and developmental causes, and demystifies one class of cases involving apparently spooky ‘mind-to-matter’ causation. (shrink)