The splicing of pre‐mRNAs in vitro is accomplished by formation of RNA intermediates in a lariat form. Lariat RNAs have been recently identified in vivo supporting the validity of the proposed pathway for processing pre‐mRNAs in vitro.We have recently reported20 a partial purification scheme for a pre‐mRNA splicing activity. Purification of the individual components and eventually reconstitution of the reaction with purified activities will firmly establish the pathways for pre‐mRNA splicing and help to elucidate the detailed biochemical mechanism of the (...) several reactions involved in mRNA splicing. (shrink)

Peter Anstey presents a thorough and innovative study of John Locke's views on the method and content of natural philosophy. Focusing on Locke's Essay concerning Human Understanding, but also drawing extensively from his other writings and manuscript remains, Anstey argues that Locke was an advocate of the Experimental Philosophy: the new approach to natural philosophy championed by Robert Boyle and the early Royal Society who were opposed to speculative philosophy. On the question of method, Anstey shows how Locke's pessimism (...) about the prospects for a demonstrative science of nature led him, in the Essay, to promote Francis Bacon's method of natural history, and to downplay the value of hypotheses and analogical reasoning in science. But, according to Anstey, Locke never abandoned the ideal of a demonstrative natural philosophy, for he believed that if we could discover the primary qualities of the tiny corpuscles that constitute material bodies, we could then establish a kind of corpuscular metric that would allow us a genuine science of nature. It was only after the publication of the Essay, however, that Locke came to realize that Newton's Principia provided a model for the role of demonstrative reasoning in science based on principles established upon observation, and this led him to make significant revisions to his views in the 1690s. On the content of Locke's natural philosophy, it is argued that even though Locke adhered to the Experimental Philosophy, he was not averse to speculation about the corpuscular nature of matter. Anstey takes us into new terrain and new interpretations of Locke's thought in his explorations of his mercurialist transmutational chymistry, his theory of generation by seminal principles, and his conventionalism about species. (shrink)

This article explores a framework for analyses of what has variously been termed the ‘implied’, ‘imagined’, ‘virtual’ or ‘putative’ reader/addressee – the effect by which ostensibly ‘monologic’ texts, such as news media commentary, political pronouncements and academic essays project particular attitudes, beliefs and expectations on to the reader/addressee. The framework is demonstrated in being applied to an examination of the construal of putative addressee positioning in a selection of mass media texts concerned with the Israeli military’s invasion of Gaza in (...) 2014. The framework is novel in the way in which it mobilises the account of the options for dialogistic positioning offered by the appraisal-framework literature, combined with some insights from Toulmin’s notion of the argumentative ‘warrant’. Conclusions are offered as to how such analyses of the readers being ‘written into the text’ can extend insights into the rhetorical workings of such texts and their ideological functionality in naturalising particular value positions. (shrink)

Layers in Husserl's Phenomenology situates Husserl firmly within the trajectory of later Continental thought and contributes to the recent reconsideration of Husserl as a legitimate precursor to the thought of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jacques Derrida.

Two medical essays in the hand of John Locke survive amongst the Shaftesbury Papers in the National Archives (National Archives PRO 30/24/47/2, ff. 31r–38v and ff. 49r–56r). Since the 1960s their authorship has been disputed. Some scholars have attributed them to the London physician Thomas Sydenham, others have attributed them to Locke. Detailed analyses of their contents and the context of their composition provide very strong evidence for Lockean authorship. This is reinforced by the application of the most recent techniques (...) of computational stylistics. (shrink)

Armstrong's Materialist Theory of Mind is one of a handful of texts that began the physicalist revolution in the philosophy of mind. In this collection, distinguished philosophers examine what we still owe to it, how to expand it, as well as looking back on how it came about.

__Nietzsche: The Key Concepts__ is a comprehensive guide to one of the most widely-studied and influential philosophers of the nineteenth century. This invaluable resource helps navigate the often challenging and controversial thought outlined in Nietzsche’s seminal texts. Fully cross-referenced throughout and in an accessible A-Z format with suggestions for further reading, this concise yet thorough introduction explores such ideas as: decadence epistemology modernity nihilism will to power This volume is essential reading for students of philosophy and will be of interest (...) to those studying in the fields of literature, religion and cultural theory. (shrink)

The dominant and deceptively simple theme of this book is the relationship between the moral environment of the courtroom and that of the society in which the court is situated. Like other Past and Present conference proceedings, the volume ranges widely across time and space, from ancient Greece to twentieth-century Africa. As a consequence, it encompasses not only the highly professional legal systems of the Roman, later medieval and modern worlds, but also the relatively unprofessionalised courts of classical Athens and (...) of the early middle ages and the alien, imposed legal systems of colonial Rhodesia and Kenya. The Moral World of the Law is based upon papers delivered at the conference of that name, sponsored by the journal Past and Present and held at the University of Birmingham in 1996. (shrink)

Drug promotion should be evaluated according to its impact on health, access to information, informed consent, and wealth. Drug promotion currently does more harm than good to each of these objectives because it is usually misleading. This is a systemic problem. Whilst improved regulation and education will address it to some degree, major reforms to payment systems for drug companies and doctors are also required. Until all these systemic reforms can be put in place, the best policy option is to (...) ban the promotion of drugs to doctors and the public. Consequently, pending major reforms, it is appropriate for governments to restrict drug promotion as much as is politically achievable. (shrink)

In this article I examine Skinner's objections to mentalism. I conclude that his only valid objections concern the "specious explanations" that mentalism might afford ? explanations that are incomplete, circular, or faulty in other ways. Unfortunately, the mere adoption of behavioristic terminology does not solve that problem. It camouflages the nature of "private events," while providing no protection from specious explanations. I argue that covert states and events are causally effective, and may be sufficiently different in their nature to deserve (...) a name other than "behavior."To call such events"mental"does not force a dualistic metaphysics: Such a distinction can be easily assimilated by an "emergent behaviorism." Emergent behaviorism would make explicit use of theories. It would be inductive and pragmatic, and would evaluate hypothetical constructs in terms of their utility in clarifying and solving the outstanding problems of the discipline. (shrink)

Peter Anstey rejects the widespread view that all knowledge for Locke is propositional. He argues, instead, that Locke accepts a form of non-propositional knowledge. The perception of the agreement and disagreement of ideas, according to Anstey's interpretation, is akin to what Bertrand Russell called “knowledge by acquaintance.” He presents a careful, four-step analysis of Locke’s view of the acquisition of knowledge, which is designed to show how the mind proceeds from perceiving to affirming, then to assenting, and finally to (...) verbalizing propositions. This comprehensive account takes into account a variety of remarks Locke makes about perception, knowledge and true or false propositions, and Anstey claims that overall this interpretation is a better fit than the orthodox view that Locke held all knowledge to be propositional. (shrink)

Early modern experimental philosophers were opposed to speculation, and yet many endorsed speculative theories. This chapter gives a partial explanation of why this is so, using Robert Boyle’s acceptance and promotion of the corpuscular philosophy as a case study. It argues that, in addition to furnishing experimental evidence for the corpuscular hypothesis in his Forms and Qualities, Boyle attempted to establish its epistemic superiority over other speculative theories on the grounds that it is founded upon superior principles. In his ‘Excellency (...) and Grounds of the Mechanical Hypothesis’, Boyle claims that the principles of the corpuscular philosophy are more intelligible, more parsimonious, ontologically primary, simpler and more comprehensive than those of its rivals. On grounds of comparative plausibility then, according to Boyle, the corpuscular philosophy is eminently preferable to its rivals. The final section of the chapter traces the legacy of Boyle’s appraisal of the epistemic status of the corpuscular philosophy in the writings of many of his compatriots from the mid-1660s to the Cyclopedia of Ephraim Chambers of 1728. (shrink)

This book presents the first integrated treatment of the philosophy of Robert Boyle, one of the leading English natural philosophers of the Scientific Revolution.

The question of the extent to which a natural philosopher like Robert Boyle was influenced by the reformers has a great deal of intrinsic interest. That Boyle was a Protestant and was well versed in the current theological issues of his day is beyond dispute. But the central question to be explored in this paper is the extent to which he was influenced either directly by the reformers themselves or indirectly by Calvinist theology. This in turn has implications for the (...) broader historiographical question of the relation between the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution. Thus a subsidiary aim of this paper is to use Boyle as a case study to test the broader historiographical claim that the Reformation played a significant, even indispensable, role in the rise of the Scientific Revolution. On this latter question my researches are only a small brick in a much larger edifice. What is true of Boyle may or may noet be usefully generalised across other Protestant natural philosophers of the early modern period. Yet Boyle, perhaps more than any other Protestant natural philosopher of this period, has been the focus of claims affirming such a connection and any case for or against them must deal with him. (shrink)

Several million people are treated with neuroleptic medications in North America each year. A large percentage of these patients develop a chronic neurologic disorder-tardive dyskinesia-characterized by abnormal movements of the voluntary muscles. Most cases are permanent and there is no known treatment. Evidence has been accumulating that the neuroleptics also cause damage to the highest centers of the brain, producing chronic mental dysfunction, tardive dementia and tardive psychosis. These drug effects may be considered a mental equivalent of tardive dyskinesia. Relevant (...) data are derived from human autopsies, brain imaging , neurophysical tests, and clinical research. That the neuroleptics can damage higher brain centers is confirmed by their known neurotoxicity and neurophysiological impact, animal autopsies, and a comparison to diseases that mimic neuroleptic effects, such as Huntington's chorea and lethargic encephalitis. Patients and the public should be informed of the danger of both tardive dyskinesia and tardive dementia. The mental health professions should severely limit the use of neuroleptics and develop safer and better alternatives to these dangerous substances. (shrink)

This book seeks to join the ongoing, interdisciplinary approach to children’s literature by means of sustained readings of individual texts by means of important works in the history of philosophy. Its inclusion of authors from both various departments—philosophy, literature, religion, and education—and various countries is an attempt to show how traditional boundaries between disciplines might become more permeable and how philosophy offers important insights to this interdisciplinary, critical conversation.

The emergence of experimental philosophy was one of the most significant developments in the early modern period. However, it is often overlooked in modern scholarship, despite being associated with leading figures such as Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, David Hume and Christian Wolff. Ranging from the early Royal Society of London in the seventeenth century to the uptake of experimental philosophy in Paris and Berlin in the eighteenth, this book provides new terms of reference for (...) understanding early modern philosophy and science, and its eventual eclipse in the shadow of post-Kantian notions of empiricism and rationalism. Experimental Philosophy and the Origins of Empiricism is an integrated history of early modern experimental philosophy which challenges the rationalism and empiricism historiography that has dominated Anglophone history of philosophy for more than a century. (shrink)

This book engages with the question of making sense of seeing in today’s technologically dominated world. It does so by exploring the notion of the ‘hypermodern’, a term which is used to capture the drive in contemporary culture to achieve ever greater speed and efficiency.

This paper examines the contents of the sixth paragraph of the “Tyrrell Memoir”. This paragraph makes some strong, critical claims about both Locke’s “obsession” with the London physician Thomas Sydenham, and his purported dismissive attitude towards another physician, Richard Lower. In the paragraph, Tyrrell sides with the First Earl of Shaftesbury’s mocking attitude towards the triumvirate Locke, his close friend David Thomas, and Sydenham, and relates some extraordinary and hitherto unknown anecdotes. Tyrrell’s claims are assessed in relation to what we (...) know about the relations between these four men and in relation to the current state of Sydenham historiography. (shrink)

This chapter provides an overview of John Locke's theory of knowledge.

This paper addresses both semantic issues of countability in linguistics, and philosophical issues arising from the problem of the many. I argue (i) that the problem of the many is orthogonal to vagueness and we should look to the semantics of count nouns and numerals for its solution; (ii) that the problem of the many is a challenge for contemporary mereological analyses of count nouns in semantics; but (iii) that the count criterion in these theories can be weakened to avoid (...) the problem. Specifically, _weak quantization_ is proposed as the criterion: a sum, _x_, counts as _n_ _P_s if and only if _x_ has _n_ disjoint parts, each of which is in the extension of _P_, but where the sum of no two of them is also in the extension of _P_. I show how importing this idea into the semantics of numerals provides a semantic means of dissolving the paradox. (shrink)

This volume brings together twelve essays exploring the history of theories of definition and essence in Western philosophy from Aristotle to Kant. Definition and essence have been central to philosophical theorising since antiquity and remain so to this day. This volume presents a series of explorations of key authors and themes connected by a common set of questions: What are definitions and essences? What are the connections between them? What are their logical and metaphysical properties? What sorts of things have (...) definitions and essences and what sorts of things do not? What functions do definitions and essences serve in the physical, mathematical, and human sciences? How, if at all, can we come to know them? This volume shows that answering these questions allows us to see in a new light key figures and movements in the history of Western thought. The volume's broad historical sweep also facilitates comparisons between different figures. And it reveals important connections between different subfields of philosophy as these were developed over the centuries - logic, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, and natural philosophy among them. Definition and Essence from Aristotle to Kant will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working in the history of philosophy, history of logic, history of mathematics, epistemology, and metaphysics. (shrink)

This is an online book exhibition at the University of Otago Library. It contains images of Hume's copy of Berkeley's New Theory of Vision, 1709.