This book provides a comprehensive guide to the conceptual methodological, and epistemological problems of biology, and treats in depth the major developments in molecular biology and evolutionary theory that have transformed both biology and its philosophy in recent decades. At the same time the work is a sustained argument for a particular philosophy of biology that unifies disparate issues and offers a framework for expectations about the future directions of the life sciences. The argument explores differences between autonomist and anti-autonomist (...) views of biology. The result is a vindication of reductionism, but one that is unexpectedly hollow. For it leaves the exponents of the autonomy of biology from physical science with as much as their view of biology really requires - and rather more than the reductionist might comfortably concede. Professor Rosenberg shows how the problems of the philosophy of biology are interconnected and how their solutions are interdependent, However, this book focuses more on the direct concerns of biologists, rather than the traditional agenda of philosophers' problems about biology. This departure from earlier books on the subject results both in greater understanding and relevance of the philosophy of science to biology as a whole. (shrink)

After the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, scientists working in molecular biology embraced reductionism—the theory that all complex systems can be understood in terms of their components. Reductionism, however, has been widely resisted by both nonmolecular biologists and scientists working outside the field of biology. Many of these antireductionists, nevertheless, embrace the notion of physicalism—the idea that all biological processes are physical in nature. How, Alexander Rosenberg asks, can these self-proclaimed physicalists also be antireductionists? With clarity (...) and wit, Darwinian Reductionism navigates this difficult and seemingly intractable dualism with convincing analysis and timely evidence. In the spirit of the few distinguished biologists who accept reductionism—E. O. Wilson, Francis Crick, Jacques Monod, James Watson, and Richard Dawkins—Rosenberg provides a philosophically sophisticated defense of reductionism and applies it to molecular developmental biology and the theory of natural selection, ultimately proving that the physicalist must also be a reductionist. (shrink)

Their general theme might be taken as, "What is the way which man ought to choose for himself?" The debate they encourage by these stimulating and frank contributions will be welcomed by those of all faiths and traditions interested in the quality of our society.

ObjectivePhysical and mental well-being are threatened by climate change. Since hospitals in high-income countries contribute significantly to climate change through their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the medical ethics imperative of ‘do no harm’ imposes a responsibility on hospitals to decarbonise. We investigated hospital stakeholders’ perceptions of hospitals’ GHG emissions sources and the sense of responsibility for reducing GHG emissions in a hospital.MethodsWe conducted 29 semistructured qualitative expert interviews at one of Germany’s largest hospitals, Heidelberg University Hospital. Five patients, 12 clinical (...) and 12 administrative employees on different levels were selected using purposive maximum variation sampling. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using the framework approach.ResultsConcerning GHG emissions, hospital stakeholders perceived energy and waste as most relevant emission sources followed by mobility. Climate change mitigation in general was considered as important. However, in their role as patients or employees, hospital stakeholders felt less responsible for climate change mitigation. They saw providing best possible medical care to be the top priority in hospitals and were often concerned that patients’ health could be jeopardised by climate change mitigation measures.ConclusionPerceptions of most important emission sources did not coincide with those in literature, highlighting the need to inform stakeholders, for instance, about pharmaceuticals as important emission source. A frequently perceived conflict between reducing emissions and providing high-quality medical care could be eased, if reducing emissions would not only be justified as a contribution to mitigation, but also as a contribution to preventing ill health—a basic principle of medical ethics. (shrink)

Defiendo la legitimidad de la pregunta acerca de cuál puede ser el estatuto cognitivo de la Teoría Económica, y sostengo que la Teoría se comprende mejor como una rama de la Filosofía Política formal, en concreto, como una especie de contractualismo. Esto parece particularmente adecuado corno explicación de la Teoría deI equilibrio general. Dado el carácter intencional de las variables explicativas de la Teoría Económica y el papel de la información al realizar una elección, se argumenta que es improbable que (...) dicha Teoría pueda garantizar el poder predictivo, que le permitiría funcionar corno teoría factual en vez de corno teoría normativa.I defend the integrity of the question of what the cognitive status of economic theory could amount to, and I argue that the theory is best understood as a compartment of formal political philosophy, in particular a species of contractarianism. This seems particularly apt as an account of general equilibrium theory. Given the intentional character of the explanatory variables of economic theory and the role of information in effecting choice, it is argued that economic theory is unlikely to secure the predictive power that would enable it to function as a factual instead of a normative theory. (shrink)

By developing an elaborate allegory, this paper attempts to show that the advertised aim of the Human Genome project, to sequence the entire 3 billion base pair primary sequence of the nucleic acid molecules that constitute the human genome, does not make scientific sense. This raises the questions of what the real aim of the project could be, and why the molecular biological community has chosen to offer the primary sequence as the objective to be funded, when identifying functionally important (...) sub-regions of the genetic material is both far more useful and independently attainable an aim. (shrink)

Secular arguments for equal and exclusively human worth generally tend to follow one of two strategies. One, which has recently gained renewed attention because of a novel argument by S. Matthew Liao, aims to directly ground worth in an intrinsic property that all humans have in common, whereas the other concedes that there is no morally relevant intrinsic difference between all humans and all other animals, and instead appeals to the membership of all humans in a special kind. In this (...) article, I argue that both strategies necessitate drawing a line that is both arbitrary and implausibly opens a moral gulf between individuals whose difference from one another in terms of empirical reality is entirely unremarkable, providing reasons to reject them that go beyond the standard objections in the literature. I conclude that, if all humans are to be included in the community of equals, we must lay to rest the idea that we can do so without also including a wide range of non-human animals. (shrink)

In this article, I address the various objections raised by Simone Chambers, Stephen White and Lea Ypi concerning my version of a critical theory of politics. I explain the basic assumptions that inform my account of a critique of relations of justification, its particular method and aims.

This article analyses the debate between Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth in a dialectical fashion. Their controversy about how to construct a critical theory of justice is not just one about the proper balance between `redistribution' and `recognition', it also involves basic questions of social ontology. Differing both from Fraser's `twodimensional' view of `participatory parity' and from Honneth's `monistic' theory of recognition, the article argues for a third view of `justificatory monism and diagnosticevaluative pluralism', also called the `first-things-first' approach. According (...) to it, theories of recognition provide an essential sensorium for analyses of social suffering and of injustice, while with respect to the justification of justice claims, a discursive conception of justification is required. This, however, does not imply a purely `formal' account of justice; rather, it leads to a substantive understanding of the `grammar of justice', motivationally, socially and institutionally. Such an account of a critical theory of justice aims at a multidimensional critique of social and political `relations of justification'. (shrink)

Analyzes the development of art during the past decade paying special attention to the works of Mondrian, Arp, Newman, and Dubuffet.

The dissertation has two parts. In Part I, I argue that the method of question and answer, that is, dialectic, had its origins not, as Plato and Aristotle might lead us to expect, with Zeno or Socrates, but with the Sophists of the fifth century. They were at the vanguard of a new rationalism that made matters which tradition had regarded as settled, subjects for debate and inquiry. They were committed to a self-consciously rationalistic conception of the arts that held (...) that expertise is a matter of rationally grounded knowledge and hence teachable. ;Of particular importance, especially in democracies, and central to their educational program was the art of rhetoric, that is, the art of rational deliberation and argumentation. It is as part of the instruction in this art that dialectic first emerges. Dialectic is a method subject to specific rules , it provides for at least two roles , and provides criteria for judging who has won a question-and-answer exchange. ;In Part II, I examine Plato's Protagoras. I focus on two sorts of passages: those where the participants seem to be engaged in such a question-and-answer exchange, and those where they comment on what they are doing. Examination of the text leads to the conclusion that both Socrates and Protagoras proceed as if this method of argumentation were antecedently familiar, and Socrates and Protagoras both ask and answer questions in accord with its rules. Thus the difference between Socrates and the Sophists cannot consist in their relying on essentially different methods of argumentation . ;I end by suggesting that if there is a difference between Socrates and the Sophists, it consists in Socrates making explicit what the Sophists had been relying on, though only imperfectly: a commitment to the avoidance of contradictions. (shrink)

Focuses on a neglected aspect of the Heidegger controversy: the question of Martin Heidegger's relationship to the industrialization of death as symbolized by Auschwitz. Contributors seek to comprehend the meaning of Heidegger's post-war silence about the Holocaust, as well as the meaning of his several explicit references to the Extermination, in the light of his preoccupation with the nihilism that he believed to be the hallmark of our technological world. Essays reflect the editors' concern to avoid both censorship and partisanship (...) in their selections—resulting in a wide diversity of viewpoints, and the full spectrum of views, that have arisen in the course of the ongoing Heidegger debate. (shrink)

Panqualityism, recently defended by Sam Coleman, is a variety of Russellian monism on which the categorical properties of fundamental physical entities are qualities, or, in Coleman’s exposition, unconscious qualia. Coleman defends a quotationalist, higher-order thought version of panqualityism. The aim of this paper is, first, to demonstrate that a first-order representationalist panqualityism is also available, and to argue positively in its favor. For it shall become apparent that quotationalist and first-order representationalist panqualityism are, in spite of their close similarities, radically (...) different theories: quotationalist panqualityism locates qualities in the subject of an experience, while first-order panqualityism locates qualities in the world. I argue that this makes quotationalist panqualityism implausible and first-order, representationalist panqualityism a highly natural, elegant, and intuitive theory. (shrink)

This paper argues that nothing that has been discovered in the increasingly complex delails of gene regulation has provided any grounds to retract or qualify Crick's version of the central dogma. In particular it defends the role of the genes as the sole bearers of information, and argues that the mechanism of epigenetic modification of the DNA is but another vindication of Crick's version of the central dogma. The paper shows that arguments of C.K. Waters for the distinctive causual role (...) of the genes are equivalent in important respects to the present ones and concludes with a defense of the informational role of the genes against an argument from trans-actĭng genetic regulation due to Stotz. (shrink)

This paper discusses John Horton’s influential theory of toleration. Starting from his analysis of the paradoxes of toleration, I argue that the avoidance of these paradoxes requires a moral justification of toleration based on practical reason. I cite the conception of toleration that Pierre Bayle developed to support this claim. But Horton is skeptical of such a moral justification, and this creates problems for his account of toleration.

Der Forschung gelaufig ist die Rede von einer ersten (5./4. Jh. v. Chr.) und der sog. Zweiten Sophistik (2. Jh. n. Chr). Aber auch die Literatur des Hellenismus und der fruhen Kaiserzeit kennt zahlreiche Sophisten. Der Sophist, verstanden als (schlechter) Lehrer und Redner, Gegenspieler des Philosophen oder Vertreter der griechischen Bildung, bildet deshalb den Dreh-und Angelpunkt der Beitrage, die Schlaglichter auf Orte, Methoden und Personen der Bildungsvermittlung werfen. Die Beitrage zeigen, wie pagane und judische Denker, Platoniker und Stoiker Bildung als (...) Weg zum richtigen Welt- und Gottesverstandnis verstehen. Mit Beitragen von: Christian Fron, Marco Galli, Johann Goeken, Stefanie Holder, Alexandra Michalewski, Peter Scholz, Paul Schubert, Gregory E. Sterling, Werner Urbanz, Beatrice Wys. (shrink)

Among those who reject the Epicurean claim that death is not bad for the one who dies, it is popularly held that death is bad for the one who dies, when it is bad for the one who dies, because it deprives the one who dies of the good things that otherwise would have fallen into her life. This view is known as the deprivation account of the value of death, and Fred Feldman is one of its most prominent defenders. (...) In this paper, I explain why I believe that Feldman’s argument for the occasional badness of death fails. While staying within an Epicurean framework, I offer an alternative that adequately accounts for a significant range of widely held intuitions about prudential value. My account implies that death is almost always good for the one who dies, yet often less good than not dying. Finally, I discuss some puzzles that remain for my account and hint at possible ways to address them. (shrink)

In this introduction to the special section on the attributional approach to emotion and motivation, the character of Weiner’s attributional theory as an appraisal theory is discussed. I argue that the theory, although focusing on appraisal dimensions related to causal attribution, is actually a fairly general appraisal theory of emotion. Distinctive features of the attributional approach are its pioneering role in emotion research, its emphasis on the functional role of emotions, particularly for the motivation of action, and the existence of (...) a large supportive data base. Given the solid evidence compiled by attributional researchers for emotion-specific effects of emotion on motivation, I propose that future research should focus on the details of the mental mechanisms through which emotions affect motivation, and formulate five questions that could guide this inquiry. (shrink)