This paper is one of the four interrelated action agenda papers resulting from the National Summit on Public Health Legal Preparedness convened in June 2007 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and multi-disciplinary partners. Each of the action agenda papers deals with one of the four core elements of legal preparedness: laws and legal authorities; competency in using those laws; coordination of law-based public health actions; and information. Options presented in this paper are for consideration by policymakers and (...) practitioners — in all jurisdictions and all relevant sectors and disciplines — with responsibilities for all-hazards emergency preparedness.One expert's framing of the mission of public health may help improve understanding of the range of hazards for which to be legally prepared. These hazards include urgent realities — such as chronic disease, injury, disabilities, conventional communicable diseases, and an aging and obese population — and urgent threats, such as pandemic influenza, natural disasters, and terrorism. (shrink)

We present a simple distributed concept that appears to insinuate SWARM behavior in a collection of mobile platforms. The control is based on the inter-mobile platform communication links’ signal-to-noise ratio. This double use of communications is a natural linkage for SWARM behavior.

In this paper, we discuss the macroscopic quantum behavior of simple superconducting circuits. Starting from a Lagrangian for electromagnetic field with broken gauge symmetry, we construct a quantum circuit model for a superconducting weak link (SQUID) ring, together with the appropriate canonical commutation relations. We demonstrate that this model can be used to describe macroscopic excitations of the superconducting condensate and the localized charge states found in some ultrasmall-capacitance weak-link devices.

The statistical properties of a single quantum object and an ensemble of independent such objects are considered in detail for two-level systems. Computer simulations of dynamic zero-point quantum fluctuations for a single quantum object are reported and compared with analytic solutions for the ensemble case.

Campbell's target article is a stimulating attempt to extend our understanding of sex differences in risk-taking behaviors. However, Campbell does not succeed in demonstrating that her account adds explanatory power to those (e.g., Daly & Wilson 1994) previously proposed. In particular, little effort was made to explore the causal links between survival (staying alive) and reproduction.

Our approach to emotion emphasized three key ingredients. We do not yet have a mature science of emotion, or even a consensus view—in this respect we are more hesitant than Sander, Grandjean, and Scherer or Luiz Pessoa. Relatedly, a science of emotion needs to be highly interdisciplinary, including ecology, psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy. We recommend a functionalist view that brackets conscious experiences and that essentially treats emotions as latent variables inferred from a number of measures. But our version of functionalism (...) is not definitional or ontological. It is resolutely methodological, in good part because it is too early to attempt definitions. (shrink)

Most versions of the knowledge argument say that, since scientists observing my brain wouldn't know what my consciousness "is like," consciousness isn't describable as a physical process. Although this argument unwarrantedly equates the physical with the empirically observable, we can conclude, not that consciousness is nonphysical but that consciousness isn't identical with anything empirically observable. But what kind of mind&endash;body relation would render possible this empirical inaccessibility of consciousness? Even if multiple realizability may allow a distinction between consciousness and its (...) physical substrata, why does this distinction make consciousness empirically unobservable? The reason must be that the emotions motivating attention direction, partly constitutive of phenomenal states, are executed, not undergone by self-organizing processes actively appropriating and replacing needed physical substrata; we feel motivations by generating them. But all consciousness is motivated; visual cortex activation is unconscious of red unless the emotional limbic system and anterior cingulate motivatedly "look for" red. Experiencing entails executing motivations. Experimenters do know what subjects' brain events "are like" ---; but from the standpoint of the experimenter's motivational processes. (shrink)

Most versions of the knowledge argument say that if a scientist observing my brain does not know what my consciousness 'is like,' then consciousness is not identical with physical brain processes. This unwarrantedly equates 'physical' with 'empirically observable.' However, we can conclude only that consciousness is not identical with anything empirically observable. Still, given the intimate connection between each conscious event and a corresponding empirically observable physiological event, what P-C relation could render C empirically unobservable? Some suggest that C is (...) a relation among Ps which is distinguishable because it is multi-realizable; that is, C could have been realized by P2 rather than P1 and still have been the same relation. C might even be a 'self-organizing' process, appropriating and replacing its own material substrata. How can this account explain the empirical unobservability of consciousness? Because the emotions motivating attention direction, partly constitutive of phenomenal states, are executed, not undergone, by organisms. Organisms-self-organizing processes actively appropriating their needed physical substrata-feel motivations by generating them. Thus, experiencing someone's consciousness entails executing his or her motivations. (shrink)

The Hatata Inquiries are two extraordinary texts of African philosophy composed in Ethiopia in the 1600s. Written in the ancient African language of Geʿez (Classical Ethiopic), these explorations of meaning and reason are deeply considered works of rhetoric. They advocate for women's rights and rail against slavery. They offer ontological proofs for God and question biblical commands while delighting in the language of Psalms. They advise on right living. They put reason above belief, desire above asceticism, love above sectarianism, and (...) the natural world above the human. They explore the nature of being as well as the nature of knowledge, the human, ethics, and the human relation with the divine. They are remarkable examples of something many assume doesn't exist: early written African thought. This accessible English translation of the Hatata Inquiries, along with extensive footnotes documenting the cultural and historical context and the work's many textual allusions, enables all to read it and scholars to teach with it. The Hatata Inquiries are essential to understanding the global history of philosophy, being among the early works of rational philosophy. The book includes a translation by Ralph Lee with Mehari Worku and Wendy Laura Belcher of the Hatata Zara Yaqob and the Hatata Walda Heywat. The appendices by Jeremy R. Brown provide information on the scribal interventions in and the differences between the manuscripts of the two Hatatas. The book also includes a map, chronology, summary of the translation principles, and a discussion of the authorship debate about the Hatata Inquiries. (shrink)

Ralph Webers Beitrag setzt ein mit der Situation konfuzianischer Selbstkultivierung im Kontext aktueller politischer Entwicklungen der VR China. Sein Beitrag zeigt, wie schwer es führenden Vertretern der neukonfuzianischen Bewegung fällt, Selbstkultivierung kritisch zu denken, das heißt, nicht bloß als ideologischen Ersatz für die schwindende Legitimität des Marxismus-Leninismus im Rahmen des autoritären Regimes der kommunistischen Partei zu verstehen.

"Dishonesty inspires more euphemisms than copulation or defecation. This helps desensitize us to its implications. In the post-truth era we don't just have truth and lies but a third category of ambiguous statements that are not exactly the truth but fall just short of a lie. Enhanced truth it might be called. Neo-truth . Soft truth . Faux truth . Truth lite ." Deception has become the modern way of life. Where once the boundary line between truth and lies was (...) clear and distinct, it is no longer so. In the post-truth era, deceiving others has become a challenge, a game, a habit. High-profile dissemblers compete for news coverage, from journalists like Jayson Blair and professors like Joseph Ellis to politicians (of all stripes), executives, and "creative" accountants. Research suggests that the average American tells multiple lies on a daily basis, often for no good reason. Not a finger-wagging scolding, The Post-Truth Era is a combination of Ralph Keyes's investigative journalism and solid science. The result is a spirited exploration of why we lie about practically everything and the consequences such casual dishonesty has on society. American society has become permeated from top to bottom by deception. Its consequences for the nature of public discourse, media, business, literature, academia, and politics are profound. With dry humor, passionate fervor, and deep understanding, Ralph Keyes takes us on a tour of a world where truth and honesty are no longer absolutes but mutable, fluid concepts. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDie Studie zielt ab auf die thematische Eingrenzung und Fokussierung eines Ideals der Liberalität im Sinne eines Komplexes wünschenswerter Persönlichkeitseigenschaften wie Vorurteilsfreiheit, Ungezwungenheit und Offenheit, Wohlwollen und Geselligkeit in Denkart und Sozialverhalten. Zu diesem Zweck grenzt sie die Thematik zunächst gegen eine liberale Gesellschaftstheorie ab, für welche individuelles Verhalten, soweit nur rechtskonform, vollkommen irrelevant ist und als einem vorpolitischen Bereich zugehörig angesehen werden kann. Dessen Bedeutung jedoch für das sogenannte „soziale Klima“ wird in einem zweiten Schritt durch die Gegenüberstellung eines (...) pluralistisch-agonalen liberalen Gesellschaftsmodells, nämlich dem Peter Sloterdijks, und des mit seiner Konzeption des „genuin Liberalen“ an Homöostase und Geselligkeit orientierten Modells Theodor W. Adornos erläutert. Ein Grundzug dieses letzteren Modells sind präreflexive Spontaneität und Natürlichkeit im Verhalten, was eine Abgrenzung gegen normative Ethik, aber auch gegen das Fünf-Faktoren-Modell der Persönlichkeitspsychologie nötig macht. Die Studie schließt mit einem Ausblick auf die ästhetische Theorie Friedrich Schillers, da in ihr Natürlichkeit, Offenheit und Wohlwollen eine intrinsische Einheit bilden. (shrink)

THE VISIBLE HAND: THE MANAGERIAL REVOLUTION IN AMERICAN BUSINESS by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977. 608 pp., $9.95 paper STRATEGY AND STRUCTURE: CHAPTERS IN THE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL ENTERPRISE by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1962. 463 pp., $9.95 paper.

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

Many philosophers think that internalism supports a noncognitivist account of normative judgments, according to which these judgments do not count as genuine beliefs, but rather as non-cognitive states of some kind. Such noncognitivist accounts of normative judgments naturally accompany an expressivist account of the meaning of normative statements. This chapter considers the prospects of such an expressivist theory, taking as its paradigm the most recent theory of Allan Gibbard. It is argued that this theory is vulnerable to a strengthened form (...) of the objection that P. T. Geach derived from the work of Frege. This makes it plausible that expressivist accounts face insuperable problems, and so that both expressivism and non-cognitivism should be rejected. (shrink)

Inductive characterizations of the sets of terms, the subset of strongly normalizing terms and normal forms are studied in order to reprove weak and strong normalization for the simply-typed λ-calculus and for an extension by sum types with permutative conversions. The analogous treatment of a new system with generalized applications inspired by generalized elimination rules in natural deduction, advocated by von Plato, shows the flexibility of the approach which does not use the strong computability/candidate style à la Tait and Girard. (...) It is also shown that the extension of the system with permutative conversions by η-rules is still strongly normalizing, and likewise for an extension of the system of generalized applications by a rule of ``immediate simplification''. By introducing an infinitely branching inductive rule the method even extends to Gödel's T. (shrink)

Any physical explanation of consciousness seems to leave unresolved the ‘explanatory gap': Isn't it conceivable that all the elements in that explanation could occur, with the same information processing outcomes as in a conscious process, but in the absence of consciousness? E.g. any digital computational process could occur in the absence of consciousness. To resolve this dilemma, we propose a biological-process-oriented physiological- phenomenological characterization of consciousness that addresses three ‘paradoxical’ qualities seemingly incompatible with the empirical realm: The dual location of (...) phenomenal properties ‘out there’ yet ‘in here’ in consciousness; the mysterious ‘thickness’ of the specious present; the feeling of ‘free agency', that we can voluntarily direct our actions, including the act of conscious attention, while at the same time attention and the emotions that direct it seem responsive to physiological substrates with physical causes. These paradoxes are then resolved by relating three elements of consciousness: organismically interested anticipation; sensory and proprioceptive imagery generated by the interested anticipation rather than by sensory input; resonating of these activities with activity stimulated by sensory data, where the interested anticipation precedes the processing of the input. Each of these elements is bridged to physiological processes such that, if they occur in a certain relation to each other, we can understand why they would inevitably be accompanied by the corresponding elements of conscious experience. (shrink)

Assume that all algebras are atomless. (1) $Spind(A x B) = Spind(A) \cup Spind(B)$ . (2) $(\prod_{i\inI}^{w} = {\omega} \cup \bigcup_{i\inI}$ $Spind(A_{i})$ . Now suppose that $\kappa$ and $\lambda$ are infinite cardinals, with $kappa$ uncountable and regular and with $\kappa \textless \lambda$ . (3) There is an atomless Boolean algebra A such that $\mathfrak{u}(A) = \kappa$ and $i(A) = \lambda$ . (4) If $\lambda$ is also regular, then there is an atomless Boolean algebra A such that $t(A) = \mathfrak{s}(A) = (...) \kappa$ and $\mathfrak{a}(A) = \lambda$ . All results are in ZFC, and answer some problems posed in Monk [01] and Monk [ $\infty$ ]. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In Which Henry James Strikes BedrockRalph M. BerryIn Stanley Cavell’s account of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, everything we know depends upon what Wittgenstein calls grammatical criteria. These criteria are what we go on when judging that something counts as an instance of our concept of a “chair,” “ardent love,” “headache,” etc. For the arts, Wittgenstein’s focus on criteria leads in two, apparently opposite, directions. First, by making the activity of (...) judging constitutive for language and culture, Wittgenstein makes aesthetics (or what is traditionally called aesthetics) a model for all philosophical activity. Determining the basis on which a phenomenon will count as an instance of any concept turns out to involve capacities that formerly seemed relevant only in cases of aesthetic judgment.But Wittgenstein’s focus on criteria also works against this centrality of aesthetics, for it makes an exceptional or limiting case of the art contemporary with Wittgenstein. According to Cavell, what modernist art reveals is that judging what counts as a novel, painting, sculpture, etc., is no longer determined by grammatical criteria, or none to which we have access as we do our criteria for “chair,” “ardent love,” “headache,” etc. This does not mean, or not quite, that nobody knows any longer what a novel is. It comes closer to meaning that the experience of modern art is of finding out what we know, what our criteria for sculptures, paintings, novels are. And it makes modernism the disclosure of a new artistic necessity: not merely to create a new work, but to create a new basis for work, a new medium for fiction. 1In what follows my aim is to see how this necessity arises. My focus is on a particular period of Henry James’s career, roughly from his review of Eliot’s Middlemarch in 1873 to his essay on Maupassant in 1888, a [End Page 61] period that surrounds his now famous response to Walter Besant in “The Art of Fiction.” I do not insist that this moment in James’s career is a founding moment for modernist fiction. My only insistence is that, whatever conditions do give rise to modernism—either for a whole culture or for an individual—they look like this moment.INear the end of “The Art of Fiction,” Henry James takes issue with Walter Besant (and the critic Andrew Lang) over the use of the word “story.” 2 His stated provocations are, first, that Besant (in his lecture) has distinguished between “a part of a novel which is the story and part of it which... is not” (“AF,” p. 178) and, second, that Besant and Lang (in his review of Besant’s lecture) have made “adventure” a defining feature of any story (p. 179). James’s procedure in the first case is to give examples of “the only [sense of ‘story’] that I see” in which it can be spoken of as different from the novel as a whole. His procedure in the second case is to give examples of what constitutes an adventure “for me” (or what “I should say” is an adventure) and to confess that he is “utterly at a loss to see why” the plot of his own novella “An International Episode” does not count as an adventure if the other examples cited by Lang and Besant do. James gives no reasons why anyone ought to use the words “story” and “adventure” as he does. If we see senses of “story” other than the ones that James sees, if the fact that he is “utterly at a loss” makes no impression on us, or if we just do not care what Henry James considers adventurous, nothing he says seems designed to change our minds. His whole case rests on nothing stronger than the likelihood that, in the circumstances he describes, we too will call or judge or find what he calls/judges/finds “a story,” “an adventure,” “exciting,” etc. If we don’t, of course, we just don’t, but the surprise is how often we do. 3Contrary to what James maintains, the problem with Besant and Lang’s definition of “story” is not that it is “altogether arbitrary” (p. 179... (shrink)

In the development of the immune response, the dendritic cell subset of leukocytes plays a key role in enhancing immunogenicity. Dendritic cells can pick up antigens in the tissues and move to lymphoid organs, through which T cells continually recirculate. It is proposed that dendritic cells at these sites express functions which have beenidentified in tissue culture models. These involve efficient binding to antigen‐specific T lymphocytes, as well as the induction of the lymphokines and growth factor receptors required for immunity. (...) The dendritic cell system, apparently under the control of cytokines, is a sentinel designed to signal T cells that a significant antigen burden is present, and to generate the activated T lymphoblasts that interact with many other cell types to bring about an immune response. (shrink)

This is a review of T. M. Scanlon's book "Being Realistic about Reasons", which is based on the Locke Lectures that Scanlon gave in Oxford in 2009.