For years there was no focus within the U.S. federal government for alternatives to animal toxicity testing. Questions coming to regulatory agencies fell upon individuals to address in the best way they could. Given this void, the ad hoc Interagency Regulatory Alternatives Group was founded by staff in a number of federal agencies in the late 1980s to coalesce efforts in the field. The group sponsored two international workshops on eye irritation, the first making proposals for change in the current (...) test method in rabbits, the second reviewing available data on in vitro alternatives. The result has been that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is considering revision of the in vivo eye irritation test guideline to incorporate a number of the workshop deliberations. However, movement of the in vitro eye irritation alternatives has been disappointing; attempts to determine their practical testing significance have thus far been unrewarding. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Joseph Priestley's Criticisms of David Hume's Philosophy RICHARD H. POPKIN ONE OF HUME'S MOST FAMOUS CRITICS, the great scientist Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), is scarcely mentioned or studied in the Hume literature.' Perhaps because of the course philosophy followed after Hume, the Scottish Common Sense critics and the German ones connected with Kant are given almost all of the attention. In this paper 1 shall try to correct this (...) oversight, and examine the background of Priestley's critique of Hume, both in terms of Priestley's scientific and religious views and in terms of Hume's influence at the time. I shall then evaluate the merits of Priestley's critique and attempt to determine whether it deserves further study or should be returned to the obscurity it has been in for almost two centuries. 2 Joseph Priestley was a nonconforming minister whose progressively radical views caused him to lose various posts. Eventually he became a millenarian, convinced that crucial signs of the end of the world were at hand: the events of the French Revolution; the purported discovery of the Lost Tribes in Afghanistan by Sir William Jones; plans or hopes for the Jews to return to Palestine and join forces with the Christians. After years of religious wanderings Priestley ended up a millenarian Unitarian, much in the tradition of Sir Isaac Newton, whose religious writing he used extensively, and of Newton's successor, William Whiston? Priestley taught science in various schools and was immensely influenced by David Hartley's Observations on Man. He found in Hartley's theory of association of ideas a naturalistic way of explaining human mental life. And in Hartley's millenarian views he located the sort of theology he was seeking. Priestly later reedited Hartley, including introductory essays about some of the more difficult aspects of his mechanistic psychology.' (Coleridge, who was deeply impressed by ' T. E. Jessop, A Bibliography of David Hume and of the Scottish Philosophy from l-)'ancis Hutcheson to Lord Balfour (New York, 1966), lists the titles of Priestley's works relevant to Hume. However, there appear to be no discussions of Priestley on Hume listed in this work or in Roland Hill, A Bibliography of David Hume from 1930 (York, 1971). E. C. Mossner, The Life of David Hume (Edinburgh, 1954), mentions Priestley's criticisms of Hume, but only as these were made in connection with criticisms of Beattie. Joseph Priestley, Memoirs of Dr. Joseph Priestley to the Year 1795, written by Himself, with a Continuation to the time of his decease by his son, Joseph Priestley, ed. T. Cooper (London, 1806). It is also of some interest that Priestley attacked Reid, Beattie, and Oswald a few years before challenging Hume. He seemed to think that he had disposed of the Scottish Philosophy for all time. Thus Priestley was certainly no part of the mainstream of Hume's opponents in Britain. See Memoirs, pp. 78-79n, and n. 16 below. ' On Priestley's career, see his Memoirs. Modern biographies deal principally with his scientific achievements and ignore or play down his theological concerns. For an extended discussion of Priestley's millenarian views, see Clarke Garrett, Respectable Folly (Baltimore, 1975), pp. 126-143. " Priestley, Hartley's Theory of the Human Mind, on the Principle of the Association of Ideas... (London, 1775). [437] 438 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Hartley, probably read Priestley's edition of his works.) For the most part, Priestley wrote long and controversial works on theology. His scientific achievements stem from his friendship with Benjamin Franklin and Richard Price, who encouraged him to write a history of discoveries in electricity. Franklin provided the resources for making the equipment. On the basis of the new material in his work, Priestley was nominated to the Royal Society by Franklin and Price. s Priestley's most famous scientific works came thereafter--his discovery of oxygen and his work on how the human body used oxygen. Later still, he became entangled in a controversy with Lavoisier over the phlogiston theory, Priestley upholding it, the French chemist opposing it. 6 Priestley was also active in politics, supporting radical causes. He supported John Wilkes, of whom Hume thoroughly disapproved, and was an early... (shrink)

1. Marxism and totalitarian democracy, 1818-1850.--v. 2. Classical Marxism, 1850-1895.

It is widely assumed that selection history accounts of function can support a fully reductive naturalization of functional properties. I argue that this assumption is false. A problem with the alternative causal role account of function in this context is that it invokes the teleological notion of a goal in analysing real function. The selection history account, if it is to have reductive status, must not do the same. But attention to certain cases of selection history in biology, specifically those (...) involving meiotic drive, shows that selection historical explanations are available in the case of items without any plausible function. Making contributions to goals, here fitness, must be introduced as an additional constraint in the analysis, either explicitly, or implicitly by appeal to individual functions or the selection-of/selection-for distinction. (shrink)

Donald Davidson argues that his interpretivist approach to meaning shows that accounting for the intentionality and objectivity of thought does not require an appeal, as John McDowell has urged it does, to a specifically rational relation between mind and world. Moreover, Davidson claims that the idea of such a relation is unintelligible. This paper takes issue with these claims. It shows, first, that interpretivism, contra Davidson's express view, does not depend essentially upon an appeal to a causal relation between events (...) in the world and speakers' beliefs. Second, it shows that interpretivism essentially, if implicitly, depends upon interpreters' appealing to facts taken in in perception, and that such facts are suited to provide a rational connection between mind and world. The paper then argues that none of Davidson's legitimate epistemological arguments tell against the idea that experience, in the form of the propositional contents of perception, can play a role in doxastic economy. Finally, it argues that granting experience such a role is consistent with Davidson's coherentist slogan that nothing can count as a reason for holding a belief except another belief. (shrink)

Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. is a worthy successor to Joseph Schumpeter as analyst of the large corporation and its role in economic growth. His new book, Scale and Scope, a comparative history of corporate capitalism in the U. S., Britain, and Germany, is animated by a vision of the large corporation as the leading force in economic growth, outdistancing older owner?managed forms of organization with a superior ability to invest entrepreneurially in large?scale production, mass distribution, and professional management. Chandler's account (...) implicitly relies on a dynamic?capabilities? theory of competition that reveals the fundamental irrelevance of neoclassical theory and policy, including antitrust policy. In some ways, however, Chandler's vision is too narrow, underplaying the role of markets in economic growth. One needs to know how economic systems build capabilities, not merely how the corporate institution does so. Moreover, there is reason to think that the last few decades have seen an organizational revolution with a dynamic rather different from the one that animates Chandler's account. As a result, Chandler's work is important for understanding the present?day issues of industrial competitiveness, but is only one piece of the puzzle. (shrink)

Kant distinguishes “natural ends” as exhibiting a part-whole reciprocal causal structure in virtue of which we can only conceive them as having been caused through a conception, as if by intelligent design. Here, I put pressure on Kant’s position by arguing that his view of what individuates and makes cognizable material bodies of any kind is inadequate and needs supplementation. Drawing on Spinoza, I further urge that the needed supplement is precisely the whole-part reciprocal causal structure that Kant takes to (...) be distinctive of natural ends alone. (shrink)

Angiogenesis, the generation of new blood vessels from pre‐existing vessels, is an integral component of wound healing, responses to inflammation and other physiologic processes. It is also an essential part of tumor growth; in the absence of new vessel formation, tumors cannot expand beyond a small volume. Although much is known about angiogenesis and its regulation, there is no overall theory that describes or explains this process. It is here suggested that the intracrine hypothesis, which ascribes to certain extracellular signaling (...) peptides (whether hormones, growth factors, DNA‐binding proteins or enzymes) a role in both intracellular biology and extracellular signaling, can contribute to a more general understanding of angiogenesis. Intracrine factors participate in angiogenesis in the following ways: (1) they can act within the cells that synthesized them (type I intracrine action), (2) they can be secreted and then taken up by their cell of synthesis to act intracellularly (type II intracrine action ), or (3) they can be secreted and internalized by a distant target cell (type III intracrine action). The parallels between the intracrine growth factor mechanisms cancer cells employ in stimulating their own growth and the mechanisms operative in endothelial cell proliferation during angiogenesis (“intracrine reciprocity”) are discussed. Collectively, these explorations lead to testable hypotheses regarding the regulation of normal and pathological angiogenesis, and point to similarities between tumor‐induced angiogenesis and tissue differentiation. BioEssays 28: 943–953, 2006. © 2006 Wiley periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The paper argues that Israel Kirzner’s theory of entrepreneurship has been influential on a number of related “dynamic” theories of organization. Kirzner’s theory is animated by a dual concern – the process of rentseeking behavior and the fundamental incompletness of knowledge. Placed in a technological and institutional context, this theory points to the importance of dynamic transaction costs: the coordination costs of acting upon an innovative rent-seeking opportunity. In some contexts, this kind of cost can explain vertical integration; in other (...) contexts, it can explain the reverse phenomenon: vertical disintegration.Cet article soutient que la théorie de l’entrepreneur d’Israel Kirzner a influencé un grand nombre de théories dynamiques de l’organisation. La théorie kirznerienne est animée par un objectif double : – le processus de comportement de recherche de rente et l’incomplétude fondamentale de la connaissance. Replacée dans un contexte technologique et institutionnel, cette théorie souligne l’importance des coûts de transaction dynamiques : les coûts de transaction liés à une opportunité dans la recherche de rente innovante. Dans certaines situations, cette catégorie de coûts peut expliquer l’intégration verticale ; dans d’autres, elle peut expliquer le phénomène inverse : la désintégration verticale. (shrink)

Donald Davidson infamously claims that belief is in its nature veridical, and that skepticism is for this reason fundamentally incoherent. To those who take the issue of external world skepticism seriously, Davidson's arguments may seem to involve a conjuring trick. In particular, his invocation of an ‘omniscient interpreter’, whose intelligibility supposedly ensures that our beliefs must be largely true, has the air of incense and lantern-rubbing about it. Davidson's claim has received considerable critical response in the literature, almost all of (...) it negative. In my view, some commentators have indeed lit on a critical and controversial lemma in Davidson's argument, but this basic result has been obscured by being presented amidst an array of other criticisms that simply make no sense from a Davidsonian point of view. The aim of this paper is to clear away some of the confusion that stands in the way of a more productive evaluation of Davidson's important claim. (shrink)

I examine the arguments Donald Davidson has offered through the years concerning the ontological bona fides of facts. In “Truth and Meaning”, Davidson uses the so-called “slingshot” argument to the effect that if true sentences refer, then they are all coreferential. Through a detailed examination of the assumptions underlying this argument, I show that, while it is effective as part of a reductio of bottom-up, reference based semantics, it has no tendency to establish the truth of its negative conclusion concerning (...) the existence of facts. Davidson also argues against facts by claiming they are of no help in the explication of truth. I claim that his repeated invocation of the slingshot in this context, as well as of arguments from other authors employing assumptions similar to the slingshot's, is inappropriate, especially in light of his own commitment to a top-down semantics — a committment inspired, ironically, by the reductio offered in “Truth and Meaning”. Davidson's other argument against truth as correspondence, namely that our grasp of facts is no better than our grasp of truths, is sound. But this argument does not show that there are no facts; it shows only that no theory of truth in terms of corre- pondence to facts can genuinely illuminate its explanandum. (shrink)

PLATO'S UNIVERSE by Gregory Vlastos. Clarendon Press: O.U.P., 1975. xiii+130 pp. £3.75.