Previous research on linguistic relativity and economic decisions hypothesized that speakers of languages with obligatory tense marking of future time reference (FTR) should value future rewards less than speakers of languages which permit present tense FTR. This was hypothesized on the basis of obligatory linguistic marking (e.g., will) causing speakers to construe future events as more temporally distal and thereby to exhibit increased “temporal discounting”: the subjective devaluation of outcomes as the delay until they will occur increases. However, several aspects (...) of this hypothesis are incomplete. First, it overlooks the role of “modal” FTR structures which encode notions about the likelihood of future outcomes (e.g., might). This may influence “probability discounting”: the subjective devaluation of outcomes as the probability of their occurrence decreases. Second, the extent to which linguistic structures are subjectively related to temporal or probability discounting differences is currently unknown. To address these, we elicited FTR language and subjective ratings of temporal distance and probability from speakers of English, which exhibits strongly grammaticized FTR, and Dutch, which does not. Several findings went against the predictions of the previous hypothesis: Framing an FTR statement in the present (“Ellie arrives later on”) versus the future tense (“…will arrive…”) did not affect ratings of temporal distance; English speakers rated future statements as relatively more temporally proximal than Dutch speakers; and English and Dutch speakers rated future tenses as encoding high certainty, which suggests that obligatory future tense marking might result in less discounting. Additionally, compared with Dutch speakers, English speakers used more low-certainty terms in general (e.g., may) and as a function of various experimental factors. We conclude that the prior cross-linguistic observations of the link between FTR and psychological discounting may be caused by the connection between low-certainty modal structures and probability discounting, rather than future tense and temporality. (shrink)

Illegally downloading music through peer-topeer networks has persisted in spite of legal action to deter the behavior. This study examines the individual characteristics of downloaders which could explain why they are not dissuaded by messages that downloading is illegal. We compared downloaders to non-downloaders and examined whether downloaders were characterized by less ethical concern, engagement in illegal behavior, and a propensity toward stealing a CD from a music store under varying levels of risk. We also examined whether downloading or individual (...) characteristics of downloaders were similar for men and women. Findings revealed downloading was prevalent (74.5% of the student sample downloaded), men and women were equally likely to download and the factors characterizing downloading were similar for men and women. The comparison between downloaders and nondownloaders revealed downloaders were less concerned with the law, demonstrated by less ethical concern and engagement in other illegal behaviors. Downloaders were also more likely to indicate that they would steal a CD when there was no risk of being caught. Given these results, messages regarding illegality are unlikely to perturb downloaders and alternative recommendations are offered for targeting illegal downloading. (shrink)

The impact of artificial intelligence (AI) is not only global but globally varied. Yet, AI ethics is all too often overly localised. This paper discusses the potential of a global AI ethics, highlighting several important variables that it should take into account if it is to be as successful an enterprise as it needs to be.

The impact of artificial intelligence (AI) is not only global but globally varied. Yet, AI ethics is all too often overly localised. This paper discusses the potential of a global AI ethics, highlighting several important variables that it should take into account if it is to be as successful an enterprise as it needs to be.

Page's “localist” code, a population code with occasional, maximally firing elements, does not seem to us usefully or testably different from sparse population coding. Some of the evidence adduced by Page for his proposal is not actually evidence for it, and coding by maximal firing is challenged by lower firing observed in neuronal responses to natural stimuli.

Michael A. PetersBeijing Normal UniversityMy deepest condolences to Pepe, Dom and Marcus and to Jim’s grandchildren. Tina and I spent a lot of time at the Marshall family home, often attending dinn...

First published in 1905, this reissued edition of The Philosophical Works of Francis Bacon is an edited collection based upon the definitive seven volume edition of 1857, translated and prefaced by Robert Leslie Ellis and James Spedding. Of great historical, philosophical and scientific interest, this collection brings together translations of Bacon’s most important works, including the Novum Organum , the De Augmentis Scientarium , the Parasceve , and the De Principiis atque Originibus, as well as works originally written in (...) English, such as the Valerius Terminus and the Filum Labyrinthi . The reissue offers a comprehensive and provocative collection of the key writings of the man we now consider to be the father of Empiricism who popularised inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry. All works include prefaces by Robert Leslie Ellis and James Spedding, and the collection includes an introductory note from the editor John M. Robertson. (shrink)

The ‘musca depicta’ trope is well known to art historians, with a history going back to Pliny. It flourished in the Renaissance, but in eighteenth-century England the meaning of the trope was altered greatly when employed in popular culture, both in live theatrical presentations (by George Alexander Stevens) and in published poetry (by James Robertson, comedian of York). Originally, the trope signalled the virtuosity of the painter, who was able to fool the eye by depicting flies so real that (...) the viewer attempted to shoo them off the picture. However, in the hands of Stevens and Robertson, that bit of theatre was turned on its head, as the supposed connoisseur engaged in a harsh criticism of a painting is startled when a fly that he thinks poorly depicted suddenly flies off the canvas, thereby rendering the connoisseur a satiric target. (shrink)

Some have objected to the laboratory cloning of human preembryos on the grounds that the procedure would violate the dignity of and respect owed to human preembryos. Others have argued that human cloning ought be permitted if it will predictably benefit, or at least not burden, individuals who are, unlike the human preembryo, clearly entitled to our respect and concern. Taking this latter position, the legal theorist John A. Robertson has argued that, since cloning does not harm anyone who (...) is clearly entitled to our respect and concern, it should be permitted. In particular, the offspring of cloning, he argues, cannot be genuinely harmed by cloning, since they owe their very existence to the cloning procedure. In this paper, I argue that cloning coupled with its related procedures does in fact place the flesh and blood human offspring of cloning at risk of genuine harm. I thus provide a basis for questioning the moral permissibility of cloning and its related technologies without implying that the human preembryo has dignity or is owed respect. (shrink)

Reviews : Robyn Eckersley, Environmentalism and Political Theory: Toward an Ecocentric Approach ; Robert E. Goodin, Green Political Theory ; Peter Hay and Robyn Eckersley, Ecopolitical Theory: Essaysfrom Australia, ; Peter Hay, Robyn Eckersley and Geoff Holloway Environmental Politics in Australia and New Zealand ; Drew Hutton, Green Politics in Australia ; Michael Muetzelfeldt, Society, State and Politics in Australia.

Who is recognised as a philosopher and what counts as philosophy influence both the content of a philosophical education and academic philosophy’s continuing demographic skew. The “philosophical who” and the “philosophical what” themselves are a partial function of matters that have been passed over in collective silence, even if that now feels to some like a silence belonging to the distant past. This paper discusses some philosophical silences regarding race, gender, and disability in the context of reflection on philosophical education (...) and on philosophical practice in the public sphere. It focuses on Charles Mills’ writings on race, Susan Babbitt’s on race and gender, and on more collaboratively-generated work on eugenics and disability. (shrink)

Spanish Jesuits such as Francisco Suárez (1548-1617), José de Acosta (1540-1600), Pedro de Ribadeneira (1526-1611) and Juan de Mariana (1536-1624) had a powerful impact on English thinkers of the magnitude of John Locke (1632-1704), Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Robert Persons (1546-1610), Algernon Sidney (1623-1683), and, later, William Robertson (1721-1793), Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859) and Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953). An influence that was sometimes hidden and always controversial. This work highlights the importance of this influence regarding thought on politics, law and (...) natural rights. A constitutionalist understanding of political power, the recognition and promotion of innate rights and the necessary subjection of rulers to the law, all form part of the important legacy of these scholastic doctors for European intellectual heritage. Contributors to this volume: Rafael Alé Ruiz, Francisco T. Baciero Ruiz, Francisco Castilla Urbano, José Luis Cendejas Bueno, Alfonso Díaz Vera, Francisco Javier Gómez Díez, Cecilia Font de Villanueva, León M. Gómez Rivas, Fermín del Pino Díaz, Leopoldo J. Prieto López, Daniel Schwartz, Lorena Velasco Guerrero, and María Idoya Zorroza Huarte. (shrink)

There is something about the debate over reproductive technologies of all kinds—from coerced use of Norplant to trait-selection technologies, to issues surrounding in vitro fertilization, to fetal tissue transplantation—that seems to invite dubious analogies. A Tennessee trial court termed Mary Sue and Junior Davis's frozen embryos “in vitro children” and applied a best-interests standard in awarding “custody” to Mary Sue Davis; the Warnock Committee drew an implicit analogy between human gametes and transplantable organs in its recommendation of a voluntary, nonprofit (...) system for collecting and distributing gametes in the United Kingdom; Owen Jones compares the right to trait-selection to the right to abortion; Robert Veatch once claimed that if a woman had signed an organ donation card and then died while pregnant, she had in effect given consent to the attempt to sustain the pregnancy after her death; John Robertson has argued that contract pregnancy poses no problems we have not already encountered with adoption; and Andrea Bonnicksen has compared the wonders of preembryonic genetic screening to the riches housed in the gold museum in Bogota, Colombia. (shrink)

Ratti has attacked principles theory in two respects. The first is that it is impossible to distinguish between rules and principles. The second is that the main thesis of principles theory, which says that balancing is the specific way of applying principles, is wrong. The result of Ratti's critique is his thesis that principles theory founders on a contradiction or, as Ratti calls it, an antinomy. All of this is based on two arguments: Ratti's disapplication argument and his law of (...) concretization. I attempt to reject this analysis, for it is incomplete. It claims to be an analysis of balancing, but it misses the decisive point of balancing. Informed by this background, I defend the distinction between rules and principles as a distinction of the real and the ideal “ought.”. (shrink)

Cultural theories of art were developed to account for the arthood of nonaesthetic and nonimitative artworks. Historical theories such as those proposed by Jerrold Levinson, James Carney, and Noël Carroll fail to account for the arthood of first art and ethnological objects, as does the disjunctive theory of Stephen Davies. An institutional (artworld-based) theory, such as George Dickie’s 1977 version, can account for the arthood of art made within the context of an artworld. But what of objects that are art (...) now but were not made in an artworld context? I add a supplement to Dickie’s institutional theory: the concept of art by proxy. (shrink)

Children's cooperation with peers undergoes substantial developmental changes between 3 and 10 years of age. Here we stipulate that young children's initial fearfulness of peers' behaviour develops into older children's fearfulness of peers' evaluations of their own behaviour. Cooperation may constitute an adaptive environment in which the expressions of fear and self-conscious emotions regulate the quality of children's peer relationships.

The history of Australian art has been punctuated with survey exhibitions in London from the late 19th century to the present, just as our artists were drawn to Europe both to study and for the possibilities of wider recognition. This review article focuses on the post-war years from 1950 to 1965, a high point of Australian cultural expatriatism focused on London – now viewed as a significant episode in the history of Australian art. The two most influential figures supporting key (...) Australian artists were Kenneth Clark (promoting the work of Sidney Nolan and Russell Drysdale) and Bryan Robertson, director of the avant-gardist Whitechapel Gallery. Robertson was responsible for organizing the most significant of these exhibitions of Australian art: Australian Painting Today in 1961, focusing on the work of a younger generation of artists that included Charles Blackman, John Olsen, Fred Williams and Brett Whiteley. Australian’s most significant art historian, Bernard Smith, who had also sought to bring about comparable exhibitions, but without success, challenged the orientation and the cultural framing by Robertson and the young Australian art critic Robert Hughes in the catalogue of this key exhibition. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:In 2022, John Abramson published Sickening: How Big Pharma Broke American Healthcare and How We Can Repair It. The book illustrates how large pharmaceutical companies have become misinformation machines that have corrupted peer-reviewed journals, systematic review authors, and guideline committees. Industry influence includes selective reporting of clinical trial results and selection of control groups likely to enhance benefits and disguise side effects. Other documented forms of influence include clear conflicts of interest for members of guideline committees and even direct intimidation. (...) The book concludes with a series of implementable reforms, such as ensuring the accuracy and completeness of evidence, developing an independent National Health Board, designing clinical research to optimize health outcomes, requiring the posting of research data so that independent scholars can replicate analyses, and ensuring the accuracy of direct consumer advertising. Abramson’s book is a must read for students of medicine, public health, and public policy. (shrink)

This collection of essays provides a comprehensive view of the economic thought of the Scottish Enlightenment. Organized as a chronological account of the rise and progress of political economy in eighteenth century Scotland, each chapter discusses the way in which the moral and economic improvement of the Scottish nation became a common concern. Contributors not only explore the economic discourses of David Hume, James Steuart and Adam Smith but also consider the neglected economic writings of Andrew Fletcher, Robert Wallace, (...) Francis Hutcheson, William Robertson, John Millar and Dugald Stewart. This book addresses the question of how these economic writings interacted with the moral, political and historical arguments of the time and shows how contemporary issues related to the union with England, natural jurisprudence, classical republicanism and manners and civilization all contained an economic dimension. Key chapters include: The ancient modern controversy in the Scottish Enlightenment The 'Scottish Triangle' in the shaping of political economy: David Hume, Sir James Steuart and Adam Smith Civilization and history in Lord Kames and William Robertson Adam Smith in Japan This view of the origin of economic science in Britain is markedly different from traditional accounts and will be of interest to economic, political and social historians. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ON THE RATIONALITY OF SACRIFICE1 Jean-Pierre Dupuy Ecolepolytechnique, Paris, andStanford University i; "came to be interested in John Rawls'sy4 Theory ofJustice—an active.interest which led me to become the publisher ofthe French version ofthat book—in part for the following, apparently anecdotal reason: 1)On the one hand, as early as the first lines ofhis book, Rawls makes it clear that his major target is the critique ofutilitarianism. Utilitarianism is the defendant, (...) charged with vindicating sacrifice. As everyone knows, "justice does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum ofadvantages enjoyed by many (...) it denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others (Theory 3-4; my emphasis). 2)On the other hand, although the term "sacrifice" pops up again and again throughout the book, you may look up the index: it doesn't figure there. "Sacrifice" is not granted the dignity of a concept. I found that shocking and my curiosity was aroused. My own research is driven by a few anthropological convictions (see Dupuy, Le Sacrifice et l'envie). I am going to list them here, for the sake of clarity and honesty, without trying to vindicate them. The arguments I am going to present do not depend in the least on whether these convictions are valid or not; they should be assessed on their own merits. a) AU non-modern social and cultural institutions are rooted in the sacred. 1 I should like to thank John Rawls and the late Robert Nozick for their remarks on earlier versions of this paper. 24Jean-Pierre Dupuy b)Of the three dimensions of the sacred: myths, rituals, and prohibitions, the most fundamental is the ritual. c)The most primitive and fundamental ritual form is sacrifice. d)Sacrifice is the reenactment bythe social group ofa primordial event which took place spontaneously: a process of collective victimage which resulted in the murder of a member ofthe community. This elimination of a victim reestablished peace and order. There lies the origin ofthe sacred. The victim is taken to be the cause or the active principle both of the violent crisis and its violent resolution. It unites within itself opposite predicates: it is at the same time infinitely good and infinitely evil. It can only be of a divine nature. e)Christ's death on the cross is just one more occurrence of the primordial event. As far as facts are concerned, there is no difference between primitive religions and Christianity. The difference lies in interpretation. For the first time in the history of humankind, the story is told from the victim's viewpoint, not the persecutors.' The story (the Gospel) takes side with the victim and proclaims its innocence. When, in our modern languages, we say that the victim was scapegoated, we just say as much. f)Modern institutions embody a tension between two contradictory drives. On the one hand, the drive to resort to more ofthe same: the drive to scapegoating. On the other, the anti-sacrificial drive set in motion by the Christian Revelation. In totality or only partially, these points have been made by several anthropological traditions, in particular the French sociological school, with the works of Fustel de Coulanges, Durkheim and Mauss; and the British anthropological school, with Frazer and Robertson-Smith. Freud and the Belgo-British anthropologist Hocart gave them a new momentum and, more recently, René Girard has produced an impressive synthesis.2 As is well known, Nietzsche's philosophy relies on point e), for which the author of The Gay Science ("there are no facts, only interpretations") felt justified in bringing a radical indictment against Christianity, taken to be the morality ofthe slaves. In this light, Kantianism appears to be a secularized form of Christianity. ThequestionIwanttoraise is: towhatextentisthistrueofRawlsianism? 2 See, in particular, his Violence and the Sacred, and also The Scapegoat. On the Rationality ofSacrifice25 It might be retorted: these references to anthropology are irrelevant to modern political philosophy, and, at any rate, the word "sacrifice" has now acquired ameaning altogetherdisconnected from its alleged religious roots. I do not think the burden ofthe proof is on my... (shrink)

The evidence for the effectiveness of rehabilitation of three types of attention—selectivity, sustained attention, and attentional switching—is reviewed. Limited but significant effects in all three domains are observed, though evidence for generalization to wider everyday life functions remains relatively sparse. In the case of sustained attention and also in the case of spatial selectivity, the modulating effects of arousal are shown to be important, and higher level executive deficits may at times be exacerbated or even caused by lowered levels of (...) arousal. Conversely, methods of modulating arousal may be used to improve sustained attention and executive functions in a range of clinical conditions. Attentional functions are key to other cognitive domains such as attention and perception, and so the promising evidence for attentional rehabilitation may contribute to the rehabilitation of other cognitive domains also. (shrink)

The notes that follow are concerned with certain mineralogical problems which could not be discussed at length in my edition of the De Lapidibus . For the most part, only the bare conclusions are stated there. In handling these problems I owe much to the discussions that I had during his lifetime with Dr. Stanley Smith, and to those that I have had more recently with Professor F. Coles Phillips and Mr. Robert H. S. Robertson.

Robert B. Brandom’s semantic inferentialism is an important and new theory of meaning in the contemporary, analytical philosophy of language. This theory is presented in an extensive way in the monograph entitled Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing and Discursive Commitment. The theory is pragmatic, normative, holistic and discursive. On the one hand, Brandom’s standpoint is glorified and on the other hand, it is controversial. This is why a metaphilosophical question arises: How to evaluate the impact of this theory into (...) the philosophy of language? Inferentialism emphasises a material inference, de re ascription and the usage of demonstratives. Such categories are “vertical” and they accent „connection” with reality. Nevertheless, Brandom also emphasises an anaphoric concept of reference and truth. It makes his standpoint valuable because anaphoric understanding of reference and truth delivers an additional explication of the usage of words “refer to” or “is true.” But such categories are “horizontal.” Brandom grasps the problem of acquiring empirical meaning by expressions which initiate anaphoric chains. This is why he proposes — as an attempt of solving the problem — a modification of semantic inferentialism by adding revisionary and fallibilistic epistemology. In addition, Brandom enforces his theory by normative pragmatics which applies categories of assertion, entitlement, various commitments and a “score-keeping.” However, it seems that what is still missing is a notion of truth stronger than the one proposed in the anaphoric conception. What is requested is a notion of truth expressed in terms of the relation of the correspondence between a language and a reality. The disadvantage of the idea of correspondence is that it is difficult to define in a satisfactory way. But an important advantage is that it is “a language-reality” relation and not only “a language-language” relation. The objection does not demolish inferentialism. It expresses only a general epistemological difficulty of defining truth. However, the importance of inferentialism is that it tries to unite various elements. The theory attempts to explicate — in a more adequate way — what a meaning is and to explain how it is acquired by expressions. (shrink)

These three impressive volumes seem likely to be for some time the standard collection of Leibniz’s writings in Italian translation. Replacing two volumes of 1967-68, with the same title and publisher, which were edited by Domenico Omero Bianca, the new translation by Massimo Mugnai and Enrico Pasini offers the Italian reader an outstandingly comprehensive selection of Leibniz’s works in a presentation richly though unobtrusively illuminated by the latest scholarship. My chief aim in this review will be to give scholars working (...) in English an idea of the lines of study suggested by this new product of Italian scholarship, and the resources available in it. (shrink)

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