The increasing availability of brain data within and outside the biomedical field, combined with the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to brain data analysis, poses a challenge for ethics and governance. We identify distinctive ethical implications of brain data acquisition and processing, and outline a multi-level governance framework. This framework is aimed at maximizing the benefits of facilitated brain data collection and further processing for science and medicine whilst minimizing risks and preventing harmful use. The framework consists of four primary (...) areas of regulatory intervention: binding regulation, ethics and soft law, responsible innovation, and human rights. (shrink)

The rise of neurotechnologies, especially in combination with artificial intelligence (AI)-based methods for brain data analytics, has given rise to concerns around the protection of mental privacy, mental integrity and cognitive liberty – often framed as “neurorights” in ethical, legal, and policy discussions. Several states are now looking at including neurorights into their constitutional legal frameworks, and international institutions and organizations, such as UNESCO and the Council of Europe, are taking an active interest in developing international policy and governance guidelines (...) on this issue. However, in many discussions of neurorights the philosophical assumptions, ethical frames of reference and legal interpretation are either not made explicit or conflict with each other. The aim of this multidisciplinary work is to provide conceptual, ethical, and legal foundations that allow for facilitating a common minimalist conceptual understanding of mental privacy, mental integrity, and cognitive liberty to facilitate scholarly, legal, and policy discussions. (shrink)

Joseph Keim Campbell has recently criticized Peter van Inwagen's Third Argument against compatibilism for its reliance on the existence of a remote past. In response, Anthony Brueckner has offered a new version of the Third Argument showing that determinism and free will are incompatible for all times t relative to which there is a past . In this paper I argue that although Brueckner's retooled argument fails to prove anything in favour of incompatibilism, its conclusion can be exploited to (...) provide another version of van Inwagen's original argument that doesn't rely on the existence of past times, thus withstanding Campbell's criticism. (shrink)

Parkinson's disease patients receiving dopaminergic treatment may experience bursts of creativity. Although this phenomenon is sometimes recognized among patients and their clinicians, the association between dopamine replacement therapy in PD patients and creativity remains underexplored. It is unclear, for instance, whether DRT affects creativity through convergent or divergent thinking, idea generation, or a general lack of inhibition. It is also unclear whether DRT only augments pre-existing creative attributes or generates creativity de novo. Here, we tested a group of PD patients (...) when “on” and “off” dopaminergic treatment on a series of tests of creative problem-solving, and related their performance to a group of matched healthy controls as well as to their pre-PD creative skills and measures of inhibition/impulsivity. Results did not provide strong evidence that DRT improved creative thinking in PD patients. Rather, PD patients “on” medication showed less flexibility in divergent thinking, generated fewer ideas via insight, and showed worse performance in convergent thinking overall than healthy controls. Pre-PD creative skills predicted enhanced flexibility and fluency in divergent thinking when PD patients were “on” medication. However, results on convergent thinking were mixed. Finally, PD patients who exhibited deficits in a measure of inhibitory control showed weaker convergent thinking while “on” medication, supporting previous evidence on the importance of inhibitory control in creative problem-solving. Altogether, results do not support the hypothesis that DRT promotes creative thinking in PD. We speculate that bursts of artistic production in PD are perhaps conflated with creativity due to lay conceptions of creativity. (shrink)

A comparison between the thinking of Hans Jonas and Joseph Ratzinger on Darwinism and Intelligent Design.

At De Principiis II, p. 75.10-11 Westerink, Damascius states that ‘Being will be that which provides being itself to each thing, καὶ καθ’ ὅ τι ὄν ἐστι’. The modern reference translation of the De Principiis, that of Joseph Combès for the Collection des Universités de France, renders the phrase left here in Greek as ‘et selon ce qu’elle est comme être’. Combès interprets it by stating that being is here conceived of as the constitutive unity of each form, at (...) once responsible for both its essence and existence. I argue that both a translation and an interpretation of καθ’ ὅ τι ὄν ἐστι of the type suggested by Combès are untenable and I defend an alternative construal. The two other main modern translations, those of Ahbel-Rappe and Galpérine, are also critically assessed. The translation of the relevant phrase I propose is: ‘and in virtue of which something is a being’. I argue that being – that is the property bestowed by the Kind or Form of Being, a notion that Damascius draws from Plato’s Sophist – is here conceived of as that which is metaphysically responsible only for the fact that something is (or is a being), not also for what something is. This construal does justice to the grammar of Damascius’ text and fits better with the argument of De Principiis II, pp. 56-99 Westerink. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS Lex et Libertas: Freedom and Law according to St. Thomas.Aquinas. Edited by L. J. ELDERS and K. HEDWIG. Vatican City: Pontificia Accademia di S. Thommaso, 1987. Pp. 286. L. 30.000 (paper). This 30th volume of Antonio Piolanti's Studi Tomis-tici contains the papers given at the fourth Rolduc Symposium (1986) on the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. Five of the papers are in French, and seven in German. (...) The other eight, plus a "Preface" (pp. 7-11) with a brief summary of each of the papers, are in English. There is no point in duplicating the summaries. Still less is there possibility of giving an appropriate critique of each of the articles in a short review, since in justice each would have to be assessed against the individual writer's own background and in accord with his special intents. The most that can be done is to touch on some general issues brought to foe fore in the volume. Of notable interest is Roberto Busa's paper on the methods and use of his Index Thomistieus. By direct investigation Busa (p. 36) finds that the ·combination lex et libertas is nowhere used in St. Thomas, and that its import is not indicated anywhere by the relevant conjunctions and prepositions in the Concordantia altera. Rather than being opposed notions "libertas est ecx: amore legis" (p. 36). Busa also notes "that in the works of Aquinas not a single instance of conscientia dubia or conscientia incerta occurs" (p. 133, n. 31). Jude P. Dougherty's "Aquinas on Punishment" (pp. 160-170) is a timely and solid article on that issue in.today's social circumstances. In regard to the death penalty the article concludes: " Given the views of Aquinas on punishment, it would be difficult to argue that Catholic social thought requires an abolitionist mindset " (p. 169). In this respecl Aquinas " remains unchallenged by the data uncovered by contemporary empirical study" (p. 170). Richly informative Scriptural and theological studies by J. P. M. van der Ploeg (pp. 185-199) and Johannes Stohr (pp. 219-241) deal with the Old Law and Aquinas's treatment of it. Four shorter articles (pp. 243-280) discuss Aquinas's moral doctrine in relation to the N.ew Law. The rest of the papers are in the more professedly ethical realm, on sensitive topics of concern today in the field of Catholic morality. They maintain the currently accepted level of discussion for philosophical wo.rk in that area. A masterly article by S. Pinckaers (pp. 15-24) locates the background against which these discussions hav.e been articulated. In that setting "liberty" and "law" were projected as though they stood in sharp contrast to each other. The basic problem then lay in the struggle 539 540 BOOK REVIEWS to uphold on the one hand individual rights against encroachment on the part of law, and on the other hand to safeguard law against erosion by individual claims. Pinckaers shows how drastically this attitude is opposed to the mentality of Aquinas, for whom the liberty at stake may be called "quality liberty" (liberte de qiialite-p. 19), as contrasted with " liberty of indifference." In consequence no opposition of law to liberty is felt in Aquinas, but rather a tension that evokes continual progress in moral life. Possibility to sin has accordingly no essential place in liberty, for liberty is found in its fullness in God (p. 23). The two profoundly different moral structures, namely that of St. Thomas and that of modern moralities of obligation, have their roots respectively in these two opposed conceptions of libe11ty, the " quality liberty" of the virtues and the nominalistic "liberty of indifference" (pp. 23-24). But despite this clear delination of the problem by Pinckaers the other papers remain far from achieving a breakthrough in regard to the conception of freedom. One article giants that though some things are forbidden we have in the vastly greater number of our acts (bei der uberwiegenden Zahl imserer Handlungen-p. 245) the freedom to do or to avoid. Another paper concludes (p. 21) that today's complicated moral problems cannot be solved onesidedly on the strength of either a "virtues ethic... (shrink)

Since the early eighties, computationalism in the study of the mind has been “under attack” by several critics of the so-called “classic” or “symbolic” approaches in AI and cognitive science. Computationalism was generically identified with such approaches. For example, it was identified with both Allen Newell and Herbert Simon’s Physical Symbol System Hypothesis and Jerry Fodor’s theory of Language of Thought, usually without taking into account the fact ,that such approaches are very different as to their methods and aims. Zenon (...) Pylyshyn, in his influential book Computation and Cognition, claimed that both Newell and Fodor deeply influenced his ideas on cognition as computation. This probably added to the confusion, as many people still consider Pylyshyn’s book as paradigmatic of the computational approach in the study of the mind. Since then, cognitive scientists, AI researchers and also philosophers of the mind have been asked to take sides on different “paradigms” that have from time to time been proposed as opponents of (classic or symbolic) computationalism. Examples of such oppositions are: -/- computationalism vs. connectionism, computationalism vs. dynamical systems, computationalism vs. situated and embodied cognition, computationalism vs. behavioural and evolutionary robotics. -/- Our preliminary claim in section 1 is that computationalism should not be identified with what we would call the “paradigm (based on the metaphor) of the computer” (in the following, PoC). PoC is the (rather vague) statement that the mind functions “as a digital computer”. Actually, PoC is a restrictive version of computationalism, and nobody ever seriously upheld it, except in some rough versions of the computational approach and in some popular discussions about it. Usually, PoC is used as a straw man in many arguments against computationalism. In section 1 we look in some detail at PoC’s claims and argue that computationalism cannot be identified with PoC. In section 2 we point out that certain anticomputationalist arguments are based on this misleading identification. In section 3 we suggest that the view of the levels of explanation proposed by David Marr could clarify certain points of the debate on computationalism. In section 4 we touch on a controversial issue, namely the possibility of developing a notion of analog computation, similar to the notion of digital computation. A short conclusion follows in section 5. (shrink)

The ArgumentBy the beginning of the fourteenth century, medicine had acquired a cultural role in addition to its traditional functions as a therapeutic art. Medical subject matter infiltrated the religious discourse via the new thirteenth-century encyclopedic literature. Preachers came to employ in their moral analogies a wider range of medical topics, using sophisticated medical examples and citations attributed to recognized medical authorities. These developments coincided with the growing prestige of medicine as an academic discipline.

I propose to analyze the concept of basing beliefs on reasons. The concept is an important one in understanamg the so-called "inferential" or "indirect" knowledge. After briefly stating the causal analyses of this concept given by D.M. Armstrong and Marshall Swain I will present two cases which show these analyses to be too strong and too weak. Finally, I will propose an analysis which avoids these twin difficulties.

In California Dental Association v. FTC, 119 S. Ct. 1604, the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that a nonprofit affiliation of dentists violated section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 45, which prohibits unfair competition. The Court examined two issues: the Federal Trade Commission's jurisdiction over the California Dental Association ; and the proper scope of antitrust analysis. The Court unanimously held that CDA was subject (...) to FTC's jurisdiction, but split 5-4 in its finding that the district court's use of abbreviated rule-of-reason analysis was inappropriate.CDA is a voluntary, nonprofit association of local dental societies. It boasts approximately 19,000 members, who constitute roughly threequarters of the dentists practicing in California. Although a nonprofit, CDA includes for-profit subsidiaries that financially benefit CDA members. CDA gives its members access to insurance and business financing, and lobbies and litigates on their behalf. Members also benefit from CDA marketing and public relations campaigns. (shrink)

British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Volume 19, Issue 6, Page 1216-1220, December 2011.

After Husserl and Heidegger, phenomenology has attempted to push the reduction beyond the reference of objects to the performances effected by consciousness, or of beings to Being. First, a new level of the reduction comes forth in M. Henry's radical reduction of appearing to the appearing of appearing, and leads to the disclosure of a dimension in which no horizons are to be fulfilled because the superabundance of life holds sway. Secondly, according to H. Rombach, the phenomena decribed in the (...) first two levels are nothing but epiphenomena, and must be explained in terms of structures that emerge in a creative development. Reality brings forth something from itself, and we must take advantage of this contribution in order to obtain more than what is anticipated in our projects. Thirdly, J.-L. Marion advances a theory on saturated phenomena in order to account for phenomena that surpass the bounds outlined for them in the mere significational intentions because they show a surplus of intuition. The three trends lead respectively to an originary phenomenality, an outbreak of phenomena, and saturated phenomena. The article contends that they tend to come together because they link the third level of phenomenology to a reflection that turns on the duality between what appears and its appearing, and, in doing so, disclose a surplus with regard to three different aspects of the duality, i.e., appearing as such, the overall condition of what appears, or the appearing of some preeminent phenomena. Finally, some anticipations of these trends in Husserl's transcendental phenomenology are shown.Luego de Husserl y Heidegger, la fenomenología ha intentado llevar la reducción más allá de la referencia de los objetos a las operaciones efectuadas por la conciencia o de los entes al ser. En primer lugar, un nuevo nivel de reducción se manifiesta en la reducción radical propuesta por M. Henry para retroceder del aparecer al aparecer del aparecer, y conduce al descubrimiento de una dimensión en que no hay horizontes que puedan ser plenificados porque impera la sobreabundancia del la vida. En segundo lugar, según H. Rombach, los fenómenos descritos en los dos primeros niveles no son otra cosa que epifenómenos y tienen que ser explicados en términos de estructuras que emergen en un desarrollo creador. La realidad produce algo a partir de sí misma, y esta contribución debe ser aprovechada a fin de alcanzar más de lo anticipado en nuestros proyectos. En tercer lugar, J.-L. Marion presenta una teoría sobre los fenómenos saturados a fin de dar cuenta de aquellos casos que exceden los límites que les han sido delineados en las intenciones significativas vacías porque muestran una demasía de intuición. Las tres tendencias conducen respectivamente a una fenomenalidad originaria, a un estallido del fenómeno y a una saturación del fenómeno. El artículo sostiene que tienden a converger porque vinculan el tercer nivel de la fenomenología con una reflexión en torno de la dualidad entre lo que aparece y su aparecer, y que, al hacerlo, ponen de manifiesto una excedencia respecto de tres aspectos distintos de la dualidad, esto es, el aparecer en cuanto tal, la condición general de lo que aparece o la aparición de algunos fenómenos preeminentes. Finalmente, se indican algunas anticipaciones de estas tendencias en la fenomenología trascendental de Husserl. (shrink)

Joseph Kupfer removes aesthetics from the exclusive province of museums, concert halls, and the periphery of human interests to reveal the impact of aesthetic experience on daily living.

Both mainstream and disability bioethics sometimes contend that the self-assessment of disabled people about their own well-being is distorted by adaptive preferences that are only held because other, better options are unavailable. I will argue that both of the most common ways of understanding adaptive preferences—the autonomy-based account and the well-being account—would reject blanket claims that disabled people’s QOL self-assessment has been distorted, whether those claims come from mainstream bioethicists or from disability bioethicists. However, rejecting these generalizations for a more (...) nuanced view still has dramatic implications for the status quo in both health policy and clinical ethics. (shrink)

Un primer aspecto concierne a la praxis no-intencional y primaria del cuerpo propio. A ello se añade su condición de sostén para los valores sensibles de la comodidad y la salud, y de trampolín para valores espirituales cuyo nivel superior se encuentra en los valores éticos de la persona. Estos puntos de vista husserlianos encuentran nuevos desarrollos en la fenomenología: M. Henry pone el acento en un "yo puedo" pre-intencional, y Ricoeur describe el cuerpo propio como "fuente" de valores propios (...) y "resonador afectivo" de todos los valores, y a la vez esboza una concepción de la felicidad que incluye temples particulares de la corporalidad. Por último, Husserl considera la ofrenda del cuerpo propio a los valores espirituales en el sacrificio como la afirmación positiva de la vida de la humanidad. J. Patocka y E. Lévinas han desarrollado esta línea de pensamiento. A first aspect has to do with the non-intentional and primal praxis of the living body. To this is added its status as a support for the sensuous values of comfort and health and a springboard for spiritual values, the highest level of which lies in the ethical values of the person. These Husserlian views find new developments in phe-nomenology: M. Henry highlights a pre-intentional "I can", M. Scheler analyzes the relationship between hedonistic, vital, and spiritual values, and P. Ricoeur describes the living body both as the "source" ofits own proper values and the "affective resonator" of all values, and also outlines a view on happiness that encompasses particular bodily attunements. Finally, Husserl considers the offering of the living body to spiritual values in sacrifice as the positive assertion of humankind's life. J. Patocka and E. Lévinas have developed this line of thought. (shrink)

Este texto procura analisar uma passagem do terceiro livro de A República de Platão, que trata dos tipos de poesia e de elocução. Observa-se certa variação de emprego do vocabulário associado à ideia de imitação que parece conduzir a algumas dificuldades de entendimento do sentido e dos objetivos da doutrina. A seguir, a análise tenta propor uma forma de explicar e solucionar o que parece ser uma espécie de flutuação semântica desse vocabulário, com base em teses já estabelecidas anteriormente no (...) diálogo. (shrink)

Se intentan poner de manifiesto isomorfismos estructurales en las teorías de Heidegger y Husserl sobre tiempo e historia. En relación con Ser y tiempo, la atención está puesta en la tesis compartida de que la historiografía está arraigada en la historicidad y esta en la temporeidad. Con referencia al curso de 1934 se pone de relieve la convergencia heideggeriana de misión, encargo y trabajo, que remiten al futuro, al pasado y al presente. Se muestran nociones equivalentes en los niveles que (...) Husserl distingue en la historia: protohistoria, historia efectiva e historia racional. Finalmente, en lo que atañe al viraje, se trazan paralelos entre el Ereignis y el presente viviente como instancias últimas de una indagación restrospectiva, entre la temporeidad del Dasein y al tiempo inmanente como resonancias de una dimensión profunda, y en torno de una conexión mutua en el análisis de la historia en términos de desviación, reposición, incorporación y superación, esto es, los momentos que componen la noción de Gewind. (shrink)

In quantum information and computation, entanglement is a resource. When combining concepts, the application of entanglement outside of micro-physical systems is an useful tool. We suggest new cognitive image-based tests that do not need to be translated. No prior knowledge of terms related to the concepts is required, therefore the choice is more intuitive. We examine the merging of two concepts that establish non-classical statistical correlation and present an entanglement-aware vector encoding algorithm. This research’s added value results in an automated (...) system that teaches artificial intelligence to identify and handle entangled concepts. (shrink)

The idea of fairness lies at the heart of the concept of justice proposed by political philosopher John Rawls, a concept that liberals have often invoked to defend the welfare state. In The Limits of Rawlsian Justice political theorist Roberto Alejandro challenges the assumptions that Rawls set out to defend his position. While other opponents of Rawls have attempted to offer an alternative to his concept of justice as fairness, Alejandro instead examines Rawls from within his own writings, testing (...) Rawls's assumptions on the basis of those assumptions themselves. As a result, Alejandro shows that Rawls's idea of justice as fairness is fraught with inner tensions, exposed to utilitarian dangers, and far from being the coherent model Rawls promised. Alejandro concludes that Rawls's notion of justice-as-fairness preserves the status quo, overlooks the realities of inequalities in today's society, and is inherently conservative. As a theoretical paradigm, it is exhausted. He urges that we acknowledge the limits of Rawlsian justice both as a defense of the welfare state and as the basis of a just society. (shrink)

El trabajo tiene como hilo conductor la diferenciación efectuada por P. Ricoeur respecto del lenguaje entre la lengua, el discurso oral, la escritura y la lectura. Cada uno de estos modos de lenguaje puede ser examinado según los fenómenos de la temporalidad, la subjetividad, el mundo y la intersubjetividad. Siguiendo a M. Presas, este esquema se aplica al arte y a su función de dejar que las cosas se manifiesten en su plena presencia. Se destaca su énfasis en la liberación (...) efectuada por el arte respecto de la limitación fáctica de nuestra situación finita. Esto se logra mediante la apertura a la verdad de una existencia posible que no se identifica con una evasión de la realidad. Los análisis de Presas se centran en P. Klee y F. Marc, y destacan los rasgos distintivos relacionados con los mencionados fenómenos. En el intento de ofrecer un complemento a este examen, se mencionan las interpretaciones de Merleau-Ponty sobre P. Cézanne, de M. Henry sobre V. Kandinsky y de J.-C. Marion sobre G. Courbet. Se muestra que en ellas también se encuentran explicitaciones de lo que Presas ha afirmado sobre la discordia, el ser insular y la ausencia de apremio. (shrink)

""Forty-nine steps" refers to the Talmudic doctrine that there are forty-nine steps to meaning in every passage of the Torah. Employing this interpretive approach, Calasso offers a "secret history" of European literature and philosophy in the wake of Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud. Calasso analyzes how figures ranging from Gustav Flaubert, Gottfried Benn, Karl Kraus, Martin Heidegger, Walter Benjamin, Franz Kafka, Bertolt Brecht, and Theodor Adorno has contributed to, or been emblematic of, the current state of Western thought. This book's theme, (...) writ large, is the power of fable - specifically, its persistence in art and literature despite its exclusion from orthodox philosophy."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

Studying Giles of Rome’s De ecclesiastica potestate, scholars usually focus their attention on the first part, where the Augustinian master argues in favor of his extreme theory of papal power. The present paper deals with the second part of the treatise, devoted to the relationship between the Church and temporal possessions. The main issues discussed in this part are therefore not political and ecclesiastical power, but ownership and poverty. The paper underlines in the first place the connection existing between Giles (...) of Rome’s treatment of these problems and the controversy between Secular and Mendicant clergy. Although originally a mendicant friar himself, Giles tries to avoid any interpretation of mendicant proverty that could undermine the right of the Church to exercise lordship over temporal goods. In the second place, the paper shoes how Giles’ account of the origin of private poverty is functional to his claim that the Church possesses all rights on temporal goods at the highest level. In this way, the Church is the sole authority that can grant a right of property, so that every human being depends on the Church also for his legitimate possession of temporal goods. (shrink)

In 1903 the Cody Road opened, leading travelers from Cody, Wyoming, to Yellowstone National Park. Cheyenne photographer J. E. Stimson traveled the route during its first week in existence, documenting the road for the state of Wyoming's contribution to the 1904 World's Fair. His images of now-famous landmarks like Cedar Mountain, the Shoshone River, the Holy City, Chimney Rock, Sylvan Pass, and Sylvan Lake are some of the earliest existing photographs of the route. In 2008, 105 years later, Michael Amundson (...) traveled the same road, carefully duplicating Stimson's iconic original photographs. In Passage to Wonderland, these images are paired side by side and accompanied by a detailed explanation of the land and history depicted. Amundson examines the physical changes along "the most scenic fifty miles in America" and explores the cultural and natural history behind them. This careful analysis of the paired images make Passage to Wonderland more than a "then and now" photography book--it is a unique exploration of the interconnectedness between the Old West and the New West. It will be a wonderful companion for those touring the Cody Road as well as those armchair tourists who can follow the road on Google Earth using the provided GPS coordinates. The University Press of Colorado gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University toward the publication of this book. (shrink)

In popular culture, Einstein’s shaggy mustaches and disheveled hairstyle have come to represent the image of physics itself. The most famous physicist of the twentieth century is mainly celebrated as the creator of relativity, intended as both special and general relativity theories. The ubiquitous E = mc2 equation comes hand in hand with pictures of Einstein’s thoughtful wrinkles. Insofar as quantum theory is concerned, Einstein is usually remembered as a strenuous opponent of quantum mechanics who rejected this successful theory on (...) epistemological grounds till the end of his life.In Einstein and the Quantum: The Quest of the Valiant Swabian Douglas Stone—a theoretical physicist specialized in the application of quantum mechanics to solid-state physics—pursues the clearly stated aim of challenging this conventional view. In fact, Einstein made momentous contributions to the quantum theory as the main proponent of novel notions that radically shook the foundat .. (shrink)

Writing his Moralis philosophia, Roger Bacon discussed issues relevant to medieval political discourse. He felt the need to appeal to the authority of Aristotle, but having no access to Aristotle’s Politica, he tried to reconstruct its main tenets through the writings of other thinkers, such as Avicenna and Alfarabi. The result of this attempt is a sketch of a political theory that goes mainly under the name of Aristotle but has little to do with the actual contents of the Politica. (...) In the following years, Bacon remained faithful to his first reconstruction. The author suggests that, with all probability, Bacon, never read the actual text of the Politica. the result is that Bacon’s contribution in this field was not influenced by Aristotle’s political masterpiece, but by other texts, in particular by Avicenna’s Philosophia prima. Such an assessment should not imply a negative judgement on Bacon. Rather, we should consider him among those authors who contributed to the rich diversity of medieval political thought independent of Aristotle’s Politica. (shrink)

Descriptive metaphysics investigates our naïve ontology as this is articulated in the content of our perception or of our pre-reflective thought about the world. But is access to such content reliable? Sceptics about the standard modes of access (introspection, or language-driven intuitions) may think that investigations in descriptive metaphysics can be aided by the controlled findings of cognitive science. Cognitive scientists have studied a promising range of representational advantages, that is, ways in which cognition favours one type of entity over (...) another. The notion of representational advantage is investigated and some scepticism is expressed as to its appropriateness for use in descriptive metaphysics. (shrink)