In recent years, the hope to confirm the existence of dark matter by experimentally detecting it has diminished significantly. After more than 30 years of experimental searches, many of the most promising candidates have since been ruled out, leaving the epistemic and scientific condition of dark matter in a state of suspension. In efforts to improve the epistemic justification for the dark-matter hypothesis, physicists have turned to philosophical arguments and historical narratives. In this paper, I explicate two such strategies -- (...) explanatory unification and historical continuity -- applied in the context of dark matter. I argue that greater care and attention should be invested in the explanatory arguments to increase their strength, and that a survey of primary historical sources in astronomy renders the historical evidence for the continuity of dark matter substantially weaker. The quality and rigor of the philosophical and historical arguments which physicists are constructing could be substantially improved by increasing interdisciplinary practices. (shrink)

The author argues that Plato’s “proof” that happiness follows justice has a fatal flaw – because the philosopher king in Plato’s Republic is itself a counter example.

1. Die Grundlagen der jüdischen Ethik -- 2. Die sittlichen Pflichten des Einzelnen. 2., verb. Aufl. -- 3. Die sittlichen Pflichten der Gemeinschaft.-- 4. Die Lehre von Gott --.

Simon Critchley, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Essex, investigates humour. And tells some pretty good jokes.

Under conditions of physiological stress, officers are sometimes required to make split-second life-or-death decisions, where deficits in performance can have tragic outcomes, including serious injury or death and strained police–community relations. The current study assessed the performance of 122 active-duty police officers during a realistic lethal force scenario to examine whether performance was affected by the officer’s level of operational skills training, years of police service, and stress reactivity. Results demonstrated that the scenario produced elevated heart rates, as well as (...) perceptual and cognitive distortions, such as tunnel vision, commensurate with those observed in naturalistic use of force encounters. The average performance rating from the scenario was 59%, with 27% of participants making at least one lethal force error. Elevated stress reactivity was a predictor of poorer performance and increased lethal force errors. Level of training and years of police service had differential and complex effects on both performance and lethal force errors. Our results illustrate the need to critically reflect on police training practices and continue to make evidence-based improvements to training. The findings also highlight that while training may significantly improve outcomes, flawless performance is likely not probable, given the limits of human performance under stress. Implications for the objective reasonableness standard, which is used to assess the appropriateness of force in courts of law, are discussed. (shrink)

Simon Lohse addresses the issue of the autonomy of social phenomena. He discusses the most important ontological arguments that have been mounted against methodological individualism in the social sciences. The author thereby attempts to contribute to a better understanding of a core ontological problem in the philosophy of the social sciences and to clarify the theoretical debate within the social sciences.

The author investigates whether Anthony J. Steinbock, in his book Phenomenology and Mysticism: The Verticality of Religious Experience, succeeds in overcoming the difficulties and objections which the phenomenology of religion traditionally comes up against. Among these are, most importantly, the problem of going beyond immanence and the question of whether the investigation of religion from a phenomenological point of view is in fact possible.

A temporal account of the mental capacities for processing information may not be relevant in a context where the goal is to search for storage capacity expressed in chunks. However, if mental capacity and information processing is the question, the time issue can be rehabilitated. A very different temporal viewpoint on capacity limit is proposed in this commentary.

Understanding subjective processes in mindfulness-based interventions and during contemplative learning is the goal pursued by Medeiros et al. in the present target article. Implicitly, they touch ….

We argue that the lack of large cross-cultural differences in many games with student subjects from developed countries may be due to the nature of the games studied. These games tap primarily basic psychological reactions, like fairness and reciprocity. Once we look at norm-enforcement, in particular punishment, we find large differences even among culturally rather homogeneous student groups from developed countries.

The image of home has a central place in the thought of both Heidegger and Hegel. In Hegel, being at home is central to Hegel’s reformulation of Kantian freedom. The notion of home and dwelling is also a central notion in Heidegger’s thought, especially his later thought. This paper examines their respective uses of the term and argues that the different ways they conceive the problem of home or dwelling reveals their different conceptions of modernity.

We are neither as pessimistic nor as optimistic as Elqayam & Evans (E&E). The consequences of normativism have not been uniformly disastrous, even among the examples they consider. However, normativism won't be going away any time soon and in the literature on causal Bayes nets new debates about normativism are emerging. Finally, we suggest that to concentrate on expert reasoners as an antidote to normativism may limit the contribution of research on thinking to basic psychological science.

Emergent research in metagenomics has unveiled large quantities of previously unknown and unclassified prokaryotic DNA. As these prokaryotes constitute the vast majority of microbial life in environmental samples, some microbiologists and commentators in scientific media have referred to this expansive unknown as ‘biological dark matter’, translating the rhetorical power of dark matter from the physical to the life sciences. Engaging literatues and approaches from across the philosophy, history, and social studies of science, we explore the cultural significance of the dark (...) matter theory in the physical sciences and examine the implications of its conceptual reworking in biology, through critically engaging the political narratives folded within dark matter’s genealogies. ‘Dark matter’ designates both zones of importance and zones of turbulence, simultaneously emphasizing microbiologists’ creativity whilst constructing new ways of relating to microbiota. Such a situation, we propose, also invites theoretical analysis as it calls for a conceptual reconsideration of the gene and its fundamental role within the life sciences. (shrink)

During the publication process of above mentioned article the Notes to Figures 1, 2, 3, and 4 were erroneously deleted from the figure legends. The correct versions are given below.

Concerns have been expressed about adult behaviour at children’s sporting events in New Zealand. As a consequence, covert observation was identified as the optimal research method to be used in studies designed to record the nature and prevalence of adult sideline behaviour at children’s team sporting events. This paper explores whether the concerns raised by the ethics committee about the use of this controversial method, particularly in relation to the lack of informed consent, the use of deception, and researcher safety, (...) were effectively managed. This is achieved by reflecting on the conduct and findings of the research and by drawing on the perspectives of research assistants who carried out the covert observation. The authors argue that in the context of these studies, the ends have justified the means and with careful attention to the design of the study the complex ethical tensions arising from the use of this method can be managed. (shrink)