According to the orthodox interpretation of bounce cosmologies, the universe was born from an entropy-reducing phase in a previous universe. To defend the thesis that the whole of physical reality was caused to exist a finite time ago, Craig and Sinclair have argued the low-entropy interface between universes should instead be understood as the beginning of two universes. Here, I present Craig and Sinclair with a dilemma. On the one hand, if the direction of time is reducible, as friends of (...) the Mentaculus—for example, Albert, Loewer, and Papineau—maintain, then there is reason to think that the direction of time and the entropic arrow of time align. But on that account, efficient causation is likely reducible to non-causal phenomena. In consequence, contrary to Craig and Sinclair’s theological aims, things can begin to exist without causes. On the other hand, if the direction of time is not reducible, Craig and Sinclair’s interpretation of bounce cosmologies is unjustified. Lastly, a reply to a potential objection motivates a discussion of how to interpret bounce cosmologies on the tensed theory of absolute time favoured by Craig and Sinclair. I offer two interpretations of bounce cosmologies that, given a tensed theory of absolute time, are preferable to those Craig and Sinclair offer, yet inconsistent with their project in natural theology; on one interpretation, the universe does not require a supernatural cause and, on the other, bounce cosmologies represent the universe as never having begun to exist. (shrink)

This paper considers two problems—one in philosophy of religion and another in philosophy of physics—and shows that the two problems have one solution. Some Christian philosophers have endorsed the views that (i) there was a first finitely long period of time, (ii) God is in time, and yet (iii) God did not have a beginning. If there was a first finitely long period of time and God is in time then there was a first finitely long period of time in (...) God’s life. But if God’s life includes a first finitely long period of time, then, on one initially intuitive conception of beginning to exist, God began to exist. Thus, at first glance, (i)–(iii) are not mutually compatible. Meanwhile, on a variety of proposals for quantum gravity theories or interpretations of quantum theory, space-time is not fundamental to physical reality and instead can (somehow) be explained in terms of yet more fundamental physical substructures. As I show, there is a strong intuition that if space-time is not fundamental to physical reality, then, even if there were a first finitely long period in the life of physical reality, physical reality would be beginningless. Thus, both theistic philosophers and philosophers of physics have developed theories on which some beginningless entities have a first finitely long temporal period in their lives and so both groups should be interested in developing criteria that distinguish such entities from entities with a beginning. In this paper, I offer one necessary (but not sufficient) condition, namely, that entities that begin to exist are absent from the closest possible worlds without time. The view that I defend has one significant upshot: no sound argument can use the mere fact (if it is a fact) that past time is finite to reach the conclusion that the totality of physical reality had a beginning. (shrink)

The existence of various sufferings has long been thought to pose a problem for the existence of a personal God: the Problem of Evil. In this paper, we propose an original version of POE, in which the geographic distribution of sufferings and of opportunities for flourishing or suffering is better explained if the universe, at bottom, is indifferent to the human condition than if, as theists propose, there is a personal God from whom the universe originates: the Problem of Geography. (...) POG moves beyond previous versions of POE because traditional responses to POE are less effective as responses to POG than they are to other versions of POE. (shrink)

Traditional approaches to moral psychology assumed that moral judgments resulted from the application of explicit commitments, such as those embodied in consequentialist or deontological philosophies. In contrast, recent work suggests that moral judgments often result from unconscious or emotional processes, with explicit commitments generated post hoc. This paper explores the intermediate position that moral commitments mediate moral judgments, but not through their explicit and consistent application in the course of judgment. An experiment with 336 participants finds that individuals vary in (...) the extent to which their moral commitments are consequentialist or deontological, and that this variation is systematically but imperfectly related to the moral judgments elicited by trolley car problems. Consequentialist participants find action in trolley car scenarios more permissible than do deontologists, and only consequentialists moderate their judgments when scenarios that typically elicit different intuitions are presented side by side. The findings emphasize the need for a theory of moral reasoning that can accommodate both the associations and dissociations between moral commitments and moral judgments. (shrink)

We explore how principles predicting the success of a medical information commons advantaged or disadvantaged three MIC initiatives in three Canadian provinces. Our MIC case examples demonstrate that practices and policies to promote access to and use of health information can help improve individual healthcare and inform a learning health system. MICs were constrained by heterogenous health information protection laws across jurisdictions and risk-averse institutional cultures. A networked approach to MICs would unlock even more potential for national and international data (...) collaborations to improve health and healthcare. (shrink)

Many physicists have thought that absolute time became otiose with the introduction of Special Relativity. William Lane Craig disagrees. Craig argues that although relativity is empirically adequate within a domain of application, relativity is literally false and should be supplanted by a Neo-Lorentzian alternative that allows for absolute time. Meanwhile, Craig and co-author James Sinclair have argued that physical cosmology supports the conclusion that physical reality began to exist at a finite time in the past. However, on their view, the (...) beginning of physical reality requires the objective passage of absolute time, so that the beginning of physical reality stands or falls with Craig's Neo-Lorentzian metaphysics. Here, I raise doubts about whether, given Craig's NeoLorentzian metaphysics, physical cosmology could adequately support a beginning of physical reality within the finite past. Craig and Sinclair's conception of the beginning of the universe requires a past boundary to the universe. A past boundary to the universe cannot be directly observed and so must be inferred from the observed matter-energy distribution in conjunction with auxilary hypotheses drawn from a substantive physical theory. Craig's brand of Neo Lorentzianism has not been sufficiently well specified so as to infer either that there is a past boundary or that the boundary is located in the finite past. Consequently, Neo Lorentzianism implicitly introduces a form of skepticism that removes the ability that we might have otherwise had to infer a beginning of the universe. Furthermore, in analyzing traditional big bang models, I develop criteria that Neo-Lorentzians should deploy in thinking about the direction and duration of time in cosmological models generally. For my last task, I apply the same criteria to bounce cosmologies and show that Craig and Sinclair have been wrong to interpret bounce cosmologies as including a beginning of physical reality. (shrink)

Teleological explanations (TEs) account for the existence or properties of an entity in terms of a function: we have hearts because they pump blood, and telephones for communication. While many teleological explanations seem appropriate, others are clearly not warranted-for example, that rain exists for plants to grow. Five experiments explore the theoretical commitments that underlie teleological explanations. With the analysis of [Wright, L. (1976). Teleological Explanations. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press] from philosophy as a point of departure, we examine (...) in Experiment 1 whether teleological explanations are interpreted causally, and confirm that TEs are only accepted when the function invoked in the explanation played a causal role in bringing about what is being explained. However, we also find that playing a causal role is not sufficient for all participants to accept TEs. Experiment 2 shows that this is not because participants fail to appreciate the causal structure of the scenarios used as stimuli. In Experiments 3-5 we show that the additional requirement for TE acceptance is that the process by which the function played a causal role must be general in the sense of conforming to a predictable pattern. These findings motivate a proposal, Explanation for Export, which suggests that a psychological function of explanation is to highlight information likely to subserve future prediction and intervention. We relate our proposal to normative accounts of explanation from philosophy of science, as well as to claims from psychology and artificial intelligence. (shrink)

This is a forthcoming section for the book "Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy", edited by Graham Oppy, Gregory Dawes, Evan Fales, Joseph Koterski, Mashhad Al-Allaf, Robert Fastiggi, and David Shatz. I was asked to write a brief essay on whether naturalism or theism can successfully explain the distribution of suffering in our world. Wheras another section covers the possibility that suffering is evidence against theism, my essay is concerned only with the ability for either naturalism or theism to (...) explain suffering. I argue that, for naturalists, suffering is not to be explained by either philosophers of religion or theologians. Instead, naturalists believe that suffering should be explained by the cognitive and social sciences, perhaps in conjunction with political philosophy and philosophy of mind. Moreover, naturalists may take suffering to be an important reason for action. In a world without a transcendent, supernatural being to watch over us, we can only depend upon each other to ameliorate existing conditions, to the extent that they can be ameliorated. On the other hand, theistic explanations of the distibution of suffering slip very easily into problematic theologies when they try to offer explicit explanations for suffering. For example, the world's most vulnerable people are often those who suffer the most, whereas oppressors are often able to prosper. That is, theistic explanations of our world's suffering easily slip into, e.g., the just world fallacy, racist ideology (i.e., that God favors some race(s) of people over others), or patriarchal ideology. Instead of offering an explicit explanation, theists should instead be skeptical theists -- i.e., they should argue that an explanation for our world's suffering is beyond our ken. While skeptical theism avoids the aforementioned problematic implications, if skeptical theism is true, then our world's suffering cannot be fully explained. (shrink)

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo principal presentar y discutir el concepto de las hiperescrituras del yo como prácticas de producción de memorias. A partir de estas escrituras, practicadas y compartidas en la pandemia, se pretende pensar la ficción como táctica de (re)existencia. Finalmente se presenta una experiencia en la plataforma Moodle, diseñada con estudiantes durante el 2020, que tuvo la ficción como punto de partida de la propuesta didáctica.

The potential negative impact of sexualized video games on attitudes toward women is an important issue. Studies that have examined this issue are rare and contain a number of limitations. Therefore, it largely remains unclear whether sexualized video games can have an impact on attitudes toward women. This study examined the consequences of sexualized video game content and cognitive load on rape victim blame and rape perpetrator blame, and whether the degree of humanness of the victim and of the perpetrator (...) mediated these effects. Participants played a video game using sexualized or non-sexualized female characters. Cognitive load was manipulated by setting the difficulty level of the game to low or high. After gameplay, participants read a rape date story, and were then asked to judge the victim’s and the perpetrator’s degree of responsibility and humanness. Based on the General Aggression Model, it was hypothesized that playing the video game with a sexualized content would increase the responsibility assigned to the victim and diminish the responsibility assigned to the perpetrator. Further, degree of humanness of the victim and the perpetrator was expected to mediate this relation. The results were partially consistent with these predictions: Playing a video game containing sexualized female characters increased rape victim blame when cognitive load was high, but did not predict degree of humanness accorded to the victim. Concerning the perpetrator, video game sexualization did not influence responsibility, but partly influenced humanness. This study concludes that video games impact on attitudes toward women and this, in part, due to its interactive nature. (shrink)

Título: La enseñanza de la historia en el Siglo XXI. Desarrollo y evaluación de competencias históricaspara una ciudadanía democráticaEditores: Miralles Martínez, P.; Gómez Carrasco, C. J.; Rodríguez Pérez, R. A.Editorial: Editum. Ediciones de la Universidad de MurciaIdioma: español y portuguésAño: 2017ISBN: 978-84-697-3352-3Páginas: 273.

On November 2, 2004, California voters elected to radically expand their state criminal DNA database through the passage of Proposition 69. The approved ballot initiative authorized DNA collection and retention from all felons, any individuals with past felony convictions – including juveniles – and, beginning in 2009, all adults arrested for any felony offense. This dramatic database expansion threatens civil liberties and establishes a dangerous precedent for U.S. criminal databases.

In pedagogical contexts and in everyday life, we often come to believe something because it would best explain the data. What is it about the explanatory endeavor that makes it essential to everyday learning and to scientific progress? There are at least two plausible answers. On one view, there is something special about having true explanations. This view is highly intuitive: it’s clear why true explanations might improve one’s epistemic position. However, there is another possibility—it could be that the process (...) of seeking, generating, or evaluating explanations itself puts one in a better epistemic position, even when the outcome of the process is not a true explanation. In other words, it could be that accurate explanations are beneficial, or it could be that high-quality explaining is beneficial, where there is something about the activity of looking for an explanation that improves our epistemic standing. The main goal of this paper is to tease apart these two possibilities, both theoretically and empirically, which we align with “Inference to the Best Explanation” and “Explaining for the Best Inference”, respectively. We also provide some initial support for EBI and identify promising directions for future research. (shrink)

Some recent work in philosophy of religion addresses what can be called the “axiological question,” i.e., regardless of whether God exists, would it be good or bad if God exists? Would the existence of God make the world a better or a worse place? Call the view that the existence of God would make the world a better place “Pro-Theism.” We argue that Pro-Theism is not implausible, and moreover, many Theists, at least, (often implicitly) think that it is true. That (...) is, many Theists think that various good outcomes would arise if Theism is true. We then discuss work in cognitive science concerning human cognitive bias, before discussing two noteworthy attempts to show that at least some religious beliefs arise because of cognitive bias: Hume’s, and Draper’s and Nichols’s. We then argue that, as a result of certain cognitive biases that result when good outcomes might be at stake, Pro-Theism causes many Theists to inflate the epistemic probability that God exists, and as a result, Theists should lower the probability they assign to God’s existence. Finally, based our arguments, we develop a novel objection to Pascal’s wager. (shrink)

On the orthodox interpretation of bounce cosmologies, a preceding universe was compressed to a small size before “bouncing” to form the present expanding universe. William Lane Craig and James Sinclair have argued that the orthodox interpretation is incorrect if the entropy reaches a minimum at the bounce. In their view, the interface between universes represents the birth of two expanding universes, i.e., a “double bang” instead of a “big bounce”. Here, I reply to Craig and Sinclair in defense of the (...) orthodox interpretation. Contrary to their interpretation, features of one universe explain features of the other universe and so must precede the other universe in time. Moreover, contrary to a crucial part of Craig and Sinclair’s interpretation, there are bounce cosmologies in which the thermodynamic arrow of time is continuous through the bounce even though the entropy is “reset” at the bounce. (shrink)

According to the orthodox interpretation of bounce cosmologies, the universe was born from an entropy-reducing phase in a previous universe. To defend the thesis that the whole of physical reality was caused to exist a finite time ago, Craig and Sinclair have argued the low-entropy interface between universes should instead be understood as the beginning of two universes. Here, I present Craig and Sinclair with a dilemma. On the one hand, if the direction of time is reducible, as friends of (...) the Mentaculus—for example, Albert, Loewer, and Papineau—maintain, then there is reason to think that the direction of time and the entropic arrow of time align. But on that account, efficient causation is likely reducible to non-causal phenomena. In consequence, contrary to Craig and Sinclair’s theological aims, things can begin to exist without causes. On the other hand, if the direction of time is not reducible, Craig and Sinclair’s interpretation of bounce cosmologies is unjustified. Lastly, a reply to a potential objection motivates a discussion of how to interpret bounce cosmologies on the tensed theory of absolute time favoured by Craig and Sinclair. I offer two interpretations of bounce cosmologies that, given a tensed theory of absolute time, are preferable to those Craig and Sinclair offer, yet inconsistent with their project in natural theology; on one interpretation, the universe does not require a supernatural cause and, on the other, bounce cosmologies represent the universe as never having begun to exist. (shrink)

Both philosophers and psychologists have argued for the existence of distinct kinds of explanations, including teleological explanations that cite functions or goals, and mechanistic explanations that cite causal mechanisms. Theories of causation, in contrast, have generally been unitary, with dominant theories focusing either on counterfactual dependence or on physical connections. This paper argues that both approaches to causation are psychologically real, with different modes of explanation promoting judgments more or less consistent with each approach. Two sets of experiments isolate the (...) contributions of counterfactual dependence and physical connections in causal ascriptions involving events with people, artifacts, or biological traits, and manipulate whether the events are construed teleologically or mechanistically. The findings suggest that when events are construed teleologically, causal ascriptions are sensitive to counterfactual dependence and relatively insensitive to the presence of physical connections, but when events are construed mechanistically, causal ascriptions are sensitive to both counterfactual dependence and physical connections. The conclusion introduces an account of causation, an "exportable dependence theory," that provides a way to understand the contributions of physical connections and teleology in terms of the functions of causal ascriptions. (shrink)

Knobe considers two explanations for the influence of moral considerations on cognitive systems: the position, and the position. We suggest that this dichotomy conflates questions at computational and algorithmic levels, and suggest that distinguishing the issues at these levels reveals a third, viable option, which we call the position.

Intuitively, the totality of physical reality—the Cosmos—has a beginning only if (i) all parts of the Cosmos agree on the direction of time (the Direction Condition) and (ii) there is a boundary to the past of all non-initial spacetime points such that there are no spacetime points to the past of the boundary (the Boundary Condition). Following a distinction previously introduced by J. Brian Pitts, the Boundary Condition can be conceived of in two distinct ways: either topologically, i.e., in terms (...) of a closed boundary, or metrically, i.e., in terms of the Cosmos having a finite past. This article proposes that the Boundary Condition should be posed disjunctively, modifies and improves upon the metrical conception of the Cosmos’s beginning in light of a series of surprising yet simple thought experiments, and suggests that the Direction and Boundary Conditions should be thought of as more fundamental to the concept of the Cosmos’s beginning than classical Big Bang cosmology. (shrink)

Gerald Harrison has recently argued the evidential problem of evil can be resolved if we assume the moral facts are identical to God’s commands or favorings. On a theistic metaethics, the moral facts are identical to what God commands or favors. Our moral intuitions reflect what God commands or favors for us to do, but not what God favors for Herself to do. Thus, on Harrison’s view, while we can know the moral facts as they pertain to humans, we cannot (...) know the moral facts as they pertain to God. Therefore, Harrison argues, the evidential problem of evil inappropriately assumes God to be intuitively moral, when we have no reason to suppose a perfectly good being would match the expectations provided by our moral intuitions. Harrison calls his view a new form of skeptical theism. In response, I show Harrison’s attempt to dissolve the problem of evil exacerbates well-known skeptical consequences of skeptical theism. Harrison’s new skeptical theism leaves us with problems motivating a substantive religious life, the inability to provide a variety of theological explanations, and, despite Harrison’s comments to the contrary, worsens problems having to do with the possibility of divine deception. (shrink)

In his book Doing Without Concepts, Edouard Machery argues that cognitive scientists should reject the concept of “concept” as a natural, psychological kind. I review and critique several of Machery’s arguments, focusing on his definition of “concept” and on claims against the possibility and utility of a unified account of concepts. In particular, I suggest ways in which prototype, exemplar, and theory-theory approaches to concepts might be integrated.

. On June 13, 2013, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, holding that a naturally occurring DNA segment that has merely been “isolated” is not patent eligible, and effectively overturning a longstanding policy that had allowed for patents to be issued on thousands of human genes. Drawing largely on the expert testimony and arguments presented during the court proceedings, this paper provides an overview of the discovery and patenting of the BRCA1 (...) and BRCA2 genes at issue in the case, the impacts of gene patents on biomedical research and innovation and clinical practice, and the legal analysis presented by the plaintiffs throughout the case for how patents issued on genes violate the Patent Act and the U.S. Constitution. Finally, it discusses how the Court’s decision in this case marked an extraordinary victory not only for the plaintiffs directly involved, but more generally for women, patients, researchers, civil liberties, and the future of medicine. (shrink)

For people with Bipolar Affective Disorder, a self-binding (advance) directive (SBD), by which they commit themselves to treatment during future episodes of mania, even if unwilling, can seem the most rational way to deal with an imperfect predicament. Knowing that mania will almost certainly cause enormous damage to themselves, their preferred solution may well be to allow trusted others to enforce treatment and constraint, traumatic though this may be. No adequate provision exists for drafting a truly effective SBD and efforts (...) to establish such provision are hampered by very valid, but also paralysing ethical, clinical and legal concerns. Effectively, the autonomy and rights of people with bipolar are being 'protected' through being denied an opportunity to protect themselves. From a standpoint firmly rooted in the clinical context and experience of mania, this article argues that an SBD, based on a patient-centred evaluation of capacity to make treatment decisions (DMC-T) and grounded within the clinician-patient relationship, could represent a legitimate and ethically coherent form of self-determination. After setting out background information on fluctuating capacity, mania and advance directives, this article proposes a framework for constructing such an SBD, and considers common objections, possible solutions and suggestions for future research. (shrink)

This book critically assesses arguments for the existence of the God of classical theism, develops an innovative account of objects’ persistence, and defends new arguments against classical theism. The authors engage the following classical theistic proofs: Aquinas’s First Way, Aquinas’s De Ente argument, and Feser’s Aristotelian, Neo-Platonic, Augustinian, Thomistic, and Rationalist proofs. The authors also provide the first systematic treatment of the ‘existential inertia thesis’. By connecting the thesis to relativity theory and recent developments in the philosophy of physics, and (...) by developing a variety of novel existential-inertia-friendly explanations of persistence, they mount a formidable new case against classical theistic proofs. Finally, they defend new arguments against classical theism based on abstract objects and changing divine knowledge. The text appeals to students, researchers, and others interested in classical theistic proofs, the existence and nature of God, and the ultimate explanations of persistence, change, and contingency. (shrink)

This essay focuses on the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. We show that neoliberalization and the dismantling of community health services played a major role in turning Northern Italy into a shattered “lazaret”. Moreover, considering Italian activists’ responses to the pandemic, we suggest that they point toward a reinvention of reproduction along two main axes. First, they bring feminist insights to bear with the ecological crisis that created the conditions for COVID-19. In so doing, they direct attention to (...) reproduction as a multidimensional matrix of power relations involving both social and ecological aspects. Second, activists have strived to build infrastructures for the redistribution of care from below. Creating and developing mutual aid networks, activist groups designed a feminist logistics, that is central for creating alternatives to prevalent neoliberal models of circulating care whose flaws have fully emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

This article explores and critically contextualises the photographic production of heliotherapist Auguste Rollier (1874–1954), specifically the ‘patient portraits’ photographed at his Leysin sanatoria over a substantial period of four decades, c.1903–1944. It argues that these photographs, ignored in secondary literature, were particularly persuasive in communicating the natural healing powers of sunlight and through their international dissemination brought Rollier's work professional acclaim and prestige. Always presenting anonymous patients, and most often children, the images produced for Rollier's work interweave aesthetic and medical (...) interests. Whether through the aesthetics of the photograph, of the positioning and appearance of the patient's body, or of the language used to describe these, issues of beauty and harmony were significant preoccupations for Rollier and the dissemination of his heliotherapeutic practice. The article argues that these aesthetic preoccupations drove his work, that the patient's progress and final cure, and thus the therapy's efficacy, were determined by aesthetic criteria—read through the body itself and its photographic representation. This legibility, of the body and its photography, was crucial to articulating the sun's perceived natural ability to improve, heal and even ‘rebuild’ individual patients into socially and physically productive citizens. As such, the article contends, Rollier privileged image over word, conceiving the former as possessing an unequalled ‘eloquence’ to communicate the efficacy and social potential of heliotherapy. (shrink)

Taiji – Sport, Meditation, Kampfkunst , Gesundheitserhaltung, Lebensphilosophie und der Weg zur Erleuchtung – ist eines der bekanntesten „Markenzeichen” des chinesischen Daoismus. Der folgende Artikel stellt die Grundbegriffe des philosophischen Daoismus, wie dao , qi und wuwei vor, und verbindet sie mit den Prinzipien des Taiji. Entstanden in der Tradition des philosophischen Daoismus stehen diese Begriffe im Zentrum von Schriften wie Daodejing und Zhuangzi, und dienen als Bausteine der daoistischen Philosophie, die sich gerade durch die Beständigkeit dieser Axiome während einer (...) tausendjährigen Geschichte sozialer, politischer und religiöser Umwälzungen als stabil erwiesen hat. Aus dem regelmäßigen Taiji-Training mit dem Ziel mens sana in corpore sano und unter Beachtung der Prinzipien des dao, qi und wuwei resultieren Weichheit und Stärke des Körpers und Weisheit des Geistes, wodurch sich höhere Ebenen des Bewusstseins eröffnen, in denen es möglich wird, eine Einheit physischer und mentaler Vollkommenheit zu erlangen. Dadurch gewinnt die „Kampfkunst” Taiji eine weitere, transzendente Dimension. (shrink)

Unscharfe Grenzen und fließende Übergänge kommen in allen Registern der Erfahrung vor. Von einer positiven Unbestimmtheit kann indes nur dort die Rede sein, wo diese gleichsam zur Sache selbst gehört und nicht nur unserem begrenzten Erkenntnisstand oder mangelnden Realisierungsmöglichkeiten zuzu-rechnen ist. Die gewachsene technologische Verfügungsmacht des Menschen, die sich mittlerweile auf die menschliche Lebenssubstanz selbst erstreckt, hat zu tiefgreifenden Veränderungen des Naturbegriffs geführt, in deren Verlauf die Grenzen zwischen Naturprodukten und Artefakten ständig verschoben werden. Damit tauchen neue Formen von Unbestimmtheit (...) auf, deren begriffliche Bewältigung uns vor besondere Probleme stellt. Wann genau beginnt das zu schützende menschliche Leben? Sind Hirntote wirklich tot? Kann ich eine Gehirntransplantation überleben, meine Existenz sogar in einem Klon fortsetzen? (shrink)

Juliet Mitchell’s psychoanalytic account of sibling rivalry, fluctuating between narcissistic identification and fear of annihilation, also applies to Walter Benjamin’s model of true love in his reading of Goethe’s Elective Affinities. This model is found in the utopian novella “The Curious Tale of the Childhood Sweethearts,” inserted within Goethe’s novel. By reducing the relationship between the novella and its framing narrative to an opposition between truth and semblance, Benjamin replicates in his reading the specular logic that is love’s obstacle. On (...) the other hand, Freud’s analysis of an episode in Goethe’s autobiography can be said to retroactively operate what Mitchell calls “lateral castration,” for Freud compares the great writer to patients in analysis and thus establishes the necessary seriality that creates “space for one who is the same and different.” Still, and although elements of his own autobiography facilitate the construction of alternative scenarios, Freud exempts Goethe’s sisters from the position of rivals. Recognising “the sister” as earliest playmate, and object of hatred and narcissistic identification, like Mitchell does, might be the first step necessary for drawing a model of love for women as peers this side of utopia. (shrink)

The new interdisciplinary field of experimental philosophy has emerged as the methods of psychological science have been brought to bear on traditional philosophical issues. Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy is the place to go to see outstanding new work in the field, by both philosophers and psychologists.

Historically, many Christians have understood God’s transcendence to imply God’s properties categorically differ from any created properties. For multiple historical figures, a problem arose for religious language: how can one talk of God at all if none of our predicates apply to God? What are we to make of creeds and Biblical passages that seem to predicate creaturely properties, such as goodness and wisdom, of God? Thomas Aquinas offered a solution: God is to be spoken of only through analogy (the (...) doctrine of analogy). Gavin Hyman argues Aquinas’s doctrine of analogy was neglected prior to the early-modern period and the neglect of analogy produced the conception of a god vulnerable to atheistic arguments. Contra Hyman, in this paper, I show early-modern atheism arose in a theological context in which there was an active debate concerning analogy. Peter Browne (1665–1735) and William King (1650–1729) offered two competing conceptions of analogical predication that were debated through the 19th century, with interlocutors such as the freethinker Anthony Collins (1676–1729), theologian/philosopher George Berkeley (1685–1753), and skeptic David Hume (1711–1776). Lastly, I discuss the 18th century debate over theological analogy as part of the background relevant to understanding Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. (shrink)

Educational policy and social sciences researchers have been studying dishonest behaviors among students for a long time. In this bibliometric study we examine the extant literature on academic dishonesty until 2017. We also analyze the specific case of the literature on plagiarism since it is arguably one of the most common academic dishonest behavior. We aim at identifying the intellectual structure of the field of academic dishonesty and plagiarism. Results show that Donald L. McCabe and Richard L. Marsh appear as (...) the most productive authors. Furthermore, Whitley, 235–274, 1998) “Factors associated with cheating among college students: A review”, and Pennycook, 201–230, 1996), entitled “Borrowing others’ words: Text, ownership, memory, and plagiarism” are the most cited publications on academic dishonesty and on plagiarism, respectively. Additionally, a strong connection between the McCabe and Treviño articles emerged from the co-citation analysis on academic dishonesty, and also a strong relationship between Pennycook, 201–230, 1996) and Pecorari, 317–345, 2003), suggesting that these articles are strongly connected. Results suggest that these are the most influential authors and articles of the field. (shrink)

The understanding of a wide array of practices related to fraud, bribery, corruption, and more widely, illicit practices have been capturing the attention of practitioners and management researchers worldwide. A substantial portion of the extant research has used university students to measure their actual or intended cheating behaviours and often studies have tested for variations across countries and cultures. We highlight some major concerns in this stream of inquiry and discuss both the definition and some inconclusive results in prior studies, (...) namely those deriving from differences in cheating behaviour across different cultural contexts. We suggest the need to examine intentionality, and further advance that intentionality may assume a reactive or a proactive essence. Depending on the social and formal contexts of different countries, both reactive and proactive intentions lead to distinct moral concerns, which we name in this work omorality (meaning ‘our morality’) or immorality (in the traditional sense). (shrink)

Scientific and ‘intuitive’ or ‘folk’ theories are typically characterized as serving three critical functions: prediction, explanation, and control. While prediction and control have clear instrumental value, the value of explanation is less transparent. This paper reviews an emerging body of research from the cognitive sciences suggesting that the process of seeking, generating, and evaluating explanations in fact contributes to future prediction and control, albeit indirectly by facilitating the discovery and confirmation of instrumentally valuable theories. Theoretical and empirical considerations also suggest (...) why explanations may nonetheless feel intrinsically valuable. The paper concludes by considering some implications of the psychology of explanation for a naturalized philosophy of explanation. (shrink)

Recent expansions of federal and state law enforcement databanks to include DNA samples and profiles of innocent persons threaten individual privacy, impose unjustifiable costs on society, and may undermine our pursuit of justice. The move to permanently retain DNA from arrestees and proposals for a universal database should be vigorously opposed on matters of principle, legality, and practicality.

Use of electronic health records within clinical encounters is increasingly pervasive. The digital record allows for data storage and sharing to facilitate patient care, billing, research, patient communication and quality-of-care improvement—all at once. However, this multifunctionality is also one of the main reasons care providers struggle with the EHR. These problems have often been described but are rarely approached from a philosophical point of view. We argue that a postphenomenological case study of the EHR could lead to more in-depth insights. (...) We will focus on two concepts—transparency and multistability—and translate them to the specific situation of the EHR. Transparency is closely related to an embodiment relation in which the user becomes less aware of the technology: it fades into the background, becoming a means of experience. A second key concept is that of multistability, referring to how a technology can serve multiple purposes or can have different meanings in different contexts. The EHR in this sense is multistable by design. Future EHR design could incorporate multistable information differently, allowing the provider to focus on patient care when interacting with the EHR. Moreover we argue that the use of the EHR in the daily workflow should become more transparent, while awareness of the computer in the specific context of the patient-provider relationship should increase. (shrink)

We utilize contemporary cognitive and social science of religion to defend a controversial thesis: the human cognitive apparatus gratuitously inclines humans to religious activity oriented around entities other than the God of classical theism. Using this thesis, we update and defend two arguments drawn from David Hume: (i) the argument from idolatry, which argues that the God of classical theism does not exist, and (ii) the argument from indifference, which argues that if the God of classical theism exists, God is (...) indifferent to our religious activity. (shrink)

The issue of how to incorporate the individual's first‐hand experience of illness into broader medical understanding is a major question in medical theory and practice. In a philosophical context, phenomenology, with its emphasis on the subject's perception of phenomena as the basis for knowledge and its questioning of naturalism, seems an obvious candidate for addressing these issues. This is a review of current phenomenological approaches to medicine, looking at what has motivated this philosophical approach, the main problems it faces and (...) suggesting how it might become a useful philosophical tool within medicine, with its own individual, but interrelated, contribution to make to current medical debates. After the general background, there is a brief summary of phenomenological ideas and their current usage in a medical context. Next is a critique of four key claims within current phenomenological medical works, concerning both the role phenomenology plays and the supposedly clear divide between phenomenology and other approaches. There are significant problems within these claims, largely because they overlook the complexity of the questions they consider. Finally, there is some more in‐depth examination of phenomenology itself and the true complexity of phenomenological debate concerning subjectivity. The aim is to show that it will be both more productive and truer to phenomenology itself, if we use phenomenology as a philosophical method for explicating and gaining deeper understanding of complex and fundamental problems, which are central to medicine, rather than as providing simple, but flawed solutions. (shrink)

ObjectiveAre people with a characteristically large physiological sway rendered particularly unstable when standing on a moving surface? Is postural sway in standing individuals idiosyncratic? In this study, we examine postural sway in individuals standing normally, and when subtle continuous sinusoidal disturbances are applied to their support platform. We calculate consistency between conditions to verify if sway can be considered characteristic of each individual. We also correlate two different aspects of participants’ responses to disturbance; their sway velocity and their regulation of (...) body orientation.MethodsNineteen healthy adults (age 29.2 ± 3.2 years) stood freely on footplates coaxially aligned with their ankles and attached to a motorized platform. They had their eyes closed, and hips and knees locked with a light wooden board attached to their body. Participants either stood quietly on a fixed platform or on a slowly tilting platform (0.1 Hz sinusoid; 0.2 and 0.4 deg). Postural sway size was separated into two entities: (1) the spontaneous sway velocity component (natural random relatively rapid postural adjustments, RMS body angular velocity) and (2) the evoked tilt gain component (much slower 0.1 Hz synchronous tilt induced by the movement of the platform, measured as peak-to-peak (p-p) gain, ratio of body angle to applied footplate rotation).ResultsThere was no correlation between the velocity of an individual’s sway and their evoked tilt gain (r= 0.34,p= 0.15 andr= 0.30,p= 0.22). However, when considered separately, each of the two measurements showed fair to good absolute agreement within conditions. Spontaneous sway velocity consistently increased as participants were subjected to increasing disturbance. Participants who swayed more (or less) did so across all conditions [ICC(3,k)= 0.95]. Evoked tilt gain also showed consistency between conditions [ICC(3,k)= 0.79], but decreased from least to most disturbed conditions.ConclusionThe two measurements remain consistent between conditions. Consistency between conditions of two very distinct unrelated measurements reflects the idiosyncratic nature of postural sway. However, sway velocity and tilt gain are not related, which supports the idea that the short-term regulation of stability and the longer-term regulation of orientation are controlled by different processes. (shrink)

Following the “Encountering Human Rights” conference in January 2007, Emily Grabham interviewed Tania Pouwhare, a women’s rights activist working at the Women’s Resource Centre in London. Their discussion engaged with the professionalisation of activism, funding constraints and New Labour policies and their impact on immigrant women. Against a background of financial insecurity and huge demand for their services, many women’s organisations in the United Kingdom struggle to use human rights law to advance women’s rights. Nevertheless, the rhetoric of human (...) rights remains powerful within women’s activism, and law remains relevant as a potential form of ‘direct action’ and “another way of making a really big fuss”. (shrink)

Information and computer technology has come to play an increasingly important role in medicine, to the extent that e-health has been described as a disruptive innovation or revolution in healthcare. The attention is very much focused on the technology itself, and advances that have been made in genetics and biology. This leads to the question: What is changing in medicine today concerning e-health? To what degree could these changes be characterized as a ‘revolution’? We will apply the work of Thomas (...) Kuhn, Larry Laudan, Michel Foucault and other philosophers—which offers an alternative understanding of progress and revolution in medicine to the classic discovery-oriented approach—to our analysis. Nowadays, the long-standing curative or reactive paradigm in medicine is facing a crisis due to an aging population, a significant increase in chronic diseases and the development of more expensive diagnostic tools and therapies. This promotes the evolution towards a new paradigm with an emphasis on preventive medicine. E-health constitutes an essential part of this new paradigm that seeks to solve the challenges presented by an aging population, skyrocketing costs and so forth. Our approach changes the focus from the technology itself toward the underlying paradigm shift in medicine. We will discuss the relevance of this approach by applying it to the surge in digital self-tracking through health apps and wearables: the recognition of the underlying paradigm shift leads to a more comprehensive understanding of self-tracking than a solely discovery-oriented or technology-focused view can provide. (shrink)

This is a forthcoming section for the book "Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy", edited by Graham Oppy, Gregory Dawes, Evan Fales, Joseph Koterski, Mashhad Al-Allaf, Robert Fastiggi, and David Shatz. I was asked to write a brief essay on divine hiddenness and divine inscrutability. I argue that theism is trapped between two opposite poles. On one end, we encounter an argument developed by John Schellenberg. God is understood as a being who, in virtue of God's perfect love, would (...) have relationship with any of Her creatures who are open to loving relationship with God. If so, we would not expect there to exist non-resistant non-believers. Yet there are non-resistant non-believers. So, this sort of God does not exist. On the other pole, God is completely incomprehensible. But if God is incomprehensible, then this leads to a series of theological problems. For example, if God is incomprehensible, then it is difficult to understand how any human could rationally endorse God's existence. I argue that both poles are problematic for the theist and that it is difficult to see how to construct a road through the middle that would not inherit the problems of either pole. (shrink)

Food Services generate solid waste from the production process and distribution of meal. The raw material, after a rational flow, is transformed into meals for consumption generating solid waste of variable composition and quantity. Waste recovery actions in the recycling and selective collection in these services act as inhibitors of the inadequate disposal of these wastes in the environment, contributing to environmental sustainability. The objective of this study is to analyze the generation and viability of commercialization of recyclable solid waste (...) in Food Services of companies located in Cuiabá and Várzea Grande, Mato Grosso – Brazil. This is a cross-sectional exploratory study with a convenience sample. The analysis of the generation of residues was carried out using the weighing method and generation indices using descriptive statistics. In order to verify the economic potential of recyclable waste, the value of intermediate consumption was used and sales price data were obtained by means of the publication "Compromisso Empresarial para Reciclagem" CEMPRE. It was found that in six services the largest part of waste was made of plastic, and in two services it was paper and cardboard. The generation of aluminum was more significant in one service, being the residue that added more economic value in the commercialization. The generation of glass and tetra pack packaging were not significant, and the recycling of both is not of interest to the scavengers. The results indicate that the commercialization of recyclable solid waste is viable. (shrink)