Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognize that climate change and biodiversity loss are one indivisible crisis and must be tackle...

Back to Kant is a study of the rise of the neo-Kantian movement from its origins in the 1850s to its academic preeminence in the years before World War I. Thomas E. Willey describes early neo-Kantianism as a reaction of scientists and scientific philosophers against both the then discredited Hegelianism and Naturphilosophie of the preceding era and the simplistic and deterministic scientific materialism of the 1850s. "Back to Kant" was the slogan of a revolt against theories of knowledge which (...) seemed inadequate to recent discoveries in thermodynamics, physiology, optics and other fields. Because Immanuel Kant was the philosopher who placed Newtonian physics on new epistemological foundations and demonstrated the possibility of universal scientific truth, he was the right thinker for a generation of scholars living through a new scientific revolution in Germany and dissatisfied with both speculative idealism and crude materialism. The second wave of neo-Kantians continued to discuss problems of scientific epistemology in the 1880s and after, but they also showed a keen interest in political and social matters, attempting to bridge liberalism and socialism with Kantian ethics. Neo-Kantians had to face questions of socialism, the place of the working class in society, the phenomenon of social welfare, the challenge of political democracy. Willey uses the biographical approach to develop the relationship between unity and diversity in the movement, and to underscore the importance of personality in history. While individual dissertations and monographs have been written on various thinkers and schools within neo-Kantianism, this is the first wide-ranging history of the entire phenomenon. Willey observes that the movement did succeed in reasserting ethical values and in separating humanistic studies from the methods of physical science. He also discusses the possibility that a wider acceptance of neo-Kantian ideals among bourgeois intellectuals and socialist leaders might have reduced class antagonisms and sustained a stronger feeling of community between Germany and the West. (shrink)

The contributors to this volume describe a range of programs that use picture books to teach philosophy to diverse audiences. From a pre-school program in which college students to do the teaching to a program focused on overcoming the legacy of violence and genocide in Mali in which the teachers write and illustrate their own picture books, the authors demonstrate the impact that learning philosophy has on diverse communities of young students and their teachers.

_Taking Picture Books Seriously: What can we learn about philosophy through children's books?_ This warm and charming volume casts a spell on adult readers as it unveils the surprisingly profound philosophical wisdom contained in children's picture books, from Dr Seuss's _Sneetches_ to William Steig's _Shrek!_. With a light touch and good humor, Wartenberg discusses the philosophical ideas in these classic stories, and provides parents with a practical starting point for discussing philosophical issues with their children. Accessible and multi-layered, it answers (...) questions like, Is it okay for adults to deceive kids? What's the difference between saying the Mona Lisa is a great painting and vanilla is your favorite flavor? Each chapter includes illustrations commissioned especially for this book. (shrink)

Thomas E. Hill, Jr.; Servility and Self-Respect, The Monist, Volume 57, Issue 1, 1 January 1973, Pages 87–104, https://doi.org/10.5840/monist197357135.

This is the text of The Lindley Lecture for 2006, given by Thomas E. Hill, Jr., an American philosopher.

This paper provides a description and analysis of Wilhelm Neurath's economics and theory of value. Otto Neurath's rejection of a distinct methodology for social science and his insistence on the political partisanship of scientific sociology, I argue, represent his attempt to both continue the practical orientation of his father's theorizing and answer the normative problem his father's theories faced.

Kaplan, Stalnaker and Wettstein all urge a two-stage theory of language whereon the propositions expressed by sentences are generated prior to being evaluated. A new ambiguity for sentences emerges, propositional rather syntactic or semantic. Kaplan and Wettstein then propose to explain Donnellan's referential/attributive ambiguity as simply being two-stage propositional ambiguity. This is tacitly seen as further confirmation for two-stage theory. Modal ambiguities are prime motivators for two-stage theory which distinguishes local from exotic evaluation to explain them. But if sentences can (...) be found which exhibit both modal and referential/attribute ambiguity, an apparent paradox arises for a two-stage account. The theory recognizes both singular and general propositions, in Kaplan's senses. But reflecting one sense of such a doubly ambiguous sentence, two-stage theory would seem to need a proposition both singular and general with respect to a definite description attributively used. Since modal operators will come into rendering the problem sentences, an obvious idea is to let scope distinctions rescue two-stage theory from the apparent paradox. But while a rescue based on multiple renderings is proposed, it is not strictly a scope rescue, though different scopes are involved. Readers are asked to trust the author on missing formalities of an intuitively transparent two-sorted modal language that is employed. Two-stage theorists explicitly oppose scope treatments of modal ambiguities seeing them as rivals. Stalnaker, in particular, argues against them. But his arguments are shown not to count against the proposed rescue, on which the anticipated rivalry proves to be minimal. (shrink)

Autopoiesis and systems theory are terms often treated as synonymous by lawyers. This sleight‐of‐phrase elides the space between autopoiesis and systems theory, removing its content. Within this eliminated space there exist numerous understandings of systems approaches in law; one such understanding is complexity theory. Complexity theory entails a very different systems view of law to that of autopoiesis. In this paperIexplore the concepts of complexity and their relevance to law. In tracing an outline of complexity, a number of contradictions, paradoxes, (...) and additional questions are exposed which require further detailed analysis in the future. (shrink)

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) to different sites allows interfering with dysfunctional network function implicated in major depression. Because a prominent clinical feature of depression is anhedonia--the inability to experience pleasure from previously pleasurable activities--and because there is clear evidence of dysfunctions of the reward system in depression, DBS to the nucleus accumbens might offer a new possibility to target depressive symptomatology in otherwise treatment-resistant depression. Three patients suffering from extremely resistant forms of depression, who did not respond to pharmacotherapy, psychotherapy, (...) and electroconvulsive therapy, were implanted with bilateral DBS electrodes in the nucleus accumbens. Stimulation parameters were modified in a double-blind manner, and clinical ratings were assessed at each modification. Additionally, brain metabolism was assessed 1 week before and 1 week after stimulation onset. Clinical ratings improved in all three patients when the stimulator was on, and worsened in all three patients when the stimulator was turned off. Effects were observable immediately, and no side effects occurred in any of the patients. Using FDG-PET, significant changes in brain metabolism as a function of the stimulation in fronto-striatal networks were observed. No unwanted effects of DBS other than those directly related to the surgical procedure (eg pain at sites of implantation) were observed. Dysfunctions of the reward system--in which the nucleus accumbens is a key structure--are implicated in the neurobiology of major depression and might be responsible for impaired reward processing, as evidenced by the symptom of anhedonia. These preliminary findings suggest that DBS to the nucleus accumbens might be a hypothesis-guided approach for refractory major depression. (shrink)

The Image of the Unseen God develops a novel understanding of God and God's action compatible with the teachings of Jesus, the Christian tradition, and contemporary science.

Since ancient times the practices and ethics of bankers and banking in general have undergone a great deal of criticism. While lending is motivated by profit, and while households are not explicitly coerced into borrowing money, the justice of a system which exploits workers and at the same time encourages them to borrow money in order to maintain a certain standard of living can be viewed as sometimes unfair and perhaps immoral. The value of goods, according to St. Thomas (...) Aquinas and Karl Marx, should mostly reflect the value of labor embodied in them, and for that reason, labor should be compensated fully for its work. For these reasons, Aquinas and Marxian economists offer somewhat similar and at the same time different views on both the labor theory of value as well as on the morality of certain banking practices. If credit and the banking system also bring about crisis and the greater concentration and centralization of capital, then the morality of these outcomes also needs to be examined. (shrink)

The essay draws on Michel Serres’ writings on education in order to derive from them a general theory. Though the polyglot philosopher never presented his philosophy of education as a formal system, it was a lifelong concern that he addressed from the perspectives of mathematics and physics; literature and myth; art and aesthetics; justice and the law. Ever elusive in his prose style, Serres was a magnetic and infectious educator who, ironically, and perhaps understandably, did not gain the sort of (...) following enjoyed by other French philosophers with whom he cuts such a contrast. The essay assesses the Serresian pedagogy in three key areas: the mutual translatability of the pedagogies of the humanities and arts versus those of the social and hard sciences; the urgent need for an environmental ethics of education; and the permeation of effective instruction by aesthetics. (shrink)

Although there has been an extensive debate about whether films can actually do philosophy, this chapter bypasses that debate in order to examine a number of different ways in which philosophy has been done by contemporary filmmakers. Using a variety of different films from different genres—including Anomalisa, an animated film; Amour, a narrative fiction film; and The Act of Killing, a documentary—the chapter explores some of the central ways that philosophy has been done on film—such as providing a counterexample to (...) a philosophical thesis, providing evidence to support a philosophical claim, and presenting an argument in support of a philosophical view. (shrink)

This exploratory study investigated the ramifications of e-mail and listservs as modes of journalistic ethical discussion. Results of the e-mail questionnaire to online newspaper journalists indicated that, although American online journalists overwhelmingly use e-mail to conduct both professional and personal business, it is unlikely that many are logging on to electronic discussion groups to discuss ethical issues. Moreover, this study suggests that the "informality" of listservs may reflect their perceived ineffectiveness and consequent underutilization by journalists. Journalists who do participate in (...) listservs may view the "ethical" component as a minor element of their overall Web activities. (shrink)

The best‐characterized model pathway of protein folding, that of disulphide bond formation in the small protein BPTI, has been questioned recently. A reinvestigation of that pathway, using alternative methods, concluded that the intermediates with non‐native disulphide bonds accumulated to lower levels than previously had been observed(17). On this basis, a revised pathway was proposed that simply omitted those intermediates. Even if totally correct, however, the new observations are not inconsistent with the important characteristics of the original pathway and even confirmed (...) many of them. Certain crucial observations that were the experimental basis for the original pathway were ignored, and these observations invalidate the revised pathway. (shrink)

Still, some may still want to say it. If so, my replies may gain nothing better than a stalemate against such persistence, though I can hope that earlier revelations will discourage others from persisting. But two replies are possible. Both come down, one circuitously, to an issue with us from the beginning: whether the language of the right side of (10) is suspect. For if (10) is to support instances for (6) which are about objects, that clause must itself be (...) about objects. (These would be ones assigned by variants of I it mentions to constants it mentions.) Yet Barwise and I would call it implicitly about functions. Ironically, the discussion surrounding (10), hoping to settle that issue, could only do so if the issue were already settled, revealing decisively the ontology of (10). If irritating, this is also inevitable, given the Tarskian spirit of the ensivioned semantics for QLB.A second reply begins by noting that a QLB semantics which implies (10) cannot simply be assumed. Even a QL semantics augmented to imply (11) is not trivial to frame, as I will let readers confirm. On the QLB project, Barwise comments thus:It is not possible to explain the meaning of an essential use of branching quantification ... inductively, by treating one quantifier at a time in a first-order fashion. Some use of higher-type abstract objects is essential. (BQE75)But believers in a modest ontology for QLB can claim a non sequitur here. For (10), as they read it, succeeds without mentioning abstract objects, though not in the “one quantifier at a time” way which Barwise rightly finds impossible. This is not yet to say the same about a QLB semantics implying (10). But that too can be said, as it happens, with as good a conscience as with (10). A suitable treatment can begin by somehow linearizing non QL sentences like (6). Still assuming prefixes whose rows each consist, speaking loosely, of n universal quantifiers followed by a single existential, we could simply line up these rows in any order, with unique deconcatenatability being assured. From then on, it gets both tedious and complex. A full syntax is essential, and some surprising categories arose in mine. I will spare readers all details, except to say that one can indeed “treat one quantifier at a time”, if not “in first-order fashion”: schematic rules for treating n quantifiers at once can be eschewed. Unsurprisingly, heavy use is made of the “depending only on” idiom seen in (10). Nor does it surprise me that this semantics can succeed, with that idiom available. Roughly, if open talk about functions works in a semantics for QLF, what I read as implicit talk about them should work in a semantics for QLB See [6] for a start on a semantics aspiring to handle sentences like (6) without invoking abstract objects. See also my comments on its notion of dependence, in [9]. . So even from a bare sketch, we can see that this new semantics settles nothing. It just leads back to the stalemate. Barwise and I will read crucial clauses as talking implicitly about functions, but this general charge against an idiom is equally deniable wherever the idiom occurs: in a reading for (6), say, or in the metalanguage can hardly repress a motherhood slogan: better dead than obscurely read. But that just denies the denial, unhelpfully. A better comment is the reminder that the claim stays alive only in a form which no one has ever imagined for it. The QLB quantifiers that cannot be shown not to range over objects are not the items anyone would ever have pointed to in illustrating the unkillable claim. (shrink)