Daniel Steel argues that a causal theory of explanation can account for Ferguson's anthropological theory of Yanomami warfare but that a unification theory of explanation cannot. I argue that a unification theory can explain such an account, in a manner similar to Hempel's view of explanation in history. I go on to argue that the unification theory allows for different explanations of specific and general social circumstances.

How consciousness appeared much earlier in evolutionary history than is commonly assumed, and why all vertebrates and perhaps even some invertebrates are conscious. How is consciousness created? When did it first appear on Earth, and how did it evolve? What constitutes consciousness, and which animals can be said to be sentient? In this book, Todd Feinberg and Jon Mallatt draw on recent scientific findings to answer these questions—and to tackle the most fundamental question about the nature of consciousness: how (...) does the material brain create subjective experience? After assembling a list of the biological and neurobiological features that seem responsible for consciousness, and considering the fossil record of evolution, Feinberg and Mallatt argue that consciousness appeared much earlier in evolutionary history than is commonly assumed. About 520 to 560 million years ago, they explain, the great “Cambrian explosion” of animal diversity produced the first complex brains, which were accompanied by the first appearance of consciousness; simple reflexive behaviors evolved into a unified inner world of subjective experiences. From this they deduce that all vertebrates are and have always been conscious—not just humans and other mammals, but also every fish, reptile, amphibian, and bird. Considering invertebrates, they find that arthropods (including insects and probably crustaceans) and cephalopods (including the octopus) meet many of the criteria for consciousness. The obvious and conventional wisdom–shattering implication is that consciousness evolved simultaneously but independently in the first vertebrates and possibly arthropods more than half a billion years ago. Combining evolutionary, neurobiological, and philosophical approaches allows Feinberg and Mallatt to offer an original solution to the “hard problem” of consciousness. (shrink)

Strict libertarianism, as one of us has defined it elsewhere, is “a radical political view which holds that individual liberty, understood as the absence of interference with a person’s body and rightfully acquired property, is a moral absolute or near-absolute, and that the only governmental activities consistent with that liberty are (if any) those necessary to protect individuals from aggression by others.” Strict libertarianism is a radicalized form of classical liberalism that is, characteristically, rationalistic, monistic, and (relatively) absolutist in its (...) approach to political principles. One advantage of bringing so many well-informed proponents and critics of libertarianism together in the same volume is that it makes clear the tremendous diversity of libertarian thought. Libertarians are a methodologically, normatively, and even politically diverse group. The chapter also provides an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book. (shrink)

How might we think about equality in a non-hierarchical fashion? How might equality be conceived with some degree of equality? The problem with the presupposition of liberalism is that, by distributing equality, liberals place most people at the receiving end of the political operation. There are those who distribute equality and those who receive it. Once you start with that assumption, the hierarchy is already in place. It’s too late to return to equality. Equality, instead of being the result of (...) a political process, must be conceived as the presupposition of those who act. It must be the expression of political actors rather than the possession of a political hierarchy. In the formulation of Jacques Rancière, whose ideas form the framework of my thinking in this paper, “Politics only happens when these mechanisms are stopped in their tracks by the effect of a presupposition that is totally foreign to them yet without which none of them could ultimately function: the presupposition of the equality of anyone and everyone.”. (shrink)

Today, the linguistic approach offers us an irreplaceable method for the direct study of the constitutive processes of social phenomena (A. Delobelle, 1981). In fact, each social phenomenon is basically inhabited or interpreted by language. It is language processes that give its ramifications to the social and form disstinct sub-groups in it. This is why, when these processes are observed in their formal dynamics, outside their vehiculated “contents,” it is as though we find ourselves faced with the very functioning of (...) the social: as though we have in it a typically experimental terrain for the direct study of social phenomena. (shrink)

Case teaching occupies a central place in the history of business education and in recognition of its significance, the Journal of Business Ethics recently created a new section for cases. Typically, business ethics cases are used to teach moral reasoning by exposing students to real-life situations which puts them in the position of a decision-maker faced with a moral dilemma. Drawing on a critical management studies' (CMS) critique of mainstream business ethics, this article argues that this 'idealtype' decision-focused case underplays (...) the social, political and economic factors which shape managerial decisions. An alternative 'dark side' case approach is presented, which highlights the structural features of capitalism and the role of government in regulating the market. The 'dark side' approach is illustrated with the case of a New Zealand woman, dependent on an oxygen machine, who died when her power was disconnected by her Stateowned electricity supplier because of an unpaid bill. The case considers the actions of both the company and the industry regulator within the context of a 'light-handed' approach to government regulation. The article concludes with a discussion of how this approach to the case method, which moves beyond managers and their moral dilemmas, can provide students with a deeper understanding of the complexity of business ethics. (shrink)

Today's industrial society is having an encounter with ecology: in April, 1976 the French government presented the National Assembly with documents on the dumping and burning of waste in the sea, as well as on the protection of nature. Electoral campaigns, discussions and demonstrations are centered about the theme of pollution and environment. In the last century the accumulation of waste had already become a problem : “ One of the most important duties of industry is to find a useful (...) employment for waste,” wrote P. L. Simmons in 1875. The advice was heeded if we may believe what J. Gottmann wrote on the matter nearly a century later: “ If our era is to be defined by its most important raw material and one that is truly proper to it, as is done for the Bronze Age or the Iron Age, we may no longer speak of a Steel or Petroleum Age, nor of an Atomic Age (which may come in the future) but of the Garbage Age.” The extraordinary demographic expansion of humanity that has gone from a population of five million in the Paleolithic Age to four billion today gives rise to a monstrous abundance of refuse resulting as much from the natural mechanisms of living as from industrial activity (factory waste) or from the present attitude haunted by the idea of obsolescence (the throw-away society of Alvin Toffler). The outline of a universe submerged in waste matter appears, similar to that evoked by Italo Calvino in Città Invisibili apropos of the town of Leonia: “The refuse of Leonia would gradually invade the world if the interminable garbage heaps were not pressed upon, beyond the last crest, by the refuse of other towns that also push mountains of refuse far away from themselves. Perhaps the entire world beyond the borders of Leonia is covered with craters of trash, each with a continually erupting metropolis in its center. The borders between foreign or enemy towns are thus contaminated bastions in which the detritus of the one and the other serves as mutual support, menacing and mixing together.” The world of Metamorphosis is approaching in which man, transformed into an insect, covered with dust and remains of food, gnaws on the cores and parings of half-rotten vegetables. Science fiction invents a remedy to fit the problem : a planet specialized in storing all the garbage unloaded by an entire galaxy. (shrink)

Alain Badiou argues in “Rancière and Apolitics” that Rancière has appropriated his central idea of equality from Badiou’s own work. We argue that Badiou’s characterisation of Rancière’s project is correct, but that his self-characterisation is mistaken. What Badiou’s ontology of events opens out onto is not necessarily equality, but instead universality. Equality is only one form of universality, but there is nothing in Badiou’s thought that prohibits the (multiple) universality he positsfrom being hierarchical. In the end, then, Badiou’s thought moves (...) in a Maoist direction while Rancière’s in an anarchist one. (shrink)

Inspired by Columbus, Spaniards set out on an adventurous voyage of the circumnavigation of the globe and, to their surprise, encountered a new continent.This is the essential fact. There were no preliminaries, no previous knowledge, but an abrupt and unexpected meeting between a handful of men who represented the mentality of Spain at the end of the 15th century and an immense geographical panorama that slowly and continuously unfolded, populated by beings for whom there was not even a name and (...) who represented native cultures in different stages of devopment with no previous contact with Europeans, almost diametrically opposed in values, concepts and mentalities to what the transatlantic navigators represented and brought with them. (shrink)

In the event that a patient has lost their decision-making capacity due to illness or injury, a surrogate is often appointed to do so on their behalf. Research has shown that people take less risk when making treatment decisions for other people than they do for themselves. This has been discussed as surrogates employing greater caution for others given the accountability they are faced with. We tested the prediction that making accountability salient reduces risk- taking for others relative to the (...) self by manipulating the information shown to participants while they made treatment choices. One group was asked to focus on the consequences for the recipient’s family, another on the legal implications of their decisions, and another was not given additional information. Participants reduced their risk-taking for others compared to themselves, irrespective of the condition they were in. Although participants in each condition reported thinking about these factors to different extents, there were no clear differences in risk-taking between groups. However, we did find that, across all participants, thinking about legal consequences reduces risk-taking. We suggest that future research investigates how the effect of thinking about accountability on surrogate choices is mediated by feelings of accountability, in order to further examine the explanations suggested in the literature. (shrink)

Following the publication of Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, four aged Cardinals wrote to him asking him to clarify positions in the Exhortation they charged were causing confusion to the faithful. They even suggested he had changed some Catholic doctrines. This essay answers their questions, arguing that Francis has not changed any Catholic doctrine but has changed, in the sense that he has renewed, Catholic pastoral practice. It also argues that, while not changing any Catholic doctrines, he has reprioritized (...) some of them, especially the doctrines of the authority and inviolability of conscience and what he calls the “irregular situations” of cohabitation, same-sex unions, and divorce and remarriage without annulment. (shrink)

This article is the result of collaboration between a linguist and an anthropologist. In La Troisième planète. Structures familiales et systèmes idéologiques (The Third Planet: Family Structures and Ideologies) (Todd, 1983), anthropologist Emmanuel Todd provided a world map of family types, which he used to explain the distribution of major political philosophies around the world. However, this did not explain the distribution of the family types themselves. Indeed, a concluding chapter entitled “Le Hazard” (The Effects of Chance) stated (...) that the distribution of family types did not seem to be the result of any particular economic or ecological factor and was therefore a prime example of the uncertainty principle at work. However, Laurent Sagart, a linguist specializing in Chinese dialects, noticed that this map of family types exhibited a structure well known to experts in historical linguistics and dialectology, contrasting a large, continuous zone in the center with a number of small, independent zones located around the periphery of the central zone or in isolated enclaves within it. When such maps appear in linguistic atlases, dialectologists usually conclude that the central zone was the innovative area while the peripheral and isolated zones conserved the original features. The same analysis, if applied to the map of family types, would lead to the conclusion that the communal family system in the center of the map represented a more recent innovation than the systems around the periphery. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Since the nineteenth century the poetic and metaphysical vision of the fifteenth-century painter Piero della Francesca has been admired by intellectuals, studied by a host of art historians, and has inspired a long line of modern painters from Cezanne to de Chirico, Balthus, Hockney and many others. Despite this modern interest, Piero has remained enigmatic due to the paucity of documentation pertaining to him and his works. Banker’s book is a valuable contribution towards elucidating the social and cultural context into (...) which Piero was born and in which he received his earliest education and artistic training. In Banker’s words “this book has two focal points: the culture of the town and the youth of the painter.” The entire study challenges the traditional view that regards Piero’s sojourn in Florence in 1439 as the formative event in his artistic development. Indeed, Banker makes a strong case for Piero’s early formation in his native Borgo San Sepolcro, a town in the upper Tiber river valley on the frontiers between Tuscany, the Marches, and Umbria. (shrink)

This article seeks to provide a fuller account of the philosophy of religion of the Marburg Neo-Kantian, Paul Natorp (1854–1924), than has hitherto been available. It does so by describing important changes in Natorp’s thinking about religion between the publication of his early book, Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der Humanität (1894), and later writings in which he espouses a version of logos-mysticism strikingly at odds with the concept of a “religion of reason” put forward by his long-time Marburg colleague, Hermann (...) Cohen (1842–1918). These differences are analyzed in relation to these two thinkers’ divergent views on philosophical systematics, and their respective experiences of the First World War. (shrink)

Many analyses of notion of _metainferences_ in the non-transitive logic ST have tackled the question of whether ST can be identified with classical logic. In this paper, we argue that the primary analyses are overly restrictive of the notion of metainference. We offer a more elegant and tractable semantics for the strict-tolerant hierarchy based on the three-valued function for the LP material conditional. This semantics can be shown to easily handle the introduction of _mixed_ inferences, _i.e._, inferences involving objects belonging (...) to more than one (meta)inferential level and solves several other limitations of the ST hierarchies introduced by Barrio, Pailos, and Szmuc. (shrink)

This paper argues that two single-factor accounts of exploitation are inadequate and instead defends a two-factor account. Purely distributive accounts of exploitation, which equate exploitation with unfair transaction, make exploitation pervasive and cannot deliver the intuition that exploiters are blameworthy. Recent, non-distributive alternatives, which make unfairness unnecessary for exploitation, largely avoid these problems, but their arguments for the non-necessity of unfairness are unconvincing. This paper defends a two factor account according to which A exploits B iff A gains unfairly from (...) B and either A believes that the gains he receives in the transaction wrong B, or A is culpably unaware that the gains he receives in the transaction wrong B. This account avoids the problems of non-distributive approaches and also delivers the intuition that exploiters are blameworthy. (shrink)

This article presents results from a self-report survey of misconduct behaviours and the stress students (n = 916) experienced at one Canadian community college. Results showed that students engaged in a variety of contract cheating behaviours, and experienced a myriad of stressors both in and outside the college context, including traumatic life events. Those who engaged in commercial contract cheating and inappropriate sharing behaviours experienced significantly higher levels of stress. This result differed by type of stress suggesting that not all (...) stress may lead to violation behaviour. Results also suggest that some students are exposed to more stress than others, which could put them at higher risk for engaging in contract cheating. Understanding contract cheating using the stress process framework draws our attention to how a student’s location in the social institutions of work, family, and school, how their positions of advantage or disadvantage, and their involvement in social relationships may produce stress which we have found to be associated with contract cheating. Seeing stress in this way allows post-secondary institutions to address the structural conditions which lead to stress through the development of policy, procedure, and supports for students as they navigate academic integrity throughout their programs. (shrink)

This essay is part of a special issue celebrating 50 years of Political Theory. The ambition of the editors was to mark this half century not with a retrospective but with a confabulation of futures. Contributors were asked: What will political theory look and sound like in the next century and beyond? What claims might political theorists or their descendants be making in ten, twenty-five, fifty, a hundred years’ time? How might they vindicate those claims in their future contexts? How (...) will the consistent concerns of political theorists evolve into the questions critical for people decades or centuries from now? What new problems will engage the political theorists (or their rough equivalents) of the future? What forms might those take? What follows is one of the many confabulations published in response to these queries. (shrink)

This paper offers an account of data manipulation in scientific experiments. It will be shown that in many cases raw, unprocessed data is not produced, but rather a form of processed data that will be referred to as a data model. The language of data models will be used to provide a framework within which to understand a recent debate about the status of data and data manipulation. It will be seen that a description in terms of data models allows (...) one to understand cases in which data acquisition and data manipulation cannot be separated into two independent activities. (shrink)

Acknowledgments -- What makes consciousness "mysterious" -- Approaching the gaps : images and affects -- Naturalizing vertebrate consciousness : mental images -- Naturalizing vertebrate consciousness : affects -- The question of invertebrate consciousness -- Creating consciousness : the general and special features -- The evolution of primary consciousness and the Cambrian hypothesis -- Naturalizing subjectivity -- Notes -- Glossary -- References.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1799 edition. Excerpt:... chapter viii. discipline' of the heart. One of the first steps to be taken, if you would have a character that will stand by you in prosperity and in adversity, in life and death, is to fortify your mind, with fixed principles. There is no period of (...) life in which the heart is so much inclined to scepticism and infidelity as in youth. Not that young men are infidels, but the mind is tossed from doubt to doubt, like a light boat leaping from wave to wave. There is no positive settling down into deism or infidelity, but the heart is full of doubting, so that the mind has no position, in morals or religion, fortified. If the restraints of education are so far thrown off as to allow you to indulge in sin, Which is in any way disgraceful if known, you will then easily become an infidel. "The nurse of infidelity is sensuality. The young are sensual. The Bible stands in their way. It prohibits the indulgence of ' the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life.' But the young mind loves these things, and therefore it hates the Bible, which prohibits them. It is prepared to say, ' If any man will bring me arguments against the Bible, I will thank him; if not, I will invent them.' As to infidel arguments, there is no weight in them. They are jejune and refuted. Infidela are not themselves convinced by them. What sort of men are infidels? They are loose, fierce, overbearing men. There is nothing in them like sober and serious inquiry. They are the wildest fanatics on earth. Nor have they agreed among themselves on any scheme of truth and felicity. Look at the needs and necessities of man. 'Every pang of grief tells a man he needs a helper; but infidelity provides none. And what can its schemes do for you in death?' Examine your... (shrink)