In Barnett and Block (J Bus Ethics 88(4):711–716, 2009a), the present authors claim that borrowing short and lending long is fraudulent, and thus ought to be prohibited on legal grounds. Bagus and Howden (J Bus Ethics 90(3):399, 2009) take issue with our ethical analysis. The present paper is our response to these authors; it is an attempt to defend Barnett and Block (J Bus Ethics 88(4):711–716, 2009a) against the very interesting and important, although we believe, erroneous, criticisms of Bagus and (...) Howden (J Bus Ethics 90(3):399, 2009). (shrink)

We stipulate, arguendo, that fractional-reserve-demand deposit banking is per se fraudulent. We ask whether or not time deposit banking can also be illicit, and answer in the positive, if there is a mismatch between the time dimensions of deposits and loans. To wit, if an intermediary borrows short and lends long.

This is the fullest existing collection of the texts, for the moment only in Italian translation, with an introduction, notes, general presentation of the texts, various indexes (part of this material is to be found in an attached CD).

This book investigates into the central metaphysics and epistemology of Advaita. Although the vastness of Advaita literature has grown to immense proportions in the span of fourteen centuries, there has been a glaring vacuum in unraveling its philosophical, theological and religious implications. This volume undertakes a thematic search on the conception of Ātman in an all-important Advaitic text, the Vivekacūḍāmaṇi, and other supportive texts of the same genre. Walter Menezes aims to revive Advaita as a sound philosophical system by (...) driving away the cloud of negativity associated with it, thereby opening a new chapter in the history of Advaita philosophy. (shrink)

Walter Block leaned on 82 of the world's most prominent libertarian thinkers and asked them to tell their life stories with an eye to intellectual development. The result is the most comprehensive collection of libertarian autobiographies ever published. Their stories are thrilling and fascinating. They reveal their main influences, their experiences, their choices, and their ambitions. There are some very interesting lessons here for everyone. We learn what gives rise to serious thought about liberty and what causes a person (...) to dedicate a professional career or vocation to the cause. We also discover some interesting empirical information about the most influential libertarian writers. How people come to believe what they believe is a mysterious issue, but an important one to examine. The results have profound strategic implications for the future. If there is a theme that emerges here, it is that it is that the most powerful and effective message of liberty is the one that is both smart and truth telling, not the one that is evasive or consciously dumbed down. The two most influential libertarians that emerge from the contest here are Rothbard and Rand, and this is for a reason. This volume bears close study by anyone who is considering strategic issues. So far as we know, it is the first book of its kind, one sure to play a larger role in the future crafting of the message and scholarship of human liberty. (shrink)

The idea that consciousness and complexity are closely related has been a major driver of the popularity of integrated information theory of consciousness, despite its major formal, phenomenological, and neuroscientific shortcomings. Here, I argue that we can recover this intuition by replacing its biologically neutral notion of complexity with an evolutionary one that I shall dub “pathological complexity.”.

In this paper, I hope to show that by considering connections between Bertrand Russell’s early account of names and C.I. Lewis’s theory of propositions, one can see that propositions (as traditionally understood)—while perhaps not explicitly relying on Russellian names, derive a good deal of their plausibility from them. I argue, however, that the Russellian take on names implies Tractarian restrictions on what may be named that are inconsistent with the traditional theory of structured propositions. That is, (i) it is a (...) mistake to claim that any meaningful string of linguistic (or ‘lexical’) entities—whether concrete or abstract—can name facts; (ii) no putative structured abstracta may be named by anything whatever; and (iii) if propositions may not be named and are not necessary to accomplish such tasks as providing objects for attitudes or being bearers of truth-values, then they would likely have been expelled from philosophical ontologies except for the persistence of an alluring myth. (shrink)

The book includes a collection, in Italian translation, of essays on Presocratic philosophy by Cherniss, Cornford, Vlastos, Kahn, Verdenius, Owen and others, with a long introduction of mine which, in addition to presenting the papers, tries to give an idea of the main problems of interpretation raised by the fragments and testimonies we have about the Presocratics.

In this paper I discuss the issue how far Presocratic cosmology can be regarded as scientific, giving attention to some examples of their explanations of physical phaenomena.

Huemer [33] argues against the killing of animals. I offer a critical libertarian analysis of his claim.

This short autobiographical text evokes the atmosphere of the years which marked the beginning of my friendship with Alexandru Dragomir: i.e. our student years in Bucharest, the circle of Romanian students studying in the 40s in Freiburg i. Br. and the intellectual intensity of Martin Heidegger’s seminars and courses, which influenced both of us for the rest of our lives. From the 15 members of Heidegger’s Oberseminar (dedicated in this period to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit), three were from Romania: Alexandru (...) Dragomir, Octavian Vuia and the author of these lines. The relationship between Dragomir and I became closer as we translated “Was ist Metaphysik?” into Romanian. Alexandru Dragomir was highly appreciated by Heidegger and beloved by other students for his penetrating spirit, for his spontaneity, but also for his sense of humor. After more than 30 years in which the history thrown us in parallel worlds, we had the joy to meet again in Bucharest. His texts, now published, present him as a brilliant and original thinker. (shrink)

Heumer and I debate animal rights, utilitarianism, libertarianism, morality and philosophy. We agree that suffering is a problem, and diverge, widely, on how to deal with it. I maintain that this author’s reputation as a libertarian, let alone an intellectual leader of this movement, is problematic. Why? That is because libertarianism, properly understood, is a theory of intra-human rights; this philosophy says nothing about right from an extra-human perspective, Heumer to the contrary notwithstanding. That is to say, he is improperly (...) importing into the freedom philosophy considerations extraneous to it. (shrink)

Behavior, language, development, identity, and science—all of these phenomena are commonly characterized as 'social' in nature. But what does it mean to be 'social'? Is there any intrinsic 'mark' of the social shared by these phenomena? In the first book to shed light on this foundational question, twelve distinguished philosophers and social scientists from several disciplines debate the mark of the social. Their varied answers will be of interest to sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers, psychologists, and anyone interested in the theoretical foundations (...) of the social sciences. (shrink)

Progressive supranuclear palsy is a movement disorder with prominent tau neuropathology. Brain diseases with abnormal tau deposits are called tauopathies, the most common of which is Alzheimer's disease. Environmental causes of tauopathies include repetitive head trauma associated with some sports. To identify common genetic variation contributing to risk for tauopathies, we carried out a genome-wide association study of 1,114 individuals with PSP and 3,247 controls followed by a second stage in which we genotyped 1,051 cases and 3,560 controls for the (...) stage 1 SNPs that yielded P ≤ 10-3. We found significant previously unidentified signals associated with PSP risk at STX6, EIF2AK3 and MOBP. We confirmed two independent variants in MAPT affecting risk for PSP, one of which influences MAPT brain expression. The genes implicated encode proteins for vesicle-membrane fusion at the Golgi-endosomal interface, for the endoplasmic reticulum unfolded protein response and for a myelin structural component. © 2011 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)