William Morton Wheeler -- The anti-colony as an organism -- Jean-Henri Fabre -- On instincts -- The termitodoxa, or biology and society -- The organization of research -- The dry-rot of our academic biology -- Emergent evolution and the development of societies -- Carl Akeley's early work and environment -- Present tendencies in biological theory -- Hopes in the biological sciences -- Some attractions of the field study of ants -- Animal societies.

One of the world's great philosophers, William of Ockham's On the Connection of the Virtues (De connexione virtutum) provides insightful perspectives on ordinary issues of human conduct. Written in reasonably simple and nontechnical language, it is translated into English here for the first time. Ockham's views on many subjects have been misunderstood, his views on ethics as much as any. This book is designed to avoid some pitfalls that arise in reading medieval philosophy generally and Ockham in particular. Wood (...) begins her introduction with an account of what is known about Ockham's life and works and with a discussion of his place in the history of philosophy, followed by a brief general guide to his views. Finally, there is a historical account of the medieval debate on the connection of the virtues, to which Ockham's treatise is an important contribution. Problems of interpretation are addressed in the commentary, which follows the translation. Translation, commentary, and introduction provide students of Ockham's treatise with what they need to appreciate his stance on ethical issues and to approach his arguments critically. (shrink)

Canonically, ‘classic’ tests of general relativity (GR) include perihelion precession, the bending of light around stars, and gravitational redshift; ‘modern’ tests have to do with, _inter alia_, relativistic time delay, equivalence principle tests, gravitational lensing, strong field gravity, and gravitational waves. The orthodoxy is that both classic and modern tests of GR afford experimental confirmation of that theory _in particular_. In this article, we question this orthodoxy, by showing there are classes of both relativistic theories (with spatiotemporal geometrical properties different (...) from those of GR) and non-relativistic theories (in which the lightcones of a relativistic spacetime are ‘widened’) which would also pass such tests. Thus, (a) issues of underdetermination in the context of GR loom much larger than one might have thought, and (b) given this, one has to think more carefully about what exactly such tests in fact _are_ testing. (shrink)

We contend that diagrams are tools not only for communication but also for supporting the reasoning of biologists. In the mechanistic research that is characteristic of biology, diagrams delineate the phenomenon to be explained, display explanatory relations, and show the organized parts and operations of the mechanism proposed as responsible for the phenomenon. Both phenomenon diagrams and explanatory relations diagrams, employing graphs or other formats, facilitate applying visual processing to the detection of relevant patterns. Mechanism diagrams guide reasoning about how (...) the parts and operations work together to produce the phenomenon and what experiments need to be done to improve on the existing account. We examine how these functions are served by diagrams in circadian rhythm research. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine various popular notions concerning the ethics of investing. I first consider and reject the absolutist view that it is always wrong to invest in evil companies and the view that what makes investments in evil companies morally objectionable is the fact that by making such investments, investors are taking steps to benefit from the wrongdoing of others. I then defend the view that what makes certain investments morally objectionable is the fact that by making such (...) investments, investors enable others to do wrong. According to this view, when weighing the purchase of a certain company's stock, investors should ask themselves the following question: Would this sort of investment, if made by many people, enable others to do wrong? If the answer to this question is yes, and if an investor nevertheless makes the investment in question, he can justifiably be accused of moral wrongdoing. (shrink)

First published in 1840, this two-volume treatise by Cambridge polymath William Whewell remains significant in the philosophy of science. The work was intended as the 'moral' to his three-volume History of the Inductive Sciences, which is also reissued in this series. Building on philosophical foundations laid by Immanuel Kant and Francis Bacon, Whewell opens with the aphorism 'Man is the Interpreter of Nature, Science the right interpretation'. Volume 1 contains the majority of Whewell's section on 'ideas', in which he (...) investigates the philosophy underlying a range of different disciplines, including pure, classificatory and mechanical sciences. Whewell's work upholds throughout his belief that the mind was active and not merely a passive receiver of knowledge from the world. A key text in Victorian epistemological debates, notably challenged by John Stuart Mill and his System of Logic, Whewell's treatise merits continued study and discussion in the present day. (shrink)

This generous omnium-gatherum brings together all the writings William James published that have not appeared in previous volumes of this definitive edition of ...

The ‘default mode’ network refers to cortical areas that are active in the absence of goal-directed activity. In previous studies, decreased activity in the ‘default mode’ has always been associated with increased activation in task-relevant areas. We show that the induction of hypnosis can reduce anterior default mode activity during rest without increasing activity in other cortical regions. We assessed brain activation patterns of high and low suggestible people while resting in the fMRI scanner and while engaged in visual tasks, (...) in and out of hypnosis. High suggestible participants in hypnosis showed decreased brain activity in the anterior parts of the default mode circuit. In low suggestible people, hypnotic induction produced no detectable changes in these regions, but instead deactivated areas involved in alertness. The findings indicate that hypnotic induction creates a distinctive and unique pattern of brain activation in highly suggestible subjects. (shrink)

We contrast reactive and endogenously active perspectives on brain activity. Both have been pursued continuously in neurophysiology laboratories since the early 20thcentury, but the endogenous perspective has received relatively little attention until recently. One of the many successes of the reactive perspective was the identification, in the second half of the 20th century, of the distinctive contributions of different brain regions involved in visual processing. The recent prominence of the endogenous perspective is due to new findings of ongoing oscillatory activity (...) in the brain at a wide range of time scales, exploiting such techniques as single-cell recording, EEG, and fMRI. We recount some of the evidence pointing to ways in which this endogenous activity is relevant to cognition and behavior. Our major objective is to consider certain implications of the contrast between the reactive and endogenous perspectives. In particular, we relate these perspectives to two different characterizations of explanation in the new mechanistic philosophy of science. In a basic mechanistic explanation, the operations of a mechanism are characterized qualitatively and as functioning sequentially until a terminating condition is realized. In contrast, a dynamic mechanistic explanation allows for non-sequential organization and emphasizes quantitative modeling of the mechanisms's behavior. For example, with appropriate parameter values a set of differential equations can be used to demonstrate ongoing oscillations in a system organized with feedback loops. We conclude that the basic conception of mechanistic explanation is adequate for reactive accounts of brain activity, but dynamical accounts are required to explain sustained, endogenous activity. (shrink)

This paper argues that we ought to conceive of the Dark Energy problem—the question of how to account for observational data, naturally interpreted as accelerated expansion of the universe—as a crisis of underdetermined pursuit-worthiness. Not only are the various approaches to the Dark Energy problem evidentially underdetermined; at present, no compelling reasons single out any of them as more likely to be true than the other. More vexingly for working scientists, none of the approaches stands out as uncontroversially preferable over (...) its rivals in terms of its rationally warranted promise, i.e. the reasons to further work on, explore, and develop it. We demonstrate this claim by applying a Peircean economic model of pursuit-worthiness in terms of a cognitive cost/benefit estimate—with the instantiation of theory virtues as key indicators of cognitive gains—to the four main Dark Energy proposals (the cosmological constant approach, modified gravity, quintessence, and inhomogeneous cosmologies). According to our analysis, these approaches do not admit of an unambiguous, or uncontroversial, ranking with respect to which ansatz deserves distinguished attention and research efforts. The overall methodological counsel that our analysis underwrites recommends a pragmatic double research strategy forward: to encourage and foster theory pluralism and the search for tests—with the goal of enhancing the testability of the $\Lambda$ CDM model and “testing it to destruction". (shrink)

The role of pictures and visual modes of presentation of data in science is a topic of increasing interest to workers in artificial intelligence, problem solving, and scientists in all fields who must deal with large quantities of complex multidimensional data. Drawing on studies of animal motion, aerodynamics, morphological transformations, the history of linkage mapping, and the analysis of deterministic chaos, I focus on the strengths and limitations of our visual system, the analysis of problems particularly suited to visualization-the analysis (...) of similarities and differences between complex objects, and problems making conjoint use of information from several complex images. (shrink)

William Desmond - Knowledge of Things Human and Divine: Vico's New Science and Finnegans Wake - Journal of the History of Philosophy 43:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 43.3 362-363 Donald Phillip Verene. Knowledge of Things Human and Divine: Vico's New Science and Finnegans Wake. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. Pp. xiv + 264. Cloth, $45.00. This is an outstanding book written with elegance and verve, packed with erudition and delivered with wit. It offers insight into both (...) Joyce and Vico in their distinctiveness and in the mutual light they throw on each other. Verene outlines what is peculiar to his own approach in the following way. In the early part of the twentieth century the influence of Croce on the study of.. (shrink)

The simple systems methodology is a powerful reductionistic research strategy. It has problems as implemented in developmental genetics because the organisms studied are few and unrepresentative. Stronger inferences require independent arguments that key traits are widely distributed phylogenetically. Evolutionary and developmental mechanisms of generative entrenchment and self-organization provide possible support, and are also necessary components of a developmental systems approach.

Does the cosmological argument (CA) depend on the ontological (OA)? That depends. If the OA is an argument “from mere concepts,” then no; if the OA is an argument from possibility, then yes. That is my main thesis. Along the way, I explore a number of subsidiary themes, among them, the nature of proof in metaphysics, and what Kant calls the “mystery of absolute necessity.”.

How might we historicize the idea of border control? If state borders can be understood as institutional sites of governance, what forms of governance do they enact? This article asks what insights Foucauldian political sociology might offer these questions. Drawing on Deleuze's analytic of ‘control’, the article seeks to bring new meaning to the idea of border control. Under standing control as a particular technology of power, special attention to the changing topography of border control as well as the changing (...) subjectivities presupposed by this form of power is paid. (shrink)

This paper reports on the results from two studies that were conducted eight years apart with different respondents. The studies examined the role of the Mere Exposure Effect on ethical tolerance or acceptability of particular business decisions. The results from Study 1 show there is a significant difference in ethical judgment for 12 out of 16 vignettes between those who have been exposed to such situations compared to those who have not been exposed to them. In those 12 situations, those (...) who have been exposed to such situations adopted a more tolerant stance toward the ethically questionable behavior. The results from Study 2 show there is a significant difference in ethical judgment for 9 out of 16 vignettes between those who have been exposed to such situations compared to those who have not been exposed to them. Again, in those nine situations, those who have been exposed to such situations adopted a more tolerant stance toward the ethically questionable behavior. Interestingly, the 9 situations in Study 2 were 9 of the 12 situations found to be significant in Study 1, and in the same direction, suggesting that we have found consistency in our findings and support for the Mere Exposure Effect. Implications are provided for both higher education and practitioners. (shrink)

The concept of information tempts us as a theoretical primitive, partly because of the respectability lent to it by highly successful applications of Shannon’s information theory, partly because of its broad range of applicability in various domains, partly because of its neutrality with respect to what basic sorts of things there are. This versatility, however, is the very reason why information cannot be the theoretical primitive we might like it to be. “Information,” as it is variously used, is systematically ambiguous (...) between whether it involves continuous or discrete quantities, causal or noncausal relationships, and intrinsic or relational properties. Many uses can be firmly grounded in existing theory, however. Continuous quantities of information involving probabilities can be related to information theory proper. Information defined relative to systems of rules or conventions can be understood relative to the theory of meaning . A number of causal notions may possibly be located relative to standard notions in physics. Precise specification of these distinct properties involved in the common notion of information can allow us to map the relationships between them. Consequently, while information is not in itself the kind of single thing that can play a significant unifying role, analyzing its ambiguities may facilitate headway toward that goal. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Some Commonalities Can a Memetic Approach to Cultural Change Work? Memetics and Genetics Memetics and Epidemiology The Myth of Self‐replication An Alternative Approach Differential Dependency and Generative Entrenchment as Bases for a Theory of Evolutionary Change Elements of a Developmental Theory of Cultural Evolution New Predictions of This Theory Conclusion Postscript: Counterpoint Notes References.

A MAJOR PHILOSOPHICAL INTERPRETER of Kant and critic of Herbart and Hegel, Hermann Lotze ( 1817-1881) is known to historians of psychology primarily for his theory of spatial perception.' As Professor of Philosophy at Gottingen University from 1845 to 1880, he published his theory of the physiological mechanism for spatial consciousness no less than six times.2 Standard accounts present his local sign theory as an associationistic, empiricistic, or empiristic view.3 Yet they also mention its influence among nativists such as Lotze's (...) own student Carl Stumpf. Certainly there is an historical irony here which deserves explanation. This paper will describe Lotze's theory, indicate its origins in the work of scientists such as E. H. Weber and Johannes Muiller and philosophers such as Jakob Friedrich Fries and Johann Friedrich Herbart, and trace its transformation at the hands of psycholo- gists of various theoretical persuasions.4 The intent is not to argue for Lotze's personal influence so much as to illustrate how one fertile idea in the history of science can serve as the catalyst for a much broader conceptual development. (shrink)

In Salvation in Writing , William Wright derives from Calvin’s theology of justification and sanctification a dialectical logic for writing truth that both rivals and mends those of Hegel and Derrida. The result represents a new program for academic theology.

Recent corporate legal and ethical meltdowns suggest that avoiding such harms to companies and to society requires a significant culture change within the organization. This paper addresses the issue of what it takes to change a corporate culture. While conventional wisdom may suggest that a change requires only the institution of an ethics office with proper reporting paths and an ethics code, such an approach is only a beginning. Many large corporations, especially those in danger of legal and ethical catastrophes, (...) need to undertake multiple initiatives to generate a new culture that manifests new values and new vocabularies. A cultural change accomplished by changing large numbers of personnel is expensive in financial and human terms. One component of a less costly approach is to tell new and different stories within the corporation because stories establish the cultural DNA that gives organizations, families, and individuals their identities. Such changes in individual firms, however, are influenced by the ideological assumptions within which and under which the industry and the society operates. (shrink)

The existence of an idea of a missing shade of blue contradicts Hume's first principle that simple ideas all derive from corresponding simple impressions. Hume dismisses the exception to his principle as unimportant. Why does he do so? His later account of distinctions of reason suggests a systematic way of dealing with simple ideas not derived from simple impressions. Why does he not return to the problem of the missing shade, having offered that account? Several suggestions as to Hume's solution (...) of the problem of the missing shade (not all appealing to distinctions of reason) are explored with an eye both to their adequacy as Humean solutions and their value as clues to his dismissal of the problem. Hypotheses concerning the latter perplexity are formulated and discussed as well. Senses in which the missing shade of blue is or may be a red herring are identified. In course, this author names Hume's missing shade marjorie grene. Historians of philosophy will want to adopt this nomenclature. (shrink)