The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has focused its obesity prevention and control efforts on improving population-level health. A recent Institute of Medicine report identified systems that affect population health, to include health care delivery systems, schools, businesses and employers, communities, and governmental public health infrastructure. CDC uses the public health model to engage these systems, and this process coordinates multiple settings, sectors, and jurisdictions to develop an integrated approach to identify, prevent, and control obesity. The public health approach (...) goes beyond medical care to prioritize policy and environmental strategies that can be implemented across jurisdictional levels, in collaboration with traditional and nontraditional partners. The process ultimately produces tools, guidelines, and interventions that can be used to prevent and control obesity. In this manuscript, we provide an overview of the public health perspective on obesity, outline the public health framework for addressing obesity, and discuss the rationale for leveraging law-based efforts as a tool to accomplish the public health mission. (shrink)

Neurobiologist William Calvin explores the human brain, positing that the neurons in the brain operate in an accelerated version of biological evolution, evolving ideas through random variations and selections, and supports his hypothesis with numerous ca.

We note in Section I that an acceptable formulation of Presentism must preserve its consistency with Transient Time and inconsistency with Static Time. After arguing in Section II that certain formulations of Presentism are unacceptable, we offer in Section III a formulation of Presentism that we defend against the charge of triviality.

Eldon Soifer and Béla Szabados argue that hypocrisy poses a problem for consequentialism because the hypocrite, in pretending to live up to a norm he or she does not really accept, acts in ways that have good results. They argue, however, that consequentialists can meet this challenge and show the wrongness of hypocrisy by adopting a desirefulfilment version of their theory. This essay raises some doubts about Soifer and Szabados's proposal and argues that consequentialism has no difficulty coming to grips (...) with hypocrisy, whether or not one favours a desire-fulfilment account of the good. (shrink)

A systematic, rigorous, comprehensive, and unified overview of evolutionary game theory.

In the past two decades, reinforcement learning has become a popular framework for understanding brain function. A key component of RL models, prediction error, has been associated with neural signals throughout the brain, including subcortical nuclei, primary sensory cortices, and prefrontal cortex. Depending on the location in which activity is observed, the functional interpretation of prediction error may change: Prediction errors may reflect a discrepancy in the anticipated and actual value of reward, a signal indicating the salience or novelty of (...) a stimulus, and many other interpretations. Anterior cingulate cortex has long been recognized as a region involved in processing behavioral error, and recent computational models of the region have expanded this interpretation to include a more general role for the region in predicting likely events, broadly construed, and signaling deviations between expected and observed events. Ongoing modeling work investigating the interaction between ACC and additional regions involved in cognitive control suggests an even broader role for cingulate in computing a hierarchically structured surprise signal critical for learning models of the environment. The result is a predictive coding model of the frontal lobes, suggesting that predictive coding may be a unifying computational principle across the neocortex. (shrink)

This book is a study of Plato’s most elementary dialogues, arranged in relation to Reading Order as opposed to order of composition. Beginning with the theatrical Protagoras and reaching a mountaintop in Symposium, the dialogues between them—Alcibiades, Lovers, Hippias, Ion, and Menexenus—introduce the student to both philosophy and Platonism.

In this book, William H. F. Altman argues that it is not order of composition but reading order that makes Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates, Crito, and Phaedo “late dialogues,” and shows why Plato’s decision to interpolate the notoriously “late” Sophist and Statesman between Euthyphro and Apology deserves more respect from interpreters.

There has been much recent debate about Presentism among those who believe the doctrine to be nontrivial and true, those who believe it to be nontrivial and false, and those who believe it to be trivial — either trivially true or trivially false. Formulating Presentism precisely is problematic, which accounts for some of the controversy.

In the second half of the twentieth century, a surprising change in the notion of scientific truth gained ground when an evolutionary cosmology made the Newtonian world machine into no more than a passing phase of the cosmos, subject to exceptions in the neighborhood of Black Holes and other unusual objects. Physical and chemical laws ceased to be eternal and universal and became local and changeable, that is, fundamentally historical instead, and faced an uncertain, changeable future just as they had (...) in the initial phases of the cosmos.The earth sciences along with biology had become historical in the nineteenth century; and the Big Bang cosmology in effect brought physics and chemistry into line, allowing venturesome intellects to concoct a new all-embracing worldview that recognizes the catalytic role of the observer in defining what is observed, and how different levels of local complexity provoke new and surprising phenomena--including terrestrial life forms, and most notably for us, humanly-constructed symbolic meanings--of which science is only one example.The article then argues that it is time for historians to take note of the imperial role thus thrust upon their discipline by making a sustained effort to enlarge their views and explore the career of humankind on earth as a whole, thus making human history an integral part of the emerging scientific and evolutionary worldview.Tentative suggestions of how this might be addressed, focusing on changes in patterns of communication that expanded the scale of human cooperation, and thus conduced to survival, follow. Dance, then speech, were early breakthroughs expanding the practicable size of wandering human bands; then caravans and shipping allowed civilizations to arise; writing expanded the scale of coordination; warfare and trade harshly imposed best practice across wide areas of Eurasia and Africa and kept the skills of that part of the world ahead of what the peoples of other continents and islands had at their command. Then with the crossing of the oceans after 1492 our One World began to emerge and swiftly assumed its contemporary shape with further improvements in the range and capacity of communication--for example, printing, mechanically-powered transport, instantaneous data transmission--with consequences for human society and earth's ecosystem yet to be experienced.Much remains to be investigated and, in particular, interactions between the history of human symbolic meanings and the history of other equilibria--ecological, chemical, physical--within which we exist needs further study. But with suitable effort, history can perhaps become scientific and the emerging scientific evolutionary worldview begin to achieve logical completeness by bringing humankind within its scope. (shrink)

Combining engaging discussions and stimulating new case studies, BUSINESS ETHICS: A TEXTBOOK WITH CASES gives students a comprehensive survey of business ethics that will guide them toward becoming ethical professionals, even if they have never studied philosophy before. Rich with real-world examples, BUSINESS ETHICS: A TEXTBOOK WITH CASES invites students to critically analyze and apply a broad range of philosophical concepts and principles to today's most important issues in business and beyond. BUSINESS ETHICS: A TEXTBOOK WITH CASES is a concise (...) (without readings) and updated version of the eleventh edition of MORAL ISSUES IN BUSINESS. BUSINESS ETHICS: A TEXTBOOK WITH CASES is also available in an eBook format. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version. (shrink)

Here, William H. Schaberg presents a detailed publication history and biography of Nietzsche as author and an equally comprehensive annotated bibliography of his work.

In a new approach to a vexing problem in modern philosophy, William H. F. Altman shows that Heidegger’s decision to join the Nazis in 1933 can only be understood in the context of his complicated relationship with the Great War.

This update of the original version focuses on six central problems in the critical philosophy of history and explores the connections among them. Starting with the fundamentals of each philosophical topic in history and then delving into the specifics of each to better understand the surrounding issues, the reference first offers a comprehensive introduction into these topics then covers explanation and understanding ... objectivity and value judgment .. causes in history ... the nature and role of narrative ... and historical (...) determinism. Suitable for students, professors, and anyone else interested in the philosophy of history. (shrink)

For those participating in the ever-developing discussion in modern society about the role of traditional morality, The Ethical Navigator is a much-needed guide to the central concepts of ethics. William H. Capitan, through examples taken from pop culture, religious scriptures, and historical documents, provides easily grasped discussions of moral authority. The book demonstrates how today's emphasis on individual freedoms has stripped us of the morality to protect the freedom of society. A highly accessible work, The Ethical Navigator concludes with (...) practical ways to re-invest ethics into daily life. (shrink)

In "The Cerebral Code," he has solidly embedded his ideas in experimental neurophysiology and neuropharmacology, deriving from his decades in the laboratory.

Investigates the rapid evolution of the ape brain into the hominid brain, and explains why understanding our evolutionary past can help us survive an uncertain future.

The traditional view that all logical truths are metaphysically necessary has come under attack in recent years. The contrary claim is prominent in David Kaplan’s work on demonstratives, and Edward Zalta has argued that logical truths that are not necessary appear in modal languages supplemented only with some device for making reference to the actual world (and thus independently of whether demonstratives like ‘I’, ‘here’, and ‘now’ are present). If this latter claim can be sustained, it strikes close to the (...) heart of the traditional view. I begin this paper by discussing and refuting Zalta’s argument in the context of a language for propositional modal logic with an actuality connective (section 1). This involves showing that his argument in favor of real world validity his preferred explication of logical truth, is fallacious. Next (section 2) I argue for an alternative explication of logical truth called general validity. Since the rule of necessitation preserves general validity, the argument of section 2 provides a reason for affirming the traditional view. Finally (section 3) I show that the intuitive idea behind the discredited notion of real world validity finds legitimate expression in an object language connective for deep necessity. (shrink)

This book sets forth an ontological Copernican revolution.

In this book, William H. F. Altman considers the pedagogical connections behind the post-Republic dialogues from Timaeus to Theaetetus in the context of their Reading Order.

In suggesting that its last chapter’s purpose is to provoke the reader to begin reconsidering and thus rereading the book they have just read, this article attempts to negotiate the interpretive quarrel as whether Xenophon’s Cyropaedia deserves a “sunny” reading—in which Cyrus straightforwardly embodies Xenophon’s own political ideals—or a more critical “dark” one, that separates the author from his protagonist. To help us get the most advantage from the paideia his book was intended to provide, Xenophon made a “sunny” first (...) reading plausible, but he also sowed in his text the kind of clues—especially with respect to pleonexia—that would reveal his full intentions only to those who reread his book. (shrink)

Recent Plato scholarship has grown increasingly comfortable with the notion that Plato’s art of writing brings his readers into the dialogue, challenging them to respond to deliberate errors or lacunae in the text. Drawing inspiration from Stanley Fish’s seminal reading of Satan’s speeches in Paradise Lost, this paper considers the narrative of Timaeus as deliberately unreliable, and argues that the actively critical reader is “the missing fourth” with which the dialogue famously begins. By continuing Timaeus with Critias—a dialogue that ends (...) with a missing speech—Plato points to the kind of reader he expects: one who can answer Critias’ question : ὡς μὲν γὰρ οὐκ εὖ τὰ παρὰ σοῦ λεχθέντα εἴρηται, τίς ἂν ἐπιχειρήσειεν ἔμφρων λέγειν. (shrink)

Demonstrates that Plato and Xenophon ought to be regarded less as rivals and more as engaged in a dialogue advancing a common goal of preserving the Socratic legacy.

Dawn of Egyptian Art. Edited by Diana Craig Patch. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012. Pp. xii + 275, illus. $60. [Distributed by Yale University Press].

The possibility of in-breakings of God in science is discussed. A realist philosophy of science is used as a framework in which new paradigms are seen as providing ever better approximations to the true underlying structure of nature, which will be revealed in the eschaton. It is argued that ecology–the study of the earth as a whole–cannot be treated as a natural science because there can be no paradigms for understanding the earth as a whole. Instead technology is used as (...) a means for interacting with God through nature. (shrink)

This book deals with theoretical problems that arise at points of contact between the concerns of philosophers and historians about the practice of ...