The growth factor progranulin (PGRN) regulates cell division, survival, and migration. PGRN is an extracellular glycoprotein bearing multiple copies of the cysteine‐rich granulin motif. With PGRN family members in plants and slime mold, it represents one of the most ancient of the extracellular regulatory proteins still extant in modern animals. PRGN has multiple biological roles. It contributes to the regulation of early embryogenesis, to adult tissue repair and inflammation. Elevated PGRN levels often occur in cancers, and PGRN immunotherapy inhibits the (...) growth of hepatic cancer xenografts in mice. Recent studies have demonstrated roles for PGRN in neurobiology. An autosomal dominant mutation in GRN, the gene for PGRN, leads to neuronal atrophy in the frontal and temporal lobes, resulting in the disease frontotemporal lobar dementia. In this review we will discuss current knowledge of the multifaceted biology of PGRN. (shrink)

The ways in which Wittgenstein was directly influenced by William James (by his early psychological work as well his later philosophy) have been thoroughly explored and charted by Russell B. Goodman. In particular, Goodman has drawn attention to the pragmatist resonances of the Wittgensteinian notion of hinge propositions as developedand articulated in the posthumously edited and published work, On Certainty. This paper attempts to extend Goodman’s observation, moving beyond his focus on James (specifically, James’s Pragmatism) as his pragmatist reference point. (...) It aims to articulate the affinity between Wittgenstein’s thought on the topic of certainty and that of the neglected pragmatist thinker, George Santayana. -/- The paper draws on Duncan Pritchard’s recent reading of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty in order to articulate the concept of certainty involved in the notion of hinge propositions. It identifies two important and related points of affinity between this Wittgensteinian line of thought on certainty and the line of thought on the same topic articulated in Santayana’s Scepticism and Animal Faith. The paper argues, firstly, that, both lines of thought reflect a pragmatist concept of certainty, according to which our most fundamental certainties are not conceived as purely theoretical objects of belief or knowledge but rather as thearational presuppositions of beliefs and practical action. Secondly, it examines the way inwhich the pragmatist concept of certainty functions, for the two thinkers as a response to scepticism. It argues that although the two thinkers’ responses are very different, they are mutually compatible and, together, point towards the possibility of a distinctively pragmatist response to scepticism, which involves an anti-epistemological model of the intimate relation of the human self to the world. (shrink)

What is this thing called literature? What is the point of studying literature? How do I study literature? Relating literature to timeless topics such as dreams, politics, life, death, the ordinary and the crazy, this beautifully written book establishes a sense of why and how literature is an exciting and rewarding subject to study. Bennett and Royle delicately weave an essential love of literature into an account of what literary texts do, how they work and what sort of questions (...) and ideas they provoke.The book's three parts reflect the key components of studying literature: reading, thinking and writing. Part One comprises short chapters on reading a poem, reading a novel, reading a story, and reading a play. Part Two considers what thinking is, especially in relation to critical thinking and thinking about literature. Part three includes practical chapters on writing an essay, creative writing, and writing fiction. The authors use helpful, familiar examples throughout and offer brief reflections on questions such as 'What is literature?', on 'English' as a war zone, on crisis management and literary criticism, on dictionaries and on what the authors call creative reading. Bennett and Royle's lucid and friendly style engages and encourages personal experience of this thing called literature. (shrink)

pt. I. The mystical ambition.--pt. II. Revelation.--pt. III. Religion and morality.

What is this thing called literature? Why study it? And how? Relating literature to topics such as dreams, politics, life, death, the ordinary and the uncanny, This Thing Called Literature establishes a sense of why and how literature is an exciting and rewarding subject to study. Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle expertly weave an essential love of literature into an account of what literary texts do, how they work and the sort of questions and ideas they provoke. The (...) book's three parts reflect the fundamental components of studying literature: reading, thinking and writing. The authors use helpful and wide-ranging examples and summaries, offering rich reflections on the question 'What is literature?' and on what they term 'creative reading'. The new edition has been revised throughout with extensive updates to the further reading, and a new chapter on creative non-fiction. Bennett and Royle's accessible and thought-provoking style encourages a deep engagement with literary texts. This essential guide to the study of literature is as an eloquent celebration of the value and pleasure of reading. (shrink)

Objective Cluster randomised trial (CRT) investigators face challenges in seeking informed consent from individual patients (cluster members). This study examined associations between reporting of patient consent in healthcare CRTs and characteristics of these trials. Study design Consent practices and study characteristics were abstracted from a random sample of 160 CRTs performed in primary or hospital care settings that were published from 2000 to 2008. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine associations between reporting of patient consent and methodological characteristics, as (...) well as publication features such as date and journal of publication. Results 82 (53.8%) of 160 studies reported obtaining informed consent from individual patients. Reporting of patient consent was independently and positively associated with: smaller cluster size, the evaluation of experimental interventions targeted at patients, data collection from individual patients, publication later than 2004 and publication in higher-impact journals. Conclusions Reporting of consent practices in published CRTs should be improved. Consent practices in published CRTs appear to be related to the type of interventions under study, as well as journal impact and trends in research ethics practices. These findings will inform best practices in trial conduct and ethics review, remediation of errors in consent practices and ethics review and the development of regulatory guidance for CRTs. (shrink)

For many decades, researchers have explored the true potential of human achievement. The expertise field has come a long way since the early works of de Groot (1965) and Chase and Simon (1973). Since then, this inquiry has expanded into the areas of music, science, technology, sport, academia and art. Despite the vast amount of research to date, the capability of study methodologies to truly capture the nature of expertise remains questionable. Some considerations include (i) the individual bias in the (...) retrospective recall of developmental activities, (ii) the ability to develop ecologically valid tasks, and (iii) difficulties capturing the influence of confounding factors on expertise. This article proposes that expertise research in electronic sports (esports) presents an opportunity to overcome some of these considerations. Esports involves individuals or teams of players that compete in video game competitions via human-computer interaction. Advantages of applying the expert performance approach in esports include (i) developmental activities are objectively tracked and automatically logged online, (ii) the constraints of representative tasks correspond with the real-world environment of esports performance, and (iii) expertise has emerged without the influence of guided systematic training environments. Therefore, this article argues that esports research provides an ideal opportunity to further advance research on the development and assessment of human expertise. (shrink)

This paper posits that ethical leadership increases important organizational and individual outcomes by reducing politics in the workplace. Specifically, we propose that perceptions of organizational politics serve as a mechanism through which ethical leadership affects outcomes. We further argue that the modeled relationships are moderated by political skill. By means of data from 136 matched pairs of supervisors and subordinates employed by a state agency in the southern US, we found support for our predictions. Specifically, we found that perceptions of (...) organizational politics fully mediated the relationship between perceptions of ethical leadership and helping and promotability ratings. In addition, political skill was found to moderate the direct and indirect effects. (shrink)

Knowledge, Robert Rowland Smith remarks, is "derived by inference from specific cases in respect to a general order."1 The meaning of a literary work—our knowledge of it in that sense—is determined, according to this model, by the relationship between these two categories: between the "specific case" and the "general order." To gain knowledge of a text would be to understand what it means; and to understand what it means, one needs to negotiate from the particular to the general—thematically, contextually, generically, (...) intertextually, linguistically, rhetorically. But in this essay I argue that such a negotiation may be understood to generate serious difficulties when it comes to literary texts since, as Susan... (shrink)

The earlier volume in this series dealt with two religions of Indian origin, namely, Buddhism and Jainism. The Indian religious scene, however, is characterized by not only religions which originated in India but also by religions which entered India from outside India and made their home here. Thus religious life in India has been enlivened throughout its history by the presence of religions of foreign origin on its soil almost from the very time they came into existence. This volume covers (...) three such religions—Zoraoastrianism, Judaism, and Islam. In the case of Zoraostianism, even its very beginnings are intertwined with India, as Zoroastrianism reformed a preexisting religion which had strong links to the Vedic heritage of India. This relationship took on a new dimension when a Zoroastrian community, fearing persecution in Persia after its Arab conquest, sought shelter in western India and ultimately went on to produce India’s pioneering nationalist in the figure of Dadabhai Naoroji ( 1825-1917), also known as the Grand Old Man of India. Jews found refuge in south India after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. and have remained a part of the Indian religious scene since then, some even returning to Israel after it was founded in 1948. Islam arrived in Kerala as soon as it was founded and one of the earliest mosques in the history of Islam is found in India. Islam differs from the previously mentioned religions inasmuch as it went on to gain political hegemony over parts of the country for considerable periods of time, which meant that its impact on the religious life of the subcontinent has been greater compared to the other religions. It has also meant that Islam has existed in a religiously plural environment in India for a longer period than elsewhere in the world so that not only has Islam left a mark on India, India has also left its mark on it. Indeed all the three religions covered in this volume share this dual feature, that they have profoundly influenced Indian religious life and have also in turn been profoundly influenced by their presence in India. (shrink)

The earlier volume in this series dealt with two religions of Indian origin, namely, Buddhism and Jainism. The Indian religious scene, however, is characterized by not only religions which originated in India but also by religions which entered India from outside India and made their home here. Thus religious life in India has been enlivened throughout its history by the presence of religions of foreign origin on its soil almost from the very time they came into existence. This volume covers (...) three such religions—Zoraoastrianism, Judaism, and Islam. In the case of Zoraostianism, even its very beginnings are intertwined with India, as Zoroastrianism reformed a preexisting religion which had strong links to the Vedic heritage of India. This relationship took on a new dimension when a Zoroastrian community, fearing persecution in Persia after its Arab conquest, sought shelter in western India and ultimately went on to produce India’s pioneering nationalist in the figure of Dadabhai Naoroji ( 1825-1917), also known as the Grand Old Man of India. Jews found refuge in south India after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. and have remained a part of the Indian religious scene since then, some even returning to Israel after it was founded in 1948. Islam arrived in Kerala as soon as it was founded and one of the earliest mosques in the history of Islam is found in India. Islam differs from the previously mentioned religions inasmuch as it went on to gain political hegemony over parts of the country for considerable periods of time, which meant that its impact on the religious life of the subcontinent has been greater compared to the other religions. It has also meant that Islam has existed in a religiously plural environment in India for a longer period than elsewhere in the world so that not only has Islam left a mark on India, India has also left its mark on it. Indeed all the three religions covered in this volume share this dual feature, that they have profoundly influenced Indian religious life and have also in turn been profoundly influenced by their presence in India. (shrink)

This paper aims to bring together the study of normative judgments in mathematics as studied by the philosophy of mathematics and verbal hygiene as studied by sociolinguistics. Verbal hygiene (Cameron 1995) refers to the set of normative ideas that language users have about which linguistic practices should be preferred, and the ways in which they go about encouraging or forcing others to adopt their preference. We introduce the notion of mathematical hygiene, which we define in a parallel way as the (...) set of normative discourses regulating mathematical practices and the ways in which mathematicians promote those practices. To clarify our proposal, we present two case studies from 17th century France. First, we exemplify a case of mathematical hygiene proper: Descartes' algebraic geometry and Newton's subsequent criticism of it, a case of (im)purity in mathematics. Then, we compare Descartes' and Newton's mathematical hygiene with verbal hygiene from this period, as exemplified by the work of the grammarian Claude Favre de Vaugelas (Ayres-Bennett 1987). We argue that these early modern normative discourses on mathematics and language respectively can be seen as emanating from a common socio-political program: the development of a new bourgeois intellectual class. We conclude that the study of mathematical hygiene has the potential to yield new understandings of the social aspects of mathematical practice, and that similarities between mathematical and verbal hygiene at certain time periods, such as 17th century France, open up a new area of inquiry at the borders of linguistics and the philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

This article is intended as a response rather than counterpoint to Bennett's careful argument that amnesty cannot amount to an act of collective forgiveness. I agree that a state cannot forgive perpetrators of grave human rights violations. However, I am concerned that conceiving the question of amnesty strictly in terms of a choice between the Art of Compromise or the Hard Line of retribution may unduly limit our understanding of the potential relation between amnesty and forgiveness in politics. To (...) show this, I consider the question of amnesty in relation to the possibility of forgiving those ordinary citizens implicated in the perpetration of wrongs as bystanders and beneficiaries of an unjust regime. Following Arendt, I argue that political grounds for forgiveness in such circumstances are the frailty of the world and the natality of the other . On this account, forgiveness is not necessarily the final term in a process of reconciliation that restores a wrongdoer to the moral community. Rather, the disposition to forgive makes possible a politics in which members of a divided polity contest each other's understandings of the violence of the past and its significance for their political association. (shrink)

In the last ten years, there have been a number of attempts to refute Julian Savulescu's Principle of Procreative Beneficence; a principle which claims that parents have a moral obligation to have the best child that they can possibly have. So far, no arguments against this principle have succeeded at refuting it. This paper tries to explain the shortcomings of some of the more notable arguments against this principle. I attempt to break down the argument for the principle and in (...) doing so, I explain what is needed to properly refute it. This helps me show how and why the arguments of Rebecca Bennett, Sarah Stoller and others fail to refute the principle. Afterwards, I offer a new challenge to the principle. I attack what I understand to be a fundamental premise of the argument, a premise which has been overlooked in the literature written about this principle. I argue that there is no reason to suppose, as Savulescu does, that morality requires us to do what we have most reason to do. If we reject this premise, as I believe we have reason to do, the argument for Procreative Beneficence fails. (shrink)

Recent proposals by Taylor, Bennett, Wright and Cohen to identify teleological systems as systems governed by teleological laws and teleological laws as laws of a certain logical form are discussed. Suggested logical forms are treated with both extensional and simple non-extensional models of nomic necessity and shown to generate problematic entailments not derivable from the causal form alone.

On the standard reading of Hume, the belief that the necessity associated with the causal relation is “an entirely mind-independent phenomenon” in the world isunjustified. For example, Jonathan Bennett writes that necessary connections of the sort that Hume allows are not “relations which hold objectively between the ‘objects’ or events which we take to be causally related.” Similarly, Barry Stroud writes that, according to Hume, we believe falsely “that necessity is something that ‘resides’ in the relation between objects or (...) events in the objective world.” In this paper I argue that this reading of Hume is mistaken and that there is a sense of justification (viz., justification qua “proof”) according to which human beings are justified in holding the belief that the necessity associated with the causal relation is “an entirely mind-independent phenomenon” in the world. (shrink)

On the standard reading of Hume, the belief that the necessity associated with the causal relation is “an entirely mind-independent phenomenon” in the world isunjustified. For example, Jonathan Bennett writes that necessary connections of the sort that Hume allows are not “relations which hold objectively between the ‘objects’ or events which we take to be causally related.” Similarly, Barry Stroud writes that, according to Hume, we believe falsely “that necessity is something that ‘resides’ in the relation between objects or (...) events in the objective world.” In this paper I argue that this reading of Hume is mistaken and that there is a sense of justification (viz., justification qua “proof”) according to which human beings are justified in holding the belief that the necessity associated with the causal relation is “an entirely mind-independent phenomenon” in the world. (shrink)

This article—the first of a linked set of three outlining the development and practice of a different approach to science/religion dialogue—begins with an overview of some persistent tensions in the field. Then, using a threefold heuristic of encounter, engagement, and expression, it explores the routes taken by James Ashbrook and Andrew Newberg to develop a dialogue between theology and neuroscience, discussing some of the problems associated with these and their implications for attempts to further develop neurotheology. Finally, it proposes (...) a different way of thinking about this enterprise and points toward a new methodology for supporting this endeavor. (shrink)

Philosophers of social science have emphasized mechanistic approaches to causal inquiry for some time now, showing why focusing on the mechanisms behind correlations is preferable to focusing on correlations alone (cf. Johnson 2006, Little 1991, Reiss 2007, 2009, Steel 2004, see also King, Keohane, and Verba 1994 for an example of purely correlational research). In Process Tracing: from Metaphor to Analytic Tool, political scientists Andrew Bennett and Jeffrey Checkel present a concrete method for finding evidence of causal mechanisms, (...) process tracing. Process tracers give evidence for causal relations in terms of the observable implications of the underlying causal mechanisms through which a putative cause affects some effect of interest. Such observable implications often take the form of a chain of events, or process, which connects cause and effect. Though Process Tracing contains applications of mechanistic reasoning unfamiliar to philosophers, and as such will be of interest to those working in the mechanist tradition, Bennett and Checkel’s own discussion of the philosophical foundations of process tracing is limited. The reader will have to delve deep into the volume’s contributed chapters for links between the literature on causation and this new method. (shrink)

In this study of events and their places in our language and thought, Bennett propounds and defends views about what kind of item an event is, how the language of events works, and about how these two themes are interrelated. He argues that most of the supposedly metaphysical literature is really about the semantics of their names, and that the true metaphysic of events--known by Leibniz and rediscovered by Kim--has not been universally accepted because it has been tarred with (...) the brush of a false semantic theory. (shrink)

Recently much has been made of the grounding relation, and of the idea that it is intimately tied to fundamentality. If A grounds B, then A is more fundamental than B (though not vice versa ), and A is ungrounded if and only if it is fundamental full stop—absolutely fundamental. But here is a puzzle: is grounding itself absolutely fundamental?

Writing from a scientifically and philosophically informed perspective, the authors provide a critical overview of the conceptual difficulties encountered in many current neuroscientific and psychological theories.

Challenges, possibilities, and opportunitie for re-founding the tradition of philosophical personalism today.

The book "Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience" is an engaging criticism of cognitive neuroscience from the perspective of a Wittgensteinian philosophy of ordinary language. The authors' main claim is that assertions like "the brain sees" and "the left hemisphere thinks" are integral to cognitive neuroscience but that they are meaningless because they commit the mereological fallacy—ascribing to parts of humans, properties that make sense to predicate only of whole humans. The authors claim that this fallacy is at the heart of Cartesian (...) dualism, implying that current cognitive neuroscientists are Cartesian dualists. Against this claim, we argue that the fallacy cannot be committed within Cartesian dualism either, for this doctrine does not allow for an intelligible way of asserting that a soul is part of a human being. Also, the authors' Aristotelian essentialistic outlook is at odds with their Wittgensteinian stance, and we were unconvinced by their case against explanatory reductionism. Finally, although their Wittgensteinian stance is congenial with radical behaviorism, their separation between philosophy and science seems less so because it is based on a view of philosophy as a priori. The authors' emphasis on the a priori, however, does not necessarily commit them to rationalism if it is restricted to conceptual or analytical truths. (shrink)

Conditional sentences are among the most intriguing and puzzling features of language, and analysis of their meaning and function has important implications for, and uses in, many areas of philosophy. Jonathan Bennett, one of the world's leading experts, distils many years' work and teaching into this Philosophical Guide to Conditionals, the fullest and most authoritative treatment of the subject. An ideal introduction for undergraduates with a philosophical grounding, it also offers a rich source of illumination and stimulation for graduate (...) students and professional philosophers. (shrink)

This paper examines the idea of objective phenomenology, or a way of understanding the phenomenal character of conscious experiences that doesn’t require one to have had the kinds of experiences under consideration. My central thesis is that structural facts about experience—facts that characterize purely how conscious experiences are structured—are objective phenomenal facts. I begin by precisifying the idea of objective phenomenology and diagnosing what makes any given phenomenal fact subjective. Then I defend the view that structural facts about experience are (...) objective. I also argue that structural facts about experience, despite being objective, nevertheless still give rise to an explanatory gap. (shrink)

This paper argues that hate differs from mere disliking in terms of its “depth,” which is understood via a notion of “othering,” whereby one rejects at least some aspect of the identity of the target of hate, identifying oneself as not being what they are. Fleshing this out reveals important differences between personal hate, which targets a particular individual, and impersonal hate, which targets groups of people. Moreover, impersonal hate requires focusing on the place hate has within particular sorts of (...) communities, enabling a further important distinction between “insider” and “outsider” hate in terms of whether the hater includes members of the targeted group within a particular community or rejects them as “beneath” membership in that community. (shrink)

Some accounts of moral responsibility hold that an agent's responsibility is completely determined by some aspect of the agent's mental life at the time of action. For example, some hold that an agent is responsible if and only if there is an appropriate mesh among the agent's particular psychological elements. It is often objected that the particular features of the agent's mental life to which these theorists appeal (such as a particular structure or mesh) are not necessary for responsibility. This (...) is because there appear to be cases in which an agent acts at an earlier time which causes her to lack the appropriate psychological features at some later time and yet, intuitively, she is responsible at that later .. (shrink)

Perception is riddled with cases of reliable misperception. These are cases in which a perceptual state is tokened inaccurately any time it is tokened under normal conditions. On the face of it, this fact causes trouble for theories that provide an analysis of perceptual content in non-semantic, non-intentional, and non-phenomenal terms, such as those found in Millikan (1984), Fodor (1990), Neander (2017), and Schellenberg (2018). I show how such theories can be extended so that they cover such cases without giving (...) up their core commitments. (shrink)

We are all familiar with the phenomenon of a proposition seeming true. Many think that these seeming states can yield justified beliefs. Very few have seriously explored what these seeming states are. I argue that seeming states are not plausibly analyzed in terms of beliefs, partial beliefs, attractions to believe, or inclinations to believe. Given that the main candidates for analyzing seeming states are unsatisfactory, I argue for a brute view of seemings that treats seeming states as irreducible propositional attitudes.