Understanding spoken words involves a rapid mapping from speech to conceptual representations. One distributed feature-based conceptual account assumes that the statistical characteristics of concepts’ features—the number of concepts they occur in and likelihood of co-occurrence —determine conceptual activation. To test these claims, we investigated the role of distinctiveness/sharedness and correlational strength in speech-to-meaning mapping, using a lexical decision task and computational simulations. Responses were faster for concepts with higher sharedness, suggesting that shared features are facilitatory in tasks like lexical decision (...) that require access to them. Correlational strength facilitated responses for slower participants, suggesting a time-sensitive co-occurrence-driven settling mechanism. The computational simulation showed similar effects, with early effects of shared features and later effects of correlational strength. These results support a general-to-specific account of conceptual processing, whereby early activation of shared features is followed by the gradual emergence of a specific target representation. (shrink)

Relations of transworld similarity play an essential role in Lewis's system. Analysis reveals that they involve the possibility of detailed transworld belief. Such belief is problematic within Lewis's framework. He has an answer to the problems raised, but it relies on a dubious distinction between natural and mere properties. Replacing that distinction with a respectable one undermines an essential part of his case against one of his chief opponents, the linguistic ersatzist.

The paper proposes a formal account of Aristotle's trichotomy of verbs, in terms of properties of their continuous tensings, into S(state)-verbs, K(kinesis)-verbs, and E-(energeia)-verbs. Within a Fregean tense framework in which predicates are relativized to times, an account of the continuous tenses is presented and a preliminary account of the trichotomy devised, which permits an illuminating analogy to be drawn between the temporal properties of E- and K-verbs and the spatial properties of stuffs and substances. This analogy is drawn upon (...) in constructing a sophisticated version of the preliminary theory accommodating more of the linguistic data. (shrink)

Barry Taylor's book mounts a major new argument against one of the fundamental tenets of much contemporary philosophy, the idea that we can make sense of reality as existing objectively, independently of our capacities to come to know it. He concludes that there is no defensible notion of truth which preserves the theses of traditional realism, nor any extant position sufficiently true to the ideals of that doctrine to inherit its title. In presenting his case Taylor engages (...) with many key works of contemporary metaphysics, semantics, and philosophical logic, so his book will be of interest to a broad spectrum of scholars and students. (shrink)

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

"Pace" michael devitt and other recent writers, this paper argues that realism essentially involves commitment to a substantial theory of truth. it also tries to chart the ways whereby the commitment arises.

In Democracy and the Claims of Nature, the leading thinkers in the fields of environmental, political, and social theory come together to discuss the tensions and sympathies of democratic ideals and environmental values. The prominent contributors reflect upon where we stand in our understanding of the relationship between democracy and the claims of nature. Democracy and the Claims of Nature bridges the gap between the often competing ideals of the two fields, leading to a greater understanding of each for the (...) other. (shrink)

Of course, for all that it may illustrate the frame of mind in which distinctively classical principles can seem unassailable, this reasoning tacitly ...

A wide variety of ontologies relevant to the biological and medical domains are available through the OBO Foundry portal, and their number is growing rapidly. Integration of these ontologies, while requiring considerable effort, is extremely desirable. However, heterogeneities in format and style pose serious obstacles to such integration. In particular, inconsistencies in naming conventions can impair the readability and navigability of ontology class hierarchies, and hinder their alignment and integration. While other sources of diversity are tremendously complex and challenging, agreeing (...) a set of common naming conventions is an achievable goal, particularly if those conventions are based on lessons drawn from pooled practical experience and surveys of community opinion. We summarize a review of existing naming conventions and highlight certain disadvantages with respect to general applicability in the biological domain. We also present the results of a survey carried out to establish which naming conventions are currently employed by OBO Foundry ontologies and to determine what their special requirements regarding the naming of entities might be. Lastly, we propose an initial set of typographic, syntactic and semantic conventions for labelling classes in OBO Foundry ontologies. Adherence to common naming conventions is more than just a matter of aesthetics. Such conventions provide guidance to ontology creators, help developers avoid flaws and inaccuracies when editing, and especially when interlinking, ontologies. Common naming conventions will also assist consumers of ontologies to more readily understand what meanings were intended by the authors of ontologies used in annotating bodies of data. (shrink)

The Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI) is an ontology that provides terms with precisely defined meanings to describe all aspects of how investigations in the biological and medical domains are conducted. OBI re-uses ontologies that provide a representation of biomedical knowledge from the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) project and adds the ability to describe how this knowledge was derived. We here describe the state of OBI and several applications that are using it, such as adding semantic expressivity to (...) existing databases, building data entry forms, and enabling interoperability between knowledge resources. OBI covers all phases of the investigation process, such as planning, execution and reporting. It represents information and material entities that participate in these processes, as well as roles and functions. Prior to OBI, it was not possible to use a single internally consistent resource that could be applied to multiple types of experiments for these applications. OBI has made this possible by creating terms for entities involved in biological and medical investigations and by importing parts of other biomedical ontologies such as GO, Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI) and Phenotype Attribute and Trait Ontology (PATO) without altering their meaning. OBI is being used in a wide range of projects covering genomics, multi-omics, immunology, and catalogs of services. OBI has also spawned other ontologies (Information Artifact Ontology) and methods for importing parts of ontologies (Minimum information to reference an external ontology term (MIREOT)). The OBI project is an open cross-disciplinary collaborative effort, encompassing multiple research communities from around the globe. To date, OBI has created 2366 classes and 40 relations along with textual and formal definitions. The OBI Consortium maintains a web resource providing details on the people, policies, and issues being addressed in association with OBI. (shrink)

© 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.Genetic studies have identified single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with the risk of prostate cancer. It remains unclear whether such genetic variants are associated with disease aggressiveness. The NCI-SPORE Genetics Working Group retrospectively collected clinicopathologic information and genotype data for 36 SNPs which at the time had been validated to be associated with PC risk from 25,674 cases with PC. Cases were grouped according to race, Gleason score and aggressiveness. Statistical analyses were used to compare the frequency (...) of the SNPs between different disease cohorts. After adjusting for multiple testing, only PC-risk SNP rs2735839 was significantly and inversely associated with aggressive and high-grade disease in European men. Similar associations with aggressive and high-grade disease were documented in African-American subjects. The G allele of rs2735839 was associated with disease aggressiveness even at low PSA levels in both European and African-American men. Our results provide further support that a PC-risk SNP rs2735839 near the KLK3 gene on chromosome 19q13 may be associated with aggressive and high-grade PC. Future prospectively designed, case-case GWAS are needed to identify additional SNPs associated with PC aggressiveness. (shrink)

All major western countries today contain groups that differ in their religious beliefs, customary practices or ideas about the right way in which to live. How should public policy respond to this diversity? In this important new work, Brian Barry challenges the currently orthodox answer and develops a powerful restatement of an egalitarian liberalism for the twenty-first century. Until recently it was assumed without much question that cultural diversity could best be accommodated by leaving cultural minorities free to associate (...) in pursuit of their distinctive ends within the limits imposed by a common framework of laws. This solution is rejected by an influential school of political theorists, among whom some of the best known are William Galston, Will Kymlicka, Bhikhu Parekh, Charles Taylor and Iris Marion Young. According to them, this 'difference-blind' conception of liberal equality fails to deliver either liberty or equal treatment. In its place, they propose that the state should 'recognize' group identities, by granting groups exemptions from certain laws, publicly 'affirming' their value, and by providing them with special privileges or subsidies. In Culture and Equality, Barry offers an incisive critique of these arguments and suggests that theorists of multiculturism tend to misdiagnose the problems of minority groups. Often, these are not rooted in culture, and multiculturalist policies may actually stand in the way of universalistic measures that would be genuinely beneficial. (shrink)

The forms and specific situations of the government of men by one another in a given society are multiple; they are superimposed, they cross, impose their own limits, sometimes cancel one another out, sometimes reinforce one another. According to a commonplace in the critical discussion of Foucault's later work, he is supposed to have decided to take up Nietzsche's interpretation of power as Wille zur Macht, ‘will to power.’ For instance, Habermas believes he has criticized Foucault when he says, ‘Nietzsche’s (...) authority, from which this [Foucault’s] utterly unsociological concept of power is borrowed, is not enough to justify its systematic usage.’ Charles Taylor finds in Nietzsche ‘a doctrine which Foucault seems to have made his own,’ viz., that ‘there is no order of human life, or way we are, or human nature, that one can appeal to in order to judge or evaluate between ways of life. (shrink)

All major western countries today contain groups that differ in their religious beliefs, customary practices or ideas about the right way in which to live. How should public policy respond to this diversity? In this important new work, Brian Barry challenges the currently orthodox answer and develops a powerful restatement of an egalitarian liberalism for the twenty-first century. Until recently it was assumed without much question that cultural diversity could best be accommodated by leaving cultural minorities free to associate (...) in pursuit of their distinctive ends within the limits imposed by a common framework of laws. This solution is rejected by an influential school of political theorists, among whom some of the best known are William Galston, Will Kymlicka, Bhikhu Parekh, Charles Taylor and Iris Marion Young. According to them, this 'difference-blind' conception of liberal equality fails to deliver either liberty or equal treatment. In its place, they propose that the state should 'recognize' group identities, by granting groups exemptions from certain laws, publicly 'affirming' their value, and by providing them with special privileges or subsidies. In Culture and Equality, Barry offers an incisive critique of these arguments and suggests that theorists of multiculturism tend to misdiagnose the problems of minority groups. Often, these are not rooted in culture, and multiculturalist policies may actually stand in the way of universalistic measures that would be genuinely beneficial. (shrink)

Thirteen years ago, commenting on the treatment of the human body and its cell lines as patentable commodities, Mary Taylor Danforth wrote:Research with human cells that results in significant economic gain for the researcher and no gain for the patient offends the traditional mores of our society in a manner impossible to quantify Such research tends to treat the human body as a commodity — a means to a profitable end. The dignity and sanctity with which we regard the (...) human whole, body as well as mind and soul, are absent when we allow researchers to further their own interests without the patient's participation by using a patient's cells as the basis for a marketable product.In his insightful article, David Resnik would have us travel further down the path of allowing the patenting of DNA in order to advance scientific research and the welfare of humankind. Dr. Resnik suggests that that the acquisition of such proprietary rights in DNA research must proceed cautiously. (shrink)

Thirteen years ago, commenting on the treatment of the human body and its cell lines as patentable commodities, Mary Taylor Danforth wrote:Research with human cells that results in significant economic gain for the researcher and no gain for the patient offends the traditional mores of our society in a manner impossible to quantify Such research tends to treat the human body as a commodity — a means to a profitable end. The dignity and sanctity with which we regard the (...) human whole, body as well as mind and soul, are absent when we allow researchers to further their own interests without the patient's participation by using a patient's cells as the basis for a marketable product.In his insightful article, David Resnik would have us travel further down the path of allowing the patenting of DNA in order to advance scientific research and the welfare of humankind. Dr. Resnik suggests that that the acquisition of such proprietary rights in DNA research must proceed cautiously. (shrink)

First Published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

All major western countries today contain groups that differ in their religious beliefs, customary practices or ideas about the right way in which to live. How should public policy respond to this diversity? In this important new work, Brian Barry challenges the currently orthodox answer and develops a powerful restatement of an egalitarian liberalism for the twenty-first century. Until recently it was assumed without much question that cultural diversity could best be accommodated by leaving cultural minorities free to associate (...) in pursuit of their distinctive ends within the limits imposed by a common framework of laws. This solution is rejected by an influential school of political theorists, among whom some of the best known are William Galston, Will Kymlicka, Bhikhu Parekh, Charles Taylor and Iris Marion Young. According to them, this 'difference-blind' conception of liberal equality fails to deliver either liberty or equal treatment. In its place, they propose that the state should 'recognize' group identities, by granting groups exemptions from certain laws, publicly 'affirming' their value, and by providing them with special privileges or subsidies. In Culture and Equality, Barry offers an incisive critique of these arguments and suggests that theorists of multiculturism tend to misdiagnose the problems of minority groups. Often, these are not rooted in culture, and multiculturalist policies may actually stand in the way of universalistic measures that would be genuinely beneficial. (shrink)

My argument in this paper is that Charles Taylor’s view of liberty and ethics unites Isaiah Berlin’s liberal pluralism with Elizabeth Anscombe’s virtue ethics. Berlin identifies, in “Two Concepts of Liberty,” a tradition of negative liberty advocated by figures like Locke and Mill. He maintains that this concept of liberty is unique to modernity, and it is the form of liberty best suited to the political sphere. The much older concept of positive liberty, which is found in ancient philosophers (...) like Plato and Aristotle, as well as modern thinkers like Hegel, Berlin regards as ill-suited to the political sphere. Anscombe, in “Modern Moral Philosophy,” specifically identifies and criticizes the Anglo-Saxon tradition of moral philosophy. Utilitarian thinkers like Mill are, for Anscombe, consequentialists. The virtue ethics of Aristotle gives a basis for the intrinsic goodness and badness of actions not in sentiment but reason. Charles Taylor draws upon the views of both thinkers. He advocates a liberal pluralism in a manner comparable to Berlin. However, Taylor strongly emphasizes, with Anscombe, that the most complete conception of ethical and political life must be rooted in virtue ethics and positive liberty. Thus, Taylor’s views constitute a synthesis of the approaches of his two mentors. (shrink)

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XXIV, Number 1, April 1998, pp. 5-30 Justice and the Foundations of Social Morality in Hume's Treatise JACQUELINE TAYLOR Hume famously distinguishes between artificial virtues and natural virtues, or, at one place, between a sense of virtue that is natural and one that is artificial. The most prominent of the artificial virtues are those associated with the practices of justice. Commentators have devoted much attention (...) to Hume's explanation of what motivates us to be just. But his main concern in the Treatise is to explain why we approve morally of just conduct.1 While there surely are complexities surrounding the issue of the motivation to be just, in one sense Hume's explanation is quite straightforward: self-interest motivates us to establish and follow the conventions of justice. The real interest in his account of the establishment of justice lies in his further explanation of how those conventions transform our moral psychology, and lead us to form shareable moral points of view from which we can reach agreement on the value of characters. My reading of Hume's account in the Treatise is as follows. Hume attributes to us a social morality, the central notion of which is a moral sensibility that has its origins in nature, but that must be extended by social artifice in order to accommodate the various virtues important to cooperative living. I will contend that the moral psychology embodied in a cultivated sense of morality depends on the redirection of our evaluative propensities and therefore requires the sorts of convention that Hume associates with justice.2 My thesis helps to make sense of the structure of Book III: Hume has genuine philosophical reasons for introducing the artificial virtues prior to the natural ones.3 Jacqueline Taylor is at the Department of Philosophy, Tufts University, Medford MA 02155-7059 USA. email: [email protected] 6 Jacqueline Taylor The main goal of this paper is to show that Hume's philosophy has the resources to explain our ability to balance our appraisal of the artificial and natural virtues, since we need both sorts of virtue to live well. As a foil for my view, I want to use the argument advanced by Barry Stroud and others that Hume faces a special difficulty in explaining how we sustain our approval of particular just acts that considered in themselves appear harmful to the public good. Stroud argues that Hume fails to explain what recommends justice as a virtue to us in all cases, and thus fails to capture the concern we have for fairness.4 While Stroud finds in the second Enquiry the seeds of a view, based on our sympathetic approval of what tends to the good of mankind, that could provide the materials for developing a naturalistic account of how we come to have a concern for justice and fairness, he argues that Hume's interest lies squarely in the origin of justice and not in how people develop shared social attitudes (Stroud, 216-218). I disagree with Stroud's pronouncement that Hume fails to explain sufficiently our moral approval of justice, but I must leave to one side discussion of the particular social attitudes of justice, such as concern for fairness. My focus will be on how we cultivate a range of shared attitudes of moral appraisal and the relation of these to justice. Stroud misjudges Hume's project, at least in part, because he neglects the historical context in which Hume was writing, and overlooks some important differences between Hume and his contemporary, Francis Hutcheson.5 In Book II of the Treatise, in a discussion of virtue and vice as causes of pride and humility, Hume signals the reader that in the next book he will examine "the controversy...whether these moral distinctions be founded on natural and original principles, or arise from interest and education" (T 295). The controversy to which he refers is that between moral sense theorists, such as Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, on the one side, and members of the Hobbesian or "selfish" school, which includes Mandeville as well as Hobbes, on the other. As he starts Book III, Hume seems to suggest that his... (shrink)