The complex interaction between colonizer and colonized has attracted increasing attention among historians in the post-colonial period of the last fifty years. This perspective is also adopted by Maria Georgopoulou (hereafter: M. G.) in her treatment of the encounter between Venice and the Byzantine heritage of the territories the latter occupied shortly after the Fourth Crusade. M. G's. main thesis may be summarized as follows. Venice manipulated Crete's Byzantine heritage and assimilated it into her own rhetoric in order (...) to undermine the Byzantine presence in the island and to support and legitimize her own colonial rule. This was achieved mainly by the appropriation of Byzantine traditions in civic and religious ceremonies and the symbolic colonization of urban space, expressed in architectural designs, the use of buildings and spatial patterns. All these served as bold statements of control over the local Greek population and the Jewish communities. The same strategy of urban planning was implemented in the other main cities of the colonial empire (26). In addition, M. G. argues that there was yet another channel of appropriation of Byzantine culture, art and imperial heritage by Venice, resulting from the Byzantine impact of the Venetian colonial territories on the political and cultural identity of the Adriatic city. Until now this issue has been examined in numerous studies primarily focused on the relationship between Constantinople and Venice. (shrink)

This Note argues that the fourth pseudo-hieroglyph from the left in Giorgio vasari’s Chatsworth Allegory of a Dream, previously regarded as a symbol of the sin of pride or else not interpreted, is, in fact, the depiction of a castle in the air (castello in aria). I show that the rare iconography of an upside-down castle was inspired by an illustration from an Italian translation of the dialogues of Lucian of Samosata and give a brief overview of the importance of (...) the motif of the castle in the air in sixteenth-century Italian culture. I also propose that Vasari’s drawing was a design for a ceiling panel intended for Giovanni Corner’s palace in venice and show its dependence on Francesco Primaticcio’s Allegory of the Nile for the palace of François Ier at Fontainebleau. (shrink)

What could be the point of teaching such works of bygone cultural and literary inheritance as Cervantes' _Don Quixote_ and Shakespeare’s _The Merchant of Venic_e in schools today? This book argues that the narratives and stories of such works are of neglected significance and value for contemporary understanding of human moral association and character. However, in addition to offering detailed analysis of the moral educational potential of these and other texts, the present work reports on a pioneering project, recently pursued (...) by the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, concerned precisely with the use of these and other stories for moral and character education in schools. The success of the 'Knightly Virtues’ project is an inspiring story in its own right and should therefore be of enormous interest to all schools, teachers and parents rightly concerned with this all-important aspect of their children’s educational development. (shrink)

The basic argument of the essay is that in The Merchant of Venice Shakespeare represents Aristotelian-Thomistic notions of love and friendship. In the attraction of Bassanio for Portia we have the three-fold analysis of love as desire for the useful, the pleasurable and the virtuous. In the male friendship between Antonio and Bassanio we see the liberal man’s virtuous desire to give and share his wealth with his friends. Both relationships are concerned with giving and taking, a reflection of (...) the Aristotelian-Thomistic distinction between love as desire and love as friendship. A final note is the play’s conclusion in the Aristotelian goods of happiness, gratuitous good fortune with the safe arrival of Antonio’s ships, union in friendship and marriage with Portia and Bassanio, Nerissa and Gaziano, and the wonder and delight that is to follow with Portia’s answer to all remaining questions. (shrink)

The nineteenth-century poet, critic and philosopher, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, once characterized the mind of William Shakespeare as "oceanic". Oceans, of course, teem with myriad forms of life: is philosophy one such form in the oceanic vastness of Shakespeare 's creative genius? If so, how do we identify philosophic elements in his plays and assess the place they occupy? What sense does it make to speak of "philosophical criticism" of individual plays? How does Shakespeare incorporate epistemologies of his own time and (...) how dramatically appropriate are they? To what extent is Shakespeare of use to contemporary philosophers and how does he anticipate them; and, vice-versa, can such philosophies refine our understanding of certain issues to which literary critics may fail to do justice? That is, can philosophy take us beyond the purely literary examination of plot structure, character, poetic imagery, speech rhythms, dialogues, settings, etc. to grant us new insight into the problematical issues the plays raise? In the time at my disposal, I am going to attempt some answers to at least some of these questions, by dwelling briefly on The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet. (shrink)

Terry Eagleton is the foremost Marxist cultural theorist of our time. In the first book-length study of this highly influential figure, David Alderson provides detailed discussions of Eagleton's Marxism and his engagements with postmodernism, as well as an evaluation of his interventions in Irish Studies. Each of the chapters in this important intervention in current theoretical debates offers accessible contextualization of the key issues and provides detailed analyses of Eagleton's literary criticism. Alderson shows that the complex relations between nature, (...) culture and ideology, body, subjectivity and authority are at the heart of Eagleton's ethical and political concerns. He goes on to demonstrate that these relations inform the theorist's critical examinations of such literary works as Wuthering Heights and The Merchant of Venice, and his treatment of W.B. Yeats and Oscar Wilde. (shrink)

Encompassing a wide range of subjects, the ten masterful essays gathered here may at first appear unrelated to one another. In truth, Giorgio Agamben's latest book is a mosaic of his most pressing concerns. Take a step backward after reading it from cover to cover, and a world of secret affinities between the chapters slowly comes into focus. Take another step back, and it becomes another indispensable piece of the finely nuanced philosophy that Agamben has been patiently constructing over four (...) decades of sustained research. If nudity is unconcealment, or the absence of all veils, then _Nudities_ is a series of apertures onto truth. A guiding thread of this collection—weaving together the prophet's work of redemption, the glorious bodies of the resurrected, the celebration of the Sabbath, and the specters that stroll the streets of Venice—is inoperativity, or the cessation of work. The term should not be understood as laziness or inertia, but rather as the paradigm of human action in the politics to come. Itself the result of inoperativity, _Nudities_ shuttles between philosophy and poetry, philological erudition and unexpected digression, metaphysical treatise and critique of modern life. And whether the subject at hand is personal identity or the biometric apparatus, the slanderer or the land surveyor, Kafka or Kleist, every page bears the singular imprint of one of the most astute philosophers of our time. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 39.3 (2005) 115-120 [Access article in PDF] Commentary Seeing Cultural Conflicts Some years ago the great intellectual historian Isaiah Berlin made an important statement about what has become known as multiculturalism: We are urged to look upon life as affording a plurality of values, equally genuine, equally ultimate, above all equally objective; incapable, therefore, of being ordered in a timeless hierarchy, or judged in (...) terms of some one absolute standard.1He distinguishes such pluralism from relativism, which holds that different cultures (or individuals) have tastes or attitudes that are not objectively valid. Multiculturalism is, he thinks, an important position; relativism is not. Berlin describes what has now become a very familiar cliché. There are many diverse social systems. And since each has real value, we try to understand every other culture on its own terms.A great deal has been written recently about cultural conflicts. What can visual art show us about this subject, about relationships between radically opposed societies? Pre-modern civilizations were not usually tolerant of exotic cultures. Islam and Europe were often at war. "The menace of Islam was seen as something which threatened the souls as well as the bodies of Christian Europe."2 But although the Italians often fought with their Muslim neighbors, they did also import carpets to decorate the interiors of palaces and, in Venice, to adorn the facades of their homes.3 And many Venetian paintings depict these Islamic rugs. In Giovanni Mansueti's Miracles of the Bridge at San Lio (1494), now in the Accademia, Venice, or in Vittore Carpaccio's Meeting and Departure of the Betrothed (1490) showing the Episodes from the Life of St. Ursula, carpets are represented. In such pictures, the historian Paul Hills observes:... rich colours in soft textiles overlay the hardness of marble; and the eye of the Venetian painters and their public became attuned to fine degrees of hardness and softness, of fixity and pliancy, as when silken textiles move in a current of air but marbles stand fast. 4The Venetians were famous for incorporating alien artifacts, making them "their own without losing a sense of the exotic and the unfamiliar."5 And so it is unsurprising that painters freely inserted objects from another culture into works of art. The exotic decorative fabrics must surely have inspired the [End Page 115] Venetians. But because Islamic culture was foreign, Renaissance Europeans did not say much about the aesthetic qualities of these carpets.Representations of carpets are also found elsewhere in Italian art. The Siena Cathedral contains frescoes by Pinturicchio (1502-9) showing the life of Pius II, the fifteenth-century Pope. In the sixth scene, he enters Mantua to preside over the assembly called to mount an expedition against the Turks.6 (The venerable Christian capital Constantinople had just fallen to the Muslims.) On the table in the porch sheltering the Pope and his attendants, under some books, is a magnificent carpet. Even as these Christians plot, the room is decorated by art made by their enemies. Perhaps the carpet placed underfoot in this picture is treated as a trophy, like the flags of the defeated foes displayed in military museums. But often in other European paintings, Islamic rugs are depicted set on tables or hung from windows in ways that acknowledge their visual appeal.7Renaissance Italians seem to have had no concern with understanding Islamic carpets. Modern historians, by contrast, interested in the elaborate symbolism of these carpets, note that the rugs serve sacred functions.8 The Quran gives elaborate directions about how and when to pray. But it does not mention carpets. "Apart from mosque lamps the only other furnishing commonly found in mosques was some kind of floor covering," a historian explains.9 "The custom no doubt evolved from the religious requirement that all must enter the mosque unshod." Because carpets are used for prayer, both believers and Christians naturally associate them with religious observances. Non-Muslims also have long made use of these beautiful artifacts, sometimes cautiously—a fourteenth-century Spanish rabbi did say that a carpet depicting the Kaaba... (shrink)

Cities are conspicuous among settlements because of their bulk and pace: Venice, Paris, or New York. Each is distinctive, but all share a social structure that mixes systems, their members, and a public regulator. Cities alter this structure in ways specific to themselves: orchestras play music too elaborate for a quartet; city densities promote collaborations unachievable in simpler towns. Cities, Real and Ideal avers with von Bertalanffy, Parsons, Simmel, and Wirth that a theory of social structure is empirically testable (...) and confirmed. It proposes a version of social justice appropriate to this structure, thereby updating Marx s claim that justice is realizable without the intervention of factors additional to society s material conditions.". (shrink)

In relation to a thesis put forward by Marx Wartofsky, we seek to show that a historiography of mathematics requires an analysis of the ontology of the part of mathematics under scrutiny. Following Ian Hacking, we point out that in the history of mathematics the amount of contingency is larger than is usually thought. As a case study, we analyze the historians’ approach to interpreting James Gregory’s expression ultimate terms in his paper attempting to prove the irrationality of \. Here (...) Gregory referred to the last or ultimate terms of a series. More broadly, we analyze the following questions: which modern framework is more appropriate for interpreting the procedures at work in texts from the early history of infinitesimal analysis? As well as the related question: what is a logical theory that is close to something early modern mathematicians could have used when studying infinite series and quadrature problems? We argue that what has been routinely viewed from the viewpoint of classical analysis as an example of an “unrigorous” practice, in fact finds close procedural proxies in modern infinitesimal theories. We analyze a mix of social and religious reasons that had led to the suppression of both the religious order of Gregory’s teacher degli Angeli, and Gregory’s books at Venice, in the late 1660s. (shrink)

The singularity hypothesis is a radical hypothesis about the future of artificial intelligence on which self-improving artificial agents will quickly become orders of magnitude more intelligent than the average human. Despite the ambitiousness of its claims, the singularity hypothesis has been defended at length by leading philosophers and artificial intelligence researchers. In this paper, I argue that the singularity hypothesis rests on scientifically implausible growth assumptions. I show how leading philosophical defenses of the singularity hypothesis (Chalmers 2010, Bostrom 2014) fail (...) to overcome the case for skepticism. I conclude by drawing out philosophical implications of this discussion for our understanding of consciousness, personal identity, digital minds, existential risk, and ethical longtermism. GPI Working Paper No . 19-2022. (shrink)

Interpretation -- Introduction -- Interpreting Plato -- The political culture of Plato's early dialogues -- Dialogue -- Character and history -- The mouthpiece principle -- Forms of evidence -- Desire -- Socrates and eros -- The subjectivist conception of desire -- Instrumental and terminal desire -- Rational and irrational desires -- Desire in the critique of Akrasia -- Interpreting Lysis -- The deficiency conception of desire -- Inauthentic friendship -- Platonic desire -- Antiphilosophical desires -- Knowledge -- Excellence as wisdom (...) -- The epistemic unity of excellence -- Dunamis and technê -- Goodness and form -- The epistemological priority of definitional knowledge -- Ordinary ethical knowledge -- Method -- The Socratic fallacy -- Socrates' pursuit of definitions -- Hupothesis -- Two postulates -- The geometrical illustration -- Geometrical analysis -- The method of reasoning from a postulate -- Elenchus and hupothesis -- Knowledge and aitia -- F-conditions -- Cognitive security -- Aporia -- Forms of aporia -- Dramatic aporia -- The example of Charmides -- Charmides as autobiography -- The politics of Sôphrosunê -- Critias' Philotimia -- Self-knowledge and the knowledge of knowledge -- Knowledge of knowledge and knowledge of the good -- Philosophy and the polis. (shrink)

In this book, which thoroughly revises and greatly expands his classic work Sameness and Substance, David Wiggins retrieves and refurbishes in the light of twentieth-century logic and logical theory certain conceptions of identity, of substance and of persistence through change that philosophy inherits from its past. In this new version, he vindicates the absoluteness, necessity, determinateness and all or nothing character of identity against rival conceptions. He defends a form of essentialism that he calls individuative essentialism, and then a (...) form of realism that he calls conceptualist realism. In a final chapter he advocates a human being-based conception of the identity and individuation of persons, arguing that any satisfactory account of personal memory must make reference to the life of the rememberer himself. This important book will appeal to a wide range of readers in metaphysics, philosophical logic, and analytic philosophy. (shrink)

This book puts forward a revisionist view of Japanese wartime thinking. It seeks to explore why Japanese intellectuals, historians and philosophers of the time insisted that Japan had to turn its back on the West and attack the United States and the British Empire. Based on a close reading of the texts written by members of the highly influential Kyoto School, and revisiting the dialogue between the Kyoto School and the German philosopher Heidegger, it argues that the work of Kyoto (...) thinkers cannot be dismissed as mere fascist propaganda, and that this work, in which race is a key theme, constitutes a reasoned case for a post-White world. The author also argues that this theme is increasingly relevant at present, as demographic changes are set to transform the political and social landscape of North America and Western Europe over the next fifty years. (shrink)

Introduction -- The commercialisation of science and the construction of the knowledge-based bio-economy -- The KBBE reality--the case of agriculture -- Intellectual property rights and the global commodification of knowledge -- Privatizing Chinese science : national development vs. neoliberal financialization -- Critical realism and the importance of ontological attention -- Critical realism and beyond in economics -- The realist transcendental argument.

Lipsey and Lancaster's "general theory of second best" is widely thought to have significant implications for applied theorizing about the institutions and policies that most effectively implement abstract normative principles. It is also widely thought to have little significance for theorizing about which abstract normative principles we ought to implement. Contrary to this conventional wisdom, I show how the second-best theorem can be extended to myriad domains beyond applied normative theorizing, and in particular to more abstract theorizing about the normative (...) principles we should aim to implement. I start by separating the mathematical model used to prove the second-best theorem from its familiar economic interpretation. I then develop an alternative normative-theoretic interpretation of the model, which yields a novel second best theorem for idealistic normative theory. My method for developing this interpretation provides a template for developing additional interpretations that can extend the reach of the second-best theorem beyond normative theoretical domains. I also show how, within any domain, the implications of the second-best theorem are more specific than is typically thought. I conclude with some brief remarks on the value of mathematical models for conceptual exploration. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence has historically been conceptualized in anthropomorphic terms. Some algorithms deploy biomimetic designs in a deliberate attempt to effect a sort of digital isomorphism of the human brain. Others leverage more general learning strategies that happen to coincide with popular theories of cognitive science and social epistemology. In this paper, I challenge the anthropomorphic credentials of the neural network algorithm, whose similarities to human cognition I argue are vastly overstated and narrowly construed. I submit that three alternative supervised learning (...) methods—namely lasso penalties, bagging, and boosting—offer subtler, more interesting analogies to human reasoning as both an individual and a social phenomenon. Despite the temptation to fall back on anthropomorphic tropes when discussing AI, however, I conclude that such rhetoric is at best misleading and at worst downright dangerous. The impulse to humanize algorithms is an obstacle to properly conceptualizing the ethical challenges posed by emerging technologies. (shrink)

At the centre of the philosophical tradition of Armenia is a thinker who in the Western tradition carries the Latin names ‘David Armenius philosophus’ or ‘David invincibilis’. Today, international philosophical-historical research is increasingly concerned with the enigmatic corpus of the works that have been handed down under the name of David. The historical-critical exploration of early Armenian philosophy and its specific achievements, as well as its intense relationship to late antique Byzantine thought, were, however, initiated by important (...) scholars of Western Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. Before this time, there were few reliable references to ‘David’ in Western European research literature. It was the orientalist Carl Friedrich Neumann who brought about the turnaround. He studied in Heidelberg with Creuzer and Hegel, learned the Armenian language from the Mechitarists in Venice, and found inspiration in Paris. Then he examined the available Armenian and Greek sources of the Corpus Davidis and collected his findings in a monograph in 1829. Neumann’s deeply philosophical mind is clearly revealed in this treatise, entitled Mémoire sur la vie et les ouvrages de David. With great certitude, he traced down the pieces of information from David’s writings, as well as from the related ancient Armenian sources, which had great relevance for further research. These findings included communications on the biography of David and his own works, as well as on Aristotle, late antique Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism. Almost inevitably, Neumann also fell victim to errors, which, however, does not diminish his importance as a pioneer of research into late antique Armenian philosophy. Neumann put David on the map for Western scholars, thus prompting a wider interest in the hitherto isolated Armenian philosophical thought for the first time. (shrink)

At the centre of the philosophical tradition of Armenia is a thinker who in the Western tradition carries the Latin names ‘David Armenius philosophus’ or ‘David invincibilis’. Today, international philosophical-historical research is increasingly concerned with the enigmatic corpus of the works that have been handed down under the name of David. The historical-critical exploration of early Armenian philosophy and its specific achievements, as well as its intense relationship to late antique Byzantine thought, were, however, initiated by important (...) scholars of Western Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. Before this time, there were few reliable references to ‘David’ in Western European research literature. It was the orientalist Carl Friedrich Neumann who brought about the turnaround. He studied in Heidelberg with Creuzer and Hegel, learned the Armenian language from the Mechitarists in Venice, and found inspiration in Paris. Then he examined the available Armenian and Greek sources of the Corpus Davidis and collected his findings in a monograph in 1829. Neumann’s deeply philosophical mind is clearly revealed in this treatise, entitled Mémoire sur la vie et les ouvrages de David. With great certitude, he traced down the pieces of information from David’s writings, as well as from the related ancient Armenian sources, which had great relevance for further research. These findings included communications on the biography of David and his own works, as well as on Aristotle, late antique Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism. Almost inevitably, Neumann also fell victim to errors, which, however, does not diminish his importance as a pioneer of research into late antique Armenian philosophy. Neumann put David on the map for Western scholars, thus prompting a wider interest in the hitherto isolated Armenian philosophical thought for the first time. (shrink)

Recent objections to epistemic permissivism have a metaepistemic flavor. Impermissivists argue that their view best accounts for connections between rationality, planning and deference. Impermissivism is also taken to best explain the value of rational belief and normative assessment. These objections pose a series of metaepistemic explanatory challenges for permissivism. In this paper, I illustrate how permissivists might meet their explanatory burdens by developing two permissivist metaepistemic views which fare well against the explanatory challenges.

Do psychological traits predict philosophical views? We administered the PhilPapers Survey, created by David Bourget and David Chalmers, which consists of 30 views on central philosophical topics (e.g., epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language) to a sample of professional philosophers (N = 314). We extended the PhilPapers survey to measure a number of psychological traits, such as personality, numeracy, well-being, lifestyle, and life experiences. We also included non-technical ‘translations’ of these views for eventual use (...) in other populations. We found limited to no support for the notion that personality or demographics predict philosophical views. We did, however, find that some psychological traits were predictive of philosophical views, even after strict correction for multiple comparisons. Findings include: higher interest in numeracy predicted physicalism, naturalism, and consequentialism; lower levels of well-being and higher levels of mental illness predicted hard determinism; using substances such as psychedelics and marijuana predicted non-realist and subjectivist views of morality and aesthetics; having had a transformative or self-transcendent experience predicted theism and idealism. We discuss whether or not these empirical results have philosophical implications, while noting that 68% of our sample of professional philosophers indicated that such findings would indeed have philosophical value. (shrink)

Liberal thinkers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were alert to the political costs and human cruelties involved in European colonialism, but they also thought that European expansion held out progressive possibilities. In Progress, Pluralism, and Politics David Williams examines the colonial and anti-colonial arguments of Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham, and L.T. Hobhouse. Williams locates their ambivalent attitude towards European conquest and colonial rule in a set of tensions between the impact of colonialism on European states, the (...) possibilities of progress in distant and diverse places, and the relationship between universalism and cultural pluralism. In so doing he reveals some of the central ambiguities that characterize the ways that liberal thought has dealt with the reality of an illiberal world. Of particular importance are appeals to various forms of universal history, attempts to mediate between the claims of identity and the reality of difference, and the different ways of thinking about the achievement of liberal goods in other places. Pointing to key elements in still ongoing debates within liberal states about how they should relate to illiberal places, Progress, Pluralism, and Politics enriches the discussion on political thought and the relationship between liberalism and colonialism. (shrink)

In the twenty-first century, the debate about life on other worlds is quickly changing from the realm of speculation to the domain of hard science. Within a few years, as a consequence of the rapid discovery by astronomers of planets around other stars, astronomers very likely will have discovered clear evidence of life beyond the Earth. Such a discovery of extraterrestrial life will change everything. Knowing the answer as to whether humanity has company in the universe will trigger one of (...) the greatest intellectual revolutions in history, not the least of which will be a challenge for at least some terrestrial religions. Which religions will handle the discovery of extraterrestrial life with ease and which will struggle to assimilate this new knowledge about our place in the universe? Some religions as currently practiced appear to only be viable on Earth. Other religions could be practiced on distant worlds but nevertheless identify both Earth as a place and humankind as a species of singular spiritual religious importance, while some religions could be practiced equally well anywhere in the universe by any sentient beings. Weintraub guides readers on an invigorating tour of the world's most widely practiced religions. It reveals what, if anything, each religion has to say about the possibility that extraterrestrial life exists and how, or if, a particular religion would work on other planets in distant parts of the universe. (shrink)

A collection of 14 essays honoring the life and work of Oxford philosopher Wiggins touching on topics from ancient philosophy to ethics, metaphysics and the theory of meaning. The contributing scholars debate many of the seminal issues of Wiggins' work, including the determinancy of distinctness, relative identity, naturalism in ethics, logic and truth in moral judgments, and the practical wisdom of Aristotle. The collection uniquely features replies by Wiggins to each of the papers. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, (...) OR. (shrink)

The relationship between philosophy and science has always been complementary. Today, while science moves increasingly fast and philosophy shows some problems in catching up with it, it is not always possible to ignore such relationships, especially in some disciplines such as philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and neuroscience. However, the methodological procedures used to analyze these data are based on principles and assumptions that require a profound dialogue between philosophy and science. Following these ideas, this work aims to raise the (...) problems that a classical connectionist theory can cause and problematize them in a cognitive framework, considering both philosophy and cognitive sciences but also the disciplines that are near to them, such as AI, computer sciences, and linguistics. For this reason, we embarked on an analysis of both the computational and theoretical problems that connectionism currently has. The second aim of this work is to advocate for collaboration between neuroscience and philosophy of mind because the promotion of deeper multidisciplinarity seems necessary in order to solve connectionism’s problems. In fact, we believe that the problems that we detected can be solved by a thorough investigation at both a theoretical and an empirical level, and they do not represent an impasse but rather a starting point from which connectionism should learn and be updated while keeping its original and profoundly convincing core. (shrink)

Receiving social support from community and extended family has been typical for mothers with infants in human societies past and present. In non-industrialised contexts, infants of mothers with extended family support often have better health and higher survival through the vulnerable infant period, and hence shared infant care has a clear fitness benefit. However, there is scant evidence that these benefits continue in industrialised contexts. Better infant health and development with allocare support would indicate continued evolutionary selection for allocare. The (...) research reported here used multiple logistic regression analysis to test whether a lack of family and other social support for mothers was associated with an increased risk of developmental delay in 9-month-old infants in the UK Millennium Cohort (analysis sample size, 15,696 infants). Extended family-based childcare during work hours and more maternal time spent with friends were the most influential kin and social support variables: infants of mothers with kin-based childcare versus all other childcare arrangements had a lower risk of developmental delay (OR = 0.61, 95% CIs: 0.46–0.82). Infants of mothers who spent no time with friends when compared with those who saw friends every day had double the odds of delay. Greater paternal involvement in infant care was associated with a lower odds of developmental delay. In conclusion, shared care of infants and social support for mothers may influence fitness-related traits in industrialised societies rather than being factors that influenced selection only in the past and in societies which retain close kin networks and a strong local community focus. (shrink)

The zetetic turn in epistemology raises three questions about epistemic and zetetic norms. First, there is the relationship question: what is the relationship between epistemic and zetetic norms? Are some epistemic norms zetetic norms, or are epistemic and zetetic norms distinct? Second, there is the tension question: are traditional epistemic norms in tension with plausible zetetic norms? Third, there is the reaction question: how should theorists react to a tension between epistemic and zetetic norms? Drawing on an analogy to practical (...) philosophy, I develop a focal point view to resolve these motivating questions. On the focal point view, traditional epistemic norms and zetetic norms answer different types of normative questions. There is nevertheless a familiar type of evaluative tension between traditional epistemic norms and zetetic norms, but this tension is an unavoidable feature of the normative landscape and not a sign that traditional epistemic norms need revision. But if traditional epistemic norms are not zetetic norms, then in what sense is zetetic epistemology a project for epistemologists? I conclude by articulating a sense in which some nontraditional epistemic norms are zetetic norms, and in which zetetic epistemology is an important part of the study of theoretical rationality. (shrink)

The identity of indiscernibles states that indiscernible objects must be identical. Many philosophers have held that the PII turns out to be either true but trivial, or non-trivial but false, depending on how the notion of discernibility is spelled out. In this paper, I propose and defend an account of this notion which aims to yield a minimally non-trivial and yet plausible version of the PII. I argue moreover that this version of the principle is immune to a number of (...) well-known and recent objections to the PII. (shrink)

According to dispositionalism about modality, a proposition <p> is possible just in case something has, or some things have, a power or disposition for its truth; and <p> is necessary just in case nothing has a power for its falsity. But are there enough powers to go around? In Yates (2015) I argued that in the case of mathematical truths such as <2+2=4>, nothing has the power to bring about their falsity or their truth, which means they come out both (...) necessary and not possible. Combining this with axiom (T), it is easy to derive a contradiction. I suggested that dispositionalists ought to retreat a little and say that <p> is possible just in case either p, or there is a power to bring it about that p, grounding the possibility of mathematical propositions in their truth rather than in powers. Vetter’s (2015) has the resources to provide a response to my argument, and in her (2018) she explicitly addresses it by arguing for a plenitude of powers, based on the idea that dispositions come in degrees, with necessary properties a limiting case of dispositionality. On this view there is a power for <2+2=4>, without there being a power to bring about its truth. In this paper I argue that Vetter’s case for plenitude does not work. However, I suggest, if we are prepared to accept metaphysical causation, a case can be made that there is indeed a power for <2+2=4>. (shrink)

Logica Magna Part 1 Fasc 1 Tractatus de Terminis.

Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 51, Issue 4, Page 373-412, Fall 2023.

In the past two to three decades health behavior scientists have increasingly emphasized affect-related concepts in their attempts to understand and facilitate change in important health behaviors, such as smoking, eating, physical activity, substance abuse, and sex. This article provides a narrative review of this burgeoning literature, including relevant theory and research on affective response, incidental affect, affect processing, and affectively charged motivation. An integrative dual-processing framework is presented that suggests pathways through which affect-related concepts may interrelate to influence health (...) behavior. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: CHAPTER 1 HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS AND HIV: The Duty To WarnI -- CHAPTER 2 EMERGENCY CARE AND HIV: Treatment Policy and -- Pracice17 -- CHAPTER 3 A REVOLUTIONARY POLICY? Mandatory Disclosure of HIV -- Serostaus29 -- CHAPTER 4 MINORS AND HEALTH CARE: The Limits of Consent and -- Confidentiality39 -- CHAPTER 5 THE RIGHTS TO REFUSE AND DEMAND MEDICAL -- TREATMENT: The Bounds ofAutonomy andFutli{y47 -- CHAPTER 6 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND THE RIGHT TO REFUSE CARE: -- (...) What Are The Limits?65 -- CHAPTER 7 ASSISTED REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY: The Business of -- Making Babies 89 -- CHAPTER 8 TWINS AND TRANSPLANTS: Choosing Who Lives 113 -- CHAPTER 9 FREE ABORTION SERVICES AND FETAL TISSUE RESEARCH: -- Freedom of Choice and Coercion123 -- CHAPTER 10 PROPERTY RIGHTS, BODY PARTS, AND REPRODUCTION: -- Who Owns the Human Body? - 139 -- CHAPTER 11 OUTBREAK IN AMERICA: The Policy of Public Verses Private -- Interests 153 -- APPENDIX A CONFIDENTIALITY OF HIV TEST RESULTS: California Health -- and Safety Code Sections 120975 Through 121020169 -- APPENDIX B HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS AND HIV: Texas Health and -- Safety Code Section 58.204 175 -- APPENDIX C TARASOFF v, THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF -- CALIFORNIA: Supreme Court of California177 -- APPENDIX D THE RIGHTS OF MINORS TO CONSENT TO HEALTH CARE: -- California Family Code Sections 6903 Through 6929183 -- APPENDIX E FEDERAL DRUG AND ALCOHOL ABUSE CONFIDENTIALITY -- REGULATIONS: Title 42 Code of Federal Regulations Part 2 187 -- APPENDIX F CHILD ABUSE REPORTING LAWS: Caitfornia Penal Code -- Sections 11164 Through 11166 193. (shrink)

As business and society is an inherently multi-disciplinary scholarly area, the book will draw from work in areas outside of business and management, such as psychology, sociology, philosophy, religious studies, economics and other related fields, as well as the natural sciences, education, and other professional areas of study.