Small tandem DNA duplications in the range of 15 to 300 base‐pairs play an important role in the aetiology of human disease and contribute to genome diversity. Here, we discuss different proposed mechanisms for their occurrence and argue that this type of structural variation mainly results from mutagenic repair of chromosomal breaks. This hypothesis is supported by both bioinformatical analysis of insertions occurring in the genome of different species and disease alleles, as well as by CRISPR/Cas9‐based experimental data from different (...) model systems. Recent work points to fill‐in synthesis at double‐stranded DNA breaks with complementary sequences, regulated by end‐joining mechanisms, to account for small tandem duplications. We will review the prevalence of small tandem duplications in the population, and we will speculate on the potential sources of DNA damage that could give rise to this mutational signature. With the development of novel algorithms to analyse sequencing data, small tandem duplications are now more frequently detected in the human genome and identified as oncogenic gain‐of‐function mutations. Understanding their origin could lead to optimized treatment regimens to prevent therapy‐induced activation of oncogenes and might expose novel vulnerabilities in cancer. (shrink)

Comment expliquer que tant d'humains, en ce début de XXIe siècle, accordent encore foi aux discours des religions, que ce soit une religion chrétienne, musulmane ou juive? Possèdent-elles des vérités plus assurées que celles des sciences humaines ou maintiennent-elles leurs fidèles dans l'ignorance, de peur que ceux-ci ne quittent le bateau amiral des églises, des mosquées ou des synagogues? Que proposent-elles de si séduisant pour que l'on sente le besoin de suivre aveuglément leurs enseignements et que des croyants soient prêts (...) à mourir ou à occire pour elles? « Au moment où le créationnisme devient de plus en plus présent dans le cursus académique et où le programme Ethique et culture religieuse, enseigné à nos jeunes dans nos écoles, fait l'apologie du religieux et banalise la superstition, ce livre de Marcel Sylvestre a de quoi nous faire réfléchir sur l'importance à accorder à la raison. » Extrait de la préface de Louise Mailloux. (shrink)

This important collection of lectures and essays was regarded by Gabriel Marcel as the best introduction to his thought.

This paper takes as a starting point a recent development in privacy-debates: the emphasis on social and institutional environments in the definition and the defence of privacy. Recognizing the merits of this approach I supplement it in two respects. First, an analysis of the relation between privacy and autonomy teaches that in the digital age more than ever individual autonomy is threatened. The striking contrast between on the one hand offline vocabulary, where autonomy and individual decision making prevail, and on (...) the other online practices is a challenge that cannot be met in a social approach. Secondly, I elucidate the background of the social approach. Its importance is not exclusively related to the digital age. In public life we regularly face privacy-moments, when in a small distinguished social domain few people are commonly involved in common experiences. In the digital age the contextual integrity model of Helen Nissenbaum has become very influential. However this model has some problems. Nissenbaum refers to a variety of sources and uses several terms to explain the normativity in her model. The notion ‘context’ is not specific and faces the reproach of conservatism. We elaborate on the most promising suggestion: an elaboration on the notion ‘goods’ as it can be found in the works of Michael Walzer and Alisdair Macintyre. Developing criteria for defining a normative framework requires making explicit the substantive goods that are at stake in a context, and take them as the starting point for decisions about the flow of information. Doing so delivers stronger and more specific orientations that are indispensible in discussions about digital privacy. (shrink)

Philosophy of Experimental Biology explores some central philosophical issues concerning scientific research in experimental biology, including genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology, developmental biology, neurobiology, and microbiology. It seeks to make sense of the explanatory strategies, concepts, ways of reasoning, approaches to discovery and problem solving, tools, models and experimental systems deployed by scientific life science researchers and also integrates developments in historical scholarship, in particular the New Experimentalism. It concludes that historical explanations of scientific change that are based on local laboratory (...) practice need to be supplemented with an account of the epistemic norms and standards that are operative in science. This book should be of interest to philosophers and historians of science as well as to scientists. (shrink)

Decision outcomes sometimes result in negative emotions. This can occur when a decision appears to be wrong in retrospect, and/or when the obtained decision outcome does not live up to expectations. Regret and disappointment are the two emotions that are of central interest in the present article. Although these emotions have a lot in common, they also differ in ways that are relevant to decision making. In this article we review theories and empirical findings concerning regret and disappointment. We first (...) discuss how regret and disappointment differ with respect to their antecedent conditions, appraisals, and phenomenology. We also discuss possible behavioural consequences of experiencing these emotions. Next, we consider how the anticipation of regret and disappointment may influence decision making. We use regret and disappointment theory, developed by the economists Bell (1982, 1985), and Loomes and Sugden (1982, 1986, 1987), as a framework for our discussion. Finally, we argue that combining the theoretical approaches and research paradigms of behavioural decision theory with emotion theories will significantly increase our knowledge of antecedents and consequences of emotions. (shrink)

The conduct of most of social science occurs outside the laboratory. Such studies in field science explore phenomena that cannot for practical, technical, or ethical reasons be explored under controlled conditions. These phenomena cannot be fully isolated from their environment or investigated by manipulation or intervention. Yet measurement, including rigorous or clinical measurement, does provide analysts with a sound basis for discerning what occurs under field conditions, and why. In Science Outside the Laboratory, Marcel Boumans explores the state of (...) measurement theory, its reliability, and the role expert judgment plays in field investigations from the perspective of the philosophy of science. Its discussion of the problems of passive observation, the calculus of observation, the two-model problem, and model-based consensus uses illustrations drawn primarily from economics. Rich in research and discussion, the volume clarifies the extent to which measurement provides valid information about objects and events in field sciences, but also has implications for measurement in the laboratory. Scholars in the fields of philosophy of science, social science, and economics will find Science Outside the Laboratory a compelling and informative read. (shrink)

Regret and disappointment have in common the fact that they are experienced when the outcome of a decision is unfavourable: They both concern “what might have been”, had things been different. However, some regret and disappointment theorists regard the differences between these emotions as important, arguing that they differ with respect to the conditions under which they are felt, and how they affect decision making. The goal of the present research was to examine whether and how these emotions also differ (...) with respect to the way in which they are experienced. Participants were asked torecall aninstance of intense regret or disappointment andto indicate what they felt, thought, felt like doing, did, and were motivated to do during this experience (cf. Roseman, Wiest, & Swartz, 1994). Significant differences between regret and disappointment were found in every category. These differences were most pronounced for “action tendencies” (what participants felt like doing) and “emotivations” (what they were motivated to do). These results suggest that the two emotions have differential implications for future behaviour. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this article, we explore the debate on corporate citizenship and the role of business in global governance. In the debate on political corporate social responsibility it is assumed that under globalization business is taking up a greater political role. Apart from economic responsibilities firms assume political responsibilities taking up traditional governmental tasks such as regulation of business and provision of public goods. We contrast this with a subsidiarity-based approach to governance, in which firms are seen as intermediate actors who (...) have political co-responsibilities in society endowed upon them by national governmental institutions. We argue that both approaches face conceptual and empirical problems, and do not make clear the content and scope of political corporate responsibility. Based on Iris Marion Young’s account of political responsibility we argue that corporate actors and governmental actors have a shared responsibility to tackle societal problems. Taking political corporate responsibility not only entails engaging in private action or engaging in public–private partnerships, but it also includes aiding governmental actors to remedy injustice or even create public institutions where they do not yet exist. By adding this perspective we contribute to the debate on responsibility in corporate citizenship and clarify the political role business can play in global governance. (shrink)

Grand specialiste de Ficin, Raymond Marcel expose ainsi les principes de son ambitieux programme: 1) resoudre un probleme dans l'evolution de la pensee europeenne, a savoir les relations entre les theologiens medievaux et les philosophes du XVIIe siecle. Ficin l'interesse en sa qualite de " point de repere " entre la philosophie medievale et moderne. Cette biographie est ainsi le travail d'un historien de la philosophie, historien au point de vue religieux, plus precisement thomiste. 2) livrer une introduction essentielle (...) a une serie de textes. Nous pouvons distinguer 2 grandes parties: 1) une introduction d'une centaine de pages " Renaissance et Platonisme " qui rappelle le probleme complexe et meconnu du platonisme dans la pensee occidentale de la Renaissance carolingienne a la moitie du XVe siecle. 2) La seconde partie, qui constitue le cur de l'ouvrage et s'appuie essentiellement sur la correspondance de Ficin, etudie plus specifiquement l'evolution intellectuelle de Ficin et la reception de ses ouvrages dans le contexte du platonisme du XVe siecle: les consequences du concile de Florence sur la pensee florentine, les rapports de Ficin avec Come de Medicis. (shrink)

In several accounts of what models are and how they function a specific view dominates. This view contains the following characteristics. First, there is a clear-cut distinction between theories, models and data and secondly, empirical assessment takes place after the model is built. This view in which discovery and justification are disconnected is not in accordance with several practices of mathematical business-cycle model building. What these practices show is that models have to meet implicit criteria of adequacy, such as satisfying (...) theoretical, mathematical and statistical requirements, and be useful for policy. In order to be adequate, models have to integrate enough items to satisfy such criteria. These items include besides theoretical notions, policy views, mathematisations of the cycle and metaphors also empirical data and facts. So, the main thesis of this chapter is that the context of discovery is the successful integration of those items that satisfy the criteria of adequacy. Because certain items are empirical data and facts, justification can be built-in. (shrink)

The central theme of this important book is that we are paying the price of an arrogance that refuses to recognize mystery. The author invites the reader to enter into the argument that he holds with himself on a great number of problems. Written in the early 1950s, Marcel's discussion of these topics are remarkably contemporary, e.g.: * Our crisis is a metaphysical, not merely social, one. * What a man is depends partly on what he thinks he is, (...) and a materialistic philosophy turns men into things. * Can a man be free except in a free country? * Stoicism is no longer a workable philosophy because today pressure can be put on the mind as well as on the body. * Technical progress is not evil in itself, but a technique is a means that, regarded as an end, can become either an idol or an excuse for self-idolatry. State control of scientific research, leading to a concentration on new means of destruction, is a calamity. * Fanaticism is an opinion that refuses to argue, and so the fanatic is an enemy of truth. * The kind of unification that science is bringing about today is really an ironing out of differences, but the only valuable kind of unity is one that implies a respect for differences. * We must beware of thinking in terms of great numbers and so blinding ourselves to the reality of individual suffering. Our philosophical approach to being is made possible only by our practical approach to our neighbor. * We must encourage the spirit of fraternity and distrust the kind of egalitarianism that is based on envy and resentment. * No man however humble should feel that he cannot spread the light among his friends. No easy solution is offered, but the author conveys his own faith that ultimately love and intelligence will triumph. (shrink)

This article deals with the rationality and functionality of the existence of regret and its influence on decision making. First, regret is defined as a negative, cognitively based emotion that we experience when realizing or imagining that our present situation would have been better had we acted differently. Next, it is discussed whether this experience can be considered rational and it is argued that rationality only applies to what we do with our regrets, not to the experience itself. Then, research (...) is reviewed showing that both the anticipation of future regret and the experience of retrospective regret influence behavior. The influence of anticipated regret can be considered rational as long as the decision maker can accurately predict the regret that may result from the decision. The influence of experienced regret cannot be considered rational, since decisions should be based on future outcomes, not historical ones. However, influence of experienced regret can be called functional since it may result in increased learning from our mistakes. (shrink)

Dans le vaste domaine de la philosophie, quelle est au juste la place, le lieu d'impact du septicisme? Le septicisme se situe au niveau de ce que Descartes nomme "métaphysique" c'est-à-dire des "racines" mêmes de la philosophie. Métaphysique au sens large de discours touchant ce qui est au-delà de l'expérience, discours de la "totalité". Mais que comprend la "totalité des choses" et qui le sait? Ainsi aux racines mêmes de la philosophie règne l'incertitude, mais cela n'empêche ement une réflexion philosophique. (...) Le discours philosophique comporte trois moments : sceptique, pluraliste, thématique. Réflexion personnelle d'un philosophe expliquant le scepticisme tel qu'il le conçoit, ce livre est aussi une méditation jusqu'au coeur du doute, une exploration vertigineuse de nos illusions. (shrink)

This edition of Marcel's inspiring Homo Viator has been updated to includle fifty-seven pages of new material available for the first time in English, making this the first English-language edition to conform to the standard French edition. Here, Christianity's foremost existentialist of the twentieth century gives us a prodigious personal insight on `man on the way' that will reinforce and commend our own pilgrimages in hope. "Homo Viator - "Homo Viator - or as Marcel calls him, `itinerate man' (...) - is an outstanding example of the philosophy concerned, not with technical problems, but with the urgent problems of man. Marcel talks to our condition, emphasizing our urgent need of hope, thus discovering beyond the lack of stability the values on which we may depend. "A subtle mind, a dramatist as well as a philosopher, close to the texture of human experience, he goes far beyond current platitudes to show that our Western tradition contains living truths that are as essential to our contemporary life as they were to our ancestors when they discovered them." - Eliseo Vivas "The theme of Marcel's Homo Viator is close to the center of all preoccupations: man in his pilgrim condition. With great virtuosity in the use of his own philosophical method, he probes into interpersonal relations and the threat to ethical values. Marcel excels here in his concrete analyses of the attitude of hope, the family community in its temporal and supratemporal aspects, and the forgotten virtue of personal fidelity." - James Collins. (shrink)

Based on two case studies of the design of electronic communication networks developed in the public and private sector, this article explores the barriers within current design cultures to account for the needs and diversity of users. Whereas the constraints on user-centered design are usually described in macrosociological terms, in which the user–technology relation is merely understood as a process of the inclusion or exclusion of users in design, the authors suggest that it is important to adopt a semiotic approach. (...) Moreover, they argue that we need to take into account the gender identity of designers to understand how design practices in ICT prioritize male users. The article shows how configuring the user as “everybody” and the use of the “I-methodology” are important constraints in the development of technologies that aim to reach users in all their diversity. (shrink)

Is philosophy endangered by a scientific culture increasingly influenced by demands of utility and efficiency? What are the goals and intentions of philosophy, and what are the reasons that one practices philosophy at all? The main questions of this collection concern the self-understanding of philosophy. Prominent authors consider historical, systematic, and social approaches to this question and discuss possible answers. The purpose is not merely to legitimate philosophical practice but to understand what such practice consists in at all.

Economics is dominated by model building, therefore a comprehension of how such models work is vital to understanding the discipline. This book provides a critical analysis of the economist's favourite tool, and as such will be an enlightening read for some, and an intriguing one for others.

The article focuses on one of the central themes of Gabriel Marcel’s thought: the afterlife and the presence of the dead. Marcel approaches such a “mystery” through his plays, one of the most important aspects of his thought.

Since the February 2020 publication of the article ‘Flattening the curve’ in The Economist, political leaders worldwide have used this expression to legitimize the introduction of social distancing measures in fighting Covid-19. In fact, this expression represents a complex combination of three components: the shape of the epidemic curve, the social distancing measures and the reproduction number \. Each component has its own history, each with a different history of control. Presenting the control of the epidemic as flattening the curve (...) is in fact flattening the underlying natural-social complexity. The curve that needs to be flattened is presented as a bell-shaped curve, implicitly suggesting that the pathogen’s spread is subject only to natural laws. The \ value, however, is, fundamentally, a metric of how a pathogen behaves within a social context, namely its numerical value is affected by sociopolitical influences. The jagged and erratic empirical curve of Covid-19 illustrates this. Although the virus has most likely infected only a small portion of the total susceptible population, it is clear its shape has changed drastically. This changing shape is largely due to sociopolitical factors. These include shifting formal laws and policies, shifting individual behaviors as well as shifting various other social norms and practices. This makes the course of Covid-19 curve both erratic and unpredictable. (shrink)

Marcel Gauchet has launched one of the most ambitious and controversial works of speculative history recently to appear, based on the contention that Christianity is "the religion of the end of religion." In The Disenchantment of the World, Gauchet reinterprets the development of the modern west, with all its political and psychological complexities, in terms of mankind's changing relation to religion. He views Western history as a movement away from religious society, beginning with prophetic Judaism, gaining tremendous momentum in (...) Christianity, and eventually leading to the rise of the political state. Gauchet's view that monotheistic religion itself was a form of social revolution is rich with implications for readers in fields across the humanities and social sciences. Life in religious society, Gauchet reminds us, involves a very different way of being than we know in our secular age: we must imagine prehistoric times where ever-present gods controlled every aspect of daily reality, and where ancestor worship grounded life's meaning in a far-off past. As prophecy-oriented religions shaped the concept of a single omnipotent God, one removed from the world and yet potentially knowable through prayer and reflection, human beings became increasingly free. Gauchet's paradoxical argument is that the development of human political and psychological autonomy must be understood against the backdrop of this double movement in religious consciousness--the growth of divine power and its increasing distance from human activity. In a fitting tribute to this passionate and brilliantly argued book, Charles Taylor offers an equally provocative foreword. Offering interpretations of key concepts proposed by Gauchet, Taylor also explores an important question: Does religion have a place in the future of Western society? The book does not close the door on religion but rather invites us to explore its socially constructive powers, which continue to shape Western politics and conceptions of the state. (shrink)

In this chapter, we discuss a specific kind of progress in economics, namely, progress that is pushed by the repeated use of mathematical models in most sub-branches of economics today. We adopt a functional account of progress to argue that progress in economics occurs via the use of what we call ‘common recipes’ and the use of model templates to define and solve problems of relevance for economists. We support our argument by discussing the case of twentieth-century business cycle research. (...) By presenting this case study in detail, we show how model templates are not only re-applied to different phenomena. We also show how scientists come up with them in the first place and how – once they are considered less useful – they are replaced with new ones. Finally, our case also illustrates that it is not only the mathematical structure that is re-used but that such a re-use also requires a shared conceptual vision of core properties of the phenomenon. If that vision is not shared anymore among economists, a model template can become useless and has to be replaced – sometimes through overcoming resistance – with a different one. (shrink)

Can the perception that one’s partner is investing effort generate a sense of commitment to a joint action? To test this, we developed a 2-player version of the classic snake game which became increasingly boring over the course of each round. This enabled us to operationalize commitment in terms of how long participants persisted before pressing a ‘finish’ button to conclude each round. Our results from three experiments reveal that participants persisted longer when they perceived what they believed to be (...) cues of their partner’s effortful contribution. Crucially, this effect was not observed when they knew their partner to be an algorithm, nor when it was their own effort that had been invested. These results support the hypothesis that the perception of a partner’s effort elicits a sense of commitment, leading to increased persistence in the face of a temptation to disengage. (shrink)

Can the perception that one’s partner is investing effort generate a sense of commitment to a joint action? To test this, we developed a 2-player version of the classic snake game which became increasingly boring over the course of each round. This enabled us to operationalize commitment in terms of how long participants persisted before pressing a ‘finish’ button to conclude each round. Our results from three experiments reveal that participants persisted longer when they perceived what they believed to be (...) cues of their partner’s effortful contribution. Crucially, this effect was not observed when they knew their partner to be an algorithm, nor when it was their own effort that had been invested. These results support the hypothesis that the perception of a partner’s effort elicits a sense of commitment, leading to increased persistence in the face of a temptation to disengage. (shrink)

The kinds of models discussed in this paper function as measuring instruments. We will concentrate on two necessary steps for measurement: (1) the search of a mathematical representation of the phenomenon; (2) this representation should cover an invariant relationship between the properties of the phenomenon to be measured and observable accociated attributes of a measuring instrument. Therefore, the measuring instrument should function as a nomological machine. However, invariant relationships are not necessarily ceteris paribus regularities, but could also occur when the (...) influence of the environment is negligible. Then we are able to achieve accurate measurements outside the laboratory. (shrink)

In the social sciences we hardly can create laboratory conditions, we only can try to find out which kinds of experiments Nature has carried out. Knowledge about Nature's designs can be used to infer conditions for reliable predictions. This problem was explicitly dealt with in Haavelmo's (1944) discussion of autonomous relationships, Friedman's (1953) as-if methodology, and Simon's (1961) discussions of nearly-decomposable systems. All three accounts take Marshallian partitioning as starting point, however not with a sharp ceteris paribus razor but with (...) the blunt knife of negligibility assumptions. As will be shown, in each account reflection on which influences are negligible, for what phenomena and for how long, played a central role. (shrink)

This article examines the role of experimental generalizations and physical laws in neuroscientific explanations, using Hodgkin and Huxley’s electrophysiological model from 1952 as a test case. I show that the fact that the model was partly fitted to experimental data did not affect its explanatory status, nor did the false mechanistic assumptions made by Hodgkin and Huxley. The model satisfies two important criteria of explanatory status: it contains invariant generalizations and it is modular (both in James Woodward’s sense). Further, I (...) argue that there is a sense in which the explanatory heteronomy thesis holds true for this case. †To contact the author, please write to: SNF‐Professorship for Philosophy of Science, University of Basel, Missionsstrasse 21, 4003 Basel, Switzerland; e‐mail: marcel[email protected]. (shrink)

Kant stresses the regulative status of teleological attributions, but sometimes he seems to treat teleology as a constitutive condition for biology. To clarify this issue, the concept of natural purpose and its role for biology are examined. I suggest that the concept serves an identificatory function: it singles out objects as natural purposes, whereby the special science of biology is constituted. This relative constitutivity of teleology is explicated by means of a distinction of levels: on the object level of biological (...) science, teleology is taken as constitutive, though it is merely regulative on the philosophical meta level. This distinction also concerns the place of Aristotelian teleology in Kant: on the object level, the Aristotelian view is accepted, whereas on the meta level, as agnostic stance is taken concerning teleology. (edited). (shrink)

Causal selection is the task of picking out, from a field of known causally relevant factors, some factors as elements of an explanation. The Causal Parity Thesis in the philosophy of biology challenges the usual ways of making such selections among different causes operating in a developing organism. The main target of this thesis is usually gene centrism, the doctrine that genes play some special role in ontogeny, which is often described in terms of information-bearing or programming. This paper is (...) concerned with the attempt of confronting the challenge coming from the Causal Parity Thesis by offering principles of causal selection that are spelled out in terms of an explicit philosophical account of causation, namely an interventionist account. I show that two such accounts that have been developed, although they contain important insights about causation in biology, nonetheless fail to provide an adequate reply to the Causal Parity challenge: Ken Waters's account of actual-difference making and Jim Woodward's account of causal specificity. A combination of the two also doesn't do the trick, nor does Laura Franklin-Hall's account of explanation (in this volume). We need additional conceptual resources. I argue that the resources we need consist in a special class of counterfactual conditionals, namely counterfactuals the antecedents of which describe biologically normal interventions. (shrink)

Glenn Harrison [Journal of Economic Methodology, 2013, 20, 103–117] discusses four related forms of methodological intolerance with respect to field experiments: field experiments should rely on some form of randomization, should be disconnected from theory, the concept of causality should only be defined in terms of observables, and the role of laboratory experiments is dismissed. As is often the case, the cause of intolerance is ignorance, as it is here. To acquire knowledge about potential influences, which we need for both (...) the evaluation of internal and external validity of experimental results, we cannot do without theory. A purely empiricist methodology will be unable to give us sufficient understanding of the validity of these results. An account of causality only based on directly observed things, is an account based on factual influences only. This account will be too restricted, because it will not deal with the unobserved potential influences, which we need – again – for the evaluat... (shrink)

I present a reconstruction of F.H.C. Crick's two 1957 hypotheses "Sequence Hypothesis" and "Central Dogma" in terms of a contemporary philosophical theory of causation. Analyzing in particular the experimental evidence that Crick cited, I argue that these hypotheses can be understood as claims about the actual difference-making cause in protein synthesis. As these hypotheses are only true if restricted to certain nucleic acids in certain organisms, I then examine the concept of causal specificity and its potential to counter claims about (...) causal parity of DNA and other cellular components. I first show that causal specificity is a special kind of invariance under interventions, namely invariance of generalizations that range over finite sets of discrete variables. Then, I show that this notion allows the articulation of a middle ground in the debate over causal parity. (shrink)

During the 1840s, physicians from the Habsburg Empire played a decisive role in the reform of medical structures in the Ottoman Empire. This paper discusses different aspects of this scientific and cultural encounter. It emphasizes the importance of Austrian health care structures as a model for the work of these physicians in the Ottoman Empire and studies the role of the medical school ran by the Austrians as a means of representing, on the one hand, the reformatory efforts of the (...) Ottoman Empire and, on the other hand, the motivations of the Habsburg monarchy for an involvement in Ottoman health care affairs, strongly bound up with its own quarantine politics towards the Ottoman Empire. (shrink)

Griffiths et al. (2015) have proposed a quantitative measure of causal specificity and used it to assess various attempts to single out genetic causes as being causally more specific than other cellular mechanisms, for example, alternative splicing. Focusing in particular on developmental processes, they have identified a number of important challenges for this project. In this discussion note, I would like to show how these challenges can be met.

In the current paper, we articulate a theory to explain the phenomenology of mental effort. The theory provides a working definition of mental effort, explains in what sense mental effort is a limited resource, and specifies the factors that determine whether or not mental effort is experienced as aversive. The core of our theory is the conjecture that the sense of effort is the output of a cost-benefit analysis. This cost-benefit analysis employs heuristics to weigh the current and anticipated costs (...) of mental effort for a particular activity against the anticipated benefits. This provides a basis for spelling out testable predictions to structure future research on the phenomenology of mental effort. (shrink)

It is argued that we cannot understand the notion of proper functions of artefacts independently of social notions. Functions of artefacts are related to social facts via the use of artefacts. The arguments in this article can be used to improve existing function theories that look to the causal history of artefacts to determine the function. A view that takes the intentions of designers into account to determine the proper function is both natural and often correct, but it is shown (...) that there are exceptions to this. Taking a social constitutive element into account may amend these backwards looking theories. An improved theory may either have a disjunctive form—either the history or collective intentions determine the proper function—or, as is suggested in the article, be in the form of an encompassing account that views the designers’ intentions as social, in so far as they are accepted by the users. Designers have authority, which is a social fact. The views argued for here are applied to two existing theories of artefact functions, a causal historic approach and an action theoretic approach.Keywords: Function; Artefact; Evaluative judgement; Action; Collective intentionality. (shrink)