Empirical philosophers of science aim to base their philosophical theories on observations of scientific practice. But since there is far too much science to observe it all, how can we form and test hypotheses about science that are sufficiently rigorous and broad in scope, while avoiding the pitfalls of bias and subjectivity in our methods? Part of the answer, we claim, lies in the computational tools of the digital humanities, which allow us to analyze large volumes of scientific literature. Here (...) we advocate for the use of these methods by addressing a number of large-scale, justificatory concerns—specifically, about the epistemic value of journal articles as evidence for what happens elsewhere in science, and about the ability of DH tools to extract this evidence. Far from ignoring the gap between scientific literature and the rest of scientific practice, effective use of DH tools requires critical reflection about these relationships. (shrink)

Shannon information is commonly assumed to be the wrong way in which to conceive of information in most biological contexts. Since the theory deals only in correlations between systems, the argument goes, it can apply to any and all causal interactions that affect a biological outcome. Since informational language is generally confined to only certain kinds of biological process, such as gene expression and hormone signalling, Shannon information is thought to be unable to account for this restriction. It is often (...) concluded that a richer, teleosemantic sense of information is needed. I argue against this view, and show that a coherent and sufficiently restrictive theory of biological information can be constructed with Shannon information at its core. This can be done by paying due attention some crucial distinctions: between information quantity and its fitness value, and between carrying information and having the function of doing so. From this I construct an account of how informational functions arise, and show that the “subject matter” of these functions can easily be seen as the natural information dealt with by Shannon’s theory. (shrink)

Bio-ontologies are digital frameworks for handling biological and biomedical data. They consist of theoretical entities and relations with explicitly defined logical structures and precise definitions, whose purpose is to provide a shared language for representing information to be distributed and integrated across diverse scientific contexts. It is tempting to view bio-ontologies as clear and formal expressions of a scientific community’s ontological commitments about their domain of inquiry, and to view their integration as tantamount to the metaphysical unification of science that (...) some philosophers have envisaged. However, I argue that the local, practical, social and technological factors that influence their design prevent us from straightforwardly reading metaphysical conclusions from them. I discuss these complications and suggest how they can be overcome, revealing more general lessons for the development of a well-founded scientific metaphysics. (shrink)

Binding specificity is a centrally important concept in molecular biology, yet it has received little philosophical attention. Here I aim to remedy this by analyzing binding specificity as a causal property. I focus on the concept’s role in drug design, where it is highly prized and hence directly studied. From a causal perspective, understanding why binding specificity is a valuable property of drugs contributes to an understanding of causal selection—of how and why scientists distinguish between causes, not just causes from (...) noncauses. In particular, the specificity of drugs is precisely what underwrites their value as experimental interventions on biological processes. (shrink)

Jacques Monod (1971) argued that certain molecular processes rely critically on the property of chemical arbitrariness, which he claimed allows those processes to “transcend the laws of chemistry”. It seems natural, as some philosophers have done, to interpret this in modal terms: a biological relationship is chemically arbitrary if it is possible, within the constraints of chemical “law”, for that relationship to have been otherwise than it is. But while modality is certainly important for understanding chemical arbitrariness, understanding its biological (...) role also requires an account of the concrete causal-functional features that distinguish arbitrary from non-arbitrary phenomena. In this paper I elaborate on this under-emphasised aspect by offering a general account of these features: arbitrary relations are instantiated by mechanisms that involve molecular adapters, which causally couple two properties or processes which would otherwise be uncorrelated. Additionally, adapters work by acting as intermediate rather than cooperating causes. (shrink)

In “Trompe L'Oeil”, the seventh episode of Westworld, Bernard Lowe discovers the plans for his own body. Bernard's are ready‐made by someone else and uploaded into his brain, apparently unrelated to any real events. Bernard has memories of his son Charlie, which he thought referred to a real boy with whom he had a real relationship, and whose real death is the cause of his inescapable grief. Bernard might respond that lifelong grief is an excessive response to the death of (...) a fictional character. He realizes that the memories of that trauma have been fabricated by Robert Ford. Whether Charlie is a lie, a fiction, or a stranger, by grieving for him Bernard is sharing in a very human kind of experience. As malicious as Ford's motives were, maybe he was right about the need for a “cornerstone” of suffering to make Bernard human. (shrink)

Numerous scholarly works focus solely on scientific metaphysics or biological practice, but few attempt to bridge the two subjects. This volume, the latest in the Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science series, explores what a scientific metaphysics grounded in biological practices could look like and how it might impact the way we investigate the world around us. From Biological Practice to Scientific Metaphysics examines how to reconcile the methods of biological practice with the methods of metaphysical cosmology, notably regarding (...) the origins of life. The contributors take up a wide range of traditional metaphysics and philosophy of science topics, including natural kinds, medicine, ecology, genetics, scientific pluralism, reductionism, operationalism, mechanisms, the nature of information, and more. Many of the chapters represent the first philosophical treatments of significant biological practices. From causality and complexity to niche constructions and inference, the contributors review and discuss long-held objections to metaphysics by natural scientists. They illuminate how, in order to learn about the world as it truly is, we must look not only at what scientists say but also what they do: for ontology cannot be read directly from scientific claims. (shrink)

Exploring what a scientific metaphysics grounded in biological practices could look like and how it might impact the way we investigate the world around us, the contributors to From Biological Practice to Scientific Metaphysics review and discuss long-held objections to metaphysics by natural scientists. They illuminate how, in order to learn about the world as it truly is, we must look not only at what scientists say but also what they do.

Can corporations remain socially responsible in today's fiercely competitive global economy? For several decades after World War II, companies like IBM, which exemplified what journalist Robert J. Samuelson called the 'good corporation,' poured forth material comforts and technological ideas while guaranteeing full employment and adequate retirement. In the 1980s all of that changed, as corporations moved to 'downsize' and become lean, mean global competitors. In this collection, thirteen prominent scholars in business ethics, finance, management, and religion and six corporate (...) leaders respond to a new essay by Samuelson that sounds the death knell of the 'good corporation.' They propose new approaches to corporate integrity and social responsibility in the global economy. The book will be useful in corporate workshops and will make an excellent business ethics text in philosophy departments and business schools. (shrink)

Salient landmarks enhance route learning. We hypothesised that semantically salient nostalgic landmarks would improve route learning compared to non-nostalgic landmarks. In two experiments, participants learned a route through a computer-generated maze using directional arrows and wall-mounted pictures. On the test trial, the arrows were removed, and participants completed the maze using only the pictures. In the nostalgia condition, pictures were of popular music artists and TV characters from 5 to 10 years ago. In the control condition, they were recent pictures (...) of these same artists and characters. In Experiment 1, in the test trial, participants in the nostalgia condition completed the maze faster than controls. Experiment 2 conceptually replicated these findings and extended them by exploring boundary conditions. Participants had to learn two mazes sequentially. In Maze 1, we placed nostalgic/control landmarks only at non-decision points (whereas we placed them at decision points in Experiment 1). In Maze 2, we placed nostalgic/control landmarks at decision points during acquisition but removed them in the test trial (whereas they were present in the test trial in Experiment 1). In both mazes, participants in the nostalgia (compared to control) condition completed the test trial faster. (shrink)

Over the last decade, the increased use of work teams within organizations has been one of the most influential and far-reaching trends to shape the business world. At the same time, corporations have continued to struggle with increased unethical employee behavior. Very little research has been conducted that specifically examines the developmental aspects of employee ethical decision-making in a team environment. This study examines the impact of a team leader’s perceived integrity on his or her subordinates’ behavior. The results, which (...) came from a survey of 245 MBA students functioning for 2 years in a work team environment, indicate an interaction between leader integrity and team member ethical intentions. (shrink)

Schools of economic ethics inspired by Buchanan propose viewing ethical conflicts as prisoners’ dilemmas to facilitate solutions based on Pareto-improving institutional changes. Given that healthcare is determined by complex institutional arrangements, it has been claimed that this approach is also suitable for business ethics in healthcare. To scrutinize this claim, this research systematically searched for studies reporting PD structures in healthcare. PubMed, EconLit, and EconBiz were searched to find articles in German and English. Study type, characteristics of the game, and (...) the proposed means to overcome the dilemma were extracted and analyzed for aspects supporting or challenging the claim. Across 53 studies, 68 descriptions of various dilemmas in healthcare and public health were identified. Many authors successfully developed proposals for institutional change to overcome these dilemmas. However, many of these analyses exhibited limitations such as oversimplifications or inconsistencies. Also, the quality of evidence on both the characteristics of dilemmas and the effectiveness of proposed solutions was very poor. The subsamples of studies that explicitly cited the ethical approach were disjunct from those that applied empirical methods to analyze the dilemmas. The large number of identified PDs indicates that economic ethics is relevant to healthcare. However, there is a need for further evidence to substantiate both the descriptive and prescriptive claims of this ethical theory. It should thus be seen as a complement that needs justification, rather than a substitute superior to other ethical frameworks. (shrink)

In ancient literature and religion, Hercules—in common with many other deities—is frequently associated with particular trees or types of tree. There are tales connecting him with the wild olive, laurel and oak, but his most prominent and frequent arboreal link is with the poplar, an association mentioned twice in the Hercules-heavy first half of Aeneid Book 8. The festival of Hercules celebrated by Evander and his people takes place just outside the city within a ‘great grove’ of unspecified species, in (...) an area surrounded by less defined expanses of trees. Trees crowd the banks of the Tiber, leaning out for wonder as Aeneas’ fleet passes by and soon uariisque teguntur | arboribus, uiridisque secant placido aequore siluas ; looking up through the sacrificial smoke on the altars, Pallas and his friends are initially frightened ut celsas uidere rates atque inter opacum | adlabi nemus. When Evander later shows Aeneas around, the emphasis on trees recurs, with the huge grove destined to become Romulus’ Asylum, and the bramble- and god-haunted woods of the Capitol. Later, Aeneas and his men camp in a vast grove of Silvanus, as Venus approaches to bring her son his new shield. (shrink)

The synthetization of voices, or speech synthesis, has been an object of interest for centuries. It is mostly realized with a text-to-speech system, an automaton that interprets and reads aloud. This system refers to text available for instance on a website or in a book, or entered via popup menu on the website. Today, just a few minutes of samples are enough to be able to imitate a speaker convincingly in all kinds of statements. This article abstracts from actual products (...) and actual technological realization. Rather, after a short historical outline of the synthetization of voices, exemplary applications of this kind of technology are gathered for promoting the development, and potential applications are discussed critically to be able to limit them if necessary. The ethical and legal challenges should not be underestimated, in particular with regard to informational and personal autonomy and the trustworthiness of media. (shrink)

Ontologies, as the term is used in informatics, are structured vocabularies comprised of human- and computer-interpretable terms and relations that represent entities and relationships. Within informatics fields, ontologies play an important role in knowledge and data standardization, representation, integra- tion, sharing and analysis. They have also become a foundation of artificial intelligence (AI) research. In what follows, we outline the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO), which covers multiple areas in the domain of coronavirus diseases, including etiology, transmission, epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, (...) prevention, and treatment. We emphasize CIDO development relevant to COVID-19. (shrink)

In this paper, through a close reading of Spinoza's use of common notions I argue for the role of experiential and experimental knowledge in Spinoza's epistemology.

The relevance of scientific knowledge for science and technology policy and regulation has led to a growing debate about the role of values. This article contributes to the clarification of what specific functions cognitive and noncognitive values adopt in knowledge generation and decisions, and what consequences the operation of values has for policy making and regulation. For our analysis, we differentiate between three different types of decision approaches, each of which shows a particular constellation of cognitive and noncognitive values. Our (...) objectives are to present a structured analysis of the varying functions that different kinds of values can adopt, as well as the value-related tensions and trade-offs they give rise to. We argue that the operation of noncognitive values in scientific knowledge generation, policy, and regulatory decision making can be understood as an enabling factor, rather than a limiting one. (shrink)

Orthodox neurocognitive accounts of the bodily sense of agency suggest that the experience of agency arises when action-effects are anticipated accurately. In this paper, I argue that while successful anticipation is crucial for the sense of agency, the role of unsuccessful prediction has been neglected, and that inefficacy and uncertainty are no less central to the sense of agency. I will argue that this is reflected in the phenomenology of agency, which can be characterized both as the experience of efficacy (...) and effort. Specifically, the “sense of efficacy” refers to the perceptual experience of an action unfolding as anticipated. The “sense of effort”, in contrast, arises when an action has an uncertain trajectory, feels difficult, and demands the exertion of control. In this case, actions do not unfold as anticipated and require continuing adaptation if they are to be efficacious. I propose that, taken individually, the experience of efficacy and effort are insufficient for the sense of agency and that these experiences can even disrupt the sense of agency when they occur in isolation from each other. I further argue that a fully-fledged sense of agency depends on the temporally extensive process of prediction error-cancelation. This way, a comparator account can accommodate both the role of accurate prediction and prediction error and thus efficacy and effort. (shrink)

Despite some recognition that Aboriginal women who have experienced breast cancer may have unique health needs, little research has documented the experiences of Aboriginal women from their perspective. Our main objective was to explore and to begin to make visible Aboriginal women's experiences with breast cancer using the qualitative research technique, photovoice. The research was based in Saskatchewan, Canada and participants were Aboriginal women who had completed breast cancer treatment. Although Aboriginal women cannot be viewed as a homogeneous group, participants (...) indicated two areas of priority for health‐care: (i) Aboriginal identity and traditional beliefs, although expressed in diverse ways, are an important dimension of breast cancer experiences and have relevance for health‐care; and (ii) there is a need for multidimensional support which addresses larger issues of racism, power and socioeconomic inequality. We draw upon a critical and feminist conception of visuality to interrogate and disrupt the dominant visual terrain (both real and metaphorical) where Aboriginal women are either invisible or visible in disempowering ways. Aboriginal women who have experienced breast cancer must be made visible within health‐care in a way that recognizes their experiences situated within the structural context of marginalization through colonial oppression. (shrink)

This paper gives a semantics for schematic logic, proving soundness and completeness. The argument for soundness is carried out in ontologically innocent fashion, relying only on the existence of formulae which are actually written down in the course of a derivation in the logic. This makes the logic available to a nominalist, even a nominalist who does not wish to rely on modal notions, and who accepts the possibility that the universe may in fact be finite.

This article offers a detailed reading Gascoigne and Thornton’s book Tacit Knowledge, which aims to account for the tacitness of tacit knowledge while preserving its status as knowledge proper. I take issue with their characterization and rejection of the existential-phenomenological Background—which they presuppose even as they dismiss—and their claim that TK can be articulated “from within”—which betrays a residual Cartesianism, the result of their elision of conceptuality and propositionality. Knowledgeable acts instantiate capacities which we might know we have and of (...) which we can be aware, but which are not propositionally structured at their “core”. Nevertheless, propositionality is necessary to what Robert Brandom calls, in Making It Explicit and Articulating Reasons, “explicitation”, which notion also presupposes a tacit dimension, which is, simply, the embodied person, without which no conception of knowledge can get any purchase. On my view, there is no knowledgeable act that can be understood as such separately from the notion of skilled corporeal performance. The account I offer cannot make sense of so-called “knowledge-based” education, as opposed to systems and styles which supposedly privilege “contentless” skills over and above “knowledge”, because on the phenomenological and inferentialist lines I endorse, neither the concepts “knowledge” nor “skill” has any purchase or meaning without the other. (shrink)

The implicit motivational needs for power, achievement, and affiliation are highly relevant in the context of sports. Sport enables people to experience achievement incentives like mastering challenges as well as social incentives such as recognition by teammates. Further, McClelland’s (1986) hypothesized that implicit motives are particularly associated right-hemisphere functions. Therefore, this preregistered study, conducted online, examines motivational needs using a standard picture-story exercise (PSE) and their associations with indicators of laterality, sports participation, and competition in gymnasts (N = 67). Further (...) it explores how implicit motives interact with suitable motivational incentives in the prediction of sports performance. Results partly confirm a link between indictors of cerebral rightward laterality and implicit motives, showing that the implicit affiliation and achievement motives are positively associated with an indicator of emotional-perceptional laterality (chimeric-faces task), but not with an indicator of motor laterality (turning bias). Moreover, the implicit achievement motive was positively correlated with training hours. The implicit affiliation motive was negatively associated with competition level. The presence of achievement incentives (perceived control, failure) and affiliation incentives (training together or alone) did not interact with corresponding motives to predict sports performance. (shrink)

Die Maschinenethik arbeitet mit Künstlicher Intelligenz und Robotik zusammen. Sie bringt maschinelle Moral hervor und untersucht sie. Ausgangspunkt sind teilautonome und autonome Systeme, etwa selbstständig fahrende Autos, Serviceroboter, Kampfroboter und Chatbots. Dieses Handbuch liefert Grundlagen zur Maschinenethik, erkundet Anwendungsgebiete der Disziplin und stellt Prototypen moralischer Maschinen vor. Neben der Maschinenethik kommen Roboterethik und Rechtswissenschaft zu Wort.

Vom „Altruismus“ über die „Filter Bubble“ bis hin zum „Whistleblowing“: Die Sprache der Informationsethik zeichnet sich durch unzählige Fachtermini und Anglizismen aus. Das vorliegende Nachschlagewerk eignet sich für den ersten schnellen Überblick. In 400 übersichtlichen Beiträgen werden die Grundlagen erläutert. Die Erklärungen sind verständlich formuliert und bieten Basiswissen für alle, die einen schnellen Einstieg in die Grundfragen der Informationsgesellschaft suchen und sich für Informationsethik interessieren.

The development of new theory is often spurred by novel techniques that provide better answers to existing questions, or that allow asking new ones. In the field of strategy and organization science, models of complex adaptive systems have renewed theoretical work on a fundamental question: how organizations can adapt effectively to their environments. This article has three objectives: to highlight some areas where models of organizations as complex adaptive systems have made substantial contributions: the search for solutions to sets of (...) interdependent choices, the challenge of balancing processes of exploration and exploitation, and the organization of imperfect decision makers; to point to several challenges and tradeoffs which can limit the explanatory power and eventual impact of the modeling enterprise; and to sketch out possible future directions of research that would do further justice to the notion of organizations as complex adaptive systems. (shrink)

Using deconstruction, this book approaches contemporary problems raised by technologies of life and death from cloning to capital punishment; and thereby, provides new insights into current debates from a perspective outside of mainstream philosophy with its assumptions of individual and political sovereignty.

Naturalistic understandings of the mind face certain hurdles. Many authors believe that some such hurdles are even insurmountable. A frequently used but rarely developed and tested argumentative move claims that, because they are made from the so-called observer perspective, naturalization efforts inevitably fail for reasons connected to our first-person perspective. We are not convinced. However, this article primarily attempts to gain a better understanding of the point and scope of this move by discussing an argument by Holm Tetens from which (...) the basic incompleteness of the observer perspective is supposed to follow. Depending on how one interprets the incompleteness in question, one gets different readings of the argument: ontological, semantic, epistemic, or explanatory. First, we will develop two ontological readings of this argument in more detail ‐ mainly because they are the most obvious challenges to naturalism. We will then systematically explore the prospects of the alternative readings. These considerations lead to a more fundamental discussion about the requirements for naturalistic explanations. As it turns out, to defend such an incompleteness argument, you face some inconvenient hurdles yourself. (shrink)

I argue that empirical studies into the phenomenon of religious conversion suffer from conceptual unclarity owing to an absence of philosophical contributions. I examine the relationship between definition and empirical result in the social sciences, and I show that a wide divergence in conceptual approach threatens to undermine the possibility of useful comparative study. I stake out a distinctive role for philosophical treatments of studies into religious conversion. I conclude with the suggestion that use of the terms ‘convert’ and ‘conversion’ (...) may not in fact be conducive to clarity in the present context, and that subsequent studies may improve their precision through replacing them. (shrink)

This paper explores the possibility for a means of bringing about novelty which does not rely on kairological philosophies based on an event. In contrast to both common sense and contemporary philosophical understandings of the term where for novelty to arise there must be some break in the repetition of the structure, this paper argues that it is possible for novelty to come about through small-scale experimentation. This is done by relying on the philosophical notion of ‘economy’ in order to (...) understand how we think about the world. In this regard, our thinking about the world depends upon acknowledging certain possibilities at the expense of others. History can then be seen as the distribution of emphasis which allows for these past possibilities and the future potentiality they may hold. Novelty, defined here as a rereading of history, is precisely the disruption of these possibilities and a challenge to the memory of the system. The conclusion to this paper argues that experimentation is an important means by which we can bring novelty into the world. (shrink)

In this article I examine the dispute between F. H. Bradley and Bertrand Russell concerning the reality of relations. I show that Bradley’s objections to Russell’s view, that there are such things as relations which serve to effect the unity of complex items, were rooted in a methodological approach which Russell did not share. On Bradley’s view, one must be able to offer reductive analyses of the items one postulates in order that commitment to those items be justified. I argue (...) that Russell expressly rejected this methodological principle of Bradley’s, and instead adopted the view that one may justifiably postulate entities if doing so aids in the illumination of mathematical truths. I show that the postulation of relations does, on Russell’s view, serve to provide that illumination. Russell held that the truths of mathematics constitute fixed data, and that philosophical positions may be judged as successful according to the extent that they possess explanatory power with respect to this data. I argue that Bradley’s and Russell’s exchanges in print, as well as in private correspondence, reflect Russell’s awareness of a fundamental difference in methodological approach. I conclude that Russell elected not to answer Bradley’s objections on their own terms, but rather rejected the methodological assumptions from which those objections emerged. (shrink)

Alex Oliver; Discussions: Classes and Goodman's Nominalism, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 93, Issue 1, 1 June 1993, Pages 179–192, https://doi.

The immediate occasion for this special issue was Christia Mercer’s influential paper “The Contextualist Revolution in Early Modern Philosophy”. In her paper, Mercer clearly demarcates two methodologies of the history of early modern philosophy. She argues that there has been a silent contextualist revolution in the past decades, and the reconstructivist methodology has been abandoned. One can easily get the impression that ‘reconstructivist’ has become a pejorative label that everyone outright rejects. Mercer’s examples of reconstructivist historians of philosophy are deceased (...) (P. F. Strawson, Margaret J. Osler, Richard Watson, and Bernard Williams), anonymous (the fans of philosopher* mentioned by Lisa Downing), or authors whose more recent work followed a contextualist methodology (Jonathan Bennett). The reconstructivist camp seems to have turned into a shadowy group, largely extinct by now, not unlike the Death Eaters in the fictional universe of Harry Potter. There are some figures who previously belonged to this group, but they have since reformed their ways – or so it seems. Sometimes it is rumoured that certain people may still have secret allegiance to it, but no one dares to fly its banner openly. We decided to create this special issue because we believe that reconstructivist methodology does not deserve this shadowy existence. (shrink)