This book is a sustained examination of issues in the philosophy of ecology that have been a source of controversy since the emergence of ecology as an explicit scientific discipline. The controversies revolve around the idea of a balance of nature, the possibility of general ecological knowledge and the role of model-building in ecology. The Science of the Struggle for Existence is also a detailed treatment of these issues that incorporates both a comprehensive investigation of the relevant ecological literature and (...) the development of an explicit theoretical framework in the philosophy of science. It addresses issues in the philosophy of ecology that are of particular importance for the deployment of ecology in the solution of environmental problems. It will have a cross-disciplinary appeal and will interest students and professionals in science, the philosophy of science, and environmental studies as well as policy-makers. (shrink)

The balance of nature concept is an old idea that manifests itself in anumber of forms in population and community ecology. This paper focuseson population ecology, where controversy surrounding the balance ofnature takes the form of perennial debates over the significance ofdensity dependence, population regulation, and species interactions suchas competition. One of the most striking features of these debates, overthe course of the previous century in ecology, is the tendency to arguethe case on largely conceptual grounds. This paper explores twoquestions. (...) Why this tendency to settle on conceptual grounds what is soobviously an empirical issue? Are there any good conceptual arguments tobe had in this area? (shrink)

There is a long history of controversy in ecology over the role of competition in determining patterns of distribution and abundance, and over the significance of the mathematical modeling of competitive interactions. This paper examines the controversy. Three kinds of considerations have been involved at one time or another during the history of this debate. There has been dispute about the kinds of regularities ecologists can expect to find, about the significance of evolutionary considerations for ecological inquiry, and about the (...) empirical credentials of theoretical studies of competition. Each of these elements is examined with an eye toward gaining philosophical clarification of the issues involved. In the process, certain shortcomings of contemporary philosophical theories are revealed. In particular, I argue that plausibility arguments based on background considerations are an important part of the model building tradition, but that current accounts of the structure and evaluation of scientific theories do little to illuminate this side of theoretical ecology. (shrink)

Recent controversy over the existence of biological laws raises questions about the cognitive aims of theoretical modeling in that science. If there are no laws for successful theoretical models to approximate, then what is it that successful theories do? One response is to regard theoretical models as tools. But this instrumental reading cannot accommodate the explanatory role that theories are supposed to play. Yet accommodating the explanatory function, as articulated by Brandon and Sober for example, seems to involve us once (...) again in a reliance on laws. The paper concludes that we must rethink both the nature of laws and theoretical explanation in biology. (shrink)

What is the role (or roles) of mathematical theory in ecology and evolutionary biology? How does the construction of such theory advance our understanding? The lack of clear answers to this pair of questions has been a source of controversy both within the sciences themselves, and in the philosophical discussions of these sciences as well. In an attempt to shed some light on these issues, I look at what some biologists have had to say on the matter and at some (...) particular examples. I then draw some morals about the constraints on a successful philosophical treatment of the problem and on the limitations of current philosophical approaches to this type of theoretical explanation. (shrink)

The concept of population is central to ecology, yet it has received little attention from philosophers of ecology. Furthermore, the work that has been done often recycles ideas that have been developed for evolutionary biology. We argue that ecological populations and evolutionary populations, though intimately related, are distinct, and that the distinction matters to practicing ecologists. We offer a definition of ecological population in terms of demographic independence, where changes in abundance are a function of birth and death processes alone. (...) However, demographic independence is insufficient on its own so we supplement it with the idea of shared habitat. An ecological population is a group of organisms of the same species in a habitat that manifests DI. Given the importance of metapopulation dynamics to modern ecology, an account of ecological population must apply to this domain as well. Thus, we extend our definition of ecological population to the metapopulation. To facilitate the extension, we introduce the metahabitat—a collection of spatially segregated habitat patches shared by a single DI population. This enables us to diagnose some unhelpful trends in the metapopulation literature and emphasize the importance of habitat dynamics in pursuit of the goals of theoretical ecology and conservation biology. (shrink)

This paper describes the application of eight statistical and machine-learning methods to derive computer models for predicting mortality of hospital patients with pneumonia from their findings at initial presentation. The eight models were each constructed based on 9847 patient cases and they were each evaluated on 4352 additional cases. The primary evaluation metric was the error in predicted survival as a function of the fraction of patients predicted to survive. This metric is useful in assessing a model’s potential to assist (...) a clinician in deciding whether to treat a given patient in the hospital or at home. We examined the error rates of the models when predicting that a given fraction of patients will survive. We examined survival fractions between 0.1 and 0.6. Over this range, each model’s predictive error rate was within 1% of the error rate of every other model. When predicting that approximately 30°K of the patients will survive, all the models have an error rate of less than 1.5%. The models are distinguished more by the number of variables and parameters that they contain than by their error rates; these differences suggest which models may be the most amenable to future implementation as paper-based guidelines. (shrink)

Although consensus appears to be on the horizon, the foundations of the theory of natural selection remain a matter of controversy. This paper looks at two recent challenges to the emerging "received view" of this theory. It argues that different views of the nature of scientific explanation are playing a pivotal role in the debates. Do explanations in biology fit the covering-law paradigm? What are the explanatory laws of biology like? Until agreement is reached on these fundamental questions, there is (...) little prospect for consensus on the foundations of the theory of natural selection. Furthermore, the three alternative positions identified in this paper each face serious challenges. (shrink)

Sustained controversy over a philosophical issue is often times symptomatic of differing commitments at a more fundamental philosophical level. I will argue that two current debates over the foundations of the theory of natural selection are cases in point. Alexander Rosenberg, at times together with Mary Williams, challenges what is becoming received orthodoxy about the foundations of this theory. He argues that the currently popular propensity interpretation of fitness does not legitimize explanations in terms of natural selection, and that furthermore, (...) the biological fields which typically study the ways in which selection pressures originate in the organism/environment complex are not in fact part of the theory of natural selection at all. His foils in the first case are Robert Brandon, John Beatty and Susan Mills;2 on the second issue he is engaged in debate with Elliott Sober.3 We will see that, although the controversies are ostensibly about the interpretation of fitness, the issues, at bottom, involve the nature of scientific explanation. (shrink)

There is, at present, controversy surrounding the role of the mathematical models which typify the more theoretical portions of ecology and evolutionary biology. Within these sciences there has been controversy about the “testability” of these models, both in terms of the ability of the model to make precise enough claims about the world, and in terms of our ability to determine the values of theoretical parameters. There has been concern, particularly in ecology, about the lack of realism characteristic of most (...) models as well. These are, for the most part, issues involving the nature of theoretical explanation. Much of the current debate about null hypothesis testing, the unfalsifiability of theory, and the role of theory is symptomatic, it would seem, of the fact that these sciences have not settled on what to expect from their most mathematical theories. If there is one emerging theme, it is the need, again especially in ecology, for pluralistic theoretical treatments - which suggests that they may have been expecting too much. (shrink)

Bringing between two covers the most influential and accessible articles on Plato's Republic, this collection illuminates what is widely held to be the most important work of Western philosophy and political theory. It will be valuable not only to philosophers, but to political theorists, historians, classicists, literary scholars, and interested general readers.

There has been a significant amount of uncertainty and controversy over the prospects for general knowledge in ecology. Environmental decision makers have begun to despair of ecology's capacity to provide anything more than case by case guidance for the shaping of environmental policy. Ecologists themselves have become suspicious of the pursuit of the kind of genuine nomothetic knowledge that appears to be the hallmark of other scientific domains. Finally, philosophers of biology have contributed to this retreat from generality by suggesting (...) that there really are no laws in biology. This paper addresses these issues by providing a framework for thinking about general knowledge claims in ecology. It introduces a philosophical taxonomy that classifies generalizations into three broad categories – phenomenological, causal and theoretical. It then turns to the difficult problem of laws, arguing that, while there are probably no laws as that term has been understood in philosophy of science, it doesn't follow that everything in ecology is equally contingent. A mechanism for recognizing degrees of contingency in ecological generalizations is developed. The paper concludes by examining the implications of the analysis for the controversies noted at the outset. (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

We report the identification of a recurrent, 520-kb 16p12.1 microdeletion associated with childhood developmental delay. The microdeletion was detected in 20 of 11,873 cases compared with 2 of 8,540 controls and replicated in a second series of 22 of 9,254 cases compared with 6 of 6,299 controls. Most deletions were inherited, with carrier parents likely to manifest neuropsychiatric phenotypes compared to non-carrier parents. Probands were more likely to carry an additional large copy-number variant when compared to matched controls. The clinical (...) features of individuals with two mutations were distinct from and/or more severe than those of individuals carrying only the co-occurring mutation. Our data support a two-hit model in which the 16p12.1 microdeletion both predisposes to neuropsychiatric phenotypes as a single event and exacerbates neurodevelopmental phenotypes in association with other large deletions or duplications. Analysis of other microdeletions with variable expressivity indicates that this two-hit model might be more generally applicable to neuropsychiatric disease. © 2010 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Cooper storage is a widespread technique for associating sentences with their meanings, used in diverse linguistic and computational linguistic traditions. This paper encodes the data structures and operations of cooper storage in the simply typed linear \-calculus, revealing the rich categorical structure of a graded applicative functor. In the case of finite cooper storage, which corresponds to ideas in current transformational approaches to syntax, the semantic interpretation function can be given as a linear homomorphism acting on a (...) regular set of trees, and thus generation can be done in polynomial time. (shrink)

EVER SINCE PLOTINUS SOUGHT CLARITY in the notion of privation to dispel our human perplexity about evil, philosophers have debated whether this concept is adequate to the task. The intensity and scope of evil in the twentieth century—which has seen the horrors of world war and genocide—have added fuel to the debate. Can the idea of a falling away from the good, however refined, come anywhere close to capturing the calculation, the commitment, the energy, and the drive that underlie the (...) most virulent projects in malfeasance? While the privation account might appear a reasonable strategy for explaining passive wrongdoing—indifference to people in grave need, or cooperation with injustice—the more active and dynamic forms of evil would nevertheless seem to elude its conceptual net. (shrink)

In this article an expanded model of a constructed planetary self is sought, informed by the meta-discipline of “synnoetics”-a term coined in 1961 by Louis Fein in unpublished documents, to describe “the cooperative interaction, or symbiosis of people, mechanisms, plant or animal organisms, and automata into a system that results in a mental power (power of knowing) greater than that of its individual components.” (Fein, 1960) As the Net has brought about the death of the Cartisian cogito and the collapse (...) of the Oedipal narrative, monolithic identity is renounced and replaced by a constructed identity of ubiquity. Synnoetics takes us one step further, as we are able to consciously construct a Synnoetic self as an aesthetic oeuvre, further challenging traditional notions of singular, monolithic identity and extending notions of the postmodern, decentered self into simultaneously new and ancient selves defined by shape-shifting, Psi-interaction, and cumulative, distributed, inter-species knowing. It is my position in this paper that the parallel trajectories of development in nanotechnologies; research in Psi and anomolous phenomena, and the proliferation of ubiquitous technologies has created a medium for the creation of a synnoetic self. The merger of these research agendas represent a fourth stage in the development of cybernetics, as the research facilitates an entirely new channel for information exchange and communication between humans, plants, animals, and machines, and consequently, for the construction of a planetary, aesthetic, beyond the human, self. The role of technology shifts, as it is used not to augment or extend human consciousness, but to measure the extent to which the boundaries of human, plant, animal, and machine consciousness are not known. For example, in Psi phenomena, consciousness needs sensitive technology to be understood and directed, thus consciousness augments technology, not the other way round. Psi phenomena as a form of wireless communication may be of profound importance to the future development of interactive ubiquitious interfaces, synnoetic intra-species minds, and a new, undefined context for aesthetic experience. (shrink)

Role models can be highly influential in conveying ethical standards. This study investigates the influence various categories of role models have had on a population of over 1,600 undergraduate students in Texas, Oregon and Michigan. Those identifying clergy, boy scout leaders, friends and college advisors as role models exhibited less willingness to adopt questionable ethical behavior in negotation situations. Journalist and spouse role models tended to cause students to be more accepting of questionable behavior. Individuals with strong end-result and social (...) contract ethical philosophies, as well as males and those who served in the military exhibited strong tendencies toward less than ethical behavior. Individuals with strong rule ethical philosophy, high levels of religiousity, and those with a cooperative attitude in negotiations tended to adopt higher ethical standards in negotiations. (shrink)

EVER SINCE PLOTINUS SOUGHT CLARITY in the notion of privation to dispel our human perplexity about evil, philosophers have debated whether this concept is adequate to the task. The intensity and scope of evil in the twentieth century—which has seen the horrors of world war and genocide—have added fuel to the debate. Can the idea of a falling away from the good, however refined, come anywhere close to capturing the calculation, the commitment, the energy, and the drive that underlie the (...) most virulent projects in malfeasance? While the privation account might appear a reasonable strategy for explaining passive wrongdoing—indifference to people in grave need, or cooperation with injustice—the more active and dynamic forms of evil would nevertheless seem to elude its conceptual net. (shrink)

Evidence suggests that humans might have neurological specializations for music processing, but a compelling adaptationist account of music and dance is lacking. The sexual selection hypothesis cannot easily account for the widespread performance of music and dance in groups (especially synchronized performances), and the social bonding hypothesis has severe theoretical difficulties. Humans are unique among the primates in their ability to form cooperative alliances between groups in the absence of consanguineal ties. We propose that this unique form of social organization (...) is predicated on music and dance. Music and dance may have evolved as a coalition signaling system that could, among other things, credibly communicate coalition quality, thus permitting meaningful cooperative relationships between groups. This capability may have evolved from coordinated territorial defense signals that are common in many social species, including chimpanzees. We present a study in which manipulation of music synchrony significantly altered subjects’ perceptions of music quality, and in which subjects’ perceptions of music quality were correlated with their perceptions of coalition quality, supporting our hypothesis. Our hypothesis also has implications for the evolution of psychological mechanisms underlying cultural production in other domains such as food preparation, clothing and body decoration, storytelling and ritual, and tools and other artifacts. (shrink)

Analyzing the way computer technologies are used is crucial for their development. Such analyses make it possible to evaluate these technologies and enhance their evolution. The present article presents some ideas drawn from the development of a cooperation platform for elementary school children (10–11 years old). On the basis of an obvious ergonomic requirement, we worked on two other dimensions: cultural aspects and the teaching scenario. The goal was to set up observation situations and analyze the conversations produced during those (...) situations, in order to understand what using the platform meant to both the pupils and their teachers. (shrink)

The classic argument against anarchy, and in favor of government, is presented by Thomas Hobbes in his Leviathan, published in 1651. Hobbes contends that a sovereign with sufficient power to make and enforce laws is necessary if individuals are to be both secure from one another’s potential aggressions and prosperous as a result of beneficial cooperation with others. Recently, a number of writers have suggested that, in a nuclearly armed world, an international analogue of Hobbes’s argument demonstrates the necessity of (...) establishing a world government. For convenience, I shall henceforth refer to the general argument underlying this claim as the Nuclear World Government Argument. (shrink)

Mentorship and collaboration necessarily shaped opportunities for women in science, especially in the late nineteenth century at rapidly expanding public co-educational universities. A few male faculty made space for women to establish their own research programs and professional identities. At the University of Minnesota, botanist Conway MacMillan, an ambitious young department chair, provided a qualified mentorship to Josephine Tilden. He encouraged her research on algae and relied on her to do departmental support tasks even as he persuaded the administration to (...) move her from instructor to assistant professor in 1903. Resulting publications on Minnesota algae led her to look further west, first at Yellowstone National Park and then along the Pacific Northwest coast. After visiting a particularly productive littoral site on Vancouver Island, she suggested that they establish a Minnesota Seaside Station there. Over its seven years in operation under the Midwestern leaders, that location proved remarkably productive. At the remote site, the two operated within their typical but not inevitable gendered roles and deliberately defined their seaside station as unconventional. They expected participants to study productively and, at the same time, find imaginative ways to enjoy nature at a place far from urban amenities. Gendered expectations remained casual as participants moved both within and against them. This study investigates how, in the early twentieth century, the role and expectations of mentorship shifted as Tilden established her own independent research agenda. The Minnesota Seaside Station, in particular, proved significant in developing the leadership skills essential for her to pursue research in the Pacific region at a time when American expansionism and indigenous cooperation made sites accessible to academic researchers. (shrink)

The central conflicts of the world today are closely related to cultural, traditional, and religious differences between nations. As we move to a globalized world, these differences often become magnified, entrenched, and the cause of bloody conflict. Growing out of a conference of distinguished scholars from the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, this volume is a singular contribution to mutual understanding and cooperative efforts on behalf of peace. The term paideia, drawn from Greek philosophy, has to do with (...) responsible education for citizenship as a necessary precondition for effective democracy. (shrink)

The central conflicts of the world today are closely related to cultural, traditional, and religious differences between nations. As we move to a globalized world, these differences often become magnified, entrenched, and the cause of bloody conflict. Growing out of a conference of distinguished scholars from the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, this volume is a singular contribution to mutual understanding and cooperative efforts on behalf of peace. The term paideia, drawn from Greek philosophy, has to do with (...) responsible education for citizenship as a necessary precondition for effective democracy. (shrink)

Conditional promises and threats are speech acts that are used to manipulate other people's behaviour. Studies on human reasoning typically use propositional logic to analyse what people infer from such inducements. While this approach is sufficient to uncover conceptual features of inducements, it fails to explain them. To overcome this limitation, we propose a multilevel analysis integrating motivational, linguistic, deontic, behavioural, and emotional aspects. Commonalities and differences between conditional promises and threats on various levels were examined in two experiments. The (...) first shows that both types of inducements are understood as being complementary on the linguistic level, but not reversible, due to the specific temporal order of their actions. In addition, it gives a first assessment of emotional reactions. The second experiment investigated the novel question of whether complementary promises and threats, despite semantic differences, both imply an obligation to cooperate on the deontic level. The data corroborate this hypothesis, and they support various appraisal-theoretical assumptions on the elicitation of emotions. They also reveal that content affects not only the attribution of emotions, but also the deontic interpretation. (shrink)

Abstract.Agricultural restructuring has disproportionately impacted smaller US farms, such as those in Michigan where the average farm size is 215 acres. To keep agricultural land in production, entrepreneurial Michigan farmers are utilizing agritourism as a value-added way to capitalize on their comparative advantages, their diverse agricultural products, and their locations near large, urban, tourist-generating areas. Using focus groups, this paper illustrates how entrepreneurial farmers have strengthened Michigan agritourism by fostering producer networks through brochures and web linkages, information sharing in refining (...) the agritourism product, referrals to other agritourism businesses that serve different markets or offer different products, purchase linkages, and a regional approach to establishing agritourism destinations and increase visitation. Successful entrepreneurial, agritourism developers thus work cooperatively, rather than individualistically and competitively. Agritourism destinations facing stiff competition from alternative venues for leisure time and food purchases benefit from supportive linkages that help sustain a critical mass of producers who offer diverse goods, maintain land in agriculture, and thus, reinforce Michigan’s image for agritourism. (shrink)

Conditional promises and threats are speech acts that are used to manipulate other people's behaviour. Studies on human reasoning typically use propositional logic to analyse what people infer from such inducements. While this approach is sufficient to uncover conceptual features of inducements, it fails to explain them. To overcome this limitation, we propose a multilevel analysis integrating motivational, linguistic, deontic, behavioural, and emotional aspects. Commonalities and differences between conditional promises and threats on various levels were examined in two experiments. The (...) first shows that both types of inducements are understood as being complementary on the linguistic level, but not reversible, due to the specific temporal order of their actions. In addition, it gives a first assessment of emotional reactions. The second experiment investigated the novel question of whether complementary promises and threats, despite semantic differences, both imply an obligation to cooperate on the deontic level. The data corroborate this hypothesis, and they support various appraisal-theoretical assumptions on the elicitation of emotions. They also reveal that content affects not only the attribution of emotions, but also the deontic interpretation. (shrink)

If “Big Gods” evolved in part because of their ability to morally regulate groups of people who cannot count on kin or reciprocal altruism to get along, then powerful gods would tend to be good gods. If the mechanism for this cooperation is some kind of fear of supernatural punishment, then we may expect that mighty gods tend to be punishing gods. The present study is a statistical analysis of superhuman being concepts from 20 countries on five continents to explore (...) whether the goodness of a god is related to its mightiness. Gods that looked more like the God of classical theism and gods that were low in anthropomorphism were more likely to be regarded as morally good and to be the target of religious practices. Mighty gods were not, however, especially likely to punish or to be a “high god.”. (shrink)

In this article we provide a case history of the development of a communicative system in songbirds. In particular, we explore how brown-headed cowbirds, male and female, cooperate in the development and use of species-typical song. The goal is to show how social interactions between and within sexes create a platform for the production and perception of song. We consider six perspectives. First, we discuss the nature of the acoustic signal. Second, we look at the process of song learning. Third, (...) we describe a specific song mechanism, social shaping. Fourth, we look at the more general developmental process of neophenogenesis. Fifth, we consider the developmental ecology for social learning. Finally, we describe how social networks measures can be used to capture the nature of social interactions as the engines of song learning. Taken as a whole, we argue that culturally transmitted behaviors structure social interactions that predict the acquisition of species' typical behaviors necessary for successful reproduction. (shrink)

In this article we provide a case history of the development of a communicative system in songbirds. In particular, we explore how brown-headed cowbirds, male and female, cooperate in the development and use of species-typical song. The goal is to show how social interactions between and within sexes create a platform for the production and perception of song. We consider six perspectives. First, we discuss the nature of the acoustic signal. Second, we look at the process of song learning. Third, (...) we describe a specific song mechanism, social shaping. Fourth, we look at the more general developmental process of neophenogenesis. Fifth, we consider the developmental ecology for social learning. Finally, we describe how social networks measures can be used to capture the nature of social interactions as the engines of song learning. Taken as a whole, we argue that culturally transmitted behaviors structure social interactions that predict the acquisition of species' typical behaviors necessary for successful reproduction. (shrink)

David Gauthier argues that it can be rational to perform a non-maximizing cooperative act, since there are certain situations in which it is rational to adopt an intention to perform a non-maximizing cooperative act, and since if it is rational to adopt an intention to do something, then it is rational to do that thing. An important objection to this argument focuses on the move from the rationality of adopting intentions to the rationality of acting on them. Gregory Kavka (...) argues that there are other situations – involving deterrence rather than cooperation – in which it is rational to adopt an intention to perform an irrational retaliatory action, that these situations and the cooperative ones are relevantly similar, so that, in the original cooperative situations, it is rational to adopt an intention to cooperate but irrational actually to cooperate. In this paper, I examine one way in which the argument for cooperation may be reformulated to circumvent this particular objection. (shrink)