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

Arthur Schopenhauer is generally known in two ways: as an abrasive misanthrope whose derision of Hegel was thought to stem from professional envy, and as the philosophical progenitor of Nietzsche, who early on could not praise Schopenhauer enough, but later famously distanced himself from his mentor, much as he did from Wagner. Since he was linked with such eclipsing figures, it is not surprising that the caricature of Schopenhauer as the recluse who made a career of spewing venom and spite (...) remains his prevailing image. Those familiar with Schopenhauer or Nietzsches encounter with Schopenhauer, however, know him as a valuable contributor to many recent schools of philosophy and whose thought touched not only Nietzsche but other influential figures in philosophy and psychology as well. Christopher Janaway presents us with a cross section of essays that serve as both an introduction to Schopenhauers main themes and an offering of recent scholarship and interpretation of his work. Janaway, quoting Rudolf Malter, introduces Schopenhauers writings as an explication of a single notion: the world is the self-knowledge of the will. The rest of the text examines the manifold themes in that pithy characterization; not only do metaphysics and epistemology receive their due, but Schopenhauers ethics and aesthetics are exposed as derivative themes from that central claim. (shrink)

Herman Philipse's massive work undertakes to interpret and critique the work of Martin Heidegger within the full range of the often inscrutable philosopher's corpus, and claims to be the first such work ever to incorporate the expanse of Heidegger's work in a unifying interpretive elucidation. Philipse draws from Heidegger's earliest work to his 1927 masterpiece Being and Time, through the Kehre, or turn, in his thought, in which he moves from the formal rigor of his seminal work to enlist a (...) mythical-mystical-poetic language to revive and transform the Aristotelian question of being. Given that the secondary literature in Heidegger scholarship has ballooned into the thousands of texts, Philipse makes a bold statement in claiming to be the first to offer a paninterpretive account of Heidegger's work. (shrink)

As the Nietzsche industry continues to thrive, offering Zarathustra zealots everything from coffee table photography books to quasi-fictional accounts of Nietzsche’s mad dance into insanity and posterity, Daniel Conway offers a sober account of Nietzsche’s late writings, choosing to address quite seriously the shrill excesses that mark Nietzsche’s work from 1885–8. Conway undertakes to present Nietzsche’s own decadence and inheriting readership as evidence of the failure of his later project. Nietzsche embarks on voyages toward terrible seas, seeking to unsterilize wisdom (...) and set his revaluation of values in motion by announcing his presence as “dynamite”; Conway exposes Nietzsche’s later works as just that, a tremendous power with erratic and often misguided aim. Whereas Kaufmann, Schacht, and others defend Nietzsche’s thought as apolitical, and gloss over or ignore altogether the vitriol and self-aggrandizement of Nietzsche’s last five works, Conway treats Nietzsche’s critique of modernity in light of Nietzsche’s self-referential motif. Unfortunately, Nietzsche crumbles under the burden of such scrutiny, as he emerges as the decaying embodiment of those upon whom he sets. Conway portrays Nietzsche as a cunning strategist who employs various techniques to obfuscate his own enervation. Nietzsche here is cast as the self-avowed decadent whose descent is marked by his solicitation of discipleship, and who knows full well that those worthy heirs will turn on him in an act of perfidy. The shameless shepherding of flatterers, reprobates, and misfits signals his decadence; Nietzsche recruits scions from the fringes of society instead of fostering his militia from within the latently noble ranks. Resuscitating the modern community is rejected as a futile project for Nietzsche; he casts himself as the neo-Christ figure whose immediate audience, owing to their own decadence, has a flash point too high for Nietzsche to ignite. The modern pilot light has been snuffed out, Nietzsche concedes, and a new one must be lit. (shrink)

Sheridan Hough provides a careful examination of Friedrich Nietzsche’s ample use of metaphor throughout his corpus, and concludes that the active, muscular thought associated with Nietzsche is evenly countered by receptive imagery which imbues his work with an elevated balance. The duplicity of Nietzsche’s images, fecund with layers of significance, culminates most evidently in the two most scrutinized themes in Nietzsche scholarship, the eternal return and the Ubermensch. Hough offers a unique interpretation of these tropes, proffering the concept of the (...) Ubermensch as a unique moment of the free spirit, contrasted with a destined, elevated, or evolved ideal of man. The Ubermensch and eternal return converge in an artistic moment, replete with the perpetual process of self-overcoming and value transformation. (shrink)

In the spirit of twentieth century philosophers who personally participate in the interplay of their social and political ideology, Hannah Arendt gives an account of the onus of profound personal liberty and how persons might limn solutions to vexing social situations. Nevertheless, Arendt employs B-movie imagery as an analogue for what she sees as our overwhelming immersion in “the social,” the enveloping force which enervates our personal freedom and acts as a dehumanizing, depoliticizing force. “The Blob” acts as a juggernaut (...) against which we are powerless to affect social change. Hanna Fenichel Pitkin’s portrait of Arendt’s political thought acknowledges that this sort of imagery and hypostacization has deep flaws, especially in light of Arendt’s exhortations to challenge social structures and to guard against personal inauthenticity. Pitkin concludes that “The Blob” is nothing but the construct of persons wishing to divest themselves of choice and freedom, and offers that the problem of social indolence and apathy can be remedied through thoughtful activism and community minded self-legislation. (shrink)

John Russon offers an engaging analysis of Hegel’s notion of embodiment, which, though not given priority in the Hegelian corpus, affords an enriching understanding of Hegel’s notion of sociality. Admittedly, Hegel does not offer those attempting to derive from his work a philosophy of embodiment a wealth of resources. Moreover, his few remarks on the body do not seem to fulfill his own philosophic criteria and aims, and so fail to offer an entirely self-developing position concerning human embodiment. However, Russon (...) casts Hegel as being an heir to the Aristotelian notion of personhood as a confluence of soul and body, and argues for the notion of Geist as the Idealist analogue to Aristotle’s concept of soul/psychology. Russon portrays Hegel as not only furthering Aristotle’s psychology, but also as emerging from the Scholastic and Enlightenment duality of mind or soul and body to act as a precursor of the postmodern account of discursivity as performativity. Embodiment remains, according to Russon, an explication of numerous levels of expression, socialization and habituation. Hegel’s concept of embodiment parallels Aristotle’s in abiding by an internal principle of self-explication, in which personal identity requires and is defined by self-expression. Russon argues that embodiment and self-expression are coextensive; embodiment is discursivity, in which our nature, habits, and express communication reflect and build upon our inherited and internalized culture and institutional relationships. (shrink)

With his insightful and wide-ranging theory of recognition, Axel Honneth has decisively reshaped the Frankfurt School tradition of critical social theory. Combining insights from philosophy, sociology, psychology, history, political economy, and cultural critique, Honneth’s work proposes nothing less than an account of the moral infrastructure of human sociality and its relation to the perils and promise of contemporary social life. This book provides an accessible overview of Honneth’s main contributions across a variety of fields, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of (...) his thought. Christopher Zurn clearly explains Honneth’s multi-faceted theory of recognition and its relation to diverse topics: individual identity, morality, activist movements, progress, social pathologies, capitalism, justice, freedom, and critique. In so doing, he places Honneth’s theory in a broad intellectual context, encompassing classic social theorists such as Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Dewey, Adorno and Habermas, as well as contemporary trends in social theory and political philosophy. Treating the full range of Honneth’s corpus, including his major new work on social freedom and democratic ethical life, this book is the most up-to-date guide available. _Axel Honneth_ will be invaluable to students and scholars working across the humanities and social sciences, as well as anyone seeking a clear guide to the work of one of the most influential theorists writing today. (shrink)

As a tactic for preventing an enquiry into attention’s relationship to consciousness from lapsing into ill-definition, this chapter treats ‘attention’ as a term defined by the role that is assigned to it in our explanations of empirically established psychological phenomena (especially those involving the modulation of reaction times). It reviews evidence showing that such modulations are associated with processing that stands in various relations to consciousness. The psychological phenomena that explain these modulations cannot be identified with the causes of consciousness. (...) Nor do they operate exclusively within the field of conscious awareness. If the explanation of these phenomena is to cast explanatory light on how and when consciousness occurs, it will need to do so in the context of some more complex explanatory theory. (shrink)

An important contribution to the burgeoning field of the ethics of recognition, this book examines the contradictions inherent in the very concept of intimacy. Working with a wide variety of philosophical and literary sources, it warns against measuring our relationships against ideal standards, since there is no consummate form of intimacy. After analyzing ten major ways that we aim to establish intimacy with one another, including gift-giving, touching, and fetishes, the book concludes that each fails on its own terms, (...) since intimacy wants something that is impossible. The very concept of intimacy is a superlative one; it aims not just for closeness, but for a closeness beyond closeness. Nevertheless, far from a pessimistic diagnosis of the human condition, this is a meditation on how to live intimately in a world in which intimacy is impossible. Rather than contenting itself with a deconstructive approach, it proposes to treat intimacy dialectically. For all its contradictions, it shows intimacy is central to how we understand ourselves and our relations to others. (shrink)

Embodying Transnational Yoga is a refreshingly original, multi-sited ethnography of transnational yoga that obliges us to look beyond postural practice (aasana) in modern yoga research. The book introduces readers to three alternative, understudied categories of transnational yoga practice which include food, music, and breathing. Studying these categories of embodied practice using interdisciplinary methods reveals transformative "engaged alchemies" that have been extensively deployed by contemporary disseminators of yoga. Readers will encounter how South Asian dietary regimens, musical practices, and breathing techniques have (...) been adapted into contemporaneous worlds of yoga practice both within, but also beyond, the Indian Ocean rim. The book brings the field of Modern Yoga Studies into productive dialogue with the fields of Indian Ocean Studies, Embodiment Studies, Food Studies, Ethnomusicology, and Pollution Studies. It will also be a valuable resource for both scholarly work and for teaching in the fields of Religious Studies, Anthropology, and South Asian Religions. (shrink)

From Edison’s invention of the phonograph through contemporary field recording and sound installation, artists have become attracted to those domains against which music has always defined itself: noise, silence, and environmental sound. Christoph Cox argues that these developments in the sonic arts are not only aesthetically but also philosophically significant, revealing sound to be a continuous material flow to which human expressions contribute but which precedes and exceeds those expressions. Cox shows how, over the course of the twentieth and (...) twenty-first centuries, philosophers and sonic artists have explored this “sonic flux.” Through the philosophical analysis of works by John Cage, Maryanne Amacher, Max Neuhaus, Christian Marclay, and many others, Sonic Flux contributes to the development of a materialist metaphysics and poses a challenge to the prevailing positions in cultural theory, proposing a realist and materialist aesthetics able to account not only for sonic art but for artistic production in general. (shrink)

Christopher G. Timpson provides the first full-length philosophical treatment of quantum information theory and the questions it raises for our understanding of the quantum world. He argues for an ontologically deflationary account of the nature of quantum information, which is grounded in a revisionary analysis of the concepts of information.

Instead of simply following the current neoliberal mantra of proclaiming economic growth as the single most important factor for maintaining well-being, Education and Schmid's Art of Living revisits the idea of an education focused on personal development and the well-being of human beings. Drawing on philosophical ideas concerning the good life and recent research in positive psychology, Teschers argues in favour of shifting the focus in education and schooling towards a beautiful life and an art of living for today's students. (...) Containing a thorough discussion of the ideas of contemporary German philosopher Wilhelm Schmid, this book considers the possible implications of developing a more humanistic and life-centred approach to educational policy, research and practice, showing that Schmid's concept of Lebenskunst provides a firm philosophical basis for this endeavour. Among others, this book draws on analytical and continental traditions to challenge current views and assumptions in regard to education and the role of schooling for contemporary societies. As a result, Teschers' work is sure to spark a debate about the direction of educational policy and practice in the 21st century. Education and Schmid's Art of Living is essential reading for academics and students with an interest in education. Given the importance of such topics as the relationship between education and society, teacher education and how best to structure schools and learning environments, Teschers' work will appeal to academics and students in a diverse range of fields, including education, philosophy, sociology and psychology. (shrink)

Waiting belongs to the greatly overlooked practices of everyday life, and among the many fields enforcing waiting times, transportation certainly accounts for a most prominent generator.

Jaina Studies is a relatively new and rapidly expanding field of inquiry for scholars of Indian religion and philosophy. In Jainism, "yoga" carries many meanings, and this book explores the definitions, nuances, and applications of the term in relation to Jainism from early times to the present. Yoga in Jainism begins by discussing how the use of the term yoga in the earliest Jaina texts described the mechanics ofmundane action or karma. From the time of the later Upanisads, the (...) word Yoga became associated in all Indian religions with spiritual practices of ethical restraint, prayer, and meditation. In the medieval period, Jaina authors such as Haribhadra, Subhacandra, and Hemacandra used the term Yoga in reference to Jaina spiritual practice. In the modern period, a Jaina form of Yoga emerged, known as Preksa Dhyana. This practice includes the physical postures and breathing exercises well known through the globalization of Yoga. By exploring how Yoga is understood and practiced within Jainism, this book makes an important contribution to the fields of Yoga Studies, Religious Studies, Philosophy, and South Asian Studies. (shrink)

This collection of essays provides the first in-depth examination of camp as it relates to a wide variety of twentieth and twenty-first century music and musical performances. Located at the convergence of popular and queer musicology, the book provides new research into camp's presence, techniques, discourses, and potential meanings across a broad spectrum of musical genres, including: musical theatre, classical music, film music, opera, instrumental music, the Broadway musical, rock, pop, hip-hop, and Christmas carols. This significant contribution to the (...) class='Hi'>field of camp studies investigates why and how music has served as an expressive and political vehicle for both the aesthetic characteristics and the receptive modes that have been associated with camp throughout twentieth and twenty-first-century culture. (shrink)

Quantum Information Theory and the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics is a conceptual analysis of one of the most prominent and exciting new areas of physics, providing the first full-length philosophical treatment of quantum information theory and the questions it raises for our understanding of the quantum world. -/- Beginning from a careful, revisionary, analysis of the concepts of information in the everyday and classical information-theory settings, Christopher G. Timpson argues for an ontologically deflationary account of the nature of quantum (...) information. Against what many have supposed, quantum information can be clearly defined (it is not a primitive or vague notion) but it is not part of the material contents of the world. Timpson's account sheds light on the nature of nonlocality and information flow in the presence of entanglement and, in particular, dissolves puzzles surrounding the remarkable process of quantum teleportation. In addition it permits a clear view of what the ontological and methodological lessons provided by quantum information theory are; lessons which bear on the gripping question of what role a concept like information has to play in fundamental physics. Topics discussed include the slogan 'Information is Physical', the prospects for an informational immaterialism (the view that information rather than matter might fundamentally constitute the world), and the status of the Church-Turing hypothesis in light of quantum computation. -/- With a clear grasp of the concept of information in hand, Timpson turns his attention to the pressing question of whether advances in quantum information theory pave the way for the resolution of the traditional conceptual problems of quantum mechanics: the deep problems which loom over measurement, nonlocality and the general nature of quantum ontology. He marks out a number of common pitfalls to be avoided before analysing in detail some concrete proposals, including the radical quantum Bayesian programme of Caves, Fuchs, and Schack. One central moral which is drawn is that, for all the interest that the quantum information-inspired approaches hold, no cheap resolutions to the traditional problems of quantum mechanics are to be had. (shrink)

This book is the first collective study of this major figure in the intellectual and political life of 12th-century Europe to appear for thirty years. Based on the latest research, thirteen contributions by leading experts in the field provide an overview of John of Salisbury’s place in the political debates that marked the reign of Henry II in England as well as of his place in the history of the Church. They also offer a detailed introduction to his philosophical (...) works ‘(Metalogicon’, ‘Entheticus’), his political thought (‘Policraticus’) and his writing of history (‘Historia pontificalis’). 0Contributors include Julie Barrau, David Bloch, Karen Bollermann, Cédric Giraud, Christophe Grellard, Laure Hermand-Schebat, Frédérique Lachaud, Constant Mews, Clare Monagle, Cary Nederman, Ronald Pepin, Yves Sassier, and Sigbjørn Sønnesyn.0. (shrink)

From Plato's Timaeus onwards, the world or cosmos has been conceived of as a living, rational organism. Most notably in German Idealism, philosophers still talked of a 'Weltseele' (Schelling) or 'Weltgeist' (Hegel). This volume is the first collection of essays on the origin of the notion of the world soul (anima mundi) in Antiquity and beyond. It contains 14 original contributions by specialists in the field of ancient philosophy, the Platonic tradition and the history of theology. The topics range (...) from the 'obscure' Presocratic Heraclitus, to Plato and his ancient readers in Middle and Neoplatonism (including the Stoics), to the reception of the idea of a world soul in the history of natural science. A general introduction highlights the fundamental steps in the development of the Platonic notion throughout late Antiquity and early Christian philosophy. Accessible to Classicists, historians of philosophy, theologians and invaluable to specialists in ancient philosophy, the book provides an overview of the fascinating discussions surrounding a conception that had a long-lasting effect on the history of Western thought. (shrink)

Although existing work draws attention to a range of obstacles in realizing fair AI, the field lacks an account that emphasizes how these worries hang together in a systematic way. Furthermore, a review of the fair AI and philosophical literature demonstrates the unsuitability of ‘treat like cases alike’ and other intuitive notions as conceptions of fairness. That review then generates three desiderata for a replacement conception of fairness valuable to AI research: (1) It must provide a meta-theory for understanding (...) tradeoffs, entailing that it must be flexible enough to capture diverse species of objection to decisions. (2) It must not appeal to an impartial perspective (neutral data, objective data, or final arbiter.) (3) It must foreground the way in which judgments of fairness are sensitive to context, i.e., to historical and institutional states of affairs. We argue that a conception of fairness as appropriate concession in the historical iteration of institutional decisions meets these three desiderata. On the basis of this definition, we organize the insights of commentators into a process-structure map of the ethical territory that we hope will bring clarity to computer scientists and ethicists analyzing Fair AI while clearing some ground for further technical and philosophical work. (shrink)

Truth Matters is the first full-length introduction to response-dependence, a topic that has become a main focus of interest for philosophers across a wide range of disciplines and subject areas.The response-dependence claim, in brief, is to provide a 'third way' between the realist (or objectivist) conception of truth as always potentially transcending the limits of human ascertainment and the anti-realist (or verificationist) case that truth cannot possibly transcend those limits since then we could never acquire or manifest a knowledge of (...) it.While setting out the issues clearly and concisely, Norris also provides some relevant background history to this current debate, including discussion of its sources and analogues in Plato, Locke, Kant and Wittgenstein. His book offers invaluable guidance for student readers in search of a reliable introductory survey of the field. Among those with a more specialist interest it may sometimes provoke disagreement, as when Norris argues that the response-dependence approach often goes along with a disguised anti-realist bias and hence fails to make good on its 'third-way' promise. However, its combination of wide-ranging coverage with clarity of focus and depth of philosophical treatment will be welcomed.Key Features:*Clear, accessible account of some complex philosophical issues;*First book-length study of the response-dependence debate;*Informative discussion of its pre-history in philosophers from Plato to Hume, Locke and Kant;*Aimed at readers seeking a reliable, well-informed introductory account while relevant to those with a more specialist knowledge of the topic. (shrink)

What is philosophy of science? Numerous manuals, anthologies or essays provide carefully reconstructed vantage points on the discipline that have been gained through expert and piecemeal historical analyses. In this paper, we address the question from a complementary perspective: we target the content of one major journal of the field—Philosophy of Science—and apply unsupervised text-mining methods to its complete corpus, from its start in 1934 until 2015. By running topic-modeling algorithms over the full-text corpus, we identified 126 key research (...) topics that span across 82 years. We also tracked their evolution and fluctuating significance over time in the journal articles. Our results concur with and document known and lesser-known episodes of the philosophy of science, including the rise and fall of logic and language-related topics, the relative stability of a metaphysical and ontological questioning (space and time, causation, natural kinds, realism), the significance of epistemological issues about the nature of scientific knowledge as well as the rise of a recent philosophy of biology and other trends. These analyses exemplify how computational text-mining methods can be used to provide an empirical large-scale and data-driven perspective on the history of philosophy of science that is complementary to other current historical approaches. (shrink)

This paper highlights some connections between work on truth approximation and work in social epistemology, in particular work on peer disagreement. In some of the literature on truth approximation, questions have been addressed concerning the efficiency of research strategies for approximating the truth. So far, social aspects of research strategies have not received any attention in this context. Recent findings in the field of opinion dynamics suggest that this is a mistake. How scientists exchange and take into account information (...) about each others’ beliefs may greatly influence the accuracy and speed with which the scientific community as a whole approximates the truth. On the other hand, social epistemologists concerned with peer disagreement have so far neglected the question of how practices of responding to disagreements with peers fare with respect to the goal of approximating the truth. Again, work on opinion dynamics shows that this may be a mistake, and that how we ought to respond to disagreements with our peers may depend on the specific purposes of our investigations. (shrink)

We analyze the “Logical fallacies and reasonable debates in invasion biology: a response to Guiaşu and Tindale” article by Frank et al., and also discuss this work in the context of recent intense debates in invasion biology, and reactions by leading invasion biologists to critics of aspects of their field. While we acknowledge the attempt by Frank et al., at least in the second half of their paper, to take into account more diverse points of view about non-native species (...) and their complex roles in ecosystems, we also find the accusations of misrepresenting invasion biology, for instance by “cherry-picking” and “constructing ‘straw people’”, directed at the Guiaşu and Tindale study to be unwarranted. Despite the sometimes harsh responses by leading invasion biologists to critics of their field, we believe that persistent and fundamental problems remain in invasion biology, and we discuss some of these problems in this article. Failing to recognize these problems, and simply dismissing or minimizing legitimate criticisms, will not advance the cause, or enhance the general appeal, of invasion biology and will prevent meaningful progress in understanding the multiple contributions non-native species can bring to various ecosystems worldwide. We recommend taking a more open-minded and pragmatic approach towards non-native species and the novel ecosystems they are an integral part of. (shrink)

From a corporate governance perspective, one of the most important jobs of a firm's top management team is to create and maintain a positive moral environment. Business ethics has long been considered a cornerstone in the field of strategic management and a number of scholars have called for more research in this area over the years. In this paper 658 articles that appeared in "Strategic Management Journal" over the 10-year period between 1996 and 2005 are reviewed for business ethics (...) focus and content. The results reveal that while business ethics research in "Strategic Management Journal" is on the rise, the overall focus on this research stream has been limited. The most prominent ethics theme during the review period was environmentalism, accounting for 30% of all ethics articles. Author affiliations, future research directions, and implications are also discussed. (shrink)

Both Marya Schechtman and Galen Strawson appeal to autobiographical memory in developing their accounts of personal identity. Although both scholars share a similar conception of autobiographical memory, they use it to develop theories of personal identity that are radically distinct. Memories that are relevant for personal identity are generally considered to be personal (autobiographical) memories of those events in one’s lifetime to which one can gain first-personal access: memories from-the-inside. Both Schechtman and Strawson base their discussion of personal identity on (...) exactly this type of memory. Empirical evidence shows, however, that personal memory imagery is not only visualised from-the-inside, from a “field” perspective. Personal memories may also involve “observer” perspectives, in which one sees oneself from-the-outside in the remembered scene. Both Schechtman and Strawson appeal to the notion of remembering from-the-inside, but they remain silent on the phenomenon of observer perspectives in personal memory. I suggest that accounts of personal identity that appeal to memory should consider observer perspectives as one aspect of personal memory. I explore the implications that the acknowledgment and inclusion of observer perspectives would have for both Schechtman’s and Strawson’s accounts. Even though autobiographical memory is not their theoretical target, both Schechtman and Strawson base their accounts of personal identity on their understanding of autobiographical memory. Therefore, their depictions of the nature of personal identity are founded upon an incomplete picture of autobiographical memory. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle reflects the lively international character of Aristotelian studies, drawing contributors from the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, Canada, and Japan; it also, appropriately, includes a preponderance of authors from the University of Oxford, which has been a center of Aristotelian studies for many centuries. The volume equally reflects the broad range of activity Aristotelian studies comprise today: such activity ranges from the primarily textual and philological to the application of broadly Aristotelian (...) themes to contemporary problems irrespective of their narrow textual fidelity. In between these extremes one finds the core of Aristotelian scholarship as it is practiced today, and as it is primarily represented in this Handbook: textual exegesis and criticism. Even within this more limited core activity, one witnesses a rich range of pursuits, with some scholars seeking primarily to understand Aristotle in his own philosophical milieu and others seeking rather to place him into direct conversation with contemporary philosophers and their present-day concerns. No one of these enterprises exhausts the field. On the contrary, one of the most welcome and enlivening features of the contemporary Aristotelian scene is precisely the cross-fertilization these mutually beneficial and complementary activities offer one another. The volume, prefaced with an introduction to Aristotle's life and works by the editor, covers the main areas of Aristotelian philosophy and intellectual enquiry: ethics, metaphysics, politics, logic, language, psychology, rhetoric, poetics, theology, physical and biological investigation, and philosophical method. It also, and distinctively, looks both backwards and forwards: two chapters recount Aristotle's treatment of earlier philosophers, who proved formative to his own orientations and methods, and another three chapters chart the long afterlife of Aristotle's philosophy, in Late Antiquity, in the Islamic World, and in the Latin West. (shrink)

We offer a general definition of interpretation based on a naturalized teleology. The definition tests and extends the biosemiotic paradigm by seeking to provide a philosophically robust resource for investigating the possible role of semiosis (processes of representation and interpretation) in biological systems. We show that our definition provides a way of understanding various possible kinds of misinterpretation, illustrate the definition using examples at the cellular and subcellular level, and test the definition by applying it to a potential counterexample. We (...) explain how we propose to use the definition as a way of asking new questions about what distinguishes life from non-life and of formulating testable hypotheses within the field of origin-of-life research. If the definition leads to fruitful new empirical approaches to the scientific problem of the origin of life, it will help to establish biosemiotics as a legitimate philosophical approach in theoretical biology and will thereby support a theological appropriation of the biosemiotic perspective as the basis of a new theology of nature. (shrink)

Eric Katz says the arguments for deextinction are depressingly familiar … and he’s right! The creation – or recreation – of ‘necrofauna,’ he says, ‘recycles old issues and debates in the field’ (p....

Surveying this large field with more amplitude and exactitude than anything else on offer, this book will be important for scholars of the humanities and specialists.

Probability theory is a key tool of the physical, mathematical, and social sciences. It has also been playing an increasingly significant role in philosophy: in epistemology, philosophy of science, ethics, social philosophy, philosophy of religion, and elsewhere. This Handbook encapsulates and furthers the influence of philosophy on probability, and of probability on philosophy. Nearly forty articles summarise the state of play and present new insights in various areas of research at the intersection of these two fields. The articles will be (...) of special interest to practitioners of probability who seek a greater understanding of its mathematical and conceptual foundations, and to philosophers who want to get up to speed on the cutting edge of research in this area. The volume begins with a primer on those parts of probability theory that we believe are most important for philosophers to know, and the rest is divided into seven main sections: History; Formalism; Alternatives to Standard Probability Theory; Interpretations and Interpretive Issues; Probabilistic Judgment and Its Applications; Applications of Probability: Science; and Applications of Probability: Philosophy. (shrink)

This volume gives an overview of the rising field of Experimental Ethics. It is organized into five main parts: PART I – Introduction: An Experimental Philosophy of Ethics? // PART II – Applied Experimental Ethics: Case studies // PART III – On Methodology // PART IV – Critical Reflections // PART V – Future Perspectives. Among the contributors: Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Eric Schwitzgebel, Ezio di Nucci, Jacob Rosenthal, and Fernando Aguiar.

Judea Pearl has been at the forefront of research in the burgeoning field of causal modeling, and Causality is the culmination of his work over the last dozen or so years. For philosophers of science with a serious interest in causal modeling, Causality is simply mandatory reading. Chapter 2, in particular, addresses many of the issues familiar from works such as Causation, Prediction and Search by Peter Spirtes, Clark Glymour, and Richard Scheines. But philosophers with a more general interest (...) in causation will also profit from reading Pearl’s book, especially the material in chapters 7, 9, and 10, which is self-contained and less technical than other parts of the book. The present review is aimed primarily at readers of the second type. (shrink)

Philosophers of action and perception have reached a consensus: the term ‘intentionality’ has significantly different senses in their respective fields. But Anscombe argues that these distinct senses are analogically united in such a way that one cannot understand the concept if one focuses exclusively on its use in one’s preferred philosophical sub-discipline. She highlights three salient points of analogy: (i) intentional objects are given by expressions that employ a “description under which;” (ii) intentional descriptions are typically vague and indeterminate; and (...) (iii) intentional descriptions may be false. I explore these three features as they apply to both perception and action and defend Anscombe’s view that the analogical concept of intentionality is a grammatical concept. That is, there are two distinctive linguistic/social practices that involve, respectively, a special sense of the question ‘Why?’ and a special sense of the question ‘What?’ To competently ask and answer the questions that constitute these practices not only reflects, but also conveys a grammatical understanding of intentionality’s basic, formal structure. (shrink)

This fully revised and updated edition of God, Humanity and the Cosmos is an essential companion to the field, with exercises for the student, a comprehensive bibliography, and suggestions for further reading.

Though only established as a discipline since the 1970s, philosophy of biology has already triggered investigations about its own history The Oxford handbook of philosophy of biology, Oxford University Press, New York, pp 11–33, 2008). When it comes to assessing the road since travelled—the research questions that have been pursued—manuals and ontologies also offer specific viewpoints, highlighting dedicated domains of inquiry and select work. In this article, we propose to approach the history of the philosophy of biology with a complementary (...) data-driven perspective that makes use of statistical algorithms applied to the complete full-text corpus of one major journal of the field—Biology and Philosophy—from its launch in 1986 up until 2017. By running text-mining and topic-modeling algorithms, we identified 67 key research topics that span across these 32 years. We also investigated the evolution of these topics over time and their fluctuating significance in the journal articles. Our results concur with known episodes or traits of the discipline—for instance, the significance of evolution-related topics or the decrease of articles with a marked historical dimension—but also highlight a diversity of topics that is much richer than what is usually acknowledged. (shrink)

Though only established as a discipline since the 1970s, philosophy of biology has already triggered investigations about its own history The Oxford handbook of philosophy of biology, Oxford University Press, New York, pp 11–33, 2008). When it comes to assessing the road since travelled—the research questions that have been pursued—manuals and ontologies also offer specific viewpoints, highlighting dedicated domains of inquiry and select work. In this article, we propose to approach the history of the philosophy of biology with a complementary (...) data-driven perspective that makes use of statistical algorithms applied to the complete full-text corpus of one major journal of the field—Biology and Philosophy—from its launch in 1986 up until 2017. By running text-mining and topic-modeling algorithms, we identified 67 key research topics that span across these 32 years. We also investigated the evolution of these topics over time and their fluctuating significance in the journal articles. Our results concur with known episodes or traits of the discipline—for instance, the significance of evolution-related topics or the decrease of articles with a marked historical dimension—but also highlight a diversity of topics that is much richer than what is usually acknowledged. (shrink)

This innovative text reinvigorates argumentation studies by exploring the experience of argument across cultures, introducing an anthropological perspective into the domains of rhetoric, communication, and philosophy. The Anthropology of Argument fills an important gap in contemporary argumentation theory by shifting the focus away from the purely propositional element of arguments and onto how they emerge from the experiences of peoples with diverse backgrounds, demonstrating how argumentation can be understood as a means of expression and a gathering place of ideas and (...) styles. Confronting the limitations of the Western tradition of logic and searching out the argumentative roles of place, orality, myth, narrative, and audience, it examines the nature of multi-modal argumentation. Tindale analyzes the impacts of colonialism on the field and addresses both optimistic and cynical assessments of contextual difference. The results have implications for our understanding of contemporary argumentative discourse in areas marked by deep disagreement, like politics, law and social policy. The book will interest scholars and upper-level students in communication, philosophy, argumentation theory, anthropology, rhetoric, linguistics, and cultural studies. (shrink)

Dr Lloyd writes for those who want to discover and explore Aristotle's work for themselves. He acts as mediator between Aristotle and the modern reader. The book is divided into two parts. The first tells the story of Aristotle's intellectual development as far as it can be reconstructed; the second presents the fundamentals of his thought in the main fields of inquiry which interested him: logic and metaphysics, physics, psychology, ethics, politics, and literary criticism. The final chapter considers the unity (...) and coherence of Aristotle's philosophy, and records briefly his later influence on European thought. This is a concise and lucid account of the work of a difficult and profound thinker. Dr Lloyd's business is only with the essentials; but he does not shirk the difficulties which arise in their interpretation, nor does he invest Aristotle with a spurious modernity. (shrink)

As a discipline of its own, the philosophy of science can be traced back to the founding of its academic journals, some of which go back to the first half of the twentieth century. While the discipline has been the object of many historical studies, notably focusing on specific schools or major figures of the field, little work has focused on the journals themselves. Here, we investigate contemporary philosophy of science by means of computational text-mining approaches: we apply topic-modeling (...) algorithms to eight major philosophy of science journals, from the 1930s up until 2017. Based on the full-text content of some 15,897 articles, we identified 25 research themes and 8 thematic clusters that show how the research agenda of the philosophy of science has changed in its content over the course of the last eight decades, up to the philosophy of science we now know. We also show how each one of the journals contributed in its own way to this thematic evolution. (shrink)