This article demonstrates that arguments which historians use can be expressed in terms of formal logic to revealing effect. It is widely taken for granted and sometimes explicitly stated that historical inference is not susceptible of being formalized, at least not in a way that might add something to historians’ understanding of the logic of their reasoning from evidence. The two model derivations in formal logic included here show otherwise. Each is a representation in propositional logic of an historical argument (...) relating to the evidence of medieval marriage law, annulment processes and papal dispensations. The way in which the conclusion is derived from the premises in each case permits the formal logical validity of inferences made to be traced and checked. The paper aims to make the logic underlying much historical argumentation more transparent. A supplementary aim is to show that this kind of historical reasoning is compatible with Bayesian logic. (shrink)

In line with his theory of secularization according to which all significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts, Carl Schmitt argues in Constitutional Theory that people’s (Volk) constitution-making power in modern democracy is analogical to God’s potestas constituens in medieval theology. It is also undoubtedly possible to find a resemblance between Schmitt’s constitution-making power and God’s power as it is described in medieval theology. In the same sense as the constitution-making power is absolutely free (...) from all normative ties, God’s potestas constituens, or rather, God’s potentia absoluta is free from such ties. Yet, unlike the Schmittian constitution-making power, God’s potentia absoluta was not, in medieval theology, originally intended as a description of some form of divine action: the absolute power of God referred to the total possibilities initially open to God. However, when the canonists started to employ the term potentia absoluta in their speculations concerning the papal plenitude of power (plenitude potestatis) by the end of the thirteenth century, they used it in a different sense than the theologians previously. According to certain canonists, the pope, by his potentia absoluta, could grant de facto dispensations from divine and ecclesiastical laws. Later on, this notion became a theological notion as well, but given its origin in juridical discourse, the constitution-making power, rather than being a secularized theological notion, is a theologized juristic notion. (shrink)

This paper analyzes recent attempts to reject reproduction with lineage formation as a necessary condition for evolution by means of natural selection :560–570, 2008; Stud Hist Philos Sci Part C Stud Hist Philos Biol Biomed Sci 42:106–114, 2011; Bourrat in Biol Philos 29:517–538, 2014; Br J Philos Sci 66:883–903, 2015; Charbonneau in Philos Sci 81:727–740, 2014; Doolittle and Inkpen in Proc Natl Acad Sci 115:4006–4014, 2018). Building on the strengths of these attempts and avoiding their pitfalls, it is argued that (...) a robust formulation of evolution by natural selection without reproduction can be established. The main contribution of this paper is a reformulation of Lewontin’s three principles stating that minimal evolution by natural selection occurs when two conditions are met in a population: fitness-related variation and memory. Paradigmatic evolution by natural selection, which can generate adaptations, takes place when an additional condition is present, namely regeneration. (shrink)

In this paper, we redefine the target of evolutionary explanations by proposing the “evosystem” as an alternative to populations, lineages and species. Evosystems account for changes in the distribution of heritable variation within individual Darwinian populations (evolution by natural selection, drift, or constructive neutral evolution), but also for changes in the networks of interactions within or between Darwinian populations and changes in the abiotic environment (whether these changes are caused by the organic entities or not). The evosystem can thereby become (...) a centerpiece for a redefined evolutionary science, that is, evolutionary studies, that apprehends through a single framework the variety of evolutionary processes that lie at various scales. To illustrate the importance of this broadened perspective on evolution, we use a case of antimicrobial resistance evolution: the spread of the blaNDM gene family and the related resistance to carbapenem antibiotics observed globally, and show how evolutionary studies can contribute to answering contemporary socially relevant challenges. (shrink)

In the last decades, the rapid growth of functional brain imaging methodologies allowed cognitive neuroscience to address open questions in philosophy and the social sciences. At the same time, novel insights from cognitive neuroscience research have begun to influence various disciplines, leading to a turn to cognition and emotion in the fields of planning and architectural design. Since 2003, the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture has been supporting ‘neuro-architecture’ as a way to connect neuroscience and the study of behavioral responses (...) to the built environment. Among the many topics related to multisensory perceptual integration and embodiment, the concept of hapticity was recently introduced, suggesting a pivotal role of touch and haptic imagery in architectural appraisal. Arguments have thus risen in favor of the existence of shared cognitive foundations between hapticity and the supramodal functional architecture of the human brain. Precisely, supramodality refers to the functional feature of defined brain regions to process and represent specific information content in a more abstract way, independently of the sensory modality conveying such information to the brain. Here we highlight some commonalities and differences between the concepts of hapticity and supramodality according to the distinctive perspectives of architecture and cognitive neuroscience. This comparison and connection between these two different approaches may lead to novel observations in regard to people-environment relationships, and even provide empirical foundations for a renewed evidence-based design theory. (shrink)

Theoreticians that defend a form of realism regarding natural kinds minimally entertain the belief that the world features divisions into kinds and that the natural kind concept is a useful tool for philosophy of science. The objective of this paper is to challenge these assumptions. First, we challenge realism toward natural kinds by showing that the main arguments for their existence, which rely on the epistemic success of natural kinds, are unsatisfactory. Second, we show that, whether they exist or not, (...) natural kinds are expendable when it comes to describing and analyzing scientific explanations accurately. (shrink)

Recently, Doolittle and Inkpen formulated a thought provoking theory, asserting that evolution by natural selection was responsible for the sideways evolution of two radically different kinds of selective units (also called Domains). The former entities, termed singers, correspond to the usual objects studied by evolutionary biologists (gene, genomes, individuals, species, etc.), whereas the later, termed songs, correspond to re‐produced biological and ecosystemic functions, processes, information, and memes. Singers perform songs through selected patterns of interactions, meaning that a wealth of critical (...) phenomena might receive novel evolutionary explanations. However, this theory did not provide an empirical approach to study evolution in such a broadened context. Here, we show that analyzing songs and singers, using patterns of interaction networks as a common ontology for both, offers a novel, actionable, inclusive and mathematical way to analyze not only the re‐production but also the evolution and fitness of biological and ecosystemic interconnected processes. (shrink)

There are cases in which, intuitively, an agent’s action is both morally right in one sense, and morally wrong in another sense. Such cases (along with other intuitions about blameless wrongdoing and action-guidance) support distinguishing between the objective moral ‘ought’ and the subjective moral ‘ought.’ This chapter argues against drawing this distinction, on the grounds that the prescriptions delivered by an adequate objective moral theory must be sensitive to the mental states of agents. Specifically, an adequate theory of the objective (...) moral ‘ought’ must respect a strong ought-implies-can principle—morally ought implies agentially can—in order to prescribe actions to real-life agents. An agent’s mental states determine what is agentially possible for that agent; thus, what an agent objectively morally ought to do is in part determined by the agent’s mental states. This chapter describes the structure of a compelling non-ideal moral theory that is both objective and mental state-sensitive. This non-ideal theory illuminates the shortcomings of extant objectivist and subjectivist moral theories, and illustrates how we can dispense with the subjective moral ‘ought.’. (shrink)

: Experiential acquaintance is an alleged relation between ourselves and our experiences that has sometimes been hypothesized as necessary for knowledge of our experiences. This paper begins with a clarification of ‘acquaintance’ and an explanation of ‘experience’ that focuses attention on a famous, but flawed, argument by G. E. Moore. It goes on to critically examine several recent arguments concerning experiential acquaintance and to show how internalist foundationalism can respond to a famous Sellarsian dilemma without appeal to a relation of (...) acquaintance with our experiences. It concludes that we can dispense with experiential acquaintance. (shrink)

Experiential acquaintance is an alleged relation between ourselves and our experiences that has sometimes been hypothesised as necessary for knowledge of our experiences. This paper begins with a clarification of ‘acquaintance’ and an explanation of ‘experience’ that focuses attention on a famous, but flawed, argument by G. E. Moore. It goes on to critically examine several recent arguments concerning experiential acquaintance and to show how internalist foundationalism can respond to a famous Sellarsian dilemma without appeal to a relation of acquaintance (...) with our experiences. It concludes that we can dispense with experiential acquaintance. (shrink)

The papal monarchy is the subject of Thomas Hobbes's Historical Narration concerning Heresy, much of Behemoth, and his long Latin poem, the Historia Ecclesiastica. Hobbes's was not the only account in his day of the papal monarchy as a history of iniquity, or even as “the ghost of the Roman Empire.” The papal creation of a parallel system of offices in the late Roman and Holy Roman Empires is of immense institutional importance. Hobbes's analysis of the second (...) papal strategy, the co‐optation of Roman Law as canon law, is complicated. Hobbes's account of both the institutional and philosophical consequences of the papal monarchy is surprisingly congruent with some of the most authoritative modern accounts. The fourteenth‐century hierocratic publicists belonged as much to the reception of Averroist Aristotelianism as their contemporary antagonists. None of the parties to the struggle between pope and emperor appears to have been immune to the Aristotelianism of the Arabic commentators. (shrink)

The year 2020 is facing one of the worst public health situations in decades. The world is experiencing a pandemic that has triggered significant challenges to healthcare systems in both high and low‐middle income countries (LMICs). Government policymakers and healthcare personnel are experiencing real‐life ethical dilemmas and are pressed to respond to these situations. Many possible treatments are being investigated, one of which is the use of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine. These drugs are approved for use by patients with systemic lupus (...) erythematosus (SLE), rheumatoid arthritis, and malaria. The demand for these products has increased, and the stocks are depleting for the patient population for whom the drugs are intended initially. Although both innovator and generic pharmaceutical manufacturers are making plans for increased production, there are challenges with global supply chains disruption and the retention of supplies for local markets. This may cause countries that rely on the importation of pharmaceuticals to be out of stock of supplies for an extended period. There are allegations of off‐label prescribing and hoarding. Pharmacists are the custodians and dispensers of medications and are faced with the task of assessing prescriptions and making decisions about the allocation of these products. This paper seeks to 1) highlight some of the ethical challenges of dispensing hydroxychloroquine by pharmacists during the COVID‐19 pandemic, 2) identify some of the responses to these issues from various regulatory authorities in the USA, and 3) recommend approaches to assist pharmacists in their decision‐making process, especially in LMICs. (shrink)

The year 2020 is facing one of the worst public health situations in decades. The world is experiencing a pandemic that has triggered significant challenges to healthcare systems in both high and low‐middle income countries (LMICs). Government policymakers and healthcare personnel are experiencing real‐life ethical dilemmas and are pressed to respond to these situations. Many possible treatments are being investigated, one of which is the use of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine. These drugs are approved for use by patients with systemic lupus (...) erythematosus (SLE), rheumatoid arthritis, and malaria. The demand for these products has increased, and the stocks are depleting for the patient population for whom the drugs are intended initially. Although both innovator and generic pharmaceutical manufacturers are making plans for increased production, there are challenges with global supply chains disruption and the retention of supplies for local markets. This may cause countries that rely on the importation of pharmaceuticals to be out of stock of supplies for an extended period. There are allegations of off‐label prescribing and hoarding. Pharmacists are the custodians and dispensers of medications and are faced with the task of assessing prescriptions and making decisions about the allocation of these products. This paper seeks to 1) highlight some of the ethical challenges of dispensing hydroxychloroquine by pharmacists during the COVID‐19 pandemic, 2) identify some of the responses to these issues from various regulatory authorities in the USA, and 3) recommend approaches to assist pharmacists in their decision‐making process, especially in LMICs. (shrink)

Joseph Blado critiqued my probabilistic arguments against Roman papal doctrines by deploying probability arguments, particularly Bayesian arguments, in favor of the papacy. He contends that there are good C-inductive arguments for papal doctrine that, taken together, add up to a good P-inductive argument. I argue that his inductive arguments fail, and moreover that there are three good C-inductive arguments against papal doctrine in the neighborhood of his failed arguments. I conclude by critiquing his retreat to what he (...) calls ‘skeptical papalism’ as a last ditch sort of move to defend papal doctrine. (shrink)

Inwagen, Peter van_Dispensing with Ontological Levels.

Recently, companions in guilt strategies have garnered significant philosophical attention as a response to arguments for moral error theory, the view that there are no moral facts and that our moral beliefs are thus systematically mistaken. According to Cuneo (The normative web: an argument for moral realism, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007), Das (Philos Q 66:152–160, 2016; Australas J Philos 95(1):58–69, 2017), Rowland (J Ethics Soc Philos 7(1):1–24, 2012; Philos Q 66:161–171, 2016) and others, epistemic facts would be just as (...) metaphysically problematic (or ‘guilty’) as moral facts. But since epistemic error theory is implausible, arguments for moral error theory prove too much and should be rejected. My aim is to argue that the success of this strategy is limited. In particular, the companions in guilt response fails against error-theoretic arguments motivated by concerns about explanatory dispensability, as recently developed by Joyce (The evolution of morality, MIT press, Bradford, 2005) and Olson (Moral error theory: history, critique, defence, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014: Ch. 7). To succeed, the response would require a prima facie plausible argument to the effect that epistemic facts are metaphysically dubious because they, too, are explanatorily dispensable. But, as I show, any such argument proves self-effacing: its premise commits us to believing in epistemic facts, while its conclusion forces us to deny their existence. Consequently, companions in guilt strategies don’t offer a panacea against arguments for moral error theory. (shrink)

One of the most influential arguments for realism about mathematical objects is the indispensability argument. Simply put, this is the argument that insofar as we are committed to the existence of the physical objects existentially quantified over in our best scientific theories, we are also committed to the mathematical objects existentially quantified over in these theories. Following the Quine–Putnam formulation of the indispensability argument, some proponents of the indispensability argument have made the mistake of taking confirmational holism to be an (...) essential premise of the argument. In this paper, I consider the reasons philosophers have taken confirmational holism to be essential to the argument and argue that, contrary to the traditional view, confirmational holism is dispensable. (shrink)

Should the Church, precisely as church, maintain official diplomatic relationships with national states? Is world-wide papal representation essential to the harmonious relationship of pope and bishops?

Despite the alleged roles played by structures, substances, and facts in mathematical and metaphysical theorizing, in this paper I provide a strategy to dispense with them. It is argued that one need not be committed to the existence of these posits nor with the metaphysically inflationary interpretations that support them. An alternative, deflationary approach is then sketched.

The Catholic Monarchy is the short-lived dynastic union (1580-1640) between the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal. By returning on the legal, political and pragmatic foundations of this empire which cannot be called Empire (because this name belongs to the Holy Roman Empire of the cousins of Vienna), the article tries to seize better the internal functioning of this heterogeneous political set, by adopting two points of view: that of America (how the notion of Catholic Monarchy is understood in the reynos, (...) far from Madrid and Lisbon) and that of Rome (how Holy See reaches - or not - to exist in the heart of this space). It emerges from it that the pope and the Catholic King are natural allies (around the Roman Christianity) but not objectives (their purposes do not match), and that Rome and Mexico as well picture themselves not as margins of the Catholic Monarchy, but as real centers. (shrink)

This article critically examines the recent papal allocution on patients in a persistent vegetative state with regard to the appropriate conditions for considering “reformable statements.” In the first part of the article, the purpose and meaning of the allocution are assessed. O'Rourke concludes that given consideration of the individual patient's best interest, prolonging artificial nutrition and hydration is not, in every case, the best option. Although he stresses favorability for preservation of the life of the patient through artificial nutrition (...) and hydration, costs and benefits to the patient should be weighed. Ultimately, he argues in favor of leaving the decision to the patient, his caregivers, and others immediately involved in the case. (shrink)

Entre meados do século XI e meados do XVI circularam no Ocidente cristão vários relatos sobre uma suposta papisa Joana, cuja condição feminina foi revelada ao parir em plena procissão pelas ruas de Roma. História à primeira vista anti-eclesiástica, contudo aceita pela Igreja medieval. Por quê? A hipótese aqui defendida é de que o mito de Joana expressava a androginia simbólica dos papas, daí ter sido censurado só com o advento do Protestantismo e sua constestação à própria existência da instituição (...) papal. (shrink)

In recent years, a number of contemporary proponents of psychoanalysis have sought to derive support for their conjectures about the _dynamic_ unconscious from the empirical evidence in favor of the _cognitive_ unconscious. It is our contention, however, that far from supporting the dynamic unconscious, recent work in cognitive science suggests that the time has come to dispense with this concept altogether. In this paper we defend this claim in two ways. First, we argue that any attempt to shore up the (...) dynamic unconscious with the cognitive unconscious is bound to fail, simply because the latter, as it is understood in contemporary cognitive science, is incompatible with the former, as it is traditionally conceived by psychoanalytic theory. Second, we show how psychological phenomena traditionally cited as evidence for the operation of a dynamic unconscious can be accommodated more parsimoniously by other means. (shrink)

Philosophers sometimes give arguments that presuppose the following principle: two theories can fail to be empirically equivalent on the sole basis that they present different “thick” metaphysical pictures of the world. Recently, a version of this principle has been invoked to respond to the argument that composite objects are dispensable to our best scientific theories. This response claims that our empirical evidence distinguishes between ordinary and composite-free theories, and it empirically favors the ordinary ones. In this paper, I ask whether (...) this response to the dispensability argument is tenable. I claim that it is not. This is because it presupposes an indefensible thesis about when two empirical consequences are distinct or the same. My argument provides some insight into what our empirical consequences are, and I conclude that empirical evidence is radically metaphysically neutral. This gives us some insight into the significant content of our scientific theories—the content that a scientific realist is committed to—and I show how this insight relates to questions about theoretical equivalence more broadly. (shrink)

The ontology of (merely) intentional objects is a can of worms. If we can avoid ontological commitment to such entities, we should. In this paper, I offer a strategy for accomplishing that. This is to reject the traditional act-object account of intentionality in favor of an adverbial account. According to adverbialism about intentionality, having a dragon thought is not a matter of bearing the thinking-about relation to dragons, but of engaging in the activity of thinking dragon-wise.

The question of whether the term ”art,” or art as an array of objects, can be defined depends upon the sense of “art” and its extension. The generic sense of “art” is its broadest meaning having its widest extension. I argue that the term is very much like the generic term “science.” Uses of both terms don’t depend upon rigorous definition. Rather, the terms organize an enormous number of varied and sometimes incompatible sub-categories. Most informative topics in art and science (...) are under these sub-categories. As dynamic areas of activity, art and science continue to evolve without an efficacious generic sense. We can dispense with it for these purposes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.2 (2002) 155-157 [Access article in PDF] Dispensing With the Dynamic Conscious J. Melvin Woody FREUD'S THEORY OF UNCONSCIOUS mental processes depends upon an extremely narrow conception of consciousness. O'Brien and Jureidini rightly focus attention on the limitations of that conception and argue that it is time to dispense with the resultant conception of the unconscious. Of course, scientists often give narrower, technical meanings to (...) ordinary words like matter and space, but in the midst of all the recently revived psychological and philosophical debates about the nature and existence of consciousness, the persistence of Freud's way of distinguishing the two can only breed confusion. Attempts to shore up or defend the dynamic unconscious of psychoanalytic theory by appeal to discussions of unconscious rules and processes in cognitive psychology attests to the potential for confusion thus spawned. In an early issue of this journal, James Phillips and I charted the differences between the neurophysiologic, cognitive, and dynamic conceptions of the unconscious (1995). Like O'Brien and Jureidini, we concluded that the evidence of a cognitive unconscious does not support the postulation of a dynamic unconscious. O'Brien and Jureidini go further in arguing that the two are incompatible. Elsewhere, I have argued that the Freudian unconscious is a hermeneutic myth, the result of a misunderstanding of the nature of interpretation (2003). Because I am in substantial agreement with them and already on record with arguments convergent with theirs on both these fronts, I will focus here on the source of confusion in the dynamic conception of consciousness and on their illuminating exploration of its limitations.Toward the end of his 1915 essay, "The Unconscious," Freud explains that the difference between conscious and unconscious thought hinges on the role of language: What we could permissibly call the conscious idea of the object can now be split up into the idea of the word (verbal idea) and the idea of the thing (concrete idea)... It strikes us all at once that now we know what is the difference between a conscious and an unconscious idea. The two are not, as we supposed, different records of the same content situate in different parts of the mind, nor yet different functional states of cathexis in the same part; but the conscious idea comprises the concrete idea plus the verbal idea corresponding to it, whilst the unconscious idea is that of the thing alone.... Now too, we are in a position to state precisely what it is that repression denies to the rejected idea in the transference neuroses—namely, translation of the idea into words which are to remain attached to the object. The idea which is not put into words or the mental act which has not received hyper-cathexis then remains in the unconscious in a state of repression. (pp. 201-202) This restriction of consciousness to verbal thought processes is not simply an innocent stipulative definition. It has perniciously misleading implications. For one thing, as Antonio Damasio points out in The Feeling of What Happens, it means that all other animals are unconscious for want of any language. Damasio recalls that when he asked what produces consciousness while he was a medical student, [End Page 155] Curiously, I always got the same answer; language did it. I was told that creatures without language were limited to their uncognizant existence but not we fortunate humans because language made us know... The answer sounded too easy, far too simple for something which I then imagined unconquerably complex, and also quite implausible, given what I saw when I went to the zoo. (Damasio 1999, 107) As Damasio notes, the trouble with explaining consciousness as a function of language is not just that it denies awareness of experience to all other animals, thus perpetuating the Cartesian view of animals as automatons, but that for all its complexities, language is far too simple to encompass the full complex range of conscious experience. O'Brien and Jureidini do well to highlight how much of our conscious experience never finds linguistic expression, indeed, how much experience seems to... (shrink)

Developing World Bioethics, Volume 21, Issue 4, Page 193-200, December 2021.

(There are occasional changes to the text. "F" refers to A. Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici, Leipzig, 1879. "S" refers to Seraphicae legislationis textus originales iussu Rmi Patris Ministri Generalis totius Ordinis Fratrum Minorum in lucem editi (Ad Claras Aquas, 1897).).

Citing grounds of conscience, pharmacists are increasingly refusing to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception, or the "morning-after pill." Whether correctly or not, these pharmacists believe that emergency contraception either constitutes the destruction of post-conception human life, or poses a significant risk of such destruction. We argue that the liberty of conscientious refusal grounds a strong moral claim, one that cannot be defeated solely by consideration of the interests of those seeking medication. We examine, and find lacking, five arguments for requiring (...) pharmacists to fill prescriptions. However, we argue that in their professional context, pharmacists benefit from liberty restrictions on those seeking medication. What would otherwise amount to very strong claims can be defeated if they rest on some prior restriction of the liberty of others. We conclude that the issue of what policy should require pharmacists to do must be settled by way of a theory of second best. Asking "What is second best?" rather than "What is best?" offers a way to navigate the liberty restrictions that may be fixed obstacles to optimality. (shrink)

It is notable how some papal social encyclicals have interchangeably used the terms ' common good ' and 'human rights.' This article analyzes the papal common good teaching and its contemporary shift to include human rights. I also explore the differential nuances between the common good and the human rights. Human rights as advocated by civil societies are understood as arising from a conception of the nature of the human person. The common good has been expressed in practical (...) ways through human rights, especially the right to work and receive a just wage. The papal social encyclicals are viewed here as relevant to our contemporary world where extreme capitalism and unrestrained consumerism have led to the accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of a few people. (shrink)

Kai Wehmeier’s Wittgensteinian Predicate Logic is a formulation of first-order logic under the exclusive interpretation of the quantifiers. W-logic has a distinguished relation constant for co-reference but no sign for objectual identity. Wehmeier denies that objectual identity exists on the grounds that it cannot be a genuine binary relation. Fortunately W-logic is equi-expressive with standard first-order logic with identity and it appears that objectual identity is dispensable across the broader logical enterprise. This paper challenges the latter claim as objectual identity (...) seems to be needed in the exclusive interpretation of quantified modal logic, specifically, for implementing certain kinds of de re quantification. (shrink)