Anne Conway’s Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy, first published in 1690, is probably the most ambitious contribution to early modern metaphysics by a woman writing in the English language. This beautifully prepared edition makes Conway’s treatise available to twentieth-century readers in an accessible English translation of the 1690 Latin text—itself a translation of an original English manuscript that has long been lost.

Who gets to decide what it means to live a healthy lifestyle, and how important a healthy lifestyle is to a good life? As more governments make preventing obesity and diet-related illness a priority, it's become more important to consider the ethics and acceptability of their efforts. When it comes to laws and policies that promote healthy eating--such as special taxes on sugary drinks and the banning of food deemed unhealthy--critics argue that these policies are paternalistic, and that they limit (...) individual autonomy over food choices. In Healthy Eating Policy and Political Philosophy: A Public Reason Approach, Anne Barnhill and Matteo Bonotti show that both paternalistic justifications for healthy eating efforts and anti-paternalistic arguments against them can be grounded in perfectionist views that overly prioritize some values over others. The authors therefore propose a more inclusive, public reason approach to healthy eating policy that will be appealing to those who take pluralism and cultural diversity seriously, by providing a framework through which different kinds of values, including but not limited to autonomy and health, can be factored into the public justification for healthy eating efforts. Additionally, the book adopts a 'farm to fork' approach to the ethics of healthy eating efforts: it engages with theories and debates in political philosophy, considers the implications of different theoretical positions for healthy eating efforts, and then develops a concrete tool for assessing policies that will be of interest to both scholars and policymakers. As well as offering a novel normative analysis of healthy eating policy, the authors offer a new theoretical framework that will be applicable to a wide range of public policy scenarios. (shrink)

Anne Margaret Baxley offers a systematic interpretation of Kant's theory of virtue, whose most distinctive features have not been properly understood. She explores the rich moral psychology in Kant's later and less widely read works on ethics, and argues that the key to understanding his account of virtue is the concept of autocracy, a form of moral self-government in which reason rules over sensibility. Although certain aspects of Kant's theory bear comparison to more familiar Aristotelian claims about virtue, Baxley (...) contends that its most important aspects combine to produce something different - a distinctively modern, egalitarian conception of virtue which is an important and overlooked alternative to the more traditional Greek views which have dominated contemporary virtue ethics. (shrink)

Moral duties concerning climate change mitigation are – for good reasons – conventionally construed as duties of institutional agents, usually states. Yet, in both scholarly debate and political discourse, it has occasionally been argued that the moral duties lie not only with states and institutional agents, but also with individual citizens. This argument has been made with regard to mitigation efforts, especially those reducing greenhouse gases. This paper focuses on the question of whether individuals in industrialized countries have duties to (...) reduce their individual carbon footprint. To this end it will examine three kinds of arguments that have been brought forward against individuals having such duties: the view that individual emissions cause no harm; the view that individual mitigation efforts would have no morally significant effect; and the view that lifestyle changes would be overly-demanding. The paper shows how all three arguments fail to convince. While collective endeavours may be most efficient and effective in bringing about significant changes, there are still good reasons to contribute individually to reducing emission. After all, for most people the choice is between reducing one’s individual emissions and not doing anything. The author hopes this paper shows that one should not opt for the latter. (shrink)

Human persons exist longer than a single moment in time; they persist through time. However, so far it has not been possible to make this natural and widespread assumption metaphysically comprehensible. The philosophical debate on personal identity is rather stuck in a dilemma: reductionist theories explain personal identity away, while non-reductionist theories fail to give any informative account at all. This chapter argues that this dilemma emerges from an underlying commitment, shared by both sides of in the debate, to an (...) ontology which that gives the priority to static unchanging things. The claim defended here is that the dilemma of personal identity can be overcome if we acknowledge the biological nature of human persons and switch to a process- ontological framework that takes process and change to be ontologically primary. Human persons are biological higher-order processes, rather than things, and their identity conditions can be scientifically investigated. (shrink)

Democracy is the central political issue of our age, yet debates over its nature and goals rarely engage with feminist concerns. Now that women have the right to vote, they are thought to present no special problems of their own. But despite the seemingly gender-neutral categories of individual or citizen, democratic theory and practice continues to privilege the male. This book reconsiders dominant strands in democratic thinking - focusing on liberal democracy, participatory democracy, and twentieth century versions of civic republicanism (...) - and approaches these from a feminist perspective. Anne Phillips explores the under-representation of women in politics, the crucial relationship between public and private spheres, and the lessons of the contemporary women's movement as an experience in participatory democracy. (shrink)

A new emphasis on diversity and difference is displacing older myths of nation or community. A new attention to gender, race, language or religion is disrupting earlier preoccupations with class. But the welcome extended to heterogeneity can bring with it a disturbing fragmentation and closure. Can we develop a vision of democracy through difference: a politics that neither denies group identities nor capitulates to them? In this volume, Anne Phillips develops the feminist challenge to exclusionary versions of democracy, citizenship (...) and equality. Relating this to the crisis in socialist theory, the growing unease with the pretensions of Enlightenment rationality, and the recent recuperation of liberal democracy as the only viable politics, she builds on debates within feminism to address general questions of difference. When democracies try to wish away group difference and inequality, they fail to meet their egalitarian promise. When yearnings towards an undifferentiated unity become the basis for radical politics and change, too many groups drop out of the picture. Through her critical discussions of recent feminist and socialist theory Anne Phillips rejects this democracy of denial. She also warns, however, of the dangers on the other side. The simpler celebrations of diversity risk freezing group differences as they are, encouraging a patchwork of local identities from which people can speak only to themselves. Her arguments then combine in a powerful restatement of the case for a more active and participatory democracy. It is only through enhanced communication and discussion that people can respect and learn from their differences. (shrink)

Laura Specker Sullivan (2022) makes a fairly compelling case for the value of the perspectives of Buddhist practitioners in neuroethics. In this study, Tibetan Buddhist monks have been asked, among other things, whether consciousness, in brain-injured patients in a minimally conscious state, entails a duty to preserve life. In our view, some of the participants’ responses could be used to inform the bioethical debate on death determination.

In _The Excessive Subject: A New Theory of Social Change_, Molly Anne Rothenberg uncovers an innovative theory of social change implicit in the writings of radical social theorists, such as Pierre Bourdieu, Michel de Certeau, Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau, and Slavoj?i?ek. Through case studies of these writers' work, Rothenberg illuminates how this new theory calls into question currently accepted views of social practices, subject formation, democratic interaction, hegemony, political solidarity, revolutionary acts, and the ethics of alterity. Finding a common (...) dissatisfaction with the dominant paradigms of social structures in the authors she discusses, Rothenberg goes on to show that each of these thinkers makes use of Lacan's investigations of the causality of subjectivity in an effort to find an alternative paradigm. Labeling this paradigm 'extimate causality', Rothenberg demonstrates how it produces a nondeterminacy, so that every subject bears some excess; paradoxically, this excess is what structures the social field itself. Whilst other theories of social change, subject formation, and political alliance invariably conceive of the elimination of this excess as necessary to their projects, the theory of extimate causality makes clear that it is ineradicable. To imagine otherwise is to be held hostage to a politics of fantasy. As she examines the importance as well as the limitations of theories that put extimate causality to work, Rothenberg reveals how the excess of the subject promises a new theory of social change. By bringing these prominent thinkers together for the first time in one volume, this landmark text will be sure to ignite debate among scholars in the field, as well as being an indispensable tool for students. (shrink)

It is commonly accepted – not only in the philosophical literature but also in daily life – that ignorance is a failure of some sort. As a result, a desideratum of any ontological account of ignorance is that it must be able to explain why there is something wrong with being ignorant of a true proposition. This article shows two things. First, two influential accounts of ignorance – the Knowledge Account and the True Belief Account – do not satisfy this (...) requirement. They fail to provide a satisfying normative account of the badness of ignorance. Second, this article suggests an alternative explanation of what makes ignorance a bad cognitive state. In a nutshell, ignorance is bad because it is the manifestation of a vice, namely, of what Cassam calls “epistemic insouciance”. (shrink)

We are occasionally responsible for our beliefs. But is this doxastic responsibility analogous to any non-attitudinal form of responsibility? What I shall call the consequential conception of doxastic responsibility holds that the kind of responsibility that we have for our beliefs is indeed analogous to the kind of responsibility that we have for the consequences of our actions. This article does two things, both with the aim of defending this somewhat unsophisticated but intuitive view of doxastic responsibility. First, it emphasizes (...) the advantage of preserving, as the consequential conception does, the analogy with the non-attitudinal realm, i.e., with the realm of actions and their consequences. Second, this article regiments the most important objections to the consequential conception and answers them. The upshot is that there are no serious drawbacks to the consequential conception. There is, therefore, no reason not to favour it over accounts of doxastic responsibility that do not preserve the analogy with the non-attitudinal realm. (shrink)

This paper aims to motivate a new beginning in metaphysical thinking about persistence by drawing attention to the disappearance of change in current accounts of persistence. I defend the claim that the debate is stuck in a dilemma which results from neglecting the constructive role of change for persistence. Neither of the two main competing views, perdurantism and endurantism, captures the idea of persistence as an identity through time. I identify the fundamental ontological reasons for this, namely the shared commitment (...) to what I call ‘thing ontology’: an ontology that gives the ontological priority to static things. I conclude by briefly indicating how switching to a process ontological framework that takes process and change to be ontologically primary may allow for overcoming the dilemma of persistence. (shrink)

In recent years, an increasing number of theoretical biologists and philosophers of biology have been opposing reductionist research agendas by appealing to the concept of biological autonomy which draws on the older concept of autopoiesis. In my paper, I investigate some of the ontological implications of this approach. The emphasis on autonomy and autopoiesis, together with the associated idea of organisational closure, might evoke the impression that organisms are to be categorised ontologically as substances: ontologically independent, well-individuated, discrete particulars. However, (...) I argue that this is mistaken. Autopoiesis and biological autonomy, properly understood, require a rigorous commitment to a process ontological view of life. (shrink)

In recent years, an increasing number of theoretical biologists and philosophers of biology have been opposing reductionist research agendas by appealing to the concept of biological autonomy which draws on the older concept of autopoiesis. In my paper, I investigate some of the ontological implications of this approach. The emphasis on autonomy and autopoiesis, together with the associated idea of organisational closure, might evoke the impression that organisms are to be categorised ontologically as substances: ontologically independent, well-individuated, discrete particulars. However, (...) I argue that this is mistaken. Autopoiesis and biological autonomy, properly understood, require a rigorous commitment to a process ontological view of life. (shrink)

We frequently praise or blame people for what they believe or fail to believe as a result of their having investigated some matter thoroughly, or, in the case of blame, for having failed to investigate it, or for carelessly or insufficiently investigating. for instance, physicists who, after years of toil, uncover some unknown fact about our universe are praised for what they come to know. sometimes, in contrast, we blame and may even despise our friends for being ignorant of certain (...) ecological facts as a result of their refusing to countenance the evidence. the purpose of this paper is to explore what underlies the legitimacy of this practice—the praise or blame of people for what they know or fail to know as a result of investigation or otherwise—namely, the ability to exercise control over one’s doxastic states, and, in particular, as i will argue, one’s ability to exercise indirect generic control over one’s doxastic states. (shrink)

This article criticizes recent suggestions that the current ELSI research field should accommodate a new direction towards a ‘post-ELSI’ agenda. Post-ELSI research seeks to avoid the modernist division of responsibility for technical and social issues said to characterize ELSI research. Collaboration and integration are consequently the key terms of post-ELSI strategies that are to distinguish it from ELSI strategies. We argue that this call for a new direction relies on an inadequate generalized analysis of ELSI research as modern that will (...) affect the construal of post-ELSI strategies. We are concerned that the call for post-ELSI shift will exclude imaginative proposals and intellectual freedom by narrowing down the scope and methodologies of ELSI and thereby missing opportunities to play a critical and constructive normative role. Instead of framing current trends in ELSI research as a radical and progressive shift from ELSI to post-ELSI, we suggest an alternative story of expansion and diversification described in terms of a drift from ELSA 1 to ELSA 2, pertaining to acronyms in use in Europe. ELSI research has never been modern. It has been experimenting from the very start on ways to mesh the works of humanist, social and natural scientist in order to bridge and build alignments of emerging scientific and societal goals and matters of concern. The development from ELSA 1 to ELSA 2 expands in our account the range of intellectual and methodological capacities of analysis and engagement of complex and dynamic science-society relationships. We present three areas of ELSA expertise to illustrate that the expertise within the field builds on scholarly achievements within the humanities, social sciences as well as the natural sciences. The plurality of disciplinary background of ELSA researchers represents a valuable diversity that enables mutual criticism and formulations of complementary approaches that together constitute a viable ELSA field. (shrink)

Stephen Mumford has argued that dispositionalists ought to be endurantists because perdurantism, by breaking down persisting objects in sequences of static discrete existents, is at odds with a powers metaphysics. This has been contested by Neil Williams who offers his own version of ‘powerful’ perdurance where powers function as links between the temporal parts of persisting objects. Weighing up the arguments given by both sides, I show that the profile of ‘powerful’ persistence crucially depends on how one conceptualises the processes (...) involved in the manifestation of powers. As this turns out not to be determined per se by subscribing to some view labelled ‘powers view’, further discussion is needed as to what processes are and to what kind of process theory a powers metaphysics should commit itself in order to be convincing. I defend the claim that dispositionalism is best combined with a version of process ontology that is indeed incompatible with a perdurantist analysis of persistence. However, I argue that this does not imply that dispositionalists ought to be endurantists. (shrink)

In the course of our daily lives we make lots of evaluations of actions. We think that driving above the speed limit is dangerous, that giving up one’s bus seat to the elderly is polite, that stirring eggs with a plastic spoon is neither good nor bad. We understand too that we may be praised or blamed for actions performed on the basis of these evaluations. The same is true in the case of certain beliefs. Sometimes we blame people for (...) what they believe falsely or irrationally. On occasion, we praise them for their intellectual discoveries. The goal of the present study is to describe the foundations which allow for these kinds of judgments. If you think that people are not always forgivable for what they believe, you will find in this book the resources to defend this thought. (shrink)

In the last decade alone, a growing body of preliminary evidence suggests that classic psychedelics (CPs) can rapidly and durably ameliorate symptoms and cognitive deficits associated with depression. However, the mechanisms by which CPs work in the brain are not well understood. Rodent translational research, in which experimental findings from rodents are translated to humans, is fundamental in achieving this goal. This chapter focuses on a representative subset of human and rodent studies investigating CPs for depression, including the various lines (...) of research that have been initiated to understand how they work. Our aim is to show that in addition to epistemic challenges that scientists face in translating findings from rodents to humans, there is also mismatch between experimental approaches used to investigate CPs in humans and rodents. We thus show current experimental practices are not conducive to mechanistic discovery. We end with a set of positive proposals to expedite the drive to translate CPs into effective treatments for depression. -/- Keywords: classic psychedelics, psychiatry, clinical trials, collaboration, extrapolation, major depressive disorder, open science, philosophy of science, rodent models, scientific practice, translation, validity . (shrink)

Many philosophers have defended the view that we are subject to the following evidential ought: “One ought to believe in accordance with one's evidence.” Although they agree on this, a more fundamental question keeps dividing them: from where does the evidential ought derive its normative force? The instrinsicalist answer to this question is sometimes described as the claim that "there is a brute epistemic value in believing in accordance with one's evidence" (Cowie, 2014, 4005). But what does this really mean? (...) Intrinsicalists' negative claim is that the normative source of the evidential ought has nothing to do with the fulfilment of our epistemic purposes. But what is their positive claim exactly? This paper aims at improving our understanding of intrinsicalism. Its conclusion is that there is only one possible way of being an intrinsicalist. Intrinsicalists need to be constitutivists. (shrink)

Many philosophers accept the idea that there are duties to promote or create just institutions. But are the addressees of such duties supposed to be individuals – the members of the citizenry? What does it mean for an individual to promote or create just institutions? According to the ‘Simple View’, the citizenry has a collective duty to create or promote just institutions, and each individual citizen has an individual duty to do their part in this collective project. The simple view (...) appears to work well with regard to – you guessed it – ‘simple’ scenarios but it is riddled with further questions and problems. In this chapter, we raise five problems for the Simple View: (a) We suggest that one cannot develop a view concerning the citizenry’s duty to promote just institutions in isolation from a conception of the ontological relationship between the state and its citizens; (b) We argue that it is not obvious that the citizenry is the right entity to be attributed duties in the first place; (c) We show that a plausible account of collective duties to promote just institutions must not remain silent on the complexities and difficulties amorphous, unorganized group face in vis-à-vis collective action; (d) We contend that without allocation principles for contributory duties amongst the citizenry, or – alternatively – a method for practical deliberation that is action-guiding in collective action contexts, the claim that the citizens have a collective duty to promote just institutions remains moot; and, finally, (e) We demonstrate that the problem of reasonable disagreement is a serious threat to a collective duty to promote or create just institutions – it potentially undermines such a duty altogether and allows for conflicting contributory duties amongst the citizenry. We hope that our discussion will ultimately help improve existing theories and conceptual frameworks with a view to better understanding citizens’ obligations to promote justice under non-ideal conditions. (shrink)

The general aim of this article is to consider whether various affective phenomena – feelings like the feeling of knowing, of familiarity, of certainty, etc., but also phenomena like curiosity, interest, surprise and trust – which have been labelled “epistemic emotions” in fact constitute a unified kind, i.e., the kind of the so-called “epistemic emotions”. Obviously, for an affective phenomenon to belong to the kind of the epistemic emotions, it has to meet two conditions: it has to qualify, first, as (...) an emotion, and, second, as an epistemic one. The paper is structured accordingly. The first part is devoted to the question whether the aforementioned affective phenomena really are emotions, while the second part bears on their hypothetical common epistemicity. (shrink)

Sea-level rise (SLR) is a threat to coastal areas and there is growing interest in how social values, risk perception and fairness can inform adaptation. This study applies these three concepts to an urban community at risk of SLR in Botany Bay, Australia. The study engaged diverse groups of residents via an online survey. Cluster analysis identified four interpretive communities: two groups value work-life balance, are concerned about SLR and would likely engage in collective adaptation. The third group value everything (...) about Botany Bay and are active in organisations that could prove to be an important outreach. The fourth group were older men, disengaged from both SLR and policy but could respond to individual consultation and targeted communication. Thus, multifarious approaches can engage diverse communities in fair decision-making and transform community-facilitated adaptation. (shrink)

In asking what it means to be an empiricist, the present volume does not seek to provide a definitive or authoritative introduction to the foundation and establishment of empiricism. Instead, our objectives are to deconstruct some misleading preconceptions and to propose some new perspectives on this much used but still somehow ambiguous concept. It marks the beginning of a new reflection rather than a conclusion.Throughout this volume, we aim to present empiricism as the result of two parallel dialogues. First, it (...) was born out of an exchange between several distinct observational and experimental traditions in Europe. We therefore advocate speaking in the plural about empirical methods, underlining the distinctions between local uses and grand, national standards, while also highlighting the complex discussion around the values and norms of empiricism.Secondly, it emerged as part of a dialog between several positions within the theory of knowledge which for too long have been reduced to a simple dualism. The most important lesson to be learned from the eighteenth century is that there wasn’t such a thing as a war between rationalism and empiricism, but rather a constant attempt to accommodate both. This forces us to conceive of a more complex and fruitful relationship, but also a much more interesting one. (shrink)

In several papers (2013, 2014, 2015) Conor McHugh defends the influential view that doxastic responsibility, viz. our responsibility for our beliefs, is grounded in a specific form of reasons-responsiveness. The main purpose of this paper is to show that a subject’s belief can be responsive to reasons in this specific way without the subject being responsible for her belief. While this specific form of reasons-responsiveness might be necessary, it is not sufficient for doxastic responsibility.

As for Avicenna the human soul is a complete substance which does not inhere in the body nor is imprinted in it, asserting its survival after the death of the body seems easy. Yet, he needs the body to explain its individuation. The paper analyzes Avicenna's arguments in the De anima sections, V, 3 & 4, of the Shifā ' in order to explore the exact causal relation there is between the human soul and its body and confronts these arguments (...) with relevant passages in the Metaphysics. It argues that the causal relation between body and soul remains obscure and that, though Avicenna claims that there is a personal immortality and that the disembodied soul remains individuated, he does not provide a satisfactory ontological account for it. (shrink)

What are persons and how do they exist? The predominant answer to this question in Western metaphysics is that persons, human and others, are, and exist as, substances, i.e., ontologically independent, well-demarcated things defined by an immutable (usually mental) essence. Change, on this view, is not essential for a person's identity; it is in fact more likely to be detrimental to it. In this chapter I want to suggest an alternative view of human persons which is motivated by an appreciation (...) of their biological nature. Organisms, human and non-human, are dynamical systems that for their existence and persistence depend on an ongoing interaction with the environment in which they are embedded. Taking seriously this most fundamental human condition leads to recognising human persons as processes, i.e., as entities for the identity of which change is essential. It also implies a holistic view of the human mind. (shrink)

Andrée-Anne Cormier and Harry Brighouse explore the question of whether there are good reasons for schools to try and produce citizens disposed to use, and practiced in, civil discourse and behavior, and if so, what this implies for schools. First, the authors propose an account of the value (and disvalue) of civility, drawing on Cheshire Calhoun’s conception. They argue that civility is good in many circumstances, but not always. In some circumstances, it is neither beneficial nor morally required. Second, (...) they elucidate the reasons for teaching civility in schools and what they think that doing so would involve, what demands it would make on teachers, and how the aim of promoting civility would shape the structure of schools. Finally, they identify some reasons for pessimism that schools can be very successful in promoting civility. They do not think that these are conclusive reasons against teaching civility in schools, but they suggest that civility can only be taught well if educators are clear-eyed about the hurdles they will have to overcome. (shrink)

Nous nous proposons dans cet article de questionner la possibilité d’une action avec et grâce à la philosophie, dans le cadre plus spécifique des écoles d’ingénieurs. Si la philosophie est communément perçue comme détachée du monde, elle peut pourtant servir des métiers comme ceux de l’ingénierie. C’est cette idée que met en avant l’UTC (Université de Technologie de Compiègne) en proposant un parcours hybride et original, appelé HuTech, où les futurs ingénieurs suivent une formation exigeante en sciences humaines et notamment (...) en philosophie. Nous nous appuyons dans cet article sur des entretiens avec des personnes de différents milieux, dont certaines issues de ce parcours. Que leur apporte véritablement cette formation? En font-elles usage une fois qu’elles sont entrées dans le « monde du travail »? L’ambition d’enseigner la philosophie, en voulant la mêler à d’autres domaines habituellement considérés comme plus concrets et plus pratiques, est-elle un vœu pieux ou une nouvelle façon d’envisager le rôle de la philosophie dans le monde contemporain? (shrink)

Local opposition to infrastructure projects implementing renewable energy (RE) such as wind farms is often strong even if state-wide support for RE is strikingly high. The slogan “Not In My BackYard” (NIMBY) has become synonymous for this kind of protest. This paper revisits the question of what is wrong with NIMBYs about RE projects and how to best address them. I will argue that local opponents to wind farm (and other RE) developments do not necessarily fail to contribute their fair (...) share to producing a desirable public good (clean energy). In fact, with landscape concerns being at the heart of much protest, the question of fair burden distribution becomes sidelined: landscape impacts cannot be distributed nor compensated for. Protests may be attempts to express a true conflict of (incommensurable) values. Understanding them as such will help us better address NIMBY concerns and overcome such opposition through ensuring procedural justice. (shrink)

Un spectre hante l'Université française : celui de la déconstruction. Créé par Jacques Derrida à la fin des années 1960, ce concept est devenu, dans l'esprit des réactionnaires de tout poil, le mot-valise désignant tout ce qu'ils haïssent dans la pensée, lorsque celle-ci cherche à émanciper davantage qu'à ordonner. Dégénérescence de la culture, mépris pour les grandes œuvres, délire interprétatif, amphigouri linguistique, danger politique, confusion sexuelle, licence morale : à en croire les ennemis de la déconstruction, tout ce qui va' (...) mal dans le monde lui est imputable. Que signifie la fixation frénétique d'une frange d'intellectuels sur tout ce qui peut ressembler à une pensée différente, inventive et fondamentalement démocratique? Que cela signifie-t-il, si ce n'est la volonté de policer la pensée et ses institutions, pour mieux, ensuite, policer les corps? Telle est l'interrogation qui a présidé au colloque "Qui a peur de la déconstruction?", qui s'est tenu à l'École normale supérieure et à la Sorbonne en janvier 2023. En voici les actes."--Cover page 4. (shrink)

Every language has a way of talking about seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. This can be done through lexical means, and through grammatical evidentials. The studies presented here focus on the experssions of perception and cognition in languages of Africa, Oceania, and South America.

In robotics research with language-based interaction, simplifications are made, such that a given event can be described in a unique manner, where there is a direct mapping between event representations and sentences that can describe these events. However, common experience tells us that the same physical event can be described in multiple ways, depending on the perspective of the speaker. The current research develops methods for representing events from multiple perspectives, and for choosing the perspective that will be used for (...) generating a linguistic construal, based on attentional processes in the system. The multiple perspectives are based on the principle that events can be considered in terms of the force driving the event, and the result obtained from the event, based on the theory of Gärdenfors. In addition, within these perspectives a further refinement can be made with respect to the agent, object, and recipient perspectives. We develop a system for generating appropriate construals of meaning, and demonstrate how this can be used in a realistic dialogic interaction between a behaving robot and a human interlocutor. (shrink)

Drosophila males sing a courtship song to achieve copulations with females. Females were recently found to sing a distinct song during copulation, which depends on male seminal fluid transfer and delays female remating. Here, it is hypothesized that female copulation song is a signal directed at the copulating male and changes ejaculate allocation. This may alter female remating and sperm usage, and thereby affect postcopulatory mate choice. Mechanisms of how female copulation song is elicited, how males respond to copulation song, (...) and how remating is modulated, are considered. The potential adaptive value of female signaling during copulation is discussed with reference to vertebrate copulation calls and their proposed function in eliciting mate guarding. Female copulation song may be widespread within the Drosophila genus. This newly discovered behavior opens many interesting avenues for future research, including investigation of how sexually dimorphic neuronal circuits mediate communication between nervous system and reproductive organs. (shrink)

Background:Research suggests that nurses generally do not participate in ethical decision-making in accordance with ethical guidelines for nurses. In addition to completing their training, nurses need to reflect on and use ethically grounded arguments and defined ethical values such as patient’s dignity in their clinical work.Objectives:The purpose of this article is to gain a deeper understanding of how nurses deal with ethical decision-making in daily practice. The chosen research question is “How do nurses participate in ethical decision-making for the patient?”Design (...) and method:We use Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics as well as Kvale and Brinkmann’s three levels of understanding in interpreting the data material. Nine registered nurses were interviewed.Ethical considerations:The Ombudsman of Norwegian Social Science Data and the head of the hospital approved the investigation. The participants received both oral and written information about the study and they gave their consent. We informed the participants that the participation was voluntary and that they were free to withdraw at any point in the course of the study. The requirement of anonymity and proper data storage was in accordance with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. The participants were assured that privacy, and confidentiality would be duly protected.Results:Four key themes emerged: confusion in relation to professional and operational expectations of role, ideal somnolence, inadequate argumentation skills, and compound pressure.Conclusion:Ethical ideals appear to be latent in the mindset of the participants; however, the main finding of this investigation is that nurses need to activate the ideals and apply them into practice. Furthermore, management needs to initiate professional reasoning and interdisciplinary discussions leading to common goals for patients. (shrink)

While we do not share Evans’s view that social science research is needed to shield bioethics from competitive threat, we incorporate and engage in social science research to inform our knowledge base, our clinical practice, and our contributions to the ongoing development of the field.

In 1720, Willem Jacob ’s Gravesande wrote Physicis elementa mathematica, experimentis confirmata. Sive introductio ad philosophiam Newtonianam. Although he was undoubtedly one of the most important popularizers of Newtonian physics, experimental methodology and epistemology in the 1720s, his empirical claim somehow backfired: in applying tenets of Newtonian methodology, he was ultimately led to validate the Leibnizian principle of the conservation of living forces, contrary to the Newtonians. This conclusion invited a great deal of anger, particularly from Samuel Clarke who, in (...) a volume of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society from 1729, accused ’s Gravesande of having written the book with the aim of “darkening Newton’s philosophy”. In a reply, which ’s Gravesande published as a supplement to his Essay upon a New Theory of the Collision of Bodies, he developed a hybrid methodology that relied upon both experimentation and reason. In my paper, I shall thoroughly analyse this interesting combination. (shrink)

Thoughtprints Anne E. Berger andMarta Segarra I admit to it in the name of autobiography and in order to confide in you the following: [...] I have a particularly animalist perception and interpretation of what I do, think, write, live, ...

Within the philosophy of biology, recently promising steps have been made towards a biologically grounded concept of agency. Agency is described as bio-agency: the intrinsically normative adaptive behaviour of human and non-human organisms, arising from their biological autonomy. My paper assesses the bio-agency approach by examining criticism recently directed by its proponents against the project of embodied robotics. Defenders of the bio-agency approach have claimed that embodied robots do not, and for fundamental reasons cannot, qualify as artificial agents because they (...) do not fully realise biological autonomy. More particularly, it has been claimed that embodied robots fail to be agents because agency essentially requires metabolism. I shall argue that this criticism, while being valuable in bringing to the fore important differences between bio-agents and existing embodied robots, nevertheless is too strong. It relies on inferences from agency-as-we-know-it to agency-as-it-could-be which are justified neither empirically nor conceptually. (shrink)

Who is God? If we want to love God, to serve God, and to make God the center of our lives, we would do well to settle this question at least in some small way. Yes, we can never know everything about God, and yes, the Christian life is about coming to know God more and more. However, this book serves as a starting point for understanding what Christians mean when they say "God," and to whom they are referring when (...) they use this name. Part of the What Every Catholic Should Know series, God: What Every Catholic Should Know is born out of the recognition that God is central to the Faith, but we encounter misconceptions about God all the time. In an effort to clear up these misconceptions, this book addresses three major concepts-the nature of God, the Trinity, and the Incarnation-so that we may strengthen our faith and our ability to communicate it to other people. Some of us might protest that we are not smart enough to do theology and that less is more when it comes to contemplating the divine. We might even think that too much theology detracts from simple faith. But if God is perfect, wonderful, all goodness, love itself-as the Bible tells us in 1 John 4:8-it would be strange indeed if we did not want to give our whole selves to God, including our minds. After all, the Lord himself tells us: "you shall love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength" (Mark 12:30). Book jacket. (shrink)