Aneuploidy, an aberrant number of chromosomes in a cell, is a feature of several syndromes associated with cognitive and developmental defects. In addition, aneuploidy is considered a hallmark of cancer cells and has been suggested to play a role in neurodegenerative disease. To better understand the relationship between aneuploidy and disease, various methods to measure the chromosome numbers in cells have been developed, each with their own advantages and limitations. While some methods rely on dividing cells and thus bias aneuploidy (...) rates to that population, other, more unbiased methods can only detect the average aneuploidy rates in a cell population, cloaking cell‐to‐cell heterogeneity. Furthermore, some techniques are more prone to technical artefacts, which can result in over‐ or underestimation of aneuploidy rates. In this review, we provide an overview of several “traditional” karyotyping methods as well as the latest high throughput next generation sequencing karyotyping protocols with their respective advantages and disadvantages. (shrink)

A broad range of evidence regarding the functional organization of the vertebrate brain – spanning from comparative neurology to experimental psychology and neurophysiology to clinical data – is reviewed for its bearing on conceptions of the neural organization of consciousness. A novel principle relating target selection, action selection, and motivation to one another, as a means to optimize integration for action in real time, is introduced. With its help, the principal macrosystems of the vertebrate brain can be seen to form (...) a centralized functional design in which an upper brain stem system organized for conscious function performs a penultimate step in action control. This upper brain stem system retained a key role throughout the evolutionary process by which an expanding forebrain – culminating in the cerebral cortex of mammals – came to serve as a medium for the elaboration of conscious contents. This highly conserved upper brainstem system, which extends from the roof of the midbrain to the basal diencephalon, integrates the massively parallel and distributed information capacity of the cerebral hemispheres into the limited-capacity, sequential mode of operation required for coherent behavior. It maintains special connective relations with cortical territories implicated in attentional and conscious functions, but is not rendered nonfunctional in the absence of cortical input. This helps explain the purposive, goal-directed behavior exhibited by mammals after experimental decortication, as well as the evidence that children born without a cortex are conscious. Taken together these circumstances suggest that brainstem mechanisms are integral to the constitution of the conscious state, and that an adequate account of neural mechanisms of conscious function cannot be confined to the thalamocortical complex alone. (Published Online May 1 2007) Key Words: action selection; anencephaly; central decision making; consciousness; control architectures; hydranencephaly; macrosystems; motivation; target selection; zona incerta. (shrink)

Between-subject variability in cognitive performance has been related to inter-individual differences in functional brain networks. Targeting the dorsal attention network we questioned whether resting-state functional connectivity within the DAN can predict individual performance in spatial attention tasks and whether there is short-term adaptation of DAN-FC in response to task engagement. Twenty-seven participants first underwent resting-state fMRI, they subsequently performed different tasks of spatial attention [including visual search ] and immediately afterwards received another rs-fMRI. Intra- and inter-hemispheric FC between core hubs (...) of the DAN, bilateral intraparietal sulcus and frontal eye field, was analyzed and compared between PRE and POST. Furthermore, we investigated rs-fMRI-behavior correlations between the DAN-FC in PRE/POST and task performance parameters. The absolute DAN-FC did not change from PRE to POST. However, different significant rs-fMRI-behavior correlations were revealed for intra-/inter-hemispheric connections in the PRE and POST run. The stronger the FC between left FEF and IPS before task engagement, the better was the learning effect in VS. And the faster the VS, the stronger was the FC between right FEF and IPS after task engagement. To conclude, DAN-FC relates to the individual performance in spatial attention tasks supporting the view of functional brain networks as priors for cognitive ability. Despite a high inter- and intra-individual stability of DAN-FC, the change of FC-behavior correlations after task performance possibly indicates task-related adaptation of the DAN, underlining that behavioral experiences may shape intrinsic brain activity. However, spontaneous state fluctuations of the DAN-FC over time cannot be fully ruled out as an alternative explanation. (shrink)

The book is about logical analysis of natural language. Since we humans communicate by means of natural language, we need a tool that helps us to understand in a precise manner how the logical and formal mechanisms of natural language work. Moreover, in the age of computers, we need to communicate both with and through computers as well. Transparent Intensional Logic is a tool that is helpful in making our communication and reasoning smooth and precise. It deals with all kinds (...) of linguistic context in a fully compositional and anti-contextual way. (shrink)

Giulio Tononi's integrated information theory (IIT) proposes explaining consciousness by directly identifying it with integrated information. We examine the construct validity of IIT's measure of consciousness,phi(Φ), by analyzing its formal properties, its relation to key aspects of consciousness, and its co-variation with relevant empirical circumstances. Our analysis shows that IIT's identification of consciousness with the causal efficacy with which differentiated networks accomplish global information transfer (which is what Φ in fact measures) is mistaken. This misidentification has the consequence of requiring (...) the attribution of consciousness to a range of natural systems and artifacts that include, but are not limited to, large-scale electrical power grids, gene-regulation networks, some electronic circuit boards, and social networks. Instead of treating this consequence of the theory as a disconfirmation, IIT embraces it. By regarding these systems as bearers of consciousnessex hypothesi, IIT is led toward the orbit of panpsychist ideation. This departure from science as we know it can be avoided by recognizing the functional misattribution at the heart of IIT's identity claim. We show, for example, what function is actually performed, at least in the human case, by the cortical combination of differentiation with integration that IIT identifies with consciousness. Finally, we examine what lessons may be drawn from IIT's failure to provide a credible account of consciousness for progress in the very active field of research concerned with exploring the phenomenon from formal and neural points of view. (shrink)

This article revisits the manuscript tradition and the different redactions of John Buridan’s commentaries on Aristotle’s Physics. The aim of the article is threefold. First, it makes some corrections to the lists of manuscripts containing the third redaction and the final redaction of Buridan’s questions commentary on the Physics. Second, it argues that manuscript Zaragoza, Biblioteca Capitular de la Seo, cod. 15-61, ff. 1r-62v, contains a previously unknown version of the final redaction (together with the standard version from f. 62v (...) onwards). Third, to facilitate further study of the manuscripts of Buridan’s questions on the Physics and their mutual relations, appendices at the end of the article provide detailed tables of contents for the third redaction and the final redaction, as well as editions of selected questions from the Zaragoza manuscript, the third redaction of Buridan’s questions on the Physics, and the so-called Quaestiones breves. (shrink)

Psychoanalytic work with children is popular, but the sophisticated language used in psychoanalytic discourse can be at odds with how children communicate, and how best to communicate with them. _Dialogues with Children and Adolescents: A Psychoanalytic Guide _shows how these aims can be achieved for the most effective clinical outcome with children from infancy up to late adolescence. _Björn Salomonsson_ and _Majlis Winberg Salomonsson_ draw on extensive case material which reveals the essence of communication between child and therapist. They enfranchise (...) the patient of all ages as an equal participant in the therapeutic relationship. Presented in letter form the cases contain no professional terms. Only the final chapter contains theoretical commentaries applicable to each case. These terms and theories help to explain a child’s behaviour, the analyst’s technique and the background to the disorder. This is new creative development in child therapy and analysis which is written in a very accessible style. _Dialogues with Children and Adolescents_ will be essential reading for beginners in psychoanalytic work with children and will cast a fresh light on such work for more experienced clinicians. It will also appeal to the non-professional lay reader. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Although the literature on multi-stakeholder initiatives for sustainability has grown in recent years, it is scattered across several academic fields, making it hard to ascertain how individual disciplines, such as business ethics, can further contribute to the debate. Based on an extensive review of the literature on certification and principle-based MSIs for sustainability, we show that the scholarly debate rests on three broad themes : theinputinto creating and governing MSIs; theinstitutionalizationof MSIs; and theimpactthat relevant initiatives create. While our discussion reveals (...) the theoretical underpinnings of the 3Is, it also shows that a number of research challenges related to business ethics remain unaddressed. We unpack these challenges and suggest how scholars can utilize theoretical insights in business ethics to push the boundaries of the field. Finally, we also discuss what business ethics research can gain from theory development in the MSI field. (shrink)

It is often said that the claims of man and citizen are irreconcilable in the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This view, most famously articulated by Judith Shklar, holds that the making of a man and the making of a citizen are to be understood as rival enterprises or competing alternatives. This reading has recently been challenged by Frederick Neuhouser. He argues that one can make a man and a citizen, but only if the education of each is performed in the (...) absence of the other. In his view, Emile is raised to be a man first before his subsequent instruction in citizenship. This paper challenges both views. I argue that the making of man and citizen are, in principle, neither rival enterprises nor competing alternatives, and that although Neuhouser is indeed correct to argue for a successive system of education, the making of a citizen is not completed in Emile, but extends into the Social Contract. His account diminishes the crucial role the Lawgiver plays in the fashioning of citizens capable of discerning the general will. I show that although raising individuals under a system of private instruction does not preclude their transformation into citizens but makes such a transformation possible, it is on its own incapable of making citizens. (shrink)

The issue of the biological origin of consciousness is linked to that of its function. One source of evidence in this regard is the contrast between the types of information that are and are not included within its compass. Consciousness presents us with a stable arena for our actions—the world—but excludes awareness of the multiple sensory and sensorimotor transformations through which the image of that world is extracted from the confounding influence of self-produced motion of multiple receptor arrays mounted on (...) multijointed and swivelling body parts. Likewise excluded are the complex orchestrations of thousands of muscle movements routinely involved in the pursuit of our goals. This suggests that consciousness arose as a solution to problems in the logistics of decision making in mobile animals with centralized brains, and has correspondingly ancient roots. (shrink)

Paying thorough attention to cynical action and integrity could result in a less naive approach to ethics and moral communication. This article discusses the issues of integrity and cynicism on a theoretical and on a more practical level. The first part confronts Habermas’s approach of communicative action with Sloterdijk’s concept of cynical reason. In the second part, the focus will be on the constraints and possibilities of moral communication within a business context. Discussing the corporate integrity approach of Kaptein and (...) Wempe will provide this focus. Their approach can be considered as a valuable contribution to the question of how to deal with (dilemmas of) conflicting interests, open discussion, fairness, and strategic decision-making in the context of stakeholder dialog. However, it is concluded that Kaptein and Wempe seem to overstretch the concept of corporate integrity by their inclination to make it an all-purpose remedy for corporate dilemmas. (shrink)

This is an examination of the significance of Gandhi's social philosophy for development. It is argued that, when seen in light of Gandhi's social philosophy, the concepts of appropriate technology and basic needs take on new meaning. The Gandhian approach can be identified with theoriginal "basic needs" strategy for international development. Gandhi's approach helps to provide greater equity, or "distributive justice," by promoting technology that is appropriate to "basic needs". Gandhi's social philosophy has been neglected by most development specialists, with (...) only a few exceptions. This analysis attempts to draw out some aspects of M.K. Gandhi's background and his thinking aboutswadeshi andswaraj. Gandhi's ideas, which emerged out of an "Indic" meta-cultural background, are based on an emphasis on equity. Gandhi's syncretic Indic background includes a belief in what Bateson, writing about Bali, Indonesia, has called the "steady state." Development activities should be carried out in a phased manner that does not disturb the beneficial aspects of dynamic equilibrium, but that does promote "positive development." A.T. is particularly useful within the context of a basic needs approach to international development because use of A.T. is probably more likely to lead to equitable growth. The "economic growth" strategy, utilizing "advanced technology" exclusively, has caused unemployment and has not led to effective "trickle down," much less "high mass consumption." In many developing countries the poorest 20% of the population are worse off in 1990 than they were in 1980. By making use of the "advantage of backwardness" and viewing development in terms of long-term impacts, a basic needs approach using A.T. is more likely to lead to a positive impact on third world food systems than a pure "economic growth" strategy. (shrink)

The assertion “he could have done otherwise” represents a notorious problem in the science of penal law and in moral philosophy. Some philosophers have assumed that this statement is to be analysed as “he would have done otherwise if he had so chosen” (analysis view), thus believing to have found an interpretation which is compatible with determinism. It has been argued, however, that these two statements are not equivalent. The following article attempts to show that this objection is not far-reaching (...) enough. At the same time the analysis view is considered to be of little help, as it presupposes the solution of the problems it claims to solve. (shrink)

By means of a close reading of a single prayer on the Passion of Christ from the 14th century ‘Engelberg Prayerbook,’ this article analyzes three characteristic effects of reading medieval written prayers: first, the devotee assumes the role of the I constructed by the text. Secondly, this leads to an effect of immersion into a literarily constructed, imagined environment. Finally, these effects of reading aim at being surpassed by an immediacy of a divine answer that transcends the aesthetic and semantic (...) effects of the literary medium. (shrink)

According to a common claim, a necessary condition for a collective action (as opposed to a mere set of intertwined or parallel actions) to take place is that the notion of collective action figures in the content of each participant’s attitudes. Insofar as this claim is part of a conceptual analysis, it gives rise to a circularity challenge that has been explicitly addressed by Michael Bratman and Christopher Kutz.1 I will briefly show how the problem arises within Bratman’s and Kutz’s (...) analyses, and then proceed to criticize some possible responses, including the ones proposed by Bratman and Kutz. My conclusion is that in order to avoid circularity and retain the features that are supposed to make this sort of account attractive, we need a notion of collectivity that does not presuppose intention. I suggest that we should make a distinction between collective and noncollective activity merely in terms of dispositions and causal agency. There are independent reasons to think that we actually possess such a distinct causal conception of collectivity. It is not necessary for the participants in a jointly intentional collective action to possess a stronger notion of their intended collective activity than this. In particular, they do not need to possess the concept of a jointly intentional collective action. (shrink)

Introducing and implementing corporate sustainability poses many challenges to business organizations. In this longitudinal, inductive study, we focus on how such challenges are handled in a Dutch bank that is developing its sustainability policies. We examine why there is such a high degree of tension and conflict within the organization and identify how the development of these policies is affected by the interplay between subcultures and institutional logics. We show how different subcultures affect the enactment of logics by infusing the (...) rational and mindful behavior coming from logics with (sub)cultural values, beliefs, and assumptions. In turn, conflicting logics amplify subcultural characteristics between groups by shaping different behavior and practices. Together, this leads to a magnification of subcultural differences while, at the same time, logics are increasingly being perceived as incompatible. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 7, July 2019, Page 30-32.

Social entrepreneurship increasingly involves collective, voluntary organizing efforts where success depends on generating and sustaining members’ participation. To investigate how such participatory social ventures achieve member engagement in pluralistic institutional settings, we conducted a qualitative, inductive study of German Renewable Energy Source Cooperatives. Our findings show how value tensions emerge from differences in RESCoop members’ relative prioritization of community, environmental, and commercial logics, and how cooperative leaders manage these tensions and sustain member participation through temporal, structural, and collaborative compromise strategies. (...) We unpack the mechanisms by which each strategy enables members to justify organizational decisions that violate their personal value priorities and demonstrate their varying implications for organizational growth. Our findings contribute new insights into the challenges of collective social entrepreneurship, the capacity of hybrid organizing strategies to mitigate value concessions, and the importance of logic combinability as a key dimension of pluralistic institutional settings. (shrink)

In this paper, we try to shed light on the ontological puzzle pertaining to models and to contribute to a better understanding of what models are. Our suggestion is that models should be regarded as a specific kind of signs according to the sign theory put forward by Charles S. Peirce, and, more precisely, as icons, i.e. as signs which are characterized by a similarity relation between sign (model) and object (original). We argue for this (1) by analyzing from a (...) semiotic point of view the representational relation which is characteristic of models. We then corroborate our hypothesis (2) by discussing the conceptual differences between icons, i.e. models, and indexical and symbolic signs and (3) by putting forward a general classification of all icons into three functional subclasses (images, diagrams, and metaphors). Subsequently, we (4) integratively refine our results by resorting to two influential and, as can be shown, complementary philosophy of science approaches to models. This yields the following result: models are determined by a semiotic structure in which a subject intentionally uses an object, i.e. the model, as a sign for another object, i.e. the original, in the context of a chosen theory or language in order to attain a specific end by instituting a representational relation in which the syntactic structure of the model, i.e. its attributes and relations, represents by way of a mapping the properties of the original, which hence are regarded as similar in a relevant manner. (shrink)

Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 14, Issue 2, Page 258-281, April 2022.

Savage et al. propose that music filled a hypothetical “bonding gap” in human sociality by Baldwinian gene-culture coevolution (or protracted cognitive niche construction). Both these stepping stones to an evolutionary account of the function and origin of music are problematic. They are scrutinized in this commentary, and an alternative is proposed.

"Forgetting" plays an important role in the lives of individuals and communities. Although a few Holocaust scholars have begun to take forgetting more seriously in relation to the task of remembering—in popular parlance as well as in academic discourse on the Holocaust—forgetting is usually perceived as a negative force. In the decades following 1945, the terms remembering and forgetting have often been used antithetically, with the communities of victims insisting on the duty to remember and a society of perpetrators desiring (...) to forget. Thus, the discourse on Holocaust memory has become entrenched on this issue. This essay counters the swift rejection of forgetting and its labeling as a reprehensible act. It calls attention to two issues: first, it offers a critical argument for different forms of forgetting; second, it concludes with suggestions of how deliberate performative practices of forgetting might benefit communities affected by a genocidal past. Is it possible to conceive of forgetting not as the ugly twin of remembering but as its necessary companion? (shrink)

Sometimes it seems intuitively plausible to hold loosely structured sets of individuals morally responsible for failing to act collectively. Virginia Held, Larry May, and Torbj rn T nnsj have all drawn this conclusion from thought experiments concerning small groups, although they apply the conclusion to large-scale omissions as well. On the other hand it is commonly assumed that (collective) agency is a necessary condition for (collective) responsibility. If that is true, then how can we hold sets of people responsible for (...) not having acted collectively? This paper argues that that loosely structured inactive groups sometimes meet this requirement if we employ a weak (but nonetheless non-reductionist) notion of collective agency. This notion can be defended on independent grounds. The resulting position on distribution of responsibility is more restrictive than Held's, May's or T nnsj 's, and this consequence seems intuitively attractive. (shrink)

Although popular, control accounts of privacy suffer from various counterexamples. In this article, it is argued that two such counterexamples—while individually resolvable—can be combined to yield a dilemma for control accounts of privacy. Furthermore, it is argued that it is implausible that control accounts of privacy can defend against this dilemma. Thus, it is concluded that we ought not define privacy in terms of control. Lastly, it is argued that since the concept of privacy is the object of the right (...) to privacy if the former cannot be defined in terms of control, neither can the latter. (shrink)

A popular strategy for meeting over-determination and pre-emption challenges to the comparative counterfactual conception of harm is Derek Parfit’s suggestion, more recently defended by Neil Feit, that a plurality of events harms A if and only if that plurality is the smallest plurality of events such that, if none of them had occurred, A would have been better off. This analysis of ‘harm’ rests on a simple but natural mistake about the relevant counterfactual comparison. Pluralities fulfilling these conditions make no (...) difference to the worse for anyone in the over-determination cases that prompted the need for revising the comparative conception of harm to begin with. We may choose to call them harmful anyway, but then we must abandon the idea that making a difference to the worse for someone is essential to harming. I argue that we should hold on to the difference-making criterion and give up the plural harm principle. I offer an explanation of why Parfit’s and Feit’s plural harm approach seems attractive. Finally, I argue that the consequences of giving up the plural harm principle and holding on to the simple comparative counterfactual analysis of harm are less radical than we may think, in relation to questions about wrongness and responsibility. (shrink)

In discussions of moral responsibility for collectively produced effects, it is not uncommon to assume that we have to abandon the view that causal involvement is a necessary condition for individual co-responsibility. In general, considerations of cases where there is “a mismatch between the wrong a group commits and the apparent causal contributions for which we can hold individuals responsible” motivate this move. According to Brian Lawson, “solving this problem requires an approach that deemphasizes the importance of causal contributions”. Christopher (...) Kutz’s theory of complicitious accountability in Complicity from 2000 is probably the most well-known approach of that kind. Standard examples are supposed to illustrate mismatches of three different kinds: an agent may be morally co-responsible for an event to a high degree even if her causal contribution to that event is a) very small, b) imperceptible, or c) non-existent (in overdetermination cases). From such examples, Kutz and others conclude that principles of complicitious accountability cannot include a condition of causal involvement. In the present paper, I defend the causal involvement condition for co-responsibility. These are my lines of argument: First, overdetermination cases can be accommodated within a theory of coresponsibility without giving up the causality condition. Kutz and others oversimplify the relation between counterfactual dependence and causation, and they overlook the possibility that causal relations other than marginal contribution could be morally relevant. Second, harmful effects are sometimes overdetermined by non-collective sets of acts. Over-farming, or the greenhouse effect, might be cases of that kind. In such cases, there need not be any formal organization, any unifying intentions, or any other noncausal criterion of membership available. If we give up the causal condition for coresponsibility it will be impossible to delimit the morally relevant set of acts related to those harms. Since we sometimes find it fair to blame people for such harms, we must question the argument from overdetermination. Third, although problems about imperceptible effects or aggregation of very small effects are morally important, e.g. when we consider degrees of blameworthiness or epistemic limitations in reasoning about how to assign responsibility for specific harms, they are irrelevant to the issue of whether causal involvement is necessary for complicity. Fourth, the costs of rejecting the causality condition for complicity are high. Causation is an explicit and essential element in most doctrines of legal liability and it is central in common sense views of moral responsibility. Giving up this condition could have radical and unwanted consequences for legal security and predictability. However, it is not only for pragmatic reasons and because it is a default position that we should require stronger arguments (than conflicting intuitions about “mismatches”) before giving up the causality condition. An essential element in holding someone to account for an event is the assumption that her actions and intentions are part of the explanation of why that event occurred. If we give up that element, it is difficult to see which important function responsibility assignments could have. (shrink)

Michael Bratman’s work is established as one of the most important philosophical approaches to group agency so far, and Shared Agency, A Planning Theory of Acting Together confirms that impression. In this paper I attempt to challenge the book’s central claim that considerations of theoretical simplicity will favor Bratman’s theory of collective action over its main rivals. I do that, firstly, by questioning whether there must be a fundamental difference in kind between Searle style we-intentions and I-intentions within that type (...) of framework. If not, Searle’s type of theory need not be less qualitatively parsimonious than Bratman’s. This hangs on how we understand the notions of modes and contents of intentional states, and the relations between modes, contents, and categorizations of such states. Secondly, by questioning whether Bratman’s theory steers clear of debunking or dismissing collectivity. Elsewhere I have claimed that the manoeuvres Bratman suggested to avoid circularity in his conceptual analysis (in 1992 and 1997) undermine the strength of his resulting notion of collective action. Bratman responds in detail to this objection in his new book and I return to the issue towards the end of the paper. (shrink)

Defenses of the possibility of collective guilt feelings falls roughly into two categories: collectivistic positions that assign guilt feelings to groups as such but play down the experiential component in guilt feelings, and individualistic positions which understand collective guilt feelings in terms of individual experiences. The analogy between collective and individual guilt feelings is examined from two collectivistic viewpoints. It is argued that the functional states of collectives and individuals with respect to guilt are less analogous than collectivists assume. Instead, (...) an individualistic perspectival understanding of collective guilt feelings is proposed. Groups as such cannot feel guilty in the morally relevant sense, but guilt as felt by individuals can have a distinctively collective character, such that the feeling still may be an appropriate response to assignments of collective responsibility. (shrink)

Whereas previous studies have criticized low-quality products for inadequate safety, this paper considers only safe products, and it examines the ethics of designing and selling low-quality products. Product quality is defined as suitability to a general purpose. The duty that companies owe to consumers is summarized in the Consumer-Oriented Process principle: “to place an increase in the consumer’s quality of life as the primary goal for producing products.” This principle is applied in analyzing the primary ethical justifications for low-quality products: (...) availability and applicability. Finally, a low-quality product should be designed afresh, not by altering an existing high-quality product. (shrink)

The language of intentional psychology is commonly used as a means of addressing issues concerning selection. This habit is generally considered an efficient shorthand, but oft-reported misunderstandings leave room for doubt. I stress the general point that efficiency of a mode of expression is an empirical matter, deserving the same treatment, theoretically and methodologically, as other such matters. Mistaken assumptions regarding the relevant cognitive capacities may make for inefficient communication, and discourse about human evolution is a plausible case in point.