I propose that it is premature to assert that a fully three-dimensional map has never evolved in any species, as data are lacking to show that space coding in all animals is the same. Instead, I hypothesize that three-dimensional representation is tied to an animal's mode of locomotion through space. Testing this hypothesis requires a large body of comparative data.

In Pietroski ( 2018 ) a simple representation language called SMPL is introduced, construed as a hypothesis about core conceptual structure. The present work is a study of this system from a logical perspective. In addition to establishing a completeness result and a complexity characterization for reasoning in the system, we also pinpoint its expressive limits, in particular showing that the fourth corner in the square of opposition (“ Some_not ”) eludes expression. We then study a seemingly small extension, called (...) SMPL +, which allows for a minimal predicate-binding operator. Perhaps surprisingly, the resulting system is shown to encode precisely the concepts expressible in first-order logic. However, unlike the latter class, the class of SMPL + expressions admits a simple procedural (context-free) characterization. Our contribution brings together research strands in logic—including natural logic, modal logic, description logic, and hybrid logic—with recent advances in semantics and philosophy of language. (shrink)

Essential skills and attitudes necessary for active citizenship need to be cultivated as early as prekindergarten. This exploratory study investigated if three and four-year olds could be actively engaged in social studies practices through inquiry learning in a school garden. Eleven children openly interacted and conducted personally-driven investigations on a daily basis in the school garden located on their playground over nine-months. Three interviews with children, teacher observation notes, and lesson plans were analyzed to discover whether NCSS preK-12 learning themes (...) (2010) for the social studies curriculum could be correlated with garden inquiries. Three prevalent NCSS themes surfaced from data analysis with Civic Ideals and Practices, People, Places, and Environments, and Time, Continuity, and Change being most prevalent. Results imply that working in a school garden through inquiry learning can foster the development of democratic competencies and thus, could be used to design C3 lessons for preschoolers in the garden. (shrink)

How did I raise my arm? The simple answer is that I raised it as a consequence of intending to raise it. A slightly more complicated response would mention the absence of any factors which would inhibit the execution of the intention- and a more complicated one still would specify the intention in terms of a goal (say, drinking a beer) which requires arm-raising as a means towards that end. Whatever the complications, the simple answer appears to be on the (...) right track. (shrink)

Ambient assisted living technologies can provide assistance and support to persons with dementia. They might allow them the possibility of living at home for longer whilst maintaining their comfort and security as well as offering a way towards reducing the huge economic and personal costs forecast as the incidence of dementia increases worldwide over coming decades. However, the development, introduction and use of AAL technologies also trigger serious ethical issues. This paper is a systematic literature review of the on-going scholarly (...) debate about these issues. More specifically, we look at the ethical issues involved in research and development, clinical experimentation, and clinical application of AAL technologies for people with dementia and related stakeholders. In the discussion we focus on: the value of the goals of AAL technologies, the special vulnerability of persons with dementia in their private homes, the complex question of informed consent for the usage of AAL technologies. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that the traditional concept of universality entails three dogmas, the validity of which have seldom been called into question. To each of these dogmas correspond to common commitments to the universal in the Western tradition. I argue that the only legitimate answer to the question ‘what is the universal?’ requires abandoning the three dogmas of universality and the entailments that follow from them. Moreover, the question ‘what is the universal?’ requires that we adopt self-reference into (...) our concept of the universal, a feature rarely allowed to be predicated of the universal in contemporary and classical Analytic philosophy yet required if any progress on the question ‘what is universality?’ may be had. If my argument is successful, philosophers have an obligation to investigate the work of G.W.F. Hegel more closely, since he is the only philosopher in the rationalist tradition to properly identify these dogmas and think a concept of the universal that avoids the pitfalls that follow from their adoption. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.3 (2003) 104-107 [Access article in PDF] Motivating Aesthetics Cynthia C. Rostankowski Humanities Department San Jose State University The territory of philosophical aesthetics remains a conceptual hinterland in the world of academic disciplines. It is not the only hinterland, but in comparison to other disciplines in arts and letters, few scholars engage in the subject professionally, and many people avoid the territory it (...) occupies as a place to visit, let alone to tarry or reside. Why is this? Usually people do not wish to visit places that are uncomfortable in some way. Frozen wastelands, blazing deserts, war zones, and places with nothing to do or see are usually avoided because they are perceived as unpleasant, dangerous, or boring,and the same is very likely true of their conceptual analogs. In what senses might some people perceive aesthetics as analogous to Siberia, Sudan, or central Kansas? I would like to investigate what it is about aesthetics that causes people to shy away from it more often than to flock to it. I have long been fascinated by the responses of students who express amazement or confusion when exposed to the field of aesthetics as a part of an introductory philosophy class, or of arts educators who do not know what to do with aesthetics since it does not seem quite to fit with the rest of what they do, or the responses of some artists or other arts practitioners who are occasionally disdainful of aesthetics. It would be easy to say that aesthetics has merely had bad press or inadequate exposure in the classroom, but I suspect there is more to it than that. I have experienced many of the situations I have just mentioned, and they have usually surprised and sometimes demoralized [End Page 104] me. They have always motivated me to think harder about my beloved field of interest, to try to reveal its attractions to those who do not find it as appealing and engaging as I do, or as you, my reader does. (I am presuming that one who is reading an essay in a journal about aesthetic education has already found his or her comfort zone in the field.) I will also presume to offer some thoughts about motivating an interest in aesthetics among the aesthetically uninterested — why one might want to do it, and what one might do. Please note, I am not speaking of the aesthetically disinterested 1 ; they too have already found their place in the discipline!It is likely that the problem of aesthetics has to do in part with misunderstandings, and those misunderstandings are multi-layered. If one looks up the word "aesthetic" in the Oxford English Dictionary, one finds the following: (F)rom the Greek for perception...and, being pre-occupied;...pertaining to things perceptible by the senses, things material;..."criticism of taste"...the science which treats of the conditions of sensuous perception...of or pertaining to the appreciation or criticism of the beautiful...Recent extravagances in the adoption of a sentimental archaism as the ideal of beauty have still further removed aesthetic and its derivatives from their etymological and purely philosophical meaning. There are varied suggestions about the use of the term, including the mention of its removal in contemporary parlance from its original meanings. If one looks up the keyword "aesthetic" on the Internet, one may find the following sites: skin care, plastic surgery, dentistry, exterior and interior design, tattoos, and some art, art theory, and philosophy among other things. An exemplification in practice of what is suggested in the OED. It is clear that the meaning of the word "aesthetic" has become at best imprecise, at worst confusing in common parlance.So, the first misunderstanding regarding aesthetics is the meaning of the term. What is philosophical aesthetics? It is not what some misconstrue as the imposition of value judgments on society. Unfortunately, some presume that because matters of taste or definitions of beauty are considered in the field, someone must be telling someone what they ought to think is pleasing or beautiful. This is not the focus... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Future Directions for Oversight of Stem Cell Research in the United States: An UpdateMary A. Majumder (bio) and Cynthia B. Cohen (bio)On 9 March 2009, President Barack Obama (2009a) signed an executive order revoking the statement issued by President George W. Bush during a televised speech in August 2001, in which the latter had sharply restricted the scope of federally funded human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research to (...) cell lines derived (without federal funding) prior to 9:00 P.M. EDT on 9 August 2001. Action by President Obama to remove the cut-off date had been expected. It came as a surprise, however, that he gave authority to determine the scope of eligible research to the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), referencing only general concerns of responsibility, scientific worth, and legality.1 This contrasted not only with the approach of former President Bush, but also with that of former President Clinton, who had expressed personal opposition to the creation of embryos for research and had a distinction between hESCs derived from embryos created for research and those derived from spare embryos enshrined in NIH policy.President Obama’s remarks upon signing the executive order give some insight into the thinking behind his approach. Implicit in them are the views that earlystage human embryos outside the womb do not have full moral status and that the destruction of human embryos in the effort to care for and ease the suffering of human beings who do have full moral status does not devalue human life. The President also stressed that the decision to pursue hESC research reflected not only his opinion, but also a broad social consensus. He concluded with strong ethical commitments on two fronts:We will develop strict guidelines, which we will rigorously enforce, because we cannot ever tolerate misuse or abuse. And we will ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction. It is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society, or any society.(Obama 2009b)The specific guarantee that President Obama gave against government support for the development of cloning techniques for human reproductive purposes made his silence on the use of cloning for research seem significant. Comments he had made in the course of the campaign (Obama 2008) suggested that he would affirm [End Page 195] the Clinton-era policy of limiting federal funding to hESCs derived from spare embryos. Did this silence mean that President Obama was opening the door to federal funding of research cloning when and if scientists might manage that feat?2009 NIH GuidelinesThe answer to this question and several others came on 17 April, when Raynard Kington, the acting director of NIH, released Draft NIH Guidelines for Human Stem Cell Research (NIH 2009), developed by an NIH Stem Cell Task Force, along with a request for public comment within 30 days of their publication in the Federal Register.2 The 2009 Draft Guidelines exclude from federal funding the derivation of hESCs, a restriction mandated by the reenactment of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment as part of the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act (Public Law 111-8, Division F, Title V, § 509). The 2009 Draft Guidelines also exclude the use of hESCs derived from embryos created for research purposes, and so represent a refusal to open the funding door as broadly as the NIH interpretation of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment might allow, at least for the time being.It appears that the drafters used as their starting point the 2000 NIH Guidelines for Research Using Human Pluripotent Stem Cells (NIH 2000) dating from the Clinton Administration, rather than more recent guidelines from the National Academy of Sciences (National Research Council 2005; 2007; 2008) and other private bodies. Both the format and content of the 2000 and 2009 NIH efforts are similar, making the departures in the latter stand out in high relief. We highlight departures related to informed consent to embryo donation, creation of human-nonhuman chimeras, and the role of an NIH task force, updating our original comment (Cohen and Majumder 2009).Informed Consent to Embryo DonationThe 2009 NIH Draft Guidelines require that certain statements... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.3 (2003) 104-107 [Access article in PDF] Motivating Aesthetics Cynthia C. Rostankowski Humanities Department San Jose State University The territory of philosophical aesthetics remains a conceptual hinterland in the world of academic disciplines. It is not the only hinterland, but in comparison to other disciplines in arts and letters, few scholars engage in the subject professionally, and many people avoid the territory it (...) occupies as a place to visit, let alone to tarry or reside. Why is this? Usually people do not wish to visit places that are uncomfortable in some way. Frozen wastelands, blazing deserts, war zones, and places with nothing to do or see are usually avoided because they are perceived as unpleasant, dangerous, or boring,and the same is very likely true of their conceptual analogs. In what senses might some people perceive aesthetics as analogous to Siberia, Sudan, or central Kansas? I would like to investigate what it is about aesthetics that causes people to shy away from it more often than to flock to it. I have long been fascinated by the responses of students who express amazement or confusion when exposed to the field of aesthetics as a part of an introductory philosophy class, or of arts educators who do not know what to do with aesthetics since it does not seem quite to fit with the rest of what they do, or the responses of some artists or other arts practitioners who are occasionally disdainful of aesthetics. It would be easy to say that aesthetics has merely had bad press or inadequate exposure in the classroom, but I suspect there is more to it than that. I have experienced many of the situations I have just mentioned, and they have usually surprised and sometimes demoralized [End Page 104] me. They have always motivated me to think harder about my beloved field of interest, to try to reveal its attractions to those who do not find it as appealing and engaging as I do, or as you, my reader does. (I am presuming that one who is reading an essay in a journal about aesthetic education has already found his or her comfort zone in the field.) I will also presume to offer some thoughts about motivating an interest in aesthetics among the aesthetically uninterested — why one might want to do it, and what one might do. Please note, I am not speaking of the aesthetically disinterested 1 ; they too have already found their place in the discipline!It is likely that the problem of aesthetics has to do in part with misunderstandings, and those misunderstandings are multi-layered. If one looks up the word "aesthetic" in the Oxford English Dictionary, one finds the following: (F)rom the Greek for perception...and, being pre-occupied;...pertaining to things perceptible by the senses, things material;..."criticism of taste"...the science which treats of the conditions of sensuous perception...of or pertaining to the appreciation or criticism of the beautiful...Recent extravagances in the adoption of a sentimental archaism as the ideal of beauty have still further removed aesthetic and its derivatives from their etymological and purely philosophical meaning. There are varied suggestions about the use of the term, including the mention of its removal in contemporary parlance from its original meanings. If one looks up the keyword "aesthetic" on the Internet, one may find the following sites: skin care, plastic surgery, dentistry, exterior and interior design, tattoos, and some art, art theory, and philosophy among other things. An exemplification in practice of what is suggested in the OED. It is clear that the meaning of the word "aesthetic" has become at best imprecise, at worst confusing in common parlance.So, the first misunderstanding regarding aesthetics is the meaning of the term. What is philosophical aesthetics? It is not what some misconstrue as the imposition of value judgments on society. Unfortunately, some presume that because matters of taste or definitions of beauty are considered in the field, someone must be telling someone what they ought to think is pleasing or beautiful. This is not the focus... (shrink)

Gregory S. Moss examines the central arguments in Ernst Cassirer’s first volume of the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms to show how Cassirer defends language as an autonomous cultural form, and how he borrows the concept of the “concrete universal” from G. W. F. Hegel in order to develop a concept of cultural autonomy.

With the diversification of philosophy, and the dismantling of stark divides in philosophical methodology in the West, the character of philosophy appears more indeterminate than ever—and demands fresh investigations not only into the character of philosophy, but also the concept of indeterminacy itself. The over-arching aim of this collection, which brings together a wide range of philosophical and inter-disciplinary perspectives, is to bring into focus the prominence and significance of indeterminacy as a common thread in recent Asian philosophy, continental thought, (...) and other philosophical approaches. The theme of indeterminacy can be traced throughout the history of both Western and Asian philosophy. Among the pre-Socratics, Anaximander stands out as recognizing (though not fully clarifying) its significance in his famous formulation of the first principle of philosophy as the apeiron—the indeterminate. In modern philosophy, indeterminacy appears time and again as a recurrent theme in post-Kantian idealism, phenomenology, and continental philosophy. This volume shines a spotlight on the way indeterminacy arises as an important theme for relatively neglected thinkers in the Western tradition, such as F.W.J. Schelling, and it offers fresh perspectives on the significance of indeterminacy for well-read thinkers such as Husserl and Hegel. What is more, this volume includes chapters that bring out the presence and importance of indeterminacy in the various schools of Chinese and Japanese philosophy (among others), such as in various forms of Daoist thinking and the Kyoto school, which cannot be underestimated. By bringing these schools of thought into dialogue with each other, we hope that the volume will enrich the thinking of all traditions, East, West, and beyond. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Deciding for Others: The Ethics of Surrogate Decision Making. By Allen E. Buchanan and Dan W. Brock Abating Treatment with Critically Ill Patients. By Robert F. Weir.

Cynthia will leave Rome for the country: how fortunate that there will be no one there to seduce her—provided there is no visitor from the outside world! Propertius will himself go hunting. If Cynthia has any temptations, let her remember that in a few days he will be with her.

Cynthia will leave Rome for the country: how fortunate that there will be no one there to seduce her—provided there is no visitor from the outside world! Propertius will himself go hunting. If Cynthia has any temptations, let her remember that in a few days he will be with her.

Cynthia will leave Rome for the country: how fortunate that there will be no one there to seduce her—provided there is no visitor from the outside world! Propertius will himself go hunting. If Cynthia has any temptations, let her remember that in a few days he will be with her.