Large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT or Google’s Bard have shown significant performance on a variety of text-based tasks, such as summarization, translation, and even the generation of new...

In this reply to our commentators, we respond to ethical concerns raised about the potential use (or misuse) of personalized LLMs for academic idea and prose generation, including questions about c...

Knowledge of the heterosexual spread of HIV is needed to plan future health-care needs. In December 1989 we gained approval and finance for unlinked anonymous testing of neonatal Guthrie card samples in Scotland. Local ethics committee approval was required before testing could start. Twenty ethics committees were approached in the 15 Scottish health board areas. Nineteen of the committees have agreed, representing 99.6 per cent of births in Scotland. Our method of contacting ethics committees is discussed, as are the points (...) raised. (shrink)

What could an empirical theory of the Mind be? Surely one which demonstrated that questions about the existence of minds were empirical questions – to be decided by observation, by the senses. This in turn would require an explanation of the meaning of statements about minds or mental states in terms referring to observable events, states and objects.

This paper describes how to compare laws (often from a common root) between jurisdictions. It identifies differences between Civil and Common Law traditions, and the importance of Sovereignty in implementing international instruments. It then discusses both a neutral language approach and finally a functional approach to comparing different jurisdictions' instruments.

This paper introduces questions about the nature of law. It briefly identifies why modern biotechnology poses interesting issues for regulation. Thereafter it considers two questions—the legitimacy of law, and the relationship between law and morality. It concludes by considering issues of participation and of appealing to the public interest.

In a recent article Paul Cartledge and Matt Edge argue that the modern republican tradition offers a useful framework for understanding the Athenian concept of freedom, and that within this framework the Athenians protected their freedoms without reference to a concept of rights. This paper agrees with both of these conclusions but identifies and corrects three assumptions behind Cartledge and Edge’s argument: that the only purpose of rights is to protect individual freedoms against the state; that rights have no place (...) at all in the republican tradition; and that the ancient Greeks did not understand rights. In fact the Athenians did have an understanding of rights but they did not use rights to protect freedoms. The reason for this is that the protected freedom is a very modern and particularly sophisticated application of the concept of rights. (shrink)

The authors ably demonstrate the value and relevance of sophisticated conceptual analysis in law. Such concepts as cause, reason, consequence, condition, opportunity, and explanation are carefully investigated. The use of the causal notions in the Anglo-American tradition of tort, contract, and criminal law, as well as in continental theories, is examined in detail. A book of importance which carries out English analysis in a subtle and exciting way. It is sure to be one of the lasting contributions of the recent (...) analytic movement.--A. P. D. M. (shrink)

The substance and development of Eddington's "scientific epistemology" are presented in close parallelism with the philosophy of Kant. The author argues that Kant was far more successful in displaying the philosophical structure of Newtonian physics than Eddington is in showing the philosophy behind quantum mechanics and relativity.--A. P. D. M.

More than half of the book is devoted to what is almost a catalogue exposition of Western moral philosophy from Kant to Nowell-Smith. Although the author claims in the preface to have included "suitable references to Indian points of view, including the Buddhist," what references there are are usually too general, and never fully explained to be of any use to Western readers. Exposition tends to be disjointed, and the English leaves much to be desired. On the whole there is (...) much eclecticism and little originality.--A. P. D. M. (shrink)

Topics in the standard introductory logic course are all covered, with emphasis on the understanding of concepts rather than the development of skills in symbolic manipulation. Exposition is informal and rich in illustrations from reasoning in ordinary life. Exercises are also drawn from ordinary discourse, but they often call for the application of symbolic techniques. In combining accuracy and sophistication with simplicity and liveliness of style, the book is indeed a pedagogic success. --A. P. D. M.

M. Piguet believes that philosophy is, in a strict sense, a compromise between science and art. In the course of establishing this thesis he makes some interesting suggestions on the question of ordinary language. For him this idiom is the "culture language"; it embodies the cultural experience of an age; it can be neither technical nor colloquial; it is the language of the honnête homme. It is also the basic "translation language" with which all other technical and artistic idioms must (...) be ultimately coordinated.--A. P. D. M. (shrink)

The central insight of Darwin's Origin of Species is that evolution is an ecological phenomenon, arising from the activities of organisms in the 'struggle for life'. By contrast, the Modern Synthesis theory of evolution, which rose to prominence in the twentieth century, presents evolution as a fundamentally molecular phenomenon, occurring in populations of sub-organismal entities - genes. After nearly a century of success, the Modern Synthesis theory is now being challenged by empirical advances in the study of organismal development and (...) inheritance. In this important study, D. M. Walsh shows that the principal defect of the Modern Synthesis resides in its rejection of Darwin's organismal perspective, and argues for 'situated Darwinism': an alternative, organism-centred conception of evolution that prioritises organisms as adaptive agents. His book will be of interest to scholars and advanced students of evolutionary biology and the philosophy of biology. (shrink)