Recently two developments have had a major impact on the field of ancient DNA (aDNA). First, new advances in DNA sequencing, in combination with improved capture/enrichment methods, have resulted in the recovery of orders of magnitude more DNA sequence data from ancient animals. Second, there has been an increase in the range of tissue types employed in aDNA. Hair in particular has proven to be very successful as a source of DNA because of its low levels of contamination and high (...) level of ancient endogenous DNA. These developments have resulted in significant advances in our understanding of recently extinct animals: namely their evolutionary relationships, physiology, and even behaviour. Hair has been used to recover the first complete ancient nuclear genome, that of the extinct woolly mammoth, which then facilitated the expression and functional analysis of haemoglobins. Finally, we speculate on the consequences of these developments for the possibility of recreating extinct animals. (shrink)

This book updates and adds to the classic Social Movements of the Sixties and Seventies, showing how social movement theory has grown and changed.

M. Marouzeau has re-directed attention to the peculiarity of Terentian versification by which a monosyllabic word is put at the end of the line, though it belongs, in point of sense, to the beginning of the next line. There is thus, for the copyist or ‘corrector’, a strong temptation to shift the little word to the beginning of the next line, or even to drop it altogether. Where scansion allows, the second course can be adopted without arousing any suspicions.

Communication and Conflict Management Training for Clinical Bioethics Committees Content Type Journal Article Pages 341-349 DOI 10.1007/s10730-009-9116-7 Authors Lauren M. Edelstein, Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Howard County General Hospital 5755 Cedar Lane Columbia MD 21044 USA Evan G. DeRenzo, Washington Hospital Center Center for Ethics 110 Irving St Washington, D.C. NW 20010 USA Elizabeth Waetzig, Change Matrix Inc. 485 Maylin St. Pasadena CA 91105 USA Craig Zelizer, Georgetown University Department of Government 3240 Prospect St. Washington, D.C. NW 20057 USA Nneka (...) O. Mokwunye, Washington Hospital Center Center for Ethics 110 Irving St Washington, D.C. NW 20010 USA Journal HEC Forum Online ISSN 1572-8498 Print ISSN 0956-2737 Journal Volume Volume 21 Journal Issue Volume 21, Number 4. (shrink)

I defend and revise the systematic account of normative functions (teleofunctions), as recently developed by Gerhard Schlosser and by W. D. Christensen and M. H. Bickhard. This account proposes that teleofunctions are had by structures that play certain kinds of roles in complex systems. This theory is an alternative to the historical etiological account of teleofunctions, developed by Ruth Millikan and others. The historical etiological account is susceptible to a general ontological problem that has been under-appreciated, and that offers important (...) reasons to adopt the systematic account. However, the systematic account must be revised to allow for two distinct kinds of teleofunctions in order to avoid another ontological problem. (shrink)

Rogers, C. R. and Skinner, B. F. Some issues concerning the control of human behavior.--Broudy, H. S. Didactics, heuristics, and philetics.--Craig, R. An analysis of the psychology of moral development of Lawrence Kohlberg.--Scudder, J. R., Jr. Freedom with authority: a Buber model for teaching.--Hook, S. Some educational attitudes and poses.--Strike, K. A. Freedom, autonomy, and teaching.--Elkind, D. Piaget and Montessori.--Raywid, M. A. Irrationalism and the new reformism.--Doll, W. E., Jr. A methodology of experience: the process of inquiry.--Neff, F. C. (...) Competency-based teaching and trained fleas.--Brown, A. "What could be bad?" Some reflections on the accountability movement. (shrink)

Augustinian Just War Theory and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq: Confessions, Contentions and the Lust for Power,edited by Craig J. N. de Paulo, Senior Editor, et al. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2011. Details: A work concerning Augustine’s influence on Christian just war theory and the rhetoric of just war theorists from two symposia in addition to an Augustinian critique of the wars. Preface by Most Rev. Sean Cardinal O’ Malley, O.F.M. Cap., Archbishop of Boston. Foreword by Roland (...) J. Teske, S.J. Chapter One is a brief history of Augustine’s influence on the theory. Chapter Two includes a transcript of a symposium on the topic that includes the following distinguished contributors: Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., John D. Caputo, Most Rev. Edwin Cardinal O’Brien, Ambassador Thomas Melady, Col. Jack Jacobs, Dr. Joseph Hagan. Chapter Three includes a transcript of a colloquium on the topic that includes the following distinguished scholars and contributors: Joseph Margolis, Frederick Van Fleteren, Brian Kane, et al. (Advance Praise by James J. O’Donnell and Arthur Waldron.). (shrink)

This is a study of a crucial and controversial topic in metaphysics and the philosophy of science: the status of the laws of nature. D. M. Armstrong works out clearly and in comprehensive detail a largely original view that laws are relations between properties or universals. The theory is continuous with the views on universals and more generally with the scientific realism that Professor Armstrong has advanced in earlier publications. He begins here by mounting an attack on the orthodox and (...) sceptical view deriving from Hume that laws assert no more than a regularity of coincidence between instances of properties. In doing so he presents what may become the definitive statement of the case against this position. Professor Armstrong then goes on to establish his own theory in a systematic manner defending it against the most likely objections, and extending both it and the related theory of universals to cover functional and statistical laws. This treatment of the subject is refreshingly concise and vivid: it will both stimulate vigorous professional debate and make an excellent student text. (shrink)

Breaking new ground in the debate about the relation of mind and body, David Armstrong's classic text - first published in 1968 - remains the most compelling and comprehensive statement of the view that the mind is material or physical. In the preface to this new edition, the author reflects on the book's impact and considers it in the light of subsequent developments. He also provides a bibliography of all the key writings to have appeared in the materialist debate.

In this important study D. M. Armstrong offers a comprehensive system of analytical metaphysics that synthesises but also develops his thinking over the last twenty years. Armstrong's analysis, which acknowledges the 'logical atomism' of Russell and Wittgenstein, makes facts the fundamental constituents of the world, examining properties, relations, numbers, classes, possibility and necessity, dispositions, causes and laws. All these, it is argued, find their place and can be understood inside a scheme of states of affairs. This is a comprehensive and (...) rigorously this-worldly account of the most general features of reality, argued from a distinctive philosophical perspective, and it will appeal to a wide readership in analytical philosophy. (shrink)

In this short text, a distinguished philosopher turns his attention to one of the oldest and most fundamental philosophical problems of all: How it is that we are able to sort and classify different things as being of the same natural class? Professor Armstrong carefully sets out six major theories—ancient, modern, and contemporary—and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of each. Recognizing that there are no final victories or defeats in metaphysics, Armstrong nonetheless defends a traditional account of universals as the (...) most satisfactory theory we have.This study is written for advanced students, but as Armstrong goes considerably beyond his earlier work on this topic, it will interest professional scholars as well. Carefully plotted and clearly written, Universals is both a paradigm of exposition and a case study on the value of careful analysis of fundamental issues in philosophy. (shrink)

Truths are determined not by what we believe, but by the way the world is. Or so realists about truth believe. Philosophers call such theories correspondence theories of truth. Truthmaking theory, which now has many adherents among contemporary philosophers, is the most recent development of a realist theory of truth, and in this book D. M. Armstrong offers the first full-length study of this theory. He examines its applications to different sorts of truth, including contingent truths, modal truths, truths about (...) the past and the future, and mathematical truths. In a clear, even-handed and non-technical discussion he makes a compelling case for truthmaking and its importance in philosophy. His book marks a significant contribution to the debate and will be of interest to a wide range of readers working in analytical philosophy. (shrink)

A wide-ranging study of the central concepts in epistemology - belief, truth and knowledge. Professor Armstrong offers a dispositional account of general beliefs and of knowledge of general propositions. Belief about particular matters of fact are described as structures in the mind of the believer which represent or 'map' reality, while general beliefs are dispositions to extend the 'map' or introduce casual relations between portions of the map according to general rules. 'Knowledge' denotes the reliability of such beliefs as representations (...) of reality. Within this framework Professor Armstrong offers a distinctive account of many of the main questions in general epistemology - the relations between beliefs and language, the notions of proposition, concept and idea, the analysis of truth, the varieties of knowledge, and the way in which beleifs and knowledge are supported by reasons. The book as a whole if offered as a contribution to a naturalistic account of man. (shrink)

This is a collection of twenty-five papers and reviews by the leading analytic philosopher of our time. It adds to the papers on metaphysics and epistemology to be found in his previous two-volume collection published by Oxford University Press. One previously unpublished paper—“Why Conditionalize?”—is included. Australasian philosophers may note with some pride that eleven of the pieces were first published in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy.

First, The doctrine of naturalism, That reality is spatio-Temporal, Is defended. Second, The doctrine of materialism or physicalism, That this spatio-Temporal reality involves nothing but the entities of physics working according to the principles of physics, Is defended. Third, It is argued that these doctrines do not constitute a "first philosophy." a satisfactory first philosophy should recognize universals, In the form of instantiated properties and relations. Laws of nature are constituted by relations between universals. What universals there are, And what (...) relations hold between them, Must be discovered "a posteriori" by scientific investigation. (shrink)

Dispositions are essential to our understanding of the world. IDispositions: A Debate is an extended dialogue between three distinguished philosophers - D.M. Armstrong, C.B. Martin and U.T. Place - on the many problems associated with dispositions, which reveals their own distinctive accounts of the nature of dispositions. These are then linked to other issues such as the nature of mind, matter, universals, existence, laws of nature and causation.

D. M. Armstrong; II—Does Knowledge Entail Belief?, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 70, Issue 1, 1 June 1970, Pages 21–36, https://doi.org/10.109.

Argues that a set is the mereological whole of the singleton sets of its members (following Lewis's Parts of Classes), and that the singleton set of X is the state of affairs of X's having some unit-making property.

It is not certain when or by whom S0009838800011642_inline1 and S0009838800011642_inline2 were first technically distinguished as genus and species. The distinction does not appear in Plato's extant writings, whereas Aristotle seems to take it for granted in the Topics, which is usually regarded as among his earliest treatises. In his dialogues Plato seems able to use S0009838800011642_inline3 interchangeably to denote any group or division in a diairesis, including the group that is to be divided.

It is not certain when or by whomandwere first technically distinguished asgenusandspecies. The distinction does not appear in Plato's extant writings, whereas Aristotle seems to take it for granted in theTopics, which is usually regarded as among his earliest treatises. In his dialogues Plato seems able to useinterchangeably to denote any group or division in a diairesis, including the group that is to be divided.

I want to defend a Combinatorialtheory of possibility. Such a view traces the very idea of possibility to the idea of the combinations – all the combinations which respect a certain simple form – of given, actual, elements. Combination is to be understood widely enough to cover the notions of expansion and contraction. The combinatorial idea is not new, of course. Wittgenstein gave a classical exposition of it in the Tractatus. Perhaps its charter is 3.4: ‘A proposition determines a place (...) in logical space. The existence of this logical place is guaranteed by the mere existence of the constituents’. There is a small additional combinatorial literature. I myself was converted to a combinatorial view by Brian Skyrms’ brief but fascinating article ‘Tractarian Nominalism.’. (shrink)

The essays in this volume are the result of a project on Values in Tort Law directed by the Westminster Institute for Ethics and Human Values. We are indebted to the Board of Westminster Col lege for its financial support. The project involved two meetings of a mixed group of lawyers and philosophers to discuss drafts of papers and general issues in tort law. Beyond the principal researchers, whose papers appear here, we are grateful to John Bargo, Dick Bronaugh, (...) class='Hi'>Craig Brown, Earl Cherniak, Bruce Feldthusen, Barry Hoffmaster and Steve Sharzer for their helpful discussion, and to Nancy Margolis for copy editing. All of these papers except one have appeared before in the journal Law and Philosophy (Vol. 1 No.3, December 1982 and Vol. 2 No.1, Apri11983). Chapman's paper which was previously published in The University of Western Ontario Law Review (Vol. 20 No.1, 1982) appears here with permission. Westminster Institute for Ethics and Human Values, M.D.B. Westminster College, London, Canada B.C. vii INTRODUCTION The law of torts is society's primary mechanism for resolving disputes arising from personal injury and property damage. (shrink)

The no-miracles argument and the pessimistic induction are arguably the main considerations for and against scientific realism. Recently these arguments have been accused of embodying a familiar, seductive fallacy. In each case, we are tricked by a base rate fallacy, one much-discussed in the psychological literature. In this paper we consider this accusation and use it as an explanation for why the two most prominent `wholesale' arguments in the literature seem irresolvable. Framed probabilistically, we can see very clearly why realists (...) and anti-realists have been talking past one another. We then formulate a dilemma for advocates of either argument, answer potential objections to our criticism, discuss what remains (if anything) of these two major arguments, and then speculate about a future philosophy of science freed from these two arguments. In so doing, we connect the point about base rates to the wholesale/retail distinction; we believe it hints at an answer of how to distinguish profitable from unprofitable realism debates. In short, we offer a probabilistic analysis of the feeling of ennui afflicting contemporary philosophy of science. (shrink)