This groundbreaking book provides an analytical tool to understand how and why evil works in the world as it does. Deconstructing memory, history, and myth as received wisdom, the volume critically examines racism, sexism, poverty, and stereotypes.

We conducted focus groups to assess patient attitudes toward research on medical practices in the context of usual care. We found that patients focus on the implications of this research for their relationship with and trust in their physicians. Patients view research on medical practices as separate from usual care, demanding dissemination of information and in most cases, individual consent. Patients expect information about this research to come through their physician, whom they rely on to identify and filter associated risks. (...) In general, patients support this research, but worry that participation in research involving randomization may undermine individualized care that acknowledges their unique medical histories. These findings suggest the need for public education on variation in practice among physicians and the need for a collaborative approach to the governance of research on medical practices that addresses core values of trust, transparency, and partnership. (shrink)

BackgroundWhen conducting research with Indigenous populations consent should be sought from both individual participants and the local community. We aimed to search and summarise the literature about methods for seeking consent for research with Indigenous populations.MethodsA systematic literature search was conducted for articles that describe or evaluate the process of seeking informed consent for research with Indigenous participants. Guidelines for ethical research and for seeking consent with Indigenous people are also included in our review.ResultsOf 1447 articles found 1391 were excluded (...) ; 56 were relevant and included. Articles were categorised into original research that evaluated the consent process or publications detailing the process of seeking consent and guidelines for ethical research. Guidelines were categorised into international ; national and state/regional/local guidelines. In five studies based in Australia, Canada and The United States of America the consent process with Indigenous people was objectively evaluated. In 13 other studies interpreters, voice recording, videos, pictures, flipcharts and “plain language” forms were used to assist in seeking consent but these processes were not evaluated. Some Indigenous organisations provide examples of community-designed resources for seeking consent and describe methods of community engagement, but none are evaluated. International, national and local ethical guidelines stress the importance of upholding Indigenous values but fail to specify methods for engaging communities or obtaining individual consent. In the ‘Grey literature’ concerns about the consent process are identified but no solutions are offered.ConclusionConsultation with Indigenous communities is needed to determine how consent should be sought from the community and the individual, and how to evaluate this process. (shrink)

Human microbiome research makes causal connections between entire microbial communities and a wide array of traits that range from physiological diseases to psychological states. To evaluate these causal claims, we first examine a well-known single-microbe causal explanation: of Helicobacter pylori causing ulcers. This apparently straightforward causal explanation is not so simple, however. It does not achieve a key explanatory standard in microbiology, of Koch’s postulates, which rely on manipulations of single-microorganism cultures to infer causal relationships to disease. When Koch’s postulates (...) are framed by an interventionist causal framework, it is clearer what the H. pylori explanation achieves and where its explanatory strengths lie. After assessing this ‘simple’, single-microbe case, we apply the interventionist framework to two key areas of microbiome research, in which obesity and mental health states are purportedly explained by microbiomes. Despite the experimental data available, interventionist criteria for explanation show that many of the causal claims generated by microbiome research are weak or misleading. We focus on the stability, specificity and proportionality of proposed microbiome causal explanations, and evaluate how effectively these dimensions of causal explanation are achieved in some promising avenues of research. We suggest some conceptual and explanatory strategies to improve how causal claims about microbiomes are made. (shrink)

Human microbiome research makes causal connections between entire microbial communities and a wide array of traits that range from physiological diseases to psychological states. To evaluate these causal claims, we first examine a well-known single-microbe causal explanation: of Helicobacter pylori causing ulcers. This apparently straightforward causal explanation is not so simple, however. It does not achieve a key explanatory standard in microbiology, of Koch’s postulates, which rely on manipulations of single-microorganism cultures to infer causal relationships to disease. When Koch’s postulates (...) are framed by an interventionist causal framework, it is clearer what the H. pylori explanation achieves and where its explanatory strengths lie. After assessing this ‘simple’, single-microbe case, we apply the interventionist framework to two key areas of microbiome research, in which obesity and mental health states are purportedly explained by microbiomes. Despite the experimental data available, interventionist criteria for explanation show that many of the causal claims generated by microbiome research are weak or misleading. We focus on the stability, specificity and proportionality of proposed microbiome causal explanations, and evaluate how effectively these dimensions of causal explanation are achieved in some promising avenues of research. We suggest some conceptual and explanatory strategies to improve how causal claims about microbiomes are made. (shrink)

Human microbiome research makes causal connections between entire microbial communities and a wide array of traits that range from physiological diseases to psychological states. To evaluate these causal claims, we first examine a well-known single-microbe causal explanation: of Helicobacter pylori causing ulcers. This apparently straightforward causal explanation is not so simple, however. It does not achieve a key explanatory standard in microbiology, of Koch’s postulates, which rely on manipulations of single-microorganism cultures to infer causal relationships to disease. When Koch’s postulates (...) are framed by an interventionist causal framework, it is clearer what the H. pylori explanation achieves and where its explanatory strengths lie. After assessing this ‘simple’, single-microbe case, we apply the interventionist framework to two key areas of microbiome research, in which obesity and mental health states are purportedly explained by microbiomes. Despite the experimental data available, interventionist criteria for explanation show that many of the causal claims generated by microbiome research are weak or misleading. We focus on the stability, specificity and proportionality of proposed microbiome causal explanations, and evaluate how effectively these dimensions of causal explanation are achieved in some promising avenues of research. We suggest some conceptual and explanatory strategies to improve how causal claims about microbiomes are made. (shrink)

This paper examines the bond between humans and dogs as demonstrated in the life and work of Emily Brontë . The nineteenth century author, publishing under the pseudonym, Ellis Bell, evinced, both in her personal and professional life, the complex range of emotions explicit in the human-dog bond: attachment and companionship to domination and abuse. In Wuthering Heights, Brontë portrays the dog as scapegoat, illustrating the dark side of the bond found in many cultures. Moreover, she writes with awareness of (...) connections - unknown in the nineteenth century - between animal abuse and domestic violence. In her personal life, Brontë's early power struggles with her companion animal mastiff, Keeper, evolve into a caring relationship. In a human-dog bond transformation that survives Brontë's death, Keeper, becomes both bridge and barrier to other human relationships. A dog may, and in this case Keeper does, take on a comprehensive role in which he both mourns his own loss and comforts others in their collective grief. (shrink)

This paper examines the bond between humans and dogs as demonstrated in the life and work of Emily Bronte. The nineteenth century author, publishing under the pseudonym, Ellis Bell, evinced, both in her personal and professional life, the complex range of emotions explicit in the human-dog bond: attachment and companionship to domination and abuse. In Wuthering Heights, Brontë portrays the dog as scapegoat, illustrating the dark side of the bond found in many cultures. Moreover, she writes with awareness of connections (...) - unknown in the nineteenth century - between animal abuse and domestic violence. In her personal life, Brontë's early power struggles with her companion animal mastiff, Keeper, evolve into a caring relationship. In a human-dog bond transformation that survives Brontë's death, Keeper, becomes both bridge and barrier to other human relationships. A dog may, and in this case Keeper does, take on a comprehensive role in which he both mourns his own loss and comforts others in their collective grief. (shrink)

The consent and community engagement process for research with Indigenous communities is rarely evaluated. Research protocols are not always collaborative, inclusive or culturally respectful. If participants do not trust or understand the research, selection bias may occur in recruitment, affecting study results potentially denying participants the opportunity to provide more knowledge and greater understanding about their community. Poorly informed consent can also harm the individual participant and the community as a whole. Invited by local Aboriginal community leaders of the Fitzroy (...) Valley, the Kimberley, Western Australia, The Picture Talk project explores the consent process for research. Focus groups of Aboriginal community members were conducted to establish preferences for methods of seeking individual consent. Transcripts were analysed through NVivo10 Qualitative software using grounded theory with inductive and deductive coding. Themes were synthesised with quotes highlighted. Focus groups with Aboriginal community members were facilitated by a Community Navigator as a cultural guide and interpreter and a researcher. Participants were recruited from all main language groups of the Fitzroy Valley – Gooniyandi, Walmajarri, Wangkatjungka, Bunuba and Nikinya. Participants were aged ≥18 years, with 5 female groups and one male group. Themes identified include: Reputation and trust is essential; The Community Navigator is key; Pictures give the words meaning – milli milli versus Pictures; Achieving consensus in circles; Signing for consent; and Research is needed in the Valley. Aboriginal communities of the Fitzroy Valley recommend that researchers collaborate with local leaders, develop trust and foster a good reputation in the community prior to research. Local Aboriginal researchers should be employed to provide cultural guidance throughout the research process and interpret local languages especially for elders. Pictures are preferred to written text to explain research information and most prefer to sign for consent. The Fitzroy Valley welcomes research when collaborative and for the benefit of the community. Future research could include exploring how to support young people, promote health screening and improve understanding of medical knowledge. (shrink)

Microbial model systems have a long history of fruitful use in fields that include evolution and ecology. In order to develop further insight into modelling practice, we examine how the competitive exclusion and coexistence of competing species have been modelled mathematically and materially over the course of a long research history. In particular, we investigate how microbial models of these dynamics interact with mathematical or computational models of the same phenomena. Our cases illuminate the ways in which microbial systems and (...) equations work as models, and what happens when they generate inconsistent findings about shared targets. We reveal an iterative strategy of comparative modelling in different media, and suggest reasons why microbial models have a special degree of epistemic tractability in multimodel inquiry. (shrink)

Marcella Althaus-Reid puts in print a discussion of sex, gender, and politics. For womanist theologian and ethicist, Townes, black women's experiences have been left out of the theoretical and material constructs of both black and feminist theologies in the United States. Townes argues that Althaus-Reid casts the reader in the role of voyeur as she describes the women lemon vendors in Indecent Theology. The reader observes them from the safety of their own cultural, economic, theo-ethical and sociopolitical mud (...) huts in the same way as the Europeans who queued to view the so-called'Hottentot Venus' in the early 1800s. Nevertheless, Althaus-Reid offers an integrated, interstructured analysis that helps pry open the dynamics of oppressions. (shrink)

This essay uses Katie Geneva Cannon’s notion of Black womanist consciousness as a methodological tool to discuss the contours of our contemporary economic and immigration debates.

This commentary focuses on the authors’ treatment of Koch’s postulates. It argues in favour of a modification of Koch’s postulates and their analysis in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. This leads to a criticism of the authors’ treatment of the C. difficile case, and to query the need for the criteria of specificity and proportionality.

This commentary focuses on the authors’ treatment of Koch’s postulates. It argues in favour of a modification of Koch’s postulates and their analysis in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. This leads to a criticism of the authors’ treatment of the C. difficile case, and to query the need for the criteria of specificity and proportionality.

Research suggests a gendered dimension to the geography of sexual minorities, as gay couples are more likely to live in cities than are lesbian couples. Using data from 60 interviews with rural gays and lesbians, this article employs an intersectional analysis of the mutually constitutive relationships among place, gender, and sexuality in order to assess how acceptance of gays and lesbians in small towns is gendered. Findings indicate that femininity aligns with gay sexuality but not rurality. In contrast, masculinity underpins (...) both the categories “rural” and “lesbian.” Furthermore, both lesbian women and gay men gain acceptance in rural areas by doing masculinity. This analysis indicates that masculinity is not something to which only male bodies are privy. In contrast to prior work, it shows one form of female masculinity that is normative rather than transgressive. The analysis also reveals that the meanings of gender presentations vary by geographical context. (shrink)

Despite the Swan River Colony of Western Australia being founded as the first, experimental, and free colony on the Australian continent, crime and punishment were intertwined with colonisation. It can be demonstrated that Jeremy Bentham’s writings on punishment and reform, specifically through the panopticon, had a significant influence on the punishment of prisoners in the Swan River Colony. Most notably, this occurred through the construction of Fremantle Gaol. Indeed, in the emerging port town of Fremantle, the jail was designed by (...) Henry Willey Reveley, a known associate of Bentham, and it incorporates crucial elements of the panopticon into its architecture and operations. Whilst it should be noted that the prison does not conform to the entirety of the panopticon design, it can be viewed as a practical response to the model in a colonial setting with limited resources. Deviations from the methods of discipline and punishment outlined by Bentham through the panopticon and other writings are attributable to the increased need for the perception of control over a disgruntled settler population who felt that they had been misled regarding the potential of the colony, and an Indigenous population who sought to defend their homeland against invasion. Thus, the jail provides an interesting insight into the state of crime, society and penal trends that emerged in the formative years of the Swan River Colony between 1831-1841. Through analysis of the surviving records, this paper will examine Fremantle Gaol as an example of Bentham’s panopticon, in particular how its architecture and operations mirrored the model. (shrink)

"Margaret L. King has put together a highly representative selection of readings from most of the more significant—but by no means the most obvious—texts by the authors who made up the movement we have come to call the 'Enlightenment.' They range across much of Europe and the Americas, and from the early seventeenth century until the end of the eighteenth. In the originality of the choice of texts, in its range and depth, this collection offers both wide coverage and striking (...) insights into the intellectual transformation which has done more than any other to shape the world in which we live today. It is _simply the best introduction to the subject now available_."_ —Anthony Pagden, UCLA, and author of _The Enlightenment and Why It Still Matters_ Contents:_ Chronology, Introduction _Chapter One - Casting Out Idols: 1620–1697_ _Idols, or false notions: _Francis Bacon, _The New Instrument_ _I think, therefore I am: _René Descartes, Discourse on Method _God, or Nature: _Baruch Spinoza, _Ethics_ _The system of the world: _Isaac Newton, _Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy_ _He searched for truth throughout his life: _Pierre Bayle, _Historical and Critical Dictionary_ _Chapter Two - _The Learned Maid: 1638–1740 _A face raised toward heaven:_ Anna Maria van Schurman, _Whether the Study of Letters Befits a Christian Woman_ _The worlds I have made:_ Margaret Cavendish, _The Blazing World_ _A finer sort of cattle:_ Bathsua Makin, _An Essay to Revive the Ancient Education of Gentlewomen_ _I warn you of the world:_ Madame de Maintenon, _Letter: On the Education of the Demoiselles of Saint-Cyr_, and _Instruction: On the World_ _The daybreak of your reason:_ Émilie Du Châtelet, _Fundamentals of Physics_ _Chapter Three - _A State of Perfect Freedom: 1689–1695 _The chief criterion of the True Church:_ John Locke, _Letter on Toleration_ _Freedom from any superior power on earth:_ John Locke, _Second Treatise on Civil Government_ _A white paper, with nothing written on it:_ John Locke, _Essay Concerning Human Understanding_ _Let your rules be as few as possible:_ John Locke, _Some Thoughts Concerning Education_ _From death, Jesus Christ restores all to life:_ John Locke, _The Reasonableness of Christianity, as Delivered in the Scriptures_ _Chapter Four - All Things Made New: 1725–1784_ _In the wilderness, they are reborn:_ Giambattista Vico, _The New Science_ _Without these Names, nothing can be known,_ Carl Linnaeus, _System of Nature_ _All the clouds at last are lifted:_ Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, _The Successive Advancement of the Human Mind_ _A genealogical or encyclopedic tree of knowledge:_ Jean le Rond d’Alembert, _Preliminary Discourse_ _Dare to know! :_ Immanuel Kant, _What Is Enlightenment?_ _Chapter Five - Mind, Soul, and God: 1740–1779_ _The narrow limits of human understanding:_ David Hume, _Anof a Book Lately Published_ _The soul is but an empty word:_ Julien Offray de La Mettrie, _Man a Machine_ _All is reduced to sensation:_ Claude Adrien Helvétius, _On the Mind_ _An endless web of fantasies and falsehoods:_ Paul-Henri Thiry, baron d’Holbach, _Common Sense_ _Let each believe that his own ring is real:_ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, _Nathan the Wise_ _Chapter Six - Crush That Infamous Thing: 1733–1764_ _This is the country of sects:_ Voltaire, _Philosophical Letters_ _Disfigured by myth, until enlightenment comes:_ Voltaire, _The Culture and Spirit of Nations_ _The best of all possible worlds:_ Voltaire, _Candide_ _Are we not all children of the same God?:_ Voltaire, _Treatise on Tolerance_ _If a book displeases you, refute it! :_ Voltaire, _Philosophical Dictionary_ _Chapter Seven - Toward the Greater Good: 1748–1776_ _Things must be so ordered that power checks power,_ Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, _The Spirit of the Laws_ _Complete freedom of trade must be ensured:_ François Quesnay, _General Maxims for the Economic Management of an Agricultural Kingdom_ _The nation's war against the citizen: Cesare_ Beccaria, _On Crimes and Punishments_ _There is no peace in the absence of justice:_ Adam Ferguson, _An Essay on the History of Civil Society_ _Led by an invisible hand:_ Adam Smith, _An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations_ _Chapter Eight - Encountering Others: 1688–1785_ _Thus died this great man:_ Aphra Behn, _Oroonoko: or The Royal Slave_ _Not one sins the less for not being Christian: _Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, _Embassy Letters_ _Do you not restore to them their liberty?:_ Guillaume-Thomas Raynal, _Philosophical and Political History of European Colonies and Commerce in the Two Indies_ _Some things which are rather interesting:_ Captain James Cook, _Voyage towards the South Pole, and Round the World_ _The inner genius of my being:_ Johann Gottfried von Herder, _Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Humankind_ _Chapter - Nine Citizen of Geneva: 1755–1782_ _The most cunning project ever to enter the human mind: _Jean-Jacques Rousseau, _Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Human Inequality_ _The supreme direction of the General Will:_ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract _Two lovers from a small town at the foot of the Alps,_ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, _Julie, or the New Heloise_ _Build a fence around your child’s soul:_ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, _Emile, or On Education_ _This man will be myself:_ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, _Confessions_ _Chapter Ten - Vindications of Women: 1685–1792_ _No higher design than to get her a husband:_ Mary Astell, _Reflections on Marriage_ _The days of my bondage begin:_ Anna Stanisławska, _Orphan Girl_ _A dying victim dragged to the altar:_ Denis Diderot, _The Nun_ _Created to be the toy of man:_ Mary Wollstonecraft, _Vindication of the Rights of Woman_ _Man, are you capable of being just?:_ Olympe de Gouges, _Declaration of the Rights of Woman as Citizen_ _Chapter Eleven - American Reverberations: 1771–1792_ _I took upon me to assert my freedom:_ Benjamin Franklin, _Autobiography_ _Freedom has been hunted round the globe:_ Thomas Paine, _Common Sense_ _Endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights:_ Thomas Jefferson and Others, _Declaration of Independence_ _A safeguard against faction and insurrection:_ James Madison, _Federalist No. 10_ _An end to government by force and fraud:_ Thomas Paine, _The Rights of Man_ _Chapter Twelve - Enlightenment's End: 1790–1794_ _A partnership of the living, the dead, and those unborn:_ Edmund Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ _The future destiny of the human species:_ Nicolas de Condorcet, _A Sketch of a Historical Portrait of the Progress of the Human Mind_ Texts and Studies, Index. 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Those most intimate with the works of H. Richard Niebuhr, who return to them time after time for theological and ethical sustenance, know that they exemplify a more interesting thinker than his brother, Reinhold. Of course, Reinhold was and remains the more public figure, read seriously in his time by politicians and theologians, celebrated by our current president, and enjoying renewed scholarly interest resulting in new editions of out-of-print works and a number of critical studies. Meanwhile, H. Richard continues to (...) exert decisive influence on American Protestant thought. Such diverse thinkers as Paul Ramsey, James Gustafson, Stanley Hauerwas, William Schweiker, Kathryn Tanner, Gordon Kaufman, Emilie Townes .. (shrink)

This paper explores the power of womanist ethics to illuminate the Confederate monuments debate. First, I draw on Emilie Townes’s analysis of the “cultural production of evil” to construe Confederate monuments as products of the “fantastic hegemonic imagination” that render visible for whites the invisibility of “whiteness.” Second, I argue that Angela Sims’s work on lynching provides a vivid example of how “countermemory” functions as an antidote to the fantastic hegemonic imagination. Finally, I argue that Delores Williams’s re-evaluation (...) of the cross as a sacred symbol enables a reading of Confederate monuments as realist symbols of violence that require displacement from the center to the periphery of national sacred space. I conclude that although the debate on Confederate monuments is important, womanist analysis warns against an overly-narrow focus on this issue, lest we neglect the already obscured gendered, classist, homophobic, and xenophobic dimensions of structural injustice that the monuments represent. (shrink)

Emily Brady provides a systematic account of aesthetics in relation to the natural environment, offering a critical understanding of what aesthetic appreciation ...

Simple idealized models seem to provide more understanding than opaque, complex, and hyper-realistic models. However, an increasing number of scientists are going in the opposite direction by utilizing opaque machine learning models to make predictions and draw inferences, suggesting that scientists are opting for models that have less potential for understanding. Are scientists trading understanding for some other epistemic or pragmatic good when they choose a machine learning model? Or are the assumptions behind why minimal models provide understanding misguided? In (...) this paper, using the case of deep neural networks, I argue that it is not the complexity or black box nature of a model that limits how much understanding the model provides. Instead, it is a lack of scientific and empirical evidence supporting the link that connects a model to the target phenomenon that primarily prohibits understanding. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 10, Page 54-55, October 2012.

In autumn 2009, BBC television ran a natural history series, ‘Last Chance to See’, with Stephen Fry and wildlife writer and photographer, Mark Carwardine, searching out endangered species. In one episode they retraced the steps Carwardine had taken in the 1980s with Douglas Adams, when they visited Madagascar in search of the aye-aye, a nocturnal lemur. Fry and Carwardine visited an aye-aye in captivity, and upon first setting eyes on the creature they found it rather ugly. After spending an hour (...) or so in its company, Fry said he was completely ‘under its spell’. A subsequent encounter with an aye-aye in the wild supported Fry's judgment of ugliness and fascination for the creature: ‘The aye-aye is beguiling, certainly bizarre, for some even a little revolting. And I say, long may it continue being so.’. (shrink)

Liberalism is a wonderful theory, but its adherents have a difficult time explaining why. In his Tanner Lecture entitled Foundations of Liberal Equality, Ronald Dworkin proposes to defend liberalism in a new way. Dworkin is not content to view liberalism as a political compromise in which people set aside their personal convictions in the interest of social peace. Instead, he undertakes to make liberal political theory “continuous” with personal ethics, by describing an ethical position that endorses liberalism as a matter (...) of conviction. (shrink)

What is time? This is one of the most fundamental questions we can ask. Emily Thomas explores how a new theory of time emerged in the seventeenth century. The 'absolute' theory of time held that it is independent of material bodies or human minds, so even if nothing else existed there would be time.

Microbes and microbiology are seldom encountered in philosophical accounts of the life sciences. Although microbiology is a well-established science and microbes the basis of life on this planet, neither the organisms nor the science have been seen as philosophically significant. This book will change that. It fills a major gap in the philosophy of biology by examining central philosophical issues in microbiology. Topics are drawn from evolutionary microbiology, microbial ecology, and microbial classification. These discussions are aimed at philosophers and scientists (...) who wish to gain insight into the basic philosophical issues of microbiology. (shrink)

In The Sublime in Modern Philosophy: Aesthetics, Ethics, and Nature, Emily Brady takes a fresh look at the sublime and shows why it endures as a meaningful concept in contemporary philosophy. In a reassessment of historical approaches, the first part of the book identifies the scope and value of the sublime in eighteenth-century philosophy, nineteenth-century philosophy and Romanticism, and early wilderness aesthetics. The second part examines the sublime's contemporary significance through its relationship to the arts; its position with respect to (...) other aesthetic categories involving mixed or negative emotions, such as tragedy; and its place in environmental aesthetics and ethics. Far from being an outmoded concept, Brady argues that the sublime is a distinctive aesthetic category which reveals an important, if sometimes challenging, aesthetic-moral relationship with the natural world. (shrink)

Du Châtelet’s 1740 text Foundations of Physics tackles three of the major foundational issues facing natural philosophy in the early eighteenth century: the problem of bodies, the problem of force, and the question of appropriate methodology. This paper offers an introduction to Du Châtelet’s philosophy of science, as expressed in her Foundations of Physics, primarily through the lens of the problem of bodies.

Im Mittelpunkt der vorliegenden Studie steht die Frage nach der Tragweite und Anwendungsrelevanz der Methodenlehre Émilie du Châtelets für die Physik im 18. Jahrhundert, mit der sich die Französin an der Diskussion um Energie- und Impulserhaltung und um das Prinzip der kleinsten Wirkung beteiligte. Andrea Reichenberger zeigt, dass Prinzipien und Hypothesen für Émilie du Châtelet als Fundament und Gerüst wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis gelten. Im Zusammenspiel beider Komponenten erweisen sich das Prinzip des Widerspruchs und das Prinzip des zureichenden Grundes als regulative Leitlinien (...) und Handlungsmaxime für die auf Hypothesen gestützte Theoriebildung und -begründung. Die sich daraus ergebenden Konsequenzen für den Status und Inhalt der Newtonschen Axiome werden exemplarisch aufgezeigt. (shrink)

Under what conditions does machine learning (ML) model opacity inhibit the possibility of explaining and understanding phenomena? In this paper, I argue that non-epistemic values give shape to the ML opacity problem even if we keep researcher interests fixed. Treating ML models as an instance of doing model-based science to explain and understand phenomena reveals that there is (i) an external opacity problem, where the presence of inductive risk imposes higher standards on externally validating models, and (ii) an internal opacity (...) problem, where greater inductive risk demands a higher level of transparency regarding the inferences the model makes. (shrink)

much early modern metaphysics grew with an eye to the new science of its time, but few figures took it as seriously as Emilie du Châtelet. Happily, her oeuvre is now attracting close, renewed attention, and so the time is ripe for looking into her metaphysical foundation for empirical theory. Accordingly, I move here to do just that. I establish two conclusions. First, du Châtelet's basic metaphysics is a robust realism. Idealist strands, while they exist, are confined to non-basic (...) regimes. Second, her substance realism seems internally coherent, so her foundational project appears successful.I have two aims in this paper. Historically, I show that du Châtelet's main source of inspiration was Christian... (shrink)

In diesem Band werden neueste Forschungen zur Physikerin, Mathematikerin und Philosophin Emilie Du Châtelet vorgestellt. Emilie Du Châtelet genoss in der deutschen Aufklärung eine hohe Reputation. Sie verband Leibniz Metaphysik mit der Physik von Newton und gelangte zu erstaunlichen Ergebnissen, die die Physik auf den Weg zu Einsteins Energieformel führte. Ihre Werke wurden sofort ins Deutsche übersetzt, Kant nimmt in seiner ersten Dissertation von 1747 auf sie Bezug. Die Sammlung stellt Texte vor, die den Einfluss der deutschen Aufklärung (...) auf Du Châtelets und Du Châtelets Einfluss auf die deutsche Philosophie diskutieren. Die großen Namen der Epoche stehen hier zur Debatte, Leibniz, Wolff, Boskovic, Euler, Friedrich II, Voltaire, La Mettrie und viele weitere Größen der Aufklärung werden in ihrem Zusammenhang mit Du Châtelet vorgestellt. (shrink)

Under the experienced editorial guidance of Steven M. Cahn and Maureen Eckert, PHILOSOPHICAL HORIZONS introduces your students to the central issues of philosophy through an engaging combination of classic and contemporary sources. Placing a premium on accessibility for today’s beginning philosophy students, the editors have put together over seventy non-technical readings, many of which have been edited for maximum comprehensibility. Unlike any other introductory anthology of past and present readings, this text contains a dozen unabridged, fully annotated masterpieces from (...) the history of philosophy, including in their entirety Plato’s Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito, the Encheiridion of Epictetus, Descartes’s Meditations, Berkeley’s Treatise, Hume’s An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Kant’s Groundwork, Mill’s Utilitarianism, James’s The Will to Believe, and Sartre’s The Humanism of Existentialism. Despite its wealth of material, the book is easily manageable in a semester-long course. By juxtaposing the work of historical and contemporary philosophers, the editors have emphasized both the timelessness and timeliness of philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

Raoul Moati intervenes in the critical debate that divided two prominent philosophers in the mid-twentieth century. In the 1950s, the British philosopher J. L. Austin advanced a theory of speech acts, or the "performative," that Jacques Derrida and John R. Searle interpreted in fundamentally different ways. Their disagreement centered on the issue of intentionality, which Derrida understood phenomenologically and Searle read pragmatically. The controversy had profound implications for the development of contemporary philosophy, which, Moati argues, can profit greatly by returning (...) to this classic debate. In this book, Moati systematically replays the historical encounter between Austin, Derrida, and Searle and the disruption that caused the lasting break between Anglo-American language philosophy and continental traditions of phenomenology and its deconstruction. The key issue, Moati argues, is not whether "intentionality," a concept derived from Husserl's phenomenology, can or cannot be linked to Austin's speech-acts as defined in his groundbreaking _How to Do Things with Words_, but rather the emphasis Searle placed on the performativity and determined pragmatic values of Austin's speech-acts, whereas Derrida insisted on the trace of writing behind every act of speech and the iterability of signs in different contexts. (shrink)

The rule of rescue describes the moral impulse to save identifiable lives in immediate danger at any expense. Think of the extremes taken to rescue a small child who has fallen down a well, a woman pinned beneath the rubble of an earthquake, or a submarine crew trapped on the ocean floor. No effort is deemed too great. Yet should this same moral instinct to rescue, regardless of cost, be applied in the emergency room, the hospital, or the community clinic? (...) -/- In health care, the desire to save lives at any cost must be reconciled with the reality of resource scarcity. As one example, the estimated cost for prophylactic Factor VIII to treat one patient with hemophilia for one year is $300,000. Costs of this magnitude have been accepted by public and private insurers in the developed world, even though, in principle, these sums could provide greater overall health benefit if allocated to pay for the unmet health care needs of many other patients. Looking forward, however, broad application of the rule of rescue will be increasingly untenable. But the moral instinct will remain: the desire to help those weakest among us, especially when their small numbers allow us to see them as unique individuals. What, then, is the ethical framework that can guide coverage and reimbursement decisions for orphan drugs into the future? (shrink)

This research examines how the fit between employees moral development and the ethical work climate of their organization affects employee attitudes. Person-organization fit was assessed by matching individuals' level of cognitive moral development with the ethical climate of their organization. The influence of P-O fit on employee attitudes was assessed using a sample of 304 individuals from 73 organizations. In general, the findings support our predictions that fit between personal and organizational ethics is related to higher levels of commitment and (...) job satisfaction and lower levels of turnover intent. Ethical P-O fit was related to higher levels of affective commitment across all three ethical climate types. Job satisfaction was only associated with ethical P-O fit for one of the three P-O fit variables and turnover intentions were significantly associated with two of the ethical P-O fit variables. The most consistent effect was found for the Conventional - Caring fit variable, which was significantly related to all three attitudes assessed. The weakest effect was found for the Preconventional - Instrumental fit variable, which was only predictive of affective commitment. The pattern of findings and implications for practice and future research are discussed. (shrink)