If the substitutional interpretation of quantification is tenable, it provides a basis for reinterpreting any formal language-system as nominalist: each substituend for the variables of quantification either designates a concrete object or it is empty.

There has recently been a good deal of controversy about Landauer's Principle, which is often stated as follows: The erasure of one bit of information in a computational device is necessarily accompanied by a generation of kTln2 heat. This is often generalised to the claim that any logically irreversible operation cannot be implemented in a thermodynamically reversible way. John Norton (2005) and Owen Maroney (2005) both argue that Landauer's Principle has not been shown to hold in general, and Maroney offers (...) a method that he claims instantiates the operation Reset in a thermodynamically reversible way. In this paper we defend the qualitative form of Landauer's Principle, and clarify its quantitative consequences (assuming the second law of thermodynamics). We analyse in detail what it means for a physical system to implement a logical transformation L, and we make this precise by defining the notion of an L-machine. Then we show that logical irreversibility of L implies thermodynamic irreversibility of every corresponding L-machine. We do this in two ways. First, by assuming the phenomenological validity of the Kelvin statement of the second law, and second, by using information-theoretic reasoning. We illustrate our results with the example of the logical transformation 'Reset', and thereby recover the quantitative form of Landauer's Principle. (shrink)

There has recently been a good deal of controversy about Landauer's Principle, which is often stated as follows: The erasure of one bit of information in a computational device is necessarily accompanied by a generation of kTln2 heat. This is often generalised to the claim that any logically irreversible operation cannot be implemented in a thermodynamically reversible way. John Norton and Owen Maroney both argue that Landauer's Principle has not been shown to hold in general, and Maroney offers a method (...) that he claims instantiates the operation Reset in a thermodynamically reversible way. In this paper we defend the qualitative form of Landauer's Principle, and clarify its quantitative consequences. We analyse in detail what it means for a physical system to implement a logical transformation L, and we make this precise by defining the notion of an L-machine. Then we show that logical irreversibility of L implies thermodynamic irreversibility of every corresponding L-machine. We do this in two ways. First, by assuming the phenomenological validity of the Kelvin statement of the second law, and second, by using information-theoretic reasoning. We illustrate our results with the example of the logical transformation 'Reset', and thereby recover the quantitative form of Landauer's Principle. (shrink)

Darwun, darwinism, and neo-darwinism; Genetic forces; neutralism and selection: a further synthesis; Natural selection; Genetic architecture; Species and macroevolution; Was darwin wrong after all; Envol.

There has recently been a good deal of controversy about Landauer's Principle, which is often stated as follows: The erasure of one bit of information in a computational device is necessarily accompanied by a generation of kT ln 2 heat. This is often generalised to the claim that any logically irreversible operation cannot be implemented in a thermodynamically reversible way. John Norton (2005) and Owen Maroney (2005) both argue that Landauer's Principle has not been shown to hold in general, and (...) Maroney offers a method that he claims instantiates the operation reset in a thermodynamically reversible way. In this paper we defend the qualitative form of Landauer's Principle, and clarify its quantitative consequences (assuming the second law of thermodynamics). We analyse in detail what it means for a physical system to implement a logical transformation L, and we make this precise by defining the notion of an L-machine. Then we show that logical irreversibility of L implies thermodynamic irreversibility of every corresponding L-machine. We do this in two ways. First, by assuming the phenomenological validity of the Kelvin statement of the second law, and second, by using information-theoretic reasoning. We illustrate our results with the example of the logical transformation 'reset', and thereby recover the quantitative form of Landauer's Principle. (shrink)

Thomas Berry presents his vision of cosmology and the relationships in creation. Responses from Donald Senior, Gregory Baum, Margaret Brennan, Stephen Dunn, James Farris, and Brian Swimme round out the insights and create magnetic reading.

Preface Introduction Christopher J. Berry: Adam Smith: Outline of Life, Times, and Legacy Part One: Adam Smith: Heritage and Contemporaries 1: Nicholas Phillipson: Adam Smith: A Biographer's Reflections 2: Leonidas Montes: Newtonianism and Adam Smith 3: Dennis C. Rasmussen: Adam Smith and Rousseau: Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment 4: Christopher J. Berry: Adam Smith and Early Modern Thought Part Two: Adam Smith on Language, Art and Culture 5: Catherine Labio: Adam Smith's Aesthetics 6: James Chandler: Adam Smith as Critic (...) 7: Michael C. Amrozowicz: Adam Smith: History and Poetics 8: C. Jan Swearingen: Adam Smith on Language and Rhetoric: The Ethics of Style, Character, and Propriety Part Three: Adam Smith and Moral Philosophy 9: Christel Fricke: Adam Smith: The Sympathetic Process and the Origin and Function of Conscience 10: Duncan Kelly: Adam Smith and the Limits of Sympathy 11: Ryan Patrick Hanley: Adam Smith and Virtue 12: Eugene Heath: Adam Smith and Self-Interest Part Four: Adam Smith and Economics 13: Tony Aspromourgos: Adam Smith on Labour and Capital 14: Nerio Naldi: Adam Smith on Value and Prices 15: Hugh Rockoff: Adam Smith on Money, Banking, and the Price Level 16: Maria Pia Paganelli: Commercial Relations: from Adam Smith to Field Experiments Part Five: Adam Smith on History and Politics 17: Spiros Tegos: Adam Smith: Theorist of Corruption 18: David M. Levy & Sandra J. Peart: Adam Smith and the State: Language and Reform 19: Fabrizio Simon: Adam Smith and the Law 20: Edwin van de Haar: Adam Smith on Empire and International Relations Part Six: Adam Smith on Social Relations 21: Richard Boyd: Adam Smith, Civility, and Civil Society 22: Gavin Kennedy: Adam Smith on Religion 23: Samuel Fleischacker: Adam Smith and Equality 24: Maureen Harkin: Adam Smith and Women Part Seven; Adam Smith: Legacy and Influence 25: Spencer J. Pack: Adam Smith and Marx 26: Craig Smith: Adam Smith and the New Right 27: Tom Campbell: Adam Smith: Methods, Morals and Markets 28: Amartya Sen: The Contemporary Relevance of Adam Smith. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In Which Henry James Strikes BedrockRalph M. BerryIn Stanley Cavell’s account of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, everything we know depends upon what Wittgenstein calls grammatical criteria. These criteria are what we go on when judging that something counts as an instance of our concept of a “chair,” “ardent love,” “headache,” etc. For the arts, Wittgenstein’s focus on criteria leads in two, apparently opposite, directions. First, by making the activity (...) of judging constitutive for language and culture, Wittgenstein makes aesthetics (or what is traditionally called aesthetics) a model for all philosophical activity. Determining the basis on which a phenomenon will count as an instance of any concept turns out to involve capacities that formerly seemed relevant only in cases of aesthetic judgment.But Wittgenstein’s focus on criteria also works against this centrality of aesthetics, for it makes an exceptional or limiting case of the art contemporary with Wittgenstein. According to Cavell, what modernist art reveals is that judging what counts as a novel, painting, sculpture, etc., is no longer determined by grammatical criteria, or none to which we have access as we do our criteria for “chair,” “ardent love,” “headache,” etc. This does not mean, or not quite, that nobody knows any longer what a novel is. It comes closer to meaning that the experience of modern art is of finding out what we know, what our criteria for sculptures, paintings, novels are. And it makes modernism the disclosure of a new artistic necessity: not merely to create a new work, but to create a new basis for work, a new medium for fiction. 1In what follows my aim is to see how this necessity arises. My focus is on a particular period of Henry James’s career, roughly from his review of Eliot’s Middlemarch in 1873 to his essay on Maupassant in 1888, a [End Page 61] period that surrounds his now famous response to Walter Besant in “The Art of Fiction.” I do not insist that this moment in James’s career is a founding moment for modernist fiction. My only insistence is that, whatever conditions do give rise to modernism—either for a whole culture or for an individual—they look like this moment.INear the end of “The Art of Fiction,” Henry James takes issue with Walter Besant (and the critic Andrew Lang) over the use of the word “story.” 2 His stated provocations are, first, that Besant (in his lecture) has distinguished between “a part of a novel which is the story and part of it which... is not” (“AF,” p. 178) and, second, that Besant and Lang (in his review of Besant’s lecture) have made “adventure” a defining feature of any story (p. 179). James’s procedure in the first case is to give examples of “the only [sense of ‘story’] that I see” in which it can be spoken of as different from the novel as a whole. His procedure in the second case is to give examples of what constitutes an adventure “for me” (or what “I should say” is an adventure) and to confess that he is “utterly at a loss to see why” the plot of his own novella “An International Episode” does not count as an adventure if the other examples cited by Lang and Besant do. James gives no reasons why anyone ought to use the words “story” and “adventure” as he does. If we see senses of “story” other than the ones that James sees, if the fact that he is “utterly at a loss” makes no impression on us, or if we just do not care what Henry James considers adventurous, nothing he says seems designed to change our minds. His whole case rests on nothing stronger than the likelihood that, in the circumstances he describes, we too will call or judge or find what he calls/judges/finds “a story,” “an adventure,” “exciting,” etc. If we don’t, of course, we just don’t, but the surprise is how often we do. 3Contrary to what James maintains, the problem with Besant and Lang’s definition of “story” is not that it is “altogether arbitrary” (p. 179... (shrink)

David Hume, Adam Smith, William Robertson, Adam Ferguson, Lord Kames, John Millar, James Dunbar and Gilbert Stuart were at the heart of Scottish Enlightenment thought. This introductory survey offers the student a clear, accessible interpretation and synthesis of the social thought of these historically significant thinkers. Organised thematically, it takes the student through their accounts of social institutions, their critique of individualism, their methodology, their views of progress and of moral and cultural values. By taking human sociality as their (...) premise, the book shows how they produced important analyses of historical change, politics and morality, together with an assessment of their own commercial society. (shrink)

This essay examines Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) in light of new archival findings on the medical practices of Dr. James Norcom (Dr. Flint in the narrative). While critics have sharply defined the feminist politics of Jacobs’s sexual victimization and resistance, they have overlooked her medical experience in slavery and her participation in reform after escape. I argue that Jacobs uses the rhetoric of a woman-led health reform movement underway during the 1850s to (...) persuade her readers to end slavery. This essay reconstructs both contexts, revealing that Jacobs links enslaved women’s physical and sexual vulnerability with her female readers’ fears of male doctors’ threats to modesty and of their standard bleed-and-purge treatments. Jacobs illustrates that slavery damages women’s health as much as heroic medicine, and thus merits the political activism of her readers. Specifically, Jacobs dramatizes her conflicts with the rapacious physician-master at moments that are crucial to women’s health: marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood. Ultimately, this essay advances a new understanding of the role of health reform in social change: it galvanized other movements such as women’s rights and abolition, particularly around issues of bodily autonomy for women and African Americans. (shrink)

Inspired by selected passages from Wendell Berry’s story “A Place in Time,” the article discusses Étienne Gilson’s essay “The Future of Augustinian Metaphysics” with a special regard to the relation of habits to metaphysics. The basis of this relation is human being whose life, from the perspective of Augustinian metaphysics, is permanently unsettled. Man is the one mortal being whose perfection does not come with his being, but only with his own input into what it already is. Habits, then, (...) prefect an already constituted human being in what he or she is. Man is not born, however, with habits, but acquires them through acts of the virtues or vices. The article develops the Augustinian idea according to which the moral effort of man to pursue virtues and escape vices results not so much from his natural desire of ‘beatitude’, but rather from the fact of being led to God by God. (shrink)

I argue that on very weak assumptions about truth (in particular, that there are coherent norms governing the use of "true"), there is a proposition absolutely inexpressible with conventional language, or something very close. I argue for this claim "constructively": I use a variant of the Berry Paradox to reveal a particular thought for my readership to entertain that very strongly resists conventional expression. I gauge the severity of this expressive limitation within a taxonomy of expressive failures, and argue (...) that despite its strength there is nothing incoherent about admitting its existence. The argument forms part of a project of clarifying precisely what trade-offs are required to secure the kinds of expressive power truth theorists typically want, in the process showing that the admission of very strong expressive limitations may ultimately prove to be the lesser of two evils. (shrink)

I argue here that Weberian disenchantment is manifest in the triumph of instrumental reason and the expansion of analytic enquiry, which now dominates not simply those sciences upon which medicine depends, but medical practice itself. I suggest ways that analytic enquiry, also referred to here as anatomical reasoning, are part of a particular ideology—a way of seeing, speaking about, and inhabiting the world—that often fails to serve the health of patients because it is incapable of “seeing” them in the moral (...) sense described by Iris Murdoch and others. I use the work of James Elkins and Wendell Berry to call for the recovery of a way of seeing the human body as both other and more than an object of scientific enquiry and social control. (shrink)

Piety is a social virtue. This study argues that piety as devoted action must include dialogue. Piety is an intersubjective act that attends to divine and human realities. This Project Demonstrating Excellence establishes piety as the virtue that requires wider dialogue not strict application of dogma. ;Each chapter is preceded by a Case Study of either a literary or a personal figure that represents characteristics of the virtue of piety. The threads that run through each case study, and the two (...) in Chapter 5, are the social and political aspects of piety. ;Chapters 1 and 2 concentrate upon the human condition as open to theological reality and inspired by philosophical insight. They retrieve systematic positions of Paul Tillich, such as the discovery of ultimacy through theonomous reason, and Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutical interplay of dialectic and historically effected consciousness. ;Chapter 3 is a hermeneutical look at the relationship of tradition and newness in experience that supports social values in human action, as exemplified in the work of Wendell Berry. Chapter 4 looks into the application of open tradition in social and political action, particularly in the Communitarian movement. It depends chiefly on Gadamer's hermeneutics and the understanding of being-in-the-world as a practical activity of care and concern. Others presented are Charles Taylor, Jean Bethke Elshtain, and David Hollenbach. ;Piety as the social virtue of dialogical devoted action is contrary to a popular notion which values the narrow relationship between the devotee and the one receiving devotion. Case studies here of this publicness of piety include Plato's Euthyphro, Virgil's Aeneas, Sophocles' Antigone, the prophets Amos, Hosea, and Micah, Dorothy Day, Vaclav Havel, and Tom Pringle. This study concludes that piety becomes public action in the application of tradition that is perpetually open to new understanding. This is the public action of social justice. In dialogue the human person realizes a certain distinction in creation. This "open tradition" that characterizes dialogical devoted action establishes piety as a social virtue. (shrink)

John Berry, a risk manager for a U.S.-based pharmaceutical firm (Best Co.), is assigned additional responsibilities when his territory is expanded to include the South America region. When an employee in one of Best Co.’s South American manufacturing facilities dies in a work-related incident, John must determine an appropriate response. In a business context that is increasingly global, ethical decisions are further complicated by cultural differences. This case considers thefactors influencing John as he weighs his options on how to (...) resolve this incident. The case further considers how cultural differences coupled with John’s limited cross-cultural sensitivities and personal viewpoint might inevitably skew his judgment. San Luis, the disguised name for this South American locale, is less litigious than John’s home country, the U.S. In light of these differences, the case raises a number of ethical questions. For example, how should an international corporation compensate an employee’s family for the employee’s work-related death – if at all? Are John’s own cultural limitations preventing him from doing the right thing? (shrink)

This paper discusses the sense of human fulfillment elaborated in the writings of Wendell Berry. The initial section considers the relationship between freedom and social and geographical rootedness; and the second section considers in greater detail how agriculture and personal fulfillment are intertwined in Berry's work. In the concluding section, consideration is given to the degree to which agriculture may be said to be the proper form of human life.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Cambridge Companion to the Scottish EnlightenmentJames A. HarrisAlexander Broadie, editor. The Cambridge Companion to the Scottish Enlightenment. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xvi + 366. Cloth, $65.00.A Cambridge Companion can be expected to attempt to do two different things at the same time: to provide a clear and concise introduction to the existing scholarly literature on all the principal topics discussed by the philosopher or (...) school of philosophy to which the Companion is devoted; and to advance the discussion in ways that will be of interest to those already working in the field. Alexander Broadie's Cambridge Companion to the Scottish Enlightenment succeeds admirably at both tasks. Excellent introductions are provided to eighteenth-century Scottish writing on religion, the philosophy of mind and its engagement with scepticism, the history of the human species and the basis of human sociability, mathematics and natural science, moral philosophy, political philosophy and theories of justice, economic theory, legal theory, historiography, and aesthetics. In the process, familiar figures such as Hutcheson, Hume, Smith, Robertson and Reid are placed amid a huge range of writers no longer very often taught at the undergraduate level, and the result provides a rich resource for those who want to begin to broaden and deepen textbook accounts of what was achieved in Scotland during le Siècle des lumières. In fact, as a single-volume introduction to the wealth of ideas bestowed to posterity by the Scottish Enlightenment, this book has no serious competition. It is almost entirely free of the overblown rhetoric and blatant chauvinism characteristic of some recently published accounts of what the Scots contributed to the modern world.In addition, many of the chapters contain information and arguments that will stimulate and sometimes provoke those who need no introduction to the Scottish Enlightenment. M. A. Stewart, for example, reminds us how easy it is to exaggerate the damage Hume did to religious belief in his own time. His Scottish contemporaries did their best to minimize Hume's impact and to downplay his significance; and, Stewart shows, for the most part they succeeded. Aaron Garrett describes the various ways, some rather less-than-enlightened, in which historians used animals, women, and racial difference in order "to get at the original of man." The editor of the volume takes important steps toward placing Scottish writing on the arts and aesthetic judgment in the context of what he terms "the general [End Page 479] programme of improvement that characterised the Scottish Enlightenment from its earliest days" (295).In his Preface, Alexander Broadie sets out three rival large-scale interpretations of the Scottish Enlightenment considered as a whole: one that gives priority to political economy and the disciplines which form its intellectual foundation (moral philosophy, jurisprudence, and the historical study of social institutions); another which sees the cultivation of mathematics and the natural sciences as central to the process of enlightenment in Scotland; and a third which portrays the Scottish Enlightenment as being a cultural phenomenon as much as a purely intellectual one, using just enough of both the "political economic" interpretation and the "natural scientific" interpretations as is necessary to understand how the Scottish "literati" worked within and transformed the institutions that shaped the Scotland of their day: the law, the Kirk, and the universities. My judgment is that the reader of this volume will find himself leaning toward the first of these three approaches. This is partly because the chapters both on the disciplines on which political economy was built and on economics itself are the strongest in the book: Fania Oz-Salzberger on political theory, Knud Haakonnsen on natural jurisprudence, Andrew Skinner on economics, John Cairns on legal theory, and Christopher Berry on "sociality and socialisation". Ironically, perhaps, these chapters work so well because they build on a brilliant account of "The Contexts of the Scottish Enlightenment" provided by one of the chief exponents of the "natural scientific" approach, Roger Emerson.Broadie claims that it is "arguable that science is crucially important to the Scottish Enlightenment, perhaps more important than were moral philosophy, historiography and political economy" (4). It is to be regretted, then, that so little space... (shrink)

This paper explores some issues about the choice of variables for causal representation and explanation. Depending on which variables a researcher employs, many causal inference procedures and many treatments of causation will reach different conclusions about which causal relationships are present in some system of interest. The assumption of this paper is that some choices of variables are superior to other choices for the purpose of causal analysis. A number of possible criteria for variable choice are described and defended within (...) a broadly interventionist approach to causation. (shrink)

There are widespread calls for school education to put more emphasis on developing students’ appreciation of the power and limitations of science. Without effective teaching, there is a risk that sensationalist media claims will unduly influence students’ perceptions of the power of science to already explain and predict aspects of our daily lives. Secondly, schools have a role in preparing students for a future in which they are likely to work and play alongside increasingly humanlike machines. The study reported here (...) assessed the feasibility of a survey to discover students’ stances on the predictive and explanatory power of science in relation to personality, behaviour and the mind The study forms part of a larger project that seeks to identify ways that schools can develop students’ epistemic insight when they consider big questions about the nature of reality and human personhood. Beginning with a broad conceptualisation of personhood designed to pick up on questions in the science-religion dialogue, we drew on interviews and focus groups with students in upper secondary school to formulate a set of statements that seemed to be effective in stimulating discussion about the power and limitations of science. The questionnaire was administered to 311 secondary students. Students’ responses indicate that they were engaged by the theme and that they were generally not working with a secure overarching scientistic or nonscientistic framework. When we grouped students according to how they responded to the narrower theme of personality and behaviour, one in five of the cohort was labelled as strongly scientistic. We also found that in their comments at different points in the survey, the majority of students expressed ideas and everyday phrases associated with scientism. The article concludes with implications for future research and further recommendations for teachers. (shrink)

Argues to reestablish the traditional role of rhetoric in education and discusses the importance of a student's ability to write a reasoned argument.

Self to Self brings together essays on personal identity, autonomy, and moral emotions by the distinguished philosopher J. David Velleman. Although each of the essays was written as an independent piece, they are unified by an overarching thesis, that there is no single entity denoted by 'the self', as well as by themes from Kantian ethics, psychoanalytic theory, social psychology, and Velleman's work in the philosophy of action. Two of the essays were selected by the editors of Philosophers' Annual as (...) being among the ten best papers in their year of publication. Aimed primarily at professional philosophers and advanced students, Self to Self will also be of interest to psychologists and others who theorize about the self. (shrink)

This book brings together the latest research in education in relation to science and religion. Leading international scholars and practitioners provide vital insights into the underlying debates and present a range of practical approaches for teaching. Key themes include the origin of the universe, the theory of evolution, the nature of the human person, the nature of science and Artificial Intelligence. These are explored in a range of international contexts. The book provides a valuable resource for teachers, students and researchers (...) in the fields of education, science, religious education and the growing specialist field of science and religion. Science and Religion in Education is a compelling read for current and future generations of academic researchers and teachers who wish to explore the fascinating intersect between science education and religious studies. The research findings and insights presented by these international scholars offer new dimensions on contemporary practice. - Vaille Dawson, Professor of Science Education, University of Western Australia Science and Religion in Education offers a fascinating and diverse collection of chapters surveying the current state of thinking about how science and religion can be understood in education. The book offers a wealth of thought-provoking material for anyone interested in the natures of science and religion, their relationship, or their representation within the curriculum. - Professor Keith Taber, University of Cambridge Science education and religious education are uncomfortable bedfellows. This book, written in part as a response to the – perhaps too clear – accounts of Ian Barbour, provides suitably nuanced pictures of how science and religion are dealt with in schools. Whatever the views of specialists, young people ‘receive’ an education in both science and religion: hearing their voices is refreshing in such a serious academic account. - Julian Stern, Professor of Education and Religion, York St John University Humans have long endeavored to make sense of the world often using science and religion. Yet, these two great traditions are frequently seen as incompatible. This useful volume features thoughtful contributions from experts whose work straddles the divide and provides educators with arguments, engaging strategies and historical perspectives to help build a bridge and allow a fruitful discussion in schools. - William F. McComas, Distinguished Professor of Science Education, University of Arkansas Equal parts critical examination of existing models for the relationship between science and religion, scholarly exposition of newer models, and insights toward practical application in classrooms, this book is an invaluable resource for science and religion educators. If you have been thinking it is time we looked beyond Barbour’s taxonomy, you will want to read this book. If you have not, I implore you to read this book. - Jason Wiles, Associate Professor of Biology and Science Education, Syracuse University. (shrink)

A lineage of prominent philosophers who have discussed the second-person relation can be regarded as advancing structural accounts. They posit that the second-person relation effects one transformative change to the structure of practical reasoning. In this paper, I criticise this orthodoxy and offer an alternative, substantive account. That is, I argue that entering into second-personal relations with others does indeed affect one's practical reasoning, but it does this not by altering the structure of one's agential thought, but by changing what (...) reasons can become available. The importance of second-personal thought for action is heterogenous. Second-person relations make possible the emergence of a wide variety of different kinds of practical reasons: creating some, revealing others. Recognising this diminishes the appeal of the traditional, structural accounts of the practical significance of such second-personal relations. Moving away from structural accounts facilitates a more thorough understanding of the intersubjective form of action. (shrink)

The first full-length study of Francesco Patrizi, the greatest political philosopher of the Italian Renaissance prior to Machiavelli. Patrizi was a humanist whose virtue politics-a form of values-based political meritocracy-sought to reconcile the conflicting claims of liberty and equality in service of good governance. He wrote two major works, On Founding Republics (1471) and On Kingship and the Education of Kings (1483/84), both of which were hugely influential when printed in the sixteenth century, but later forgotten.

Behavior genetics is a controversial science. For decades, scholars have sought to understand the role of heredity in human behavior and life-course outcomes. Recently, technological advances and the rapid expansion of genomic databases have facilitated the discovery of genes associated with human phenotypes such as educational attainment and substance use disorders. To maximize the potential of this flourishing science, and to minimize potential harms, careful analysis of what it would mean for genes to be causes of human behavior is needed. (...) In this paper, we advance a framework for identifying instances of genetic causes, interpreting those causal relationships, and applying them to advance causal knowledge more generally in the social sciences. Central to thinking about genes as causes is counterfactual reasoning, the cornerstone of causal thinking in statistics, medicine, and philosophy. We argue that within-family genetic effects represent the product of a counterfactual comparison in the same way as average treatment effects (ATEs) from randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Both ATEs from RCTs and within-family genetic effects are shallow causes: They operate within intricate causal systems (non-unitary), produce heterogeneous effects across individuals (non-uniform), and are not mechanistically informative (non-explanatory). Despite these limitations, shallow causal knowledge can be used to improve understanding of the etiology of human behavior and to explore sources of heterogeneity and fade-out in treatment effects. (shrink)

A new process philosophy of signs, where process becomes primary, and fixed relation secondary'Behind Red Doors - Signs, Process and the Political' - a post by James Williams on the Edinburgh University Press blogWhat is a sign? We usually think that it is a fixed relation: a red light signifies 'Stop'. In his bold new book, James Williams now argues that signs are varying processes: seeing the red light triggers a creative response to the question, Should I stop?Williams (...) develops this new process philosophy of signs through a formal model, in contrast to earlier structuralist definitions. He draws on the philosophies of Deleuze and Whitehead, criticises earlier work on the sign in biology by Jakob von Uexküll, and connects to contemporary work on process in the philosophy of biology by John Dupré.The process model has wide applications in the arts, humanities and social sciences, and informs their critical debates with science. In defining the sign as essentially political, this radical definition of the sign opens up new possibilities for social and political critique.". (shrink)

This paper defends the notion of downward causation. I will seek to elucidate this notion, explain why it is a useful way of thinking, and respond to criticisms attacking its intelligibility. My account of downward causation will be in many respects similar to the account recently advanced by Ellis. The overall framework I will adopt is the interventionist treatment of causation I have defended elsewhere: X causes Y when Y changes under a suitable manipulation of X. When X is at (...) a higher “level” than Y this allows for the possibility of downward causation from X to Y. True claims of downward causation must meet certain additional conditions, some of which have already been discussed by Ellis. These include the condition that X must have a homogenous effect on Y in the sense that the effect of X on Y must be the same regardless of how X is “realized” at lower levels. In addition, the most plausible examples of downward causation will involve causes X, that in a sense that I will try to specify, are capable of being manipulated by macro-level interventions that have a coordinated or organized impact on them, as when one manipulates the temperature of a gas by placing it in a heat bath.Three common criticisms of the notion of downward causation that I will consider are: the claim that this involves a whole acting downward on its parts which is an objectionable idea because wholes and parts are not sufficiently distinct to stand in causal relationships, that downward causation commits us to the existence of causal cycles in which X causes Y which in turn causes X and that the asymmetric nature of the causal relation rules out such cycles, and causal exclusion type worries, according to which all of the causal action occurs among “low level” variables, so that upper level variables are deprived of causal efficacy. In response I will argue that plausible examples of downward causation in the scientific literature do not involve whole to part causation, there is nothing wrong with causal cycles, which are common in, for example, biological contexts, exclusion type worries do not arise within the interventionist framework that I favor. (shrink)

This paper assesses the effect of DNA barcoding—the use of informative genetic markers to identify and discriminate between species—on taxonomy. Throughout, we interpret this in terms of _varipraxis_, a concept we introduce to make sense of the treatment of biological variation by scientists and other practitioners. From its inception, DNA barcoding was criticised for being reductive, in attempting to replace multiple forms of taxonomic evidence with just one: DNA sequence variation in one or a few indicative genes. We show, though, (...) how DNA barcoding has not narrowed or reduced taxonomy in the way it was projected to. We examine the development and implementation of DNA barcoding across three kingdoms of life: animals, plants, and protists. Through this, we demonstrate that for DNA barcoding to work, the range of acceptable intra-specific variation needs to be demarcated from variation deemed to be characteristic of inter-specific differences. Consequently, biological processes responsible for particular patterns of variation need to be investigated and understood. This encourages an integrative disposition towards understanding and explaining the evolutionary processes affecting the rate and nature of change at the nucleotide level. We detail how the impact of DNA barcoding has manifested differently across the three kingdoms we examine, assessing this in terms of the ontological commitments that are held and instantiated in practice. Based on this evaluation, we consider the problem of studying multi-kingdom communities, and assess the consequences of our analysis for understanding classification and taxonomy. (shrink)

There are three main accounts of the proper function of the low mood system (LMS): the social risk theory, the disease theory, and the propitiousness theory. Adjudicating between these accounts has proven difficult, as there is little agreement in the literature about what a theory of the LMS’s proper function is supposed to explain. In this article, drawing upon influential work on the evolution of other affective systems, such as the disgust system and the fear system, I argue that a (...) theory of the proper function of the low mood system should: (i) account for the reliable, distal causes and effects of the system’s activation, and (ii) explain how having a system that performed such a function increased fitness in ancestral environments. On this basis, I show that the proper function of the low mood system is to limit resource expenditure in relatively unpropitious circumstances, exactly as hypothesised by the propitiousness theory. (shrink)

The world provides us with an ocean of opportunities for fitting emotion. But we are beings with limited emotional resources, so missed opportunities are common. This chapter argues that these failures to take up fitting emotions are very frequently unfitting in their own right—so frequently, in fact, that most of us lead lives replete with unfitting absences of emotion. It begins by showing that, whenever an emotion can be unfitting in virtue of being too weak, the absence of that emotion (...) can also be unfitting, and for just the same reason. But emotional responses to a host of everyday objects—a funny joke, a nasty insult, and so on—can be unfittingly weak. This means that failures to respond emotionally to an enormous host of everyday objects are similarly unfitting. (shrink)

This manuscript describes a pilot study in ethics education employing a problem-based learning approach to the study of novel, complex, ethically fraught, unavoidably public, and unavoidably divisive policy problems, called “fractious problems,” in bioscience and biotechnology. Diverse graduate and professional students from four US institutions and disciplines spanning science, engineering, humanities, social science, law, and medicine analyzed fractious problems employing “navigational skills” tailored to the distinctive features of these problems. The students presented their results to policymakers, stakeholders, experts, and members (...) of the public. This approach may provide a model for educating future bioscientists and bioengineers so that they can meaningfully contribute to the social understanding and resolution of challenging policy problems generated by their work. (shrink)

Limited aggregationists argue that when deciding between competing claims to aid we are sometimes required and sometimes forbidden from aggregating weaker claims to outweigh stronger claims. Joe Horton presents a ‘fatal dilemma’ for these views. Views that land on the First Horn of his dilemma suggest that a previously losing group strengthened by fewer and weaker claims can be more choice-worthy than the previously winning group strengthened by more and stronger claims. Views that land on the Second Horn suggest that (...) combining two losing groups together and two winning groups together can turn the losing groups into the winning groups and the winning groups into the losing groups. This paper demonstrates that the ‘fatal dilemma’ is neither fatal nor a dilemma. The First Horn is devastating but avoidable and the Second Horn is unavoidable but not devastating. Nevertheless, Horton’s argument does help to narrow down the acceptable range of views. (shrink)

From the 1980s onwards, the Roslin Institute and its predecessor organizations faced budget cuts, organizational upheaval and considerable insecurity. Over the next few decades, it was transformed by the introduction of molecular biology and transgenic research, but remained a hub of animal geneticists conducting research aimed at the livestock-breeding industry. This paper explores how these animal geneticists embraced genomics in response to the many-faceted precarity that the Roslin Institute faced, establishing it as a global centre for pig genomics research through (...) forging and leading the Pig Gene Mapping Project (PiGMaP); developing and hosting resources, such as a database for genetic linkage data; and producing associated statistical and software tools to analyse the data. The Roslin Institute leveraged these resources to play a key role in further international collaborations as a hedge against precarity. This adoption of genomics was strategically useful, as it took advantage of policy shifts at the national and European levels towards funding research with biotechnological potential. As genomics constitutes a set of infrastructures and resources with manifold uses, the development of capabilities in this domain also helped Roslin to diversify as a response to precarity. (shrink)

In this paper I will argue that (principled) attempts to ground a priori knowledge in default reasonable beliefs cannot capture certain common intuitions about what is required for a priori knowledge. I will describe hypothetical creatures who derive complex mathematical truths like Fermat’s last theorem via short and intuitively unconvincing arguments. Many philosophers with foundationalist inclinations will feel that these creatures must lack knowledge because they are unable to justify their mathematical assumptions in terms of the kind of basic facts (...) which can be known without further argument. Yet, I will argue that nothing in the current literature lets us draw a principled distinction between what these creatures are doing and paradigmatic cases of good a priori reasoning (assuming that the latter are to be grounded in default reasonable beliefs). I will consider, in turn, appeals to reliability, coherence, conceptual truth and indispensability and argue that none of these can do the job. (shrink)

Offering a novel and pragmatic perspective, this timely book critically examines the development of a culture of machinist regulation and questions whether this approach is appropriate in an era of rising biological technologies. Adopting an ontological approach, James Griffin considers how current regulatory frameworks favour digital technology and how this may change in the future. Griffin adeptly investigates how regulation can impact the nature of new technologies, especially as biological computing is becoming more commonplace. Chapters provide a wealth of (...) critical analysis, considering cutting-edge technologies such as AI, prosthesis, and biological computing. Griffin outlines a proposed reformative system which focuses on the biological substrate in the creation of cultural works. The book serves to highlight the ever-increasing need for awareness of the importance of biological substrates and for a regulatory system which reflects this. The State of Cultural Biology will be an essential read for academics and students interested in intellectual property law, law and technology, legal philosophy and law's role in society. It will also prove invaluable to policymakers and professionals looking to broaden their knowledge on the regulation of modern technology. (shrink)

Do Quine and Carnap distort the social nature of inquiry by privileging individual epistemic subjects? This objection is at the heart of Donald Davidson’s claim that Quine fails to grasp the significance of the concept of truth. In Carnap’s case, the objection may be detected in Charles Morris’s call to ground scientific philosophy in semiotics, the science of signs, rather than syntax, the formal investigation of languages. Drawing out the challenge from Morris’s proposal requires examining a neglected influence on this (...) neglected philosopher: his advisor George Herbert Mead’s social theory of mind. I argue that Morris and Davidson can both be understood as demanding that scientific philosophers socialize their conception of objectivity. (shrink)

This paper employs an interventionist framework to elucidate some issues having to do with explanation in neurobiology and with the differences between mechanistic and non-mechanistic explanations.