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A brief review is given of the continuous spontaneous localization model, in which a classical field interacts with quantized particles to cause dynamical wavefunction collapse. One of the model's predictions is that particles “spontaneously” gain energy at a slow rate. When applied to the excitation of a nucleon in a Ge nucleus, it is shown how a limit on the relative collapse rates of neutron and proton can be obtained, and a rough estimate is made from data. When applied to (...) the spontaneous excitation of 1s electrons in Ge, by a more detailed analysis of more accurate data than given previously, an updated limit is obtained on the relative collapse rates of the electron and proton, suggesting that the coupling of the field to electrons and nucleons is mass proportional. (shrink)

DBS Think Tank IX was held on August 25–27, 2021 in Orlando FL with US based participants largely in person and overseas participants joining by video conferencing technology. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 and provides an open platform where clinicians, engineers and researchers can freely discuss current and emerging deep brain stimulation technologies as well as the logistical and ethical issues facing the field. The consensus among the DBS Think Tank IX speakers was that DBS expanded in (...) its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. After collectively sharing our experiences, it was estimated that globally more than 230,000 DBS devices have been implanted for neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. As such, this year’s meeting was focused on advances in the following areas: neuromodulation in Europe, Asia and Australia; cutting-edge technologies, neuroethics, interventional psychiatry, adaptive DBS, neuromodulation for pain, network neuromodulation for epilepsy and neuromodulation for traumatic brain injury. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that over the last 40 years the context of agronomic research in the developing world has changed significantly. Three main changes are identified: the neoliberal turn in economic and social policy and the rise to prominence of the participation and environmental agendas. These changes have opened up new spaces for contestation around the goals, priorities, methods, results and recommendations of agronomic research. We suggest that this dynamic of contestation is having important effects on how agronomic (...) research is planned, managed, implemented, evaluated and used, and is therefore worthy of detailed study. This is particularly so at a time when food security, rising food prices and the potential impacts of climate change on agriculture are in the policy spotlight. We outline a research agenda that should help illuminate the drivers, dynamics and impacts of this new ‘political agronomy’. (shrink)

A growing literature testifies to the persistence of place as an incorrigible aspect of human experience, identity, and morality. Place is a common ground for thought and action, a community of experienced particulars that avoids solipsism and universalism. It draws us into the philosophy of the ordinary, into familiarity as a form of knowledge, into the wisdom of proximity. Each of these essays offers a philosophy of place, and reminds us that such philosophies ultimately decide how we make, use, and (...) understand places, whether as accidents, instruments, or fields of care. (shrink)

What is the experience of someone who is “colour-blind” like? This paper presents the results of a study that uses qualitative research methods to better understand the lived experience of colour blindness. Participants were asked to describe their experiences of a variety of coloured stimuli, both with and without EnChroma glasses—glasses which, the manufacturers claim, enhance the experience of people with common forms of colour blindness. More generally, the paper provides a case study in the nascent field of experimental philosophy (...) of experience. (shrink)

In a recent series of articles, and in his latest book, James Cornman has proposed and defended a definition of ‘observation term’. The original definition appeared in [3]; in [4] Cornman defended this definition against some criticisms offered by P. K. Machamer, and also revised it somewhat; the revised definition is restated in [2] and used there in Cornman's discussion of the identity theory of the mind. Finally, in [1], Cornman again invokes his definition in defending scientific instrumentalism, and (...) defends it against various generalized attacks on the very possibility of drawing a distinction between observational and theoretical terms which will do the sort of work Cornman wants it to do. (shrink)

In his most recent book, Philip Pettit presents and defends a “republican” political philosophy that stems from a tradition that includes Cicero, Machiavelli, James Harrington, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Madison. The book provides an interpretation of what is distinctive about republicanism—namely, Pettit claims, its notion of freedom as nondomination. He sketches the history of this notion, and he argues that it entails a unique justification of certain political arrangements and the virtues of citizenship that would make those arrangements (...) possible. Of historical and philosophical interest, he stresses, is the fundamental contrast between freedom as nondomination and slavery. Joseph Priestly, for instance, invoked this contrast in defending the cause of the American Revolution, and in 1769 declared, incredibly, that if the parliament of Great Britain continued to tax the American colonies, “the colonists will be reduced to a state of as complete servitude, as any people of which there is an account in history”. Those opposed to American independence, among them Jeremy Bentham, relied instead on a Hobbesian notion of freedom as noninterference, using it to argue that the colonists were no more interfered with by the British government than were citizens of Britain. Drawing out this contrast, Pettit aims to establish that a republican view of freedom better supports the institutions of a constitutional democracy than does liberalism. His account of the distinguishing characteristics and strengths of republicanism is, however, only partially successful. Neither his case that a republican notion of freedom provides for a more solid defense of democratic institutions and constitutional protections than is available within liberalism, nor his argument that republicanism can better address “private” injustices, is convincing. (shrink)

Philip James Jones, a Fellow of the British Academy, was one of the most distinguished, complex, and challenging of medieval historians. His works on the Italian city-states of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries and on Italy's agrarian history are monuments built to last, benchmarks that defined the field for a generation. Jones was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1984 and was awarded the Serena Medal for Italian studies in 1988. He won a major open scholarship (...) in Modern History at Wadham College, University of Oxford. Jones took a First in Modern History in 1945 and was appointed to a research studentship at Magdalen College. He had also secured a temporary teaching post at Glasgow University. All Jones's previous works flowed into the 700 pages of his mammoth book Italian City-State: from Commune to Signoria. (shrink)

We estimate that 208,000 deep brain stimulation devices have been implanted to address neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders worldwide. DBS Think Tank presenters pooled data and determined that DBS expanded in its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 providing a space where clinicians, engineers, researchers from industry and academia discuss current and emerging DBS technologies and logistical and ethical issues facing the field. The (...) emphasis is on cutting edge research and collaboration aimed to advance the DBS field. The Eighth Annual DBS Think Tank was held virtually on September 1 and 2, 2020 due to restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The meeting focused on advances in: optogenetics as a tool for comprehending neurobiology of diseases and on optogenetically-inspired DBS, cutting edge of emerging DBS technologies, ethical issues affecting DBS research and access to care, neuromodulatory approaches for depression, advancing novel hardware, software and imaging methodologies, use of neurophysiological signals in adaptive neurostimulation, and use of more advanced technologies to improve DBS clinical outcomes. There were 178 attendees who participated in a DBS Think Tank survey, which revealed the expansion of DBS into several indications such as obesity, post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction and Alzheimer’s disease. This proceedings summarizes the advances discussed at the Eighth Annual DBS Think Tank. (shrink)

Vivoscape, from Latin ‘vivo’ and the English ‘scape’ is presented as a new ecosemiotic agency that integrates the interactions between biological and ecological components of a taxon with the environment. According to this model, the interactions between species and the environment are fused into a new functional unity driven by external and internal events. Sensorial and relational channels are used by a taxon to sense external energy gradients, matter, information and to return actions and proactions in an external operational environment. (...) The eco-field model is suggested as the functional ecosemiotic mechanism associated with each vivoevent. (shrink)

A brief review is given of the continuous spontaneous localization (CSL) model, in which a classical field interacts with quantized particles to cause dynamical wavefunction collapse. One of the model's predictions is that particles “spontaneously” gain energy at a slow rate. When applied to the excitation of a nucleon in a Ge nucleus, it is shown how a limit on the relative collapse rates of neutron and proton can be obtained, and a rough estimate is made from data. When applied (...) to the spontaneous excitation of 1s electrons in Ge, by a more detailed analysis of more accurate data than given previously, an updated limit is obtained on the relative collapse rates of the electron and proton, suggesting that the coupling of the field to electrons and nucleons is mass proportional. (shrink)

European Journal of Political Theory, Volume 21, Issue 1, Page 47-67, January 2022. In response to the republican revival of the ideal of freedom as non-domination, a number of ‘radical’, ‘labour’ and ‘workplace’ republicans have criticised the limitations of Philip Pettit’s account of freedom and government. This article proposes that the missing link in these debates is the relationship between republicanism and socialism. Seeking to bring this connection back into view in historical and theoretical terms, the article draws from (...) contemporary radical republicans and the writings of Karl Kautsky and Rosa Luxemburg to propose a socialist republican theory of freedom and government. This consists of a conception of freedom as collective autonomy and a participatory democratic vision of a decentralised state with parliamentary institutions, the rule of law, worker-controlled workplaces, community-directed investment and a political culture of solidarity and public-spiritedness. This theory of socialist republicanism seeks to overcome the weaknesses and limitations of each respective independent theory and should appeal to republicans and socialists alike. (shrink)

European Journal of Political Theory, Volume 21, Issue 1, Page 47-67, January 2022. In response to the republican revival of the ideal of freedom as non-domination, a number of ‘radical’, ‘labour’ and ‘workplace’ republicans have criticised the limitations of Philip Pettit’s account of freedom and government. This article proposes that the missing link in these debates is the relationship between republicanism and socialism. Seeking to bring this connection back into view in historical and theoretical terms, the article draws from (...) contemporary radical republicans and the writings of Karl Kautsky and Rosa Luxemburg to propose a socialist republican theory of freedom and government. This consists of a conception of freedom as collective autonomy and a participatory democratic vision of a decentralised state with parliamentary institutions, the rule of law, worker-controlled workplaces, community-directed investment and a political culture of solidarity and public-spiritedness. This theory of socialist republicanism seeks to overcome the weaknesses and limitations of each respective independent theory and should appeal to republicans and socialists alike. (shrink)

"Damned for God’s Glory": William James and the Scientific Vindication of Protestant Culture, by David A. Hollinger Pragmatism and "an Unseen Order" in Varieties, by Wayne Proudfoot The Fragmentation of Consciousness and The Varieties of Religious Experience: William James’s Contribution to a Theory of Religion, by Ann Taves James’s Varieties and the "New" Constructivism, by Jerome Bruner Some Inconsistencies in James’s Varieties, by Richard Rorty A Pragmatist’s Progress: The Varieties of James’s Strategies for Defending Religion, (...) by Philip Kitcher. (shrink)

In the late 1720s, Daniel Turner and James Blondel engaged in a pamphlet dispute over the power of the maternal imagination. Turner accepted the long-standing belief that a pregnant woman's imagination could be transferred to her unborn child, imprinting the foetus with various marks and deformities. Blondel sought to refute this view on rational and anatomical grounds. Two issues repeatedly received these authors' attention: the identity of imagination, and its power in pregnant women; and the process of generation and (...) foetal development. In their discussions of these issues, differences between the authors' acceptance of general medical theories and philosophies became apparent. Blondel invoked Newtonian matter theory, experimental philosophy, and iatro-mechanism, while Turner adhered more to the authority of the Ancients and advocated a more direct role for the Creator as an alternative to mechanism in explaining natural phenomena. Additionally, the authors held differing views of what they regarded as experience. The widespread contemporary interest in their dispute suggests that Turner and Blondel raised the phenomenon of the maternal imagination from an issue of folk belief to a concern of eighteenth-century medicine. (shrink)

This article addresses shared themes in the writing of Saint Paul and the work of the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. Much recent philosophical interest in Saint Paul focuses on his contemporary significance as a radical political thinker, following Jacob Taubes' influential late work, The Political Theology of Paul. Assessments of Paul's writing in this context highlight the various ways in which he uses fictionalizing, for example in setting up the tension between the present world and a messianic (...) future, in the role he assigns to faith, and in the importance he assigns to the counter-factuality of resurrection. Yet the common thread of fictionalizing running through these themes has not been explicitly discussed. Meanwhile, the supposed `religious turn' in Dick's late writing has often been taken to have less political significance than his earlier science fiction. Considering Paul alongside Philip K. Dick, this article will attempt to bring out this central role of fictionalizing in the religious experiences of both. Like Paul, Dick experienced a visionary encounter with a God-like entity that shaped his interests and writing for the remainder of his life, and developed his own soteriology in response to what he perceived as the continued existence of Empire in modernity. Bringing out the mutual complementarity of Dick and Paul is facilitated by a framework derived from Henri Bergson's Two Sources of Religion, which theorizes the relation between mechanization as a human tendency characterizing both imperialism and industrialization, and fabulation as a human faculty for using fiction for the jointly immanent-transcendent purposes of survival/salvation. In this context, the diverse modes of fictionalizing employed by both Dick and Paul, including their unconsciously produced visions, may be understood as part of an ongoing, continually renewed strategy of revolutionary transformation of both self and world. (shrink)