Genetic changes arising in human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC) upon culture may bestow unwanted or detrimental phenotypes to cells, thus potentially impacting on the applications of hPSCs for clinical use and basic research. In the 20 years since the first report of culture‐acquired genetic aberrations in hPSCs, a characteristic spectrum of recurrent aberrations has emerged. The preponderance of such aberrations implies that they provide a selective growth advantage to hPSCs upon expansion. However, understanding the consequences of culture‐acquired variants for specific (...) applications in cell therapy or research has been more elusive. The rapid progress of hPSC‐based therapies to clinics is galvanizing the field to address this uncertainty and provide definitive ways both for risk assessment of variants and reducing their prevalence in culture. Here, we aim to provide a timely update on almost 20 years of research on this fascinating, but a still unresolved and concerning, phenomenon. (shrink)

While across the animal kingdom offspring are born smaller than their parents, notable exceptions exist. Several dipteran species belonging to the Hippoboscoidea superfamily can produce offspring larger than themselves. In this essay, the blood‐feeding tsetse is focused on. It is suggested that the extreme reproductive strategy of this fly is enabled by feeding solely on highly nutritious blood, and producing larval offspring that are soft and malleable. This immense reproductive expenditure may have evolved to avoid competition with other biting flies. (...) Tsetse also transmit blood‐borne parasites that cause the fatal diseases called African trypanosomiases. It is discussed how tsetse life history and reproductive strategy profoundly influence the type of vector control interventions used to reduce fly populations. In closing, it is argued that the unusual life history of tsetse warrants their preservation in the areas where human and animal health is not threatened. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:John the Theologian and His Paschal Gospel: A Prologue to Theology by John BehrMatthew Z. ValeJohn the Theologian and His Paschal Gospel: A Prologue to Theology by John Behr (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), xv + 388 pp.Father Behr's book defies summary. Its ambitions span several fields—patristics, contemporary biblical scholarship, speculative systematics, phenomenology—and Behr has controversial proposals in each. The book is not (expressly) a (...) work of systematic theology, but its speculative élan and its ambition to give a normative account of Christian theology's beating heart is unmistakable. If a vice of the book is vagueness on questions of burning Christological, protological, and eschatological interest, among its virtues is the verve and vividness with which it provokes such questions to begin with. Behr has written, not a book on John, but a Johannine manifesto on theology. [End Page 989]The book is a "symposium" in three parts, each inviting a different kind of reader of John's gospel. The first is predominantly "historical" (the early Fathers of the Johannine school, reconstructed by modern scholarship), the second predominantly "exegetical" (contemporary biblical studies), and the third "philosophical," with a single guest in Michel Henry. The book's heart is an argument about what "incarnation" means. When it comes to the Incarnation, we labor, Behr says, under what Quentin Skinner calls a "mythology of doctrine," the hermeneutical fallacy of projecting onto a tradition's classical writers positions and whole doctrinal categories developed only later (6–8). The mythology of doctrine Behr opposes is, in fact, a mythological notion of the Incarnation as "an episode in the biography of the Word" (a phrase from Rowan Williams), the episode when a "pre-incarnate Word" is born as Jesus (3, and throughout). To break the ice on this mythology, part 1 reconstructs an original milieu for John's Gospel—a school of John the Evangelist, centered upon an original Pascha celebration—in which "becoming flesh," "Word," and "human being" mean something other than the dogmatic meanings we project back onto them. This Johannine school is not the Johannine "community" posited by historical-critical studies, but the school of John's "hearers" that J. B. Lightfoot traced from Polycarp of Smyrna, Ignatius of Antioch, Papias of Hierapolis, and Melito of Sardis down to Irenaeus (30–31). Behr's reconstruction makes the following proposals. Our evangelist is John the Elder, the beloved disciple, not the Synoptics' son of Zebedee. This John was plausibly an eyewitness to the crucifixion—alone among the evangelists. He authored both the Gospel and the Apocalypse bearing his name, according to near unanimous second-century tradition (76). The Apocalypse was possibly written before the Gospel, perhaps before the Temple's destruction. John the Elder originated the yearly Pascha celebration, and it remained peculiar to his school until the second half of the second century. This feast originally celebrated the crucifixion, burial, resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost as the single event of the Passion, just as in John's Gospel Jesus's ascension (12:32), glorification (13:31–2), and "handing down the Spirit" (19:30) are identified with the crucifixion. Only later was the Passion's simple white light refracted into the liturgical cycle's rainbow of distinct feasts (91–92, 243).This reconstruction is explicitly speculative. Its purpose is to enliven our imaginations about what the evangelist's vision may possibly be. If the mythological picture of the Incarnation is easily recognized as false, our theological traditions still have not entirely exorcised it from their standard narration. Behr proposes a Johannine narration untroubled by this [End Page 990] mythology. The Incarnation is not a novelty occurring for God at some moment. No previously fleshless divine agent undergoes change to become flesh at some time. The Incarnation must instead be understood "apocalyptically," as the eternal mystery of Jesus Christ being revealed for us in time (256-57). The Incarnation is Jesus's eternal identity as the Word being revealed and wrought in time and pro nobis by the Passion (24, 29, 257, 130). John's Gospel should be read, in John Ashton's words, as "an apocalypse—in reverse, upside down, inside out" (4, 99... (shrink)

Until the beginning of the twentieth century Christianity, in order to proclaim its message, was based above all upon the word, the substance of prayer and preaching; certainly manuscripts, with the Scriptures and other fundamental texts, long secured the foundations of the faith, but before the advent of printing their diffusion and reception remained the prerogative of lettered elites, most often clerics such as the Benedictines (remember Umberto Eco's famous novel published in 1980, The Name of the Rose). Moreover, the (...) Catholic Church made extensive use of the image in the Middle Ages, above all in the gothic period, and created remarkable visual splendour in its holy places. Stained glass windows and paintings and sculptures with subjects from the Old and New Testaments reinforced the devotion and faith of the illiterate. It was only after 1450, with Gutenberg's invention of printing - which, moreover, immediately disseminated bibles, missals and prayer-books - that the text became a major means of transmitting the Christian message. From the sixteenth century onwards Protestant Calvinists (but not Lutherans or Anglicans) rejected religious imagery - even the crucifix - as a means of devotion, for they were considered idolatrous; on the other hand, the reformers, more than the Catholic Church, laid stress on the reading of biblical texts by the faithful, especially the Old Testament, henceforth much more widely distributed, thanks expressly to printing. Admittedly the word did not lose its rights; like Catholicism in its churches and cathedrals, the Reformation preached the Good Word in its temples. Yet paradoxically, the present return of the religious image - this time televisual - was to be first of all a Protestant occurrence, principally in the United States. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Persians TIMOTHEUS (Translated by John Warden)... urging on their floating bronze-beaked chariots ram by ram furrowing the waves with pointed teeth....... with humped heads stripped away arms of fir, thumped ’em on the left, mariners tumbled, smashed ’em on the right in their pinewood towers, back on their feet again. Ha! Tear off flesh to their rope-bound ribs, sink ’em with thunderbolts, rip away gilded splendour with (...) iron-helmed rams. Thonged javelins fly fire-like, shafts trembling in pierced limbs, wood slivers ablaze long-winged brazen-headed, slaughtered victims swarm. ◊♦◊ Sea with glass-green hair its furrows stained with blood; shouts of victors, screams of vanquished; the barbarous fleet borne away over the fish-crowned gleaming curves of Amphitrite’s breast. ◊♦◊ Lord of a daywide land, islander out for a sail ha! listing, tipping, arms and feet arion 28.1 spring/summer 2020 96 the persians thrashing in the buffeting waves, cries to the sea god, “Father...” Winds drop and veer, smite him on the other side. No Bacchus poured that liquid into his wine jar belly. He vomits up the boiling sea flood, screaming through clenched teeth against the defiling sea: “Was once not enough to have your proud neck yoked with bonds of hemp? See, now my lord will churn you with pine trees born in the mountains, encompass your watery plains with mariners, you madcap, long-loathed, faithless plaything of the swift-surfing winds.” Gasps out the words and a disgusting stream of sour sea water comes belching from his belly. ◊♦◊ Homeward they scurry, the Persian fleet, the foreigners squadron smashing into squadron in the long-necked strait jolts from their hands their mountain feet, leap from their mouths their gleaming helpmates; bodies without breath, without light, festoon the starsprent sea, weigh down the headlands. Survivors on the shore sit naked and freezing, tears dripping from their howled laments. Possessed by the dirge-song of grief, they keen and beat their breasts: “O vales of Mysia with your trees like a woman’s hair, take me home. For the winds are carrying me away. Timotheus 97 Never will the dust of earth receive my body....... in a cave where nymphs are born, below the ocean floor. Protect me from Helle, ship-bridged bringer of war. Had my lord not built that far-travelled causeway, never would I have come from Tmolus or Lydian Sardis to keep at bay the Greek war god. But now where shall I find sweet refuge from unbending fate? Who will free me from suffering and bring me home to Troy? Could I but fall at the ivy-robed knees of the Queen, the Mountain Mother, embrace her lovely arms and pray: ‘Goddess of golden hair, mother, I beg you rescue me, rescue me from the devious steel that slits the throat, from the wave-skimming gales, ship breakers, from Boreas that freezes by night. The winds will dash me to pieces. Already the cruel waves have torn the clothing from my body. Now I shall lie wretched, my flesh a feast to the tribes of birds.’” ◊♦◊ See a Greek with a sword of iron grab a man from Celaeno, rich in flocks, bereft in battle, drag him by the hair. Arms twined around knees, he breaks the seal of his lips seeking Greek in the shrill voice of Asia: Listen Mister not me why come. Not me, no never, big master send me, me no never come fight. Stay home Sardis, Sousa, Ecbatana. Great god Artemis 98 the persians Ephesus guard me. Swift-running backward-running they pursue their flight, cast from their hands the twin-mouthed javelins, tear the flesh from their faces, rip from their breasts their sumptuous Persian gowns, raise in one voice their Asiatic wailing. Those round the King are loud in panic at the coming disaster. The King looks down at the mingled host in flight, falls to his knees, defiles his body. Tossed in fate’s waves he speaks: Root and branch my house has fallen! The flaming ships of the Greeks have slain the flower of our youth. There is no way home, our ships consumed by the blazing might of harsh... (shrink)

A vexing problem in contemporary epistemology—one with origins in Plato’s Meno—concerns the value of knowledge, and in particular, whether and how the value of knowledge exceeds the value of mere true opinion. The recent literature is deeply divided on the matter of how best to address the problem. One point, however, remains unquestioned: that if a solution is to be found, it will be at the personal level, the level at which states of subjects or agents, as such, appear. We (...) take exception to this orthodoxy, or at least to its unquestioned status. We argue that subpersonal states play a significant—arguably, primary—role in much epistemically relevant cognition and thus constitute a domain in which we might reasonably expect to locate the “missing source” of epistemic value, beyond the value attached to mere true belief. (shrink)

What makes political power legitimate? Without legitimation, subjects will not accept power, and, since religion permeated medieval society, religion became foundational to philosophical legitimations of political power. In 2013, the XIX Annual Colloquium of the International Society for the Study of Medieval Philosophy took place in Alcalá de Henares, one of the medieval centers of political debate within and between Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities. The members of these communities all shared the common belief that God constitutes the remote or (...) proximate cause of legitimation. Yet, beyond this common belief, they differed significantly in their points of departure and how their arguments evolved. For instance, the debate among Western Christians in the conflict between secular power and Papal authority sowed the seeds for a secular basis of legitimacy. The volume reflects the results of the colloquium. Many contributions focus on key Christian thinkers such as Marsilius of Padua, Thomas Aquinas, John Quidort of Paris, Giles of Rome, Dante, and William of Ockham; other studies focus on major authors from the Jewish and Muslim traditions, such as Maimonides and Alfarabi. Finally, several papers focus on lesser-known but no less important figures for the history of political thought: Manegold of Lautenbach, Ptolemy of Lucca, Guido Terrena, John of Viterbo, Pierre de Ceffons, John Wyclif and Pierre de Plaoul. The contributions rely on original texts, giving the readers a fresh insight into these issues. (shrink)

Nella nuova Italia gli interpreti e i difensori delle civili libertà (l'espressione è di Romagnosi) furono pochi e poco considerati. Tra essi, gli amici e i seguaci radicali e federalisti di Carlo Cattaneo, ma anche un moderato come Pasquale Villari, il maestro di Gaetano Salvemini. Tutti ebbero in comune la condivisione del pensiero filosofico e politico di John Stuart Mill e il proposito di favorirne la diffusione nella cultura del loro tempo. Mill fu uno degli autori più tradotti nell'Italia (...) dell'Ottocento. Se la sua filosofia ebbe pochissima fortuna, il suo liberalismo attraversò invece tutta la classe politica ed intellettuale italiana: fu come un crocevia di strade diverse per provenienza e destinazione. Ciò vale per Francesco Ferrara e per Vilfredo Pareto, per Marco Minghetti e per Luigi Luzzatti, per i liberisti della Società Adamo Smíth e per i vincolisti del Giornale degli economisti. Il confronto con Mill permette di individuare i caratteri della filosofia civile del liberalismo post-unitario, le sue aspirazioni di buon governo e di giustizia, la sua fiducia nella cultura della modernità. La ricostruzione dei dibattiti e delle polemiche che si susseguirono tra gli anni sessanta e settanta sul decentramento, sulla rappresentanza proporzionale, sul suffragio femminile, sui rapporti fra stato e società civile, sul metodo dell'economia politica, sul socialismo e sull'utilitarismo i temi essenziali del liberalismo milliano aiuta a cogliere il significato storico del complesso rapporto tra liberalismo e positivismo in Italia. Ne viene fuori, come mette in rilievo Norberto Bobbio nella prefazione al volume, il carattere tortuoso e difficile del liberalismo italiano; la sua difficoltà a divenire una base effettiva di riferimento del nuovo stato, dei suoi ceti dirigenti, delle sue elite intellettuali. (shrink)

Axel Honneth, em O direito da liberdade, apresenta uma crítica aos elementos problemáticos da liberdade jurídica desde sua primeira formulação, no século XVII, de caráter negativo, até um segundo momento, marcado pela ampliação dos direitos subjetivos, que transforma o espaço privado em um lugar de reflexão ética de onde derivam juízos de “bem” e de “justiça”. Como exemplo desde segundo momento, Honneth se vale do pensamento de John Stuart Mill. Ocorre que, mesmo reconhecendo a importância das teorizações millianas, (...) Honneth insiste em afirmar que a liberdade jurídica implica na constituição do sujeito como ator solitário dotado de objetivos estratégicos. Nossa proposta aqui é sugerir que ao se valer do pensamento de Mill para ilustrar sua reconstrução da noção de liberdade jurídica, e concluir por sua limitação, Honneth não alcança a extensão da proposta de filosofia social do autor inglês. A imbricação entre as noções de liberdade e igualdade em Mill permeia a esfera privada garantida pelos direitos individuais e introduz questões intersubjetivas no momento de reflexão ética. Ou seja, há claros elementos de influência do outro na determinação dos juízos morais legitimadores da ação social milliana. Visando explorar esta questão, procuramos, em um primeiro momento, identificar a crítica à insuficiência do reconhecimento de obrigações recíprocas entre os sujeitos que gozam de seus direitos individuais, para, em seguida, confrontarmos seus argumentos com as formulações de John Stuart Mill sobre o assunto. (shrink)

We are sceptical of concerns over the opacity of algorithmic decision tools. While transparency and explainability are certainly important desiderata in algorithmic governance, we worry that automated decision-making is being held to an unrealistically high standard, possibly owing to an unrealistically high estimate of the degree of transparency attainable from human decision-makers. In this paper, we review evidence demonstrating that much human decision-making is fraught with transparency problems, show in what respects AI fares little worse or better and argue that (...) at least some regulatory proposals for explainable AI could end up setting the bar higher than is necessary or indeed helpful. The demands of practical reason require the justification of action to be pitched at the level of practical reason. Decision tools that support or supplant practical reasoning should not be expected to aim higher than this. We cast this desideratum in terms of Daniel Dennett’s theory of the “intentional stance” and argue that since the justification of action for human purposes takes the form of intentional stance explanation, the justification of algorithmic decisions should take the same form. In practice, this means that the sorts of explanations for algorithmic decisions that are analogous to intentional stance explanations should be preferred over ones that aim at the architectural innards of a decision tool. (shrink)

Erwin Panofsky explicitly states that the first half of the opening chapter of Studies in Iconology—his landmark American publication of 1939—contains ‘the revised content of a methodological article published by the writer in 1932’, which is now translated for the first time in this issue of Critical Inquiry.1 That article, published in the philosophical journal Logos, is among his most important works. First, it marks the apogee of his series of philosophically reflective essays on how to do art history,2 that (...) reach back, via a couple of major pieces on Alois Riegl, to the 1915 essay on Heinrich Wölfflin.3 Under the influence of his colleague at Hamburg Ernst Cassirer, the principal interpreter of Kant in the 1920s, Panofsky from 1915 on exhibits in his work ever more Kantian thinking and language.4 But Logos was not an art-historical review or one dedicated to aesthetics but a principal mainstream journal of the philosophy of culture. So ‘On the Problem of Describing and Interpreting Works of the Visual Arts’ has a good claim to be the culmination of Panofsky's philosophical thinking in his German period under the Weimar Republic. · 1. Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance , p. xv; hereafter abbreviated SI. See Panofsky, ‘Zum Problem der Beschreibung und Inhaltsdeutung von Werken der bildenden Kunst’, Logos 21 : 103–19; trans. Jaś Elsner and Katharina Lorenz under the title ‘On the Problem of Describing and Interpreting Works of the Visual Arts’, Critical Inquiry 38 : 467–82; hereafter abbreviated ‘P’.· 2. See the discussion in Carlo Ginzburg, ‘From Aby Warburg to E. H. Gombrich: A Problem of Method’, Myths, Emblems, Clues, trans. John and Anne C. Tedeschi , pp. 17–59, esp. pp. 36–41.· 3. See Panofsky, ‘Das Problem des Stils in der bildenden Kunst’, Deutschsprachige Aufsätze, ed. Karen Michels and Martin Warnke, 2 vols. , 2:1009–18; ‘Der Begriff des Kunstwollens’,Deutschsprachige Aufsätze, 2:1019–34, trans. Kenneth J. Northcott and Joel Snyder under the title ‘The Concept of Artistic Volition’, Critical Inquiry 8 : 17–33; and ‘Über das Verhältnis der Kunstgeschichte zur Kunsttheorie: Ein Beitrag zu der Erörterung über die Möglichkeit kunstwissenschaftlicher Grundbegriffe’, Deutschsprachige Aufsätze, 2: 1035–63, trans. Lorenz and Elsner under the title ‘On the Relationship of Art History and Art Theory: Towards the Possibility of a Fundamental System of Concepts for a Science of Art’, Critical Inquiry 35 : 43–71.· 4. On neo-Kantianism in pre-Nazi Germany, see Michael Friedman, A Parting of the Ways: Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger , pp. 25–37; Éric Dufour and T. Z. R. Créteil, ‘Le Statue du singulier: Kant et le néokantisme de l’École de Marbourg', Kantstudien 93 : 324–50; Edward Skidelsky, Ernst Cassirer: The Last Philosopher of Culture , pp. 22–51; and Peter E. Gordon, Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, Davos , pp. 52–86. Specifically on the Cassirerian Kantianism of Panofsky, see Michael Podro, The Critical Historians of Art , pp. 181–82; Michael Ann Holly, Panofsky and the Foundations of Art History , pp. 91–92, 147–52; Silvia Ferretti, Cassirer, Panofsky, and Warburg: Symbol, Art, and History, trans. Richard Pierce , pp. 174–77, 182–84; David Summers, ‘Meaning in the Visual Arts as a Humanistic Discipline’, in Meaning in the Visual Arts: Views from the Outside, ed. Irving Lavin , pp. 9–24; Mark A. Cheetham, Kant, Art, and Art History: Moments of Discipline , pp. 68–77; Paul Crowther, The Transhistorical Image: Philosophizing Art and Its History , pp. 70–73; Allister Neher, ‘“The Concept of Kunstwollen”, Neo-Kantianism, and Erwin Panofsky's Early Art Theoretical Essays', Word and Image 20 : 41–51; Georges Didi-Huberman,Confronting Images: Questioning the Ends of a Certain History of Art, trans. John Goodman , pp. 4–6, 90–138; and Lorenz and Elsner, ‘Translators’ Introduction', Critical Inquiry35 : 33–42, esp. pp. 38, 40–42. (shrink)

In the course of presenting his celebrated 'vale of soul-making' theodicy, John Hick claims that in a world where all human suffering is either justly deserved divine punishment or imposed by God for the spiritual growth of the sufferer, people would lack opportunity to be involved in genuine acts of deep compassion. I argue that the relief of divinely imposed suffering can be a morally valuable and spiritually beneficial activity, and mention ideas from the Jewish tradition which suggest (...) that it is right for people to ameliorate suffering even when that suffering constitutes a just punishment from God. (shrink)

Kant’s philosophy of science takes on sharp contour in terms of his interaction with the practicing life scientists of his day, particularly Johann Blumenbach and the latter’s student, Christoph Girtanner, who in 1796 attempted to synthesize the ideas of Kant and Blumenbach. Indeed, Kant’s engagement with the life sciences played a far more substantial role in his transcendental philosophy than has been recognized hitherto. The theory of epigenesis, especially in light of Kant’s famous analogy in the first Critique, posed crucial (...) questions regarding the ‘looseness of fit’ between the constitutive and the regulative in Kant’s theory of empirical law. A detailed examination of Kant’s struggle with epigenesis between 1784 and 1790 demonstrates his grave reservations about its hylozoist implications, leading to his even stronger insistence on the discrimination of constitutive from regulative uses of reason. The continuing relevance of these issues for Kant’s philosophy of science is clear from the work of Buchdahl and its contemporary reception. (shrink)

The danger of human operators devolving responsibility to machines and failing to detect cases where they fail has been recognised for many years by industrial psychologists and engineers studying the human operators of complex machines. We call it “the control problem”, understood as the tendency of the human within a human–machine control loop to become complacent, over-reliant or unduly diffident when faced with the outputs of a reliable autonomous system. While the control problem has been investigated for some time, up (...) to this point its manifestation in machine learning contexts has not received serious attention. This paper aims to fill that gap. We argue that, except in certain special circumstances, algorithmic decision tools should not be used in high-stakes or safety-critical decisions unless the systems concerned are significantly “better than human” in the relevant domain or subdomain of decision-making. More concretely, we recommend three strategies to address the control problem, the most promising of which involves a complementary coupling between highly proficient algorithmic tools and human agents working alongside one another. We also identify six key principles which all such human–machine systems should reflect in their design. These can serve as a framework both for assessing the viability of any such human–machine system as well as guiding the design and implementation of such systems generally. (shrink)

Although the link between epistemic and ontological aspects of social reality has always been a problematic issue for the social sciences, this debate loses centrality from the second half of the twentieth century. This article critically reviews the epistemic reasons for that loss, mainly in relation with "hard" constructivism, arguing for the need to return to the ontological debate about sociological foundations. At the same time, it presents a theoretical proposal: social ontology constitutes itself epistemically; that is, the question about (...) "the social" inevitably involves the question about beliefs that constitute it. But social reality is not exhausted in beliefs, since it requires a material component to exist. From this proposal, this paper makes an explicit defense for a realist approach in sociology. To do this, critically reviews John Searle’s social ontology and makes concretes contributions to sociological theory, emphasizing the importance of action, power and causal reciprocity between individual and society, to have a social ontology that shows the specificity of the social. Aun cuando la vinculación entre los aspectos epistémicos y ontológicos de la realidad social ha sido siempre un asunto problemático para las ciencias sociales, este debate pierde centralidad desde mediados del siglo XX. Este artículo revisa críticamente las razones epistémicas de esa pérdida de centralidad, principalmente en relación con el constructivismo "duro", argumentando la necesidad de retomar el debate ontológico acerca de los fundamentos de la disciplina sociológica, al mismo tiempo que plantea una propuesta teórica de elucidación: la ontología de lo social se constituye epistémicamente; vale decir, la pregunta acerca de qué es lo social implica inevitablemente la pregunta por las creencias que lo constituyen. No obstante, la realidad social no se agota en las creencias, puesto que requiere de un componente material para existir. Desde esa propuesta, en una segunda parte, el artículo defiende la necesidad de adoptar una postura realista en sociología. Para ello, revisa críticamente la propuesta de ontología social de Searle y realiza aportes concretos desde la teoría sociológica, concluyendo la importancia de la acción, del poder y de la reciprocidad causal entre individuo y sociedad, para contar con una ontología que dé cuenta de la especificidad propia de lo social. (shrink)

The leading hypothesis concerning the “reuse” or “recycling” of neural circuits builds on the assumption that evolution might prefer the redeployment of established circuits over the development of new ones. What conception of cognitive architecture can survive the evidence for this hypothesis? In particular, what sorts of “modules” are compatible with this evidence? I argue that the only likely candidates will, in effect, be the columns which Vernon Mountcastle originally hypothesized some 60 years ago, and which form part of the (...) well-known columnar hypothesis in neuroscience—systems that cannot handle gross cognitive functions as distinct from strictly exiguous subfunctions. This is in stark contrast to the modules postulated by much of cognitive psychology, cognitive neuropsychology, and evolutionary psychology. And yet the fate of this revised notion is unclear. The main issue confronting it is the effect of the neural network context on local function. At some point the effects of context are so strong that the degree of specialization required for modularity is not able to be met. Still, despite indications from neuroimaging that peripheral and central systems deploy shared circuitry, some skills clearly do seem to display modularization and autonomy. This article: provides an in-depth analytical and historical review of the fortunes of modular thinking in cognitive science; offers a systematic calibration of brain regions in terms of degrees of functional specificity and robustness; and suggests another way of accounting for the partially encapsulated character of expertise and other highly practiced skills without having to resort to domain-specific modules. (shrink)

The past two decades have witnessed a revival of interest in multiple realization and multiply realized kinds. Bechtel and Mundale’s (1999) illuminating discussion of the subject must no doubt be credited with having generated much of this renewed interest. Among other virtues, their paper expresses what seems to be an important insight about multiple realization: that unless we keep a consistent grain across realized and realizing kinds, claims alleging the multiple realization of psychological kinds are vulnerable to refutation. In this (...) paper I argue that, intuitions notwithstanding, the terms of their recommendation make it impossible to follow, while also misleadingly insinuating that its application virtually guarantees mind-brain identity. Instead of a matching of grains, what multiple realization really requires is a principled method for adjudicating upon differences between tokens. Shapiro’s (2000) work on multiple realization can be understood as an attempt to adumbrate just such a method. While his “causal relevance” criterion can easily be mistaken for Bechtel and Mundale’s grain requirement, my analysis reveals exactly where and why these two tests diverge. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Utilitarianism in the Early American Republic by James E. CrimminsAndrew GustafsonUtilitarianism in the Early American Republic James E. Crimmins. Routledge, 2022.There are many important influences on American Pragmatism, but one which is frequently overlooked is the influence of Utilitarianism, both on American thought in general, and American Pragmatism in particular. It is difficult to imagine anyone better to write this book than James Crimmins. As a leading Bentham (...) scholar, among his twelve previously published books on utilitarianism, he is editor of the Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Utilitarianism (Bloomsbury, 2013) and the four-volume set Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789–1914 (Thoemmes Continuum, 2005). His vast knowledge of the history of utilitarianism, which he has spent his entire career investigating, makes him the perfect author for this very helpful book on the influences of utilitarianism in early American thought. It is a rich sourcebook that can help direct anyone looking to do more research in this area. Here, Crimmins provides a thorough historical account of the influence of utilitarianism on the development of early American thought and the rise of pragmatism, giving reason to believe that utilitarianism was more impactful on American pragmatism than is often realized.The first chapter highlights why utilitarian influence on American law and politics is overlooked and why it should not be. Chapters 2 and 3 explain how American thought leaders came to know of Bentham's work, and chapters 4–7 discuss concrete examples of thinkers who brought utilitarianism to bear on issues in America (for example, Hoffman on legal studies in chapter 4, Livingston on legislative law in chapter 5, the death penalty debate in chapter 6, and Thomas Cooper's wide-ranging influences in chapter 7). The epilogue provides a specific set of arguments for why the utilitarians' influence on American Pragmatism should be more widely recognized and investigated.Crimmins begins the book by explaining why utilitarianism, as an influence in early American politics, is typically excluded and ignored by thinkers from John Dewey to Élie Halévy. One reason is that William Paley's Principles of Political and Moral Philosophy (which was used widely as a moral text in US universities throughout the 1800s) was published in 1785, and Bentham's An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation was published in 1789, and even then Bentham's ideas didn't gain public circulation (and then only in French) until Etienne Dumont published the three-volume Traités de législation civile et pénale in 1802. But the more important reason utilitarianism [End Page 106] has not received attention, according to Crimmins, is due to the dominant focus placed on Locke's natural law and rights view being the lens by which American politics has been understood. Some have challenged this Lockean consensus and pointed out that republican virtues drawn from the ancient Greeks and others show up in ideas such as the "right to happiness" (which is a right that is found nowhere in Locke) (20). Crimmins shows that there was a very strong emphasis on "public utility," "general welfare," and happiness, and this frequently outweighed concerns for natural rights for thinkers like Thomas Paine, John Adams, Nathaniel Chipman, Joseph Haven, and many other early American thinkers. Furthermore, utilitarian considerations can be found in the Constitution and federalist papers, and even Tocqueville explained American thinking through the lens of utilitarian concerns.Bentham was ambitious in attempting to promote codification of law in many countries worldwide. While Bentham had made offers (some accepted, some rejected) to help in the codification of law to various countries, ranging from Catherine the Great's Russia to France, Portugal, Spain, and numerous South American countries, he spent much of the last quarter of his life focused on trying to provide his services to the new United States. In chapter 2, Crimmins provides a history of the dissemination of Bentham's ideas in the United States, highlighting some of the key promoters of his ideas in the United States, including Richard Hildreth and John Neal, as well as John O'Sullivan, Gilbert Vale, and, of course, Thomas Cooper. Crimmins also provides a meticulous account of Bentham's personal attempts... (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é fazer uma discussão apontando para o enfraquecimento de Estados Democráticos como resultado de uma _Predação Estatal_. Predação estatal é utilizada aqui para designar um sucateamento e desordens no Estado como resultados de má administração, corrupção, entre outros fatores. Para tal, fez-se uma discussão/síntese inicial sobre a concepção de Estado/sociedade em John Rawls, buscando relacionar sua ideia de estado ideal com a concepção de Estado Democrático de Direito de autores como Rubens Casara, que, a princípio, (...) dialoga de forma a concordar com a teoria da justiça de Rawls. Se percebeu, nesse sentido, que as concepções desses dois autores vão na contramão da predação estatal, pois esta última consiste na ausência de elementos como democracia, organização do Estado, garantia de direitos, entre outros, apontados por Rawls e Casara. Assim o trabalho foi escrito a partir de análise bibliográfica que versam sobre os temas em questão. A relevância do trabalho consiste na contribuição para a construção do conceito de predação estatal e _Estado Fraco_, possibilitando, dessa forma, uma ampliação da bibliografia a respeito desses conceitos, sendo este trabalho uma dessas fontes bibliográficas. Isso porque, por estarem ainda em construção, sobretudo a ideia de estado fraco, a bibliografia é rara, e praticamente não existe no Brasil. Vale ressaltar que Estado fraco não é Estado fracassado, que dispõe de maior bibliografia e tem uma concepção distinta de Estado fraco. (shrink)

IT_Nel panorama analitico emerge la gura di Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe. Ella, accanto a suo marito Peter Geach e al losofo Anthony Kenny, è stata indicata da John Haldane, tra i promotori di una nuova corrente denominata “tomismo analitico”. In questo saggio, oltre a sottolineare le debolezze che sono presenti in tale dicitura e allo stesso tempo il carattere innovativo della ri essione di questi loso , si è scelto di ripercorrere in modo critico le pagine che Anscombe dedica (...) ad un tema caro ai loso sin dalla classicità, vale a dire il tema della “sostanza”. È possibile, così, mostrare come tale concetto abbia subito delle modi che lungo tutta la storia del pensiero e, in ne, chiarire la de nizione che ne dà Anscombe. In conclusione, vengono presi in considerazioni quelli che possono essere con- siderati, sia in positivo che in negativo, i punti rilevanti della questione. EN_In the analytic philosophical panorama it is very relevant the gure of Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe. Along her husband Peter Geach and the philosopher Anthony Kenny, she was identi ed by John Haldane as one of the promoters of a new philosophical current called “Analytical Thomism”. In this paper, in addition to highlighting the weaknesses that is present in this statement and at the same time the character of innovation o ered by the re ection of these philosophers, the Author choses to analyze the topic of substance, considered by philosophers since the classical antiquity. She will show brie y how this con- cept has been changed in the history of thought, culminating in the elaboration developed by Anscombe. In the conclusion the Author shows the fallacy and the strong points of the problem. (shrink)

This is a classic volume in the "library of Living Philosophers" and includes a collection of essays on Dewey's work by his contemporaries at the time of the volume's publication. It also includes a biographical essay on Dewey and his replies to the assembled essays.

Evidence of the pervasiveness of neural reuse in the human brain has forced a revision of the standard conception of modularity in the cognitive sciences. One persistent line of argument against such revision, however, cites the evidence of cognitive dissociations. While this article takes the dissociations seriously, it contends that the traditional modular account is not the best explanation. The key to the puzzle is neural redundancy. The article offers both a philosophical analysis of the relation between reuse and redundancy (...) as well as a plausible solution to the problem of dissociations. (shrink)

Con frecuencia la teoría política trata a la familia como un hecho incuestionable de la vida social. Sin embargo, y especialmente en el marco del liberalismo político, vale la pena preguntarse por su justificación. En el presente trabajo analizo la teoría de la justicia de John Rawls buscando reconstruir no sólo lo que efectivamente dice sobre esta cuestión sino también el potencial que encierra para propocionar respuestas más contundentes. Rawls parece suscribir una explicación puramente instrumental del valor de (...) la familia, centrada en su utilidad para la reproducción y estabilidad de una sociedad bien ordenada. Sin embargo, como señalaré, aunque Rawls no explora esta alternativa, una aplicación consecuente del “primer principio”, que pauta la distribución de libertades y derechos básicos de los individuos, abre el camino para una justificación normativa más concluyente. (shrink)

The conflict between Kant and the medical faculty was far more complex and substantial than is indicated in the section of his famous Conflict of the Faculties addressing this matter. In this essay I will consider not only what Kant, as a philoso­pher, thought of medicine as a faculty, but what medicine as a faculty thought of Kant as a philosopher.

In “Causality and Determination,” Anscombe rejects the two received opinions on the nature of causality in the modern philosophical tradition. She rejects the Humean conception of universal generalization based on the constant conjunction in experience of cause and effect, and she also rejects the notion that causality entails a necessary connection between cause and effect. As an alternative, she suggests that the core notion of causality is one of the derivativeness of the effect from the cause. Her consideration of causality (...) ranges generally over all types of causality, but I believe that the most significant implication of her position is in application to the causality of human action. In this paper, I will articulate what I take to be that position. (shrink)

An infinite lottery machine is used as a foil for testing the reach of inductive inference, since inferences concerning it require novel extensions of probability. Its use is defensible if there is some sense in which the lottery is physically possible, even if exotic physics is needed. I argue that exotic physics is needed and describe several proposals that fail and at least one that succeeds well enough.

Epigenesis has become a far more exciting issue in Kant studies recently, especially with the publication of Jennifer Mensch’s Kant’ Organicism. In my commentary, I propose to clarify my own position on epigenesis relative to that of Mensch by once again considering the discourse of epigenesis in the wider eighteenth century. In order to situate more precisely what Kant made of it in his own thought, I distinguish the metaphysical use Kant made of epigenesis from his rejection of its aptness (...) as a theory for life science. In that light, I raise questions about the scope and authority of philosophy vis à vis natural science. (shrink)

Herder's Naturalist Aesthetics, by ZuckertRachel. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. 276.

The principle of "organism"—of intrinsic and dynamic unity—and the existence of "organized bodies"—of living things—in the physical world represented crucial preoccupations for philosophers of nature and experimental naturalists across the eighteenth century. How to make sense of these in a manner consistent with a unified scientific understanding of the physical world became the inevitable challenge that accompanied these recognitions. In just this theoretical enterprise, Leibniz emerges to historical scrutiny as an indispensable and pervasive influence. Thus, we are very fortunate to (...) have the body of scholarship that François Duchesneau has devoted to this topic over the course of his illustrious career. In this... (shrink)

In his Inductive Inference and Its Natural Ground: An Essay in Naturalistic Epistemology, Hilary Kornblith presents an argument for the justification of induction that is bold, brilliant, and plausible, but radically incomplete. In the development of this position, Kornblith relies heavily on the philosophical work of Richard Boyd as well as on some empirical psychological studies. As Kornblith sees it, the philosophical position entailed by his proposed solution to the problem is a thoroughgoing, realistic, scientific materialism. I will argue that (...) the brand of realism that Kornblith’s solution to the problem of induction presupposes is inexplicable within the context of the non-reductive materialism that he espouses. Although Kornblith provides us with valuable elements for a solution to the problem of induction, it needs to be supplemented with something like a renovated Aristotelian notion of form in order for the solution to be plausible. (shrink)

Dietrich von Hildebrand’s treatise The Nature of Love is set in relation to the theological personalism of the Cappadocian fathers of the Church, and to my own earlier work done in this tradition. Several points of divergence are explored, especially points concerning von Hildebrand’s claim that love exists as a response to the beauty of the beloved person. God’s love for human beings does not always seem to fit the paradigm of value-response; His love seems to be creative of beauty (...) in us rather than to respond to already existing beauty. But at the same time, the deep kinship of von Hildebrand’s personalism with that of the Cappadocian fathers is stressed; he is at one with them in affirming the heart as distinct from the intellect, in affirming love as the supreme act of the person, and in affirming the place of beauty in the existence of persons. (shrink)