Mark Wilson presents a highly original and broad-ranging investigation of the way we get to grips with the world conceptually, and the way that philosophical problems commonly arise from this. He combines traditional philosophical concerns about human conceptual thinking with illuminating data derived from a large variety of fields including physics and applied mathematics, cognitive psychology, and linguistics. Wandering Significance offers abundant new insights and perspectives for philosophers of language, mind, and science, and will also reward the interest of (...) psychologists, linguists, and anyone curious about the mysterious ways in which useful language obtains its practical applicability. (shrink)

(1) For much of this century, moral philosophy has been constrained by the supposed absolute gap between is andought, and the consequent belief that the facts of life cannot of themselves yield an ethical blueprint for future action. For this reason, ethics has sustained an eerie existence largely apart from science. Its most respected interpreters still believe that reasoning about right and wrong can be successful without a knowledge of the brain, the human organ where all the decisions about right (...) and wrong are made. Ethical premises are typically treated in the manner of mathematical propositions: directives supposedly independent of human evolution, with a claim to ideal, eternal truth. (shrink)

The emerging viewpoint of embodied cognition holds that cognitive processes are deeply rooted in the body's interactions with the world. This position actually houses a number of distinct claims, some of which are more controversial than others. This paper distinguishes and evaluates the following six claims: (1) cognition is situated; (2) cognition is time-pressured; (3) we off-load cognitive work onto the environment; (4) the environment is part of the cognitive system; (5) cognition is for action; (6) off-line cognition is body (...) based. Of these, the first three and the fifth appear to be at least partially true, and their usefulness is best evaluated in terms of the range of their applicability. The fourth claim, I argue, is deeply problematic. The sixth claim has received the least attention in the literature on embodied cognition, but it may in fact be the best documented and most powerful of the six claims. (shrink)

What explains the outcomes of chance processes? We claim that their setups do. Chances, we think, mediate these explanations of outcome by setup but do not feature in them. Facts about chances do feature in explanations of a different kind: higher-order explanations, which explain how and why setups explain their outcomes. In this paper, we elucidate this 'mediator view' of chancy explanation and defend it from a series of objections. We then show how it changes the playing field in four (...) metaphysical disputes concerning chance. First, it makes it more plausible that even low chances can have explanatory power. Second, it undercuts a circularity objection against reductionist theories of chance. Third, it redirects the debate about a prominent argument against epistemic theories of chance. Finally, it sheds light on potential chancy explanations of the Universe's origin. (shrink)

This article concerns the nature and limits of individuals’ rights to privacy over information that they have made public. For some, even suggesting that an individual can have a right to privacy over such information may seem paradoxical. First, one has no right to privacy over information that was never private to begin with. Second, insofar as one makes once-private information public – whether intentionally or unintentionally – one waives one’s right to privacy to that information. In this article, however, (...) we suggest the moral situation is more complicated than this. Rather, we argue that there is a class of public information – namely, once-private information that individuals have made public unintentionally – which remains within the scope of an individuals’ right to privacy, even when it has passed into the public domain. Significantly, this class includes any information rights-holders were unaware could be inferred from information they have made public and which they would not otherwise have wanted to be in the public domain. As we show, as well as clarifying several everyday dilemmas with regards to individuals’ privacy rights, this finding has elucidates a number of problems in the ethics of Big Data. (shrink)

For the greater part of the last 50 years, it has been common for philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists to invoke the notion of realization in discussing the relationship between the mind and the brain. In traditional philosophy of mind, mental states are said to be realized, instantiated, or implemented in brain states. Artificial intelligence is sometimes described as the attempt either to model or to actually construct systems that realize some of the same psychological abilities that we and (...) other living creatures possess. The claim that specific psychological. (shrink)

Motivated by contemporary debates concerning whether directors inappropriately deploy corporate funds for corporate political donations and the limited research into managerial influence on corporate political donations, we examine the impact of director influences from a network perspective. Using a sample of large listed Australian corporations and their political party donation activity during 2000–2007, we find that both the professional and non-professional networks of directors influence corporate political donations. We observe these influences in relation to donations at the federal and state (...) levels, and with respect to the choice of recipient political parties. (shrink)

We investigate how state involvement in the ownership of non-listed entrepreneurial firms affects pollution fees levied by national and provincial governments in China. While the national government sets minimum environmental standards, provincial governments can enact requirements that exceed these minimums, and they are largely responsible for enforcing even the national standards, so environmental levies can measure concessions that provinces make to encourage development and employment. Furthermore, state ownership is a good proxy for a firm’s political connections, which can influence the (...) relationship between the firm and the environmental authorities. We find that firms with state ownership pay lower environmental levies, which indicates that concessions are made for political or economic purposes. However, these concessions are conditional on the level of development of the province offering them, with better developed provinces providing fewer concessions. (shrink)

The book situates the works and reception of the French scholar Pierre de la Ramée (Petrus Ramus) in a variety of European cultural and educational contexts, from Britain and France to Eastern Europe, from Germany to the Iberian peninsula, and from Scandinavia to the Netherlands. Pierre de la Ramée or Petrus Ramus (1515-1572) has long been a controversial figure in educational reform and innovation, from the moment of his first public academic statements in the 1530s, to his reception among scholars (...) in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. What is beyond dispute, however, is the vast reach of his influence throughout Europe. Ramus's ideas were disseminated through copious editions and translations of his own textbooks, and in wave after wave of adaptations and re-imaginings of his ideas that swept across the continent. This volume embarks on a European tour of Ramism, using a wide range of previously unpublished or untranslated archival evidence from throughout the continent to examine the dissemination of Ramus's works and his intellectual influence in geographic and in disciplinary terms. The ten chapters explore the spread of Ramism from his home country of France to Protestant strongholds in Germany, Holland, and Britain, and in the Catholic context of the Iberian peninsula. The book also examines Ramism in the less familiar territories (to most Anglophone readers) of Scandinavia and Hungary, and considers the preceding and contemporary Dutch and German educational reform movements from which Ramus borrowed to forge his own distinctive intellectual method. (shrink)

This exhilarating tale of natural history illuminates the evolution of matter, life, and consciousness. In Everybody’s Story, Loyal Rue finds the means for global solidarity and cooperation in the shared story of humanity.

The aim of the present study was to corroborate or undermine a previously presented conjecture that physicians’ estimations of others’ opinions are influenced by their own opinions. We used questionnaire based cross-sectional design and described a situation where an imminently dying patient was provided with alleviating drugs which also shortened life and, additionally, were intended to do so. We asked what would happen to physicians’ own trust if they took the action described, and also what the physician estimated would happen (...) to the general publics’ trust in health services. Decrease of trust was used as surrogate for an undesirable action. The results are presented as proportions with a 95 % Confidence Interval. Statistical analysis was based on inter-rater agreement -test as well as χ2 test and Odds Ratio with 95 % CI. We found a moderate inter-rater agreement between what would happen with the physicians’ own trust in healthcare and their estimations of what would happen with the general population’s trust. We identified a significant difference between being pro et contra the treatment with double intentions and the estimation of the general population’s trust. Focusing on either decreasing or increasing own trust and being pro or contra the action we identified a strong association [OR 79 ]. Although the inter-rater agreement in the present study was somewhat weaker compared to a study about the explicit use of the term ‘physicians assisted suicide’ we found that our hypothesis—physicians’ estimations of others’ opinions are influenced by their own opinions—was corroborated. This might have implications in research as well as in clinical decision-making. We suggest that Merton’s ideal of disinterestedness should be highlighted. (shrink)

We argue that relationalism entails an unacceptable claim about the content of visual experience: that ordinary ‘red’ objects look like they look like they look like they’re red, etc.

George Wilson; Transparency and Twist in Narrative Fiction Film, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Volume 64, Issue 1, 8 March 2005, Pages 81–95, htt.

Ethical dilemmas are common in the neonatal intensive care setting. The aim of the present study was to investigate the opinions of Swedish physicians and the general public on treatment decisions regarding a newborn with severe brain damage. We used a vignette-based questionnaire which was sent to a random sample of physicians (n = 628) and the general population (n = 585). Respondents were asked to provide answers as to whether it is acceptable to discontinue ventilator treatment, and when it (...) actually is discontinued whether or not it was acceptable to use drugs which hasten death unintentionally or intentionally. The response rate was 67 % of physicians and 46 % of the general population. A majority of both physicians [56 % (CI 50–62)] and the general population [53 % (CI 49–58)] supported arguments for withdrawing ventilator treatment. A large majority in both groups supported arguments for alleviating the patient’s symptoms even if the treatment hastened death, but the two groups display significantly different views on whether or not to provide drugs with the additional intention of hastening death, although the difference disappeared when we compared subgroups of those who were for or against euthanasia-like actions. The study indicated that physicians and the general population have similar opinions regarding discontinuing life-sustaining treatment and providing effective drugs which might unintentionally hasten death but seem to have different views on intentions. The results might be helpful to physicians wanting to examine their own intentions when providing adequate treatment at the end of life. (shrink)

John Wilson, Barbara Cowell; The Democratic Myth, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 17, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 111–117, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.

Die Ansicht, dass Leibniz urn 1700 oder einige Zeit danach ein überzeugter Idealist war oder wurde, der allein an die Realität der Geister und ihrer Ideen glaubte, hält sich merkwürdigerweise in der neueren Sekundärliteratur. In diesem Beitrag beurteilen wir die Textgrundlage für diese Behauptung nach von uns für solide gehaltenen Kriterien einer historischen Interpretation, wobei sich die Behauptung unserer Ansicht nach als unzureichend erweist. Obwohl Leibniz zur Überzeugung gelangt war, dass wirkliche "Atome" der Natur keine Ausdehnung hätten, war er sein (...) Leben hindurch auf die Geistesunabhängigkeit lebender Kreaturen festgelegt, in der Art, die eindeutig Idealismus ausschließt. Wir versuchen, die tieferen Gründe für die Beharrlichkeit der idealistischen Sichtweise, trotz ihrer textlichen und konzeptualen Schwierigkeiten, aufzudecken, indem wir sie letztlich in den ahistorischen Präferenzen der Kommentatoren lokalisieren. (shrink)

This Essay examines the elegantly simple idea that consent to medical treatment or participation in human research must be “informed” to be valid. It does so by using as a case study the controversial clinical research trial known as the Surfactant, Positive Pressure, and Oxygenation Randomized Trial. The Essay begins by charting, through case law and the adoption of the common rule, the evolution of duties to secure fully informed consent in both research and treatment. The Essay then utilizes the (...) SUPPORT study, which sought to pinpoint the level of saturated oxygen that should be provided to extremely low birth weight infants to demonstrate modern complexities and shortcomings of the duty to secure informed consent. This Essay shows how the duty is measured by foreseeability of risks and benefits in human research and why federal regulators believed the tradeoffs in risk and benefits from differing oxygen levels administered in the support study were foreseeable. It then explores the contours of the duty to secure informed consent when applied to researchers who also serve as treating physicians, highlighting how common law duties differ in jurisdictions that apply the professional standard and those that apply the patient-centered material risk standard. This Essay provides new insight into what the law must do to make real the notion that [e]very human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his body.”. (shrink)

Objectivism and projectivism are standardly taken to be incompatible theories of color. Here we argue that this incompatibility is only apparent: objectivism and projectivism, properly articulated so as to deal with basic objections, are in fundamental agreement about the ontology of color and the phenomenology of color perception.

In this article we aim to assess the ethical desirability of self-test diagnostic kits for influenza, focusing in particular on the potential benefits and challenges posed by a new, mobile phone-based tool currently being developed by i-sense, an interdisciplinary research collaboration based at University College London and funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Our study adopts an empirical ethics approach, supplementing an initial review into the ethical considerations posed by such technologies with qualitative data from three focus (...) groups. Overall, we map a range of possible considerations both for and against the use of such technologies, synthesizing evidence from a range of secondary literature, as well as identifying several new considerations previously overlooked. We argue that no single consideration marks these technologies as either entirely permissible or impermissible but rather tools which have the potential to incur certain costs and benefits, and that context is important in determining these. In the latter stages of the article, we explain how developers of such technologies might seek to mitigate such costs and reflect on the possible limitations of the empirical ethics method brought out during the study. Not applicable. (shrink)

Approaches to self‐management traditionally focus upon individual capacity to make behavioural change. In this paper, we use Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and capital to demonstrate the impact of structural inequalities upon chronic illness self‐management through exploring findings from 28 semi‐structured interviews conducted with people from a lower socioeconomic region of Adelaide, South Australia who have type 2 diabetes. The data suggests that access to capital is a significant barrier to type 2 diabetes self‐management. While many participants described having sufficient cultural (...) capital to access and assess health information, they often lacked economic capital and social capital in the form of support networks who promote health. Participants were often involved in social networks in which activities which are contrary to self‐management have symbolic value. As a consequence, they entered relationships with health professionals at a disadvantage. We conclude that structural barriers to self‐management arising from habitus resulting in the performance of health behaviours rooted in cultural and class background and limited access to capital in the form of economic resources, social networks, health knowledge and prestige may have a negative impact on capacity for type 2 diabetes self‐management. (shrink)

John Wilson; The Teaching Profession: a case of self-mutilation, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 20, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 245–250, https://doi.

The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Physics is a comprehensive and authoritative guide to the state of the art in the philosophy of physics. It contains 54 self-contained chapters written by leading philosophers of physics at both senior and junior levels, making it the most thorough and detailed volume of its type on the market – nearly every major perspective in the field is represented. The Companion’s 54 chapters are organized into 12 sections. The first seven sections cover all of (...) the major physical theories investigated by philosophers of physics today, and the last five explore key themes that unite the study of these theories. I. Classical Mechanics II. Special Relativity III. General Relativity IV. Non-Relativistic Quantum Mechanics V. Quantum Field Theory VI. Quantum Gravity VII. Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics VIII. Explanation IX. Intertheoretic Relations X. Symmetries XI. Metaphysics XII. Cosmology. (shrink)

We posit a model of emotion and nonverbal behavior (NVB) that incorporates a perspective of consciousness. We leverage an understanding of the neural pathways innervating NVB to describe the complexity of its neural architecture and the links between those pathways and mental states. We suggest that all NVB are activated by both cortical and subcortical structures, allowing for unconscious, coordinated movements across multiple channels as well as conscious, less coordinated movements; that mental states are associated with both cortical and subcortical (...) structures; and thus that NVB will occur in multiple channels, both unconsciously and consciously, and differ across time. We discuss the implications of this model for future theory and research. (shrink)

Brendan Wilson leads the reader through Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, revealing a new clarity, singleness of purpose and contemporary relevance in this acknowledged masterpiece.

The organization, processing and representation of knowledge becomes increasingly important in all scientific and business contexts. This book focuses on qualitative methods for knowledge organization and their contributions to knowledge-based issues of marketing management research. Besides theoretical discussions of different approaches to and definitions of knowledge, as well as methods for knowledge organization, several case studies in the field of marketing management are presented. Questions of research design, adequate choice of methodologies and practical relevance of the results are addressed.

Resumen: Este artículo examina las condiciones para la emergencia la teoría de factores de riesgo. Comienza dando cuenta de la gubernamentalidad neoliberal como paradigma político, donde uno de sus valores centrales es la responsabilidad individual y la política tiene como función normalizar a los segmentos que no se adaptan a este valor. Esta normalización se concretiza en las prácticas asociadas a las políticas públicas y la intervención social. Para iluminar estas prácticas utilizamos el concepto de dispositivo propuesto por Foucault. En (...) este contexto, uno de los dispositivos relevantes es la teoría de factores de riesgo. Ella surge del concepto de riesgo, y a través de una reconstrucción histórica de esta noción, mostramos que ésta no reconstruye una condición natural de algunas personas, sino que es una distinción contingente utilizada en el contexto de la gubernamentalidad neoliberal. (shrink)