This paper contributes to the (re-)conceptualisation of responsible innovation by proposing an evolutionary economic approach that focuses on the role of consumers in the innovation process. After a discussion of the philosophical foundations and ethical implications of this approach, which bears an explanatory potential that has not been adequately considered in previous discussions of responsible innovation, we present a first step towards capturing the important but often neglected role of consumers in innovation processes (including responsible innovation): We propose an agent-based (...) model that incorporates a multidimensional space of characteristics in which new products or services are represented by more than the mere aspect of price and quality. Instead, innovations are denoted by a large set of characteristics, including also negative or harmful ones. The model is used to illustrate that consumers’ heterogeneity and bounded rationality – even if considered in a simple manner – indeed play a crucial role in the creation and diffusion of responsible innovation which can and should be used for further work in this field and for possible extensions of the model. (shrink)

BackgroundStory recall tests have shown variable sensitivity to rate of cognitive decline in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers. Although SR tasks are typically scored by obtaining a sum of items recalled, item-level analyses may provide additional sensitivity to change and AD processes. Here, we examined the difficulty and discrimination indices of each item from the Logical Memory SR task, and determined if these metrics differed by recall conditions, story version, lexical categories, serial position, and amyloid status.Methodsn = 1,141 participants from (...) the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer’s Prevention longitudinal study who had item-level data were included in these analyses, as well as a subset of n = 338 who also had amyloid positron emission tomography imaging. LM data were categorized into four lexical categories, and by serial position. We calculated difficulty and discriminability/memorability by item, category, and serial position and ran separate repeated measures ANOVAs for each recall condition, lexical category, and serial position. For the subset with amyloid imaging, we used a two-sample t-test to examine whether amyloid positive and amyloid negative groups differed in difficulty or discrimination for the same summary metrics.ResultsIn the larger sample, items were more difficult in the delayed recall condition across both story A and story B. Item discrimination was higher at delayed than immediate recall, and proper names had better discrimination than any of the other lexical categories or serial position groups. In the subsample with amyloid PET imaging, proper names were more difficult for Aβ+ than Aβ−; items in the verb and “other” lexical categories and all serial positions from delayed recall were more discriminate for the Aβ+ group compared to the Aβ− group.ConclusionThis study provides empirical evidence that both LM stories are effective at discriminating ability levels and amyloid status, and that individual items vary in difficulty and discrimination by amyloid status, while total scores do not. These results can be informative for the future development of sensitive tasks or composite scores for early detection of cognitive decline. (shrink)

State governments provide preprinted advance directive forms to the general public. However, many adults in the United States (US) lack the skills necessary to read and comprehend health care-related materials. In this study, we sought to determine the readability of state government-sponsored advance directive forms.

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine raises fundamental ethical issues. As one example, AI systems in the field of mental health successfully detect signs of mental disorders, such as depression, by using data from social media. These AI depression detectors (AIDDs) identify users who are at risk of depression prior to any contact with the healthcare system. The article focuses on the ethical implications of AIDDs regarding affected users’ health-related autonomy. Firstly, it presents the (ethical) discussion of AI (...) in medicine and, specifically, in mental health. Secondly, two models of AIDDs using social media data and different usage scenarios are introduced. Thirdly, the concept of patient autonomy, according to Beauchamp and Childress, is critically discussed. Since this concept does not encompass the specific challenges linked with the digital context of AIDDs in social media sufficiently, the current analysis suggests, finally, an extended concept of health-related digital autonomy. (shrink)

For most observers of economics from both inside and outside the science, the term ‘economics’ is synonymous with neoclassical economics. It is the methodology of neoclassical economics that defines the discipline of economics. ‘Mainstream economics’ is neoclassical economics and anyone entering the discipline today who wishes to obtain an appointment at one of the leading universities of the world is well advised to master its techniques. The fact that virtually every winner of a Nobel prize from Paul Samuelson up to (...) his student Joseph Stiglitz has been a practitioner of neoclassical economics is ample proof of the methodology’s triumph. Despite the dominance of this methodology, however, neoclassical economics has been subject to a steady stream of criticisms and proposals for alternative methodological approaches throughout its life. This article focuses on two relatively recent challenges to the neoclassical orthodoxy that seem to have taken hold of a non-negligible minority of the profession, some of whom can be found at leading universities. These two challenges come from behavioural economics and evolutionary economics. The article describes the strengths and weaknesses of both of these methodological approaches and contrasts them with that of neoclassical economics. It concludes that all three methodologies have something positive to contribute to the study of human behaviour. Key Words: neoclassical economics • behavioural economics • evolutionary economics. (shrink)

The ability to process center‐embedded structures has been claimed to represent a core function of the language faculty. Recently, several studies have investigated the learning of center‐embedded dependencies in artificial grammar settings. Yet some of the results seem to question the learnability of these structures in artificial grammar tasks. Here, we tested under which exposure conditions learning of center‐embedded structures in an artificial grammar is possible. We used naturally spoken syllable sequences and varied the presence of prosodic cues. The results (...) suggest that mere distributional information does not suffice for successful learning. Prosodic cues marking the boundaries of the major relevant units, however, can lead to learning success. Thus, our data are consistent with the hypothesis that center‐embedded syntactic structures can be learned in artificial grammar tasks if language‐like acoustic cues are provided. (shrink)

What is the cash value of Richard Rorty’s philosophy and politics of religion? This paper analyzes the political promise of Rorty’s shift from atheism to anticlericalism in the last decade of his life. It seeks to deliver primarily a concise summary of this shift, and of its transformative motivation. Then a critique of this shift is followed by the suggestion of a friendly amendment: its extension towards a pragmatic pluralism. The outlined Rortyan conception of a serene, and, at the same (...) time robust, politics of religion is proposed as a promising answer to the question of how secular liberal citizens should react to the “return of the gods.”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Studies in Plato's Two-Level ModelIan MuellerHolger Thesleff. Studies in Plato's Two-Level Model. Helsinki: Societas Scientarum Fennica, 1999. Pp. vi + 143. N. P.After some 30 years of incisive intervention in Platonic scholarship, Holger Thesleff here offers us "an attempt to elaborate and ground more firmly some basic theses which I have propounded in various contexts before," (1) a rather modest description of what he also describes as an (...) attempt to contribute toward "a more general agreement on how to read and interpret Plato" (5). The richness of this book makes it impossible to describe in any detail, and I shall content myself with indicating some of what I take to be its principal points of view.Thesleff"s concern for agreement arises from his perception of the vastly discrepant schools of Plato interpretation, of which the most important for him might be labeled esotericist, analytic, and "literary." The last, which can hardly be called a school at all, includes a variety of scholars who downplay "literal" interpretation and emphasize such things as "dramatic artistry, the structure of the dialogues, the characterization of settings and persons, shifts of style, allusions, play, and irony" (3). Thesleff's sympathies clearly lie with these people, perhaps to an extent which, as I shall suggest, will limit the effectiveness of his attempt to move toward a consensus.As the title indicates Thesleff builds his reading around what he calls Plato's two-level model. This two-level model is not, as one might suppose, what has been called Plato's two worlds view, the belief in a world of pure being beyond the perceived world we inhabit. Indeed, it is not a doctrine or set of doctrines at all. Rather "it is an intuitive 'vision' which offers only crude basic patterns and frames for the structures of Plato's thinking, feelings, intuitions, and intentions, from his youth to his old age, and for our understanding of them" (123). Clearly one cannot expect a full and precise articulation of this vision. Thesleff proceeds by discussing in terms of their role in the earlier dialogues ten hierarchic pairs which form part of Plato's vision: divine/human, soul/body, leading/being led (particularly important in the conduct of a Socratic discussion), truth/appearance, knowledge/opinion, intellect/senses, defined/undefined, stability/change, one/many, same/different. These hierarchic or asymmetric pairs are contrasted by Thesleff with what he calls polar opposites like large/small and light/dark. He also stresses that the hierarchic pairs of Plato's two-level model involve no separation (chorismos), but rather a communion (koinônia).As the words "from his youth to his old age" in the quotation of the previous paragraph indicate, Thesleff is a "unitarian" in his approach to Plato. His Plato is not a philosopher whose positions changed through time as a result of reasoned argument. What many scholars take to be doctrines later given up, e.g., the view that learning is being reminded (anamnêsis), are "thought experiments," which are not followed up, thought experiments made within the context of the unchanging two-level vision.Although Thesleff is a unitarian in the sense I have indicated, he does believe that a kind of order of composition can be constructed for the dialogues. I say "kind of" because Thesleff's chronology involves assumptions of revisions over time, multiple authorship, and even dialogues "written down" by people other than Plato. The resulting chronology is complex, and I here only indicate it in rough form in a way which [End Page 272] brings out what I take to be its major points. Leaving out of account those Socratic" dialogues which Thesleff takes to be latish and the posthumously completed Laws, we can say that a series of late dialogues starts with the Parmenides and includes the Timaeus, Critias, Sophist, Politicus, and Philebus. All other dialogues, including the Theaetetus, were written prior to the Parmenides with the exception of the Republic, which Thesleff proposes is in its ultimate shape a late work, representing "only and purely Plato's 'own' and personal philosophy" (115). As for the other late dialogues, which have played an important... (shrink)

In this book, Andy Mueller examines the ways in which epistemic and practical rationality are intertwined. In the first part, he presents an overview of the contemporary debates about epistemic norms for practical reasoning, and defends the thesis that epistemic rationality can make one practically irrational. Mueller proposes a contextualist account of epistemic norms for practical reasoning and introduces novel epistemic norms pertaining to ends and hope. In the second part Mueller considers current approaches to pragmatic encroachment in epistemology, ultimately (...) arguing in favor of a new principle-based argument for pragmatic encroachment. While the book defends tenets of the knowledge-first programme, one of its main conclusions is thoroughly pragmatist: in an important sense, the practical has primacy over the epistemic. (shrink)

From delegation to specialization: nurses and clinical trial co‐ordinationThis paper considers an area of clinical research that has been delegated by physician‐researchers to nurses and others in the United States, that of clinical trials co‐ordination. It uses interviews with nurse trial co‐ordinators to explore the occupational processes by which the boundaries of work enactment and the definition of work have been established by nurses and others. It then discusses the occupational processes that have been established to formalize a role for (...) nurses in clinical research. It raises the question of (and offers speculation on) whether specialization alone will distinguish nursing from other occupational groups engaged in clinical research work. (shrink)

If we supply a missing connection in the master text of English Renaissance poetic theory, we can bring the dilemma posed by political poetry into sharp relief. Sidney’s Defence of Poesie seeks to confirm the supremacy of the poet’s power over human minds by invoking the celebrated three-way distinction between poetry, philosophy, and history in the Poetics. According to Sidney, the proper question to ask of poetry is not “whether it were better to have a particular act truly or falsely (...) set down” but “whether it be better to have it set down as it should be, … for your own use and learning.” On this criterion, the philosopher shows himself too devoted to “knowledge” that “standeth upon the abstract and general,” to the “precept,” to “what should be.” The historian attends too much to “the particular truth of things and not to the general reason of things,” to the “example,” to “what is.” Only the poet “coupleth the general notion with the particular example” in “the speaking picture of poesy,” thus synthesizing through his “imaginative and judging power” the best that the philosophical and historical domains can offer. “Aristotle himself,” concludes Sidney, “plainly determineth this question, saying that poetry … is more philosophical and more studiously serious than history … because poesy dealeth with … the universal consideration, and the history with … the particular.” Yet in mounting his Defence of Poesie, Sidney fails to give due force to a related and equally important distinction drawn from the Poetics. Aristotle ranks poetry below philosophy—and, by implication, history as well—at the crucial juncture where ontology and epistemology meet. He exclusively credits philosophical universals with rational “necessity.” Poetic universals are recognized as having imaginative “likelihood,” but no more than this.1 Under this second three-way distinction, the domain proper to poetry turns out to be neither the realm of historical fact nor that of philosophical truth but some half-region of the truthlike, the verisimilar, disjoint from the plane of knowledge.[…]Milton coped with the questions intrinsic to political poetry during the decade from 1642 to 1652 when he rose to prominence as a pamphleteer on public issued and concurrently pioneered the writing of political sonnets in English. This essay examines the responses he made, in part in his prose but mainly in the composition of seven sonnets. Political poems in a root sense, these sonnets concern themselves with human agency channeled into the functions of the state, with power manifested through governance. After exploratory and uneven beginnings, the group as a whole goes a fair way toward vindicating the enterprise of political poetry and offering one set of criteria for a good political poem. 1. The core distinctions are drawn by Aristotle in chap. 9, secs. 2-4, of the Poetics; also see chap. 1, sec. 1 of the Topics on the distinction between demonstration, based on reasoning from true knowledge, and dialectic, based on reasoning from what is generally accepted as probable. The quotations in this paragraph are from Sidney: A Defence of Poetry, ed. J. A. Van Dorsten , pp. 35, 32, 33, 35. Janel Mueller is professor of English and humanities at the University of Chicago. She has published mainly on poetry and prose of the earlier English Renaissance, culminating in her book The Native Tongue and the Word: Developments in English Prose Style, 1380-1580. An interest in Milton, however, has drawn her more recently to work in the later part of this period. She is writing a book on nature, culture, and gender in Milton’s major poems. (shrink)

The focus of this article is on the pragmatic presuppositions involved in the use of general terms in inductive practices. The main thesis is that the problem of characterizing the assumptions underlying the projection of predicates in inductive practices and the ones underlying the classification of crtain general terms as «natural kind terms» coincide to a good extent. The reason for this, it is argued, is that both classifications, «projectibility» and «natural kind term», are attempts to answer to the same (...) semantico-epistemological phenomenon, viz. underdertermination. It is proposed a «deflationary» reading of the so-called «theory of direct reference» as to enable an evaluation of its contribution to epistemological problems associated with this kind of phenomena, as well as it is argued that a purely de facto account of projectibility is not viable. The resulting hypothesis is that the conception of «natural kind terms» is only interesting insofar as they are seen as a kind of projectible general terms and thus as parts of classifications used in natural science, more generally, in inductive practices, and that this is a perspective that makes undue metaphysical readings avoidable. (shrink)

Despite its enduring insights, Durkheim’s theory of suicide fails to account for a significant set of cases because of its overreliance on structural forces to the detriment of other possible factors. In this paper, we develop a new theoretical framework for thinking about the role of culture in vulnerability to suicide. We argue that by focusing on the cultural dynamics of excessive regulation, particularly at the meso level, a more robust sociological model for suicide could be offered that supplements structure-heavy (...) Durkheimian theory. In essence, we argue that the relevance of cultural regulation to suicide rests on the (1) degree to which culture is coherent in sociocultural places, (2) existence of directives related to prescribing or proscribing suicide, (3) degree to which these directives translate into internalized meanings affecting social psychological processes, and (4) degree to which the social space is bounded. We then illustrate how our new theory provides useful insights into three cases of suicide largely neglected within sociology: specifically, suicide clusters in high schools, suicide in the military, and suicides of “despair” among middle-aged white men. We conclude with implications for future sociological research on suicide and suicide prevention. (shrink)

A survey of Euclid's Elements, this text provides an understanding of the classical Greek conception of mathematics and its similarities to modern views as well as its differences. It focuses on philosophical, foundational, and logical questions — rather than strictly historical and mathematical issues — and features several helpful appendixes.

THE WHALE AND THE REACTOR: A SEARCH FOR LIMITS IN THE AGE OF HIGH TECHNOLOGY by Langdon Winner Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986. 200 pp. $17.50AUTONOMOUS TECHNOLOGY: TECHNICS‐OUT‐OF‐CONTROL AS A THEME IN POLITICAL THOUGHT by Langdon Winner Cambridge: MIT Press. 1977. 386 pp., $7.95 paperTECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICA edited by Stephen F. Goldberg and Charles R. Strain Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987. 240 pp., $19.95TECHNOLOGY, THE ECONOMY AND SOCIETY: THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE edited by Joel Colton (...) and Stuart Bruchey New York: Columbia University Press, 1987. 287 pp., $35.00. (shrink)

Becoming is interpreted by various sciences. The exact sciences, physics, and chemistry, interpret this universal becoming or change of all things on the model of mathematical equations. In such an equation of quantities or magnitudes, one side always balances the other. We call such a process “circular”. Numbers may be subdivided or contracted, they may change their places or positions, but the sum total of the whole equation remains immutably the same. In this manner mechanics constructs change as a change (...) of positions of unchanging particles in a continuous but divisible space and in a continuous but divisible time. Chemistry constructs qualitative change as a change of unchanging elements in such a fashion that the sum total of the elements involved in such transactions is always completely accounted for. But in the twentieth century becoming entered these closed systems. There are no unchanging atoms now, and no unchanging chemical elements. Both the physical atom and the chemical element, thought immutable before, are now seen to disintegrate, to radiate, to change their character according to their position in the “field” of energy in which they occur. (shrink)

Numéro spécial de la Revue Philosophique de Louvain. Avec des contributions de Philippe Mongin, François Maniquet, Irènne Berthonnet, Louis Larue et Thomas M. Mueller.

Recent scholarship emphasizes the scaffolding role of language for cognition. Language, it is claimed, is a cognition-enhancing niche (Clark, 2006), a programming tool for cognition (Lupyan and Bergen, 2016), even a neuroenhancement (Dove, 2019), and augments cognitive functions such as memory, categorization, cognitive control as well as meta-cognitive abilities (‘thinking about thinking’). Yet the notion that language enhances or augments cognition does not fit in with embodied approaches to language processing, or so we will argue. Accounts aiming to explain how (...) language enhances various cognitive functions often employ a notion of abstract representation. Yet embodied approaches to language processing have it that language processing crucially, according to some accounts even exclusively, involves embodied, modality-specific, i.e. non-abstract representations. In coming to understand a particular phrase or sentence, a prior experience has to be simulated or reenacted. The representation thus activated is embodied (modality-specific) as sensorimotor regions of the brain are thereby recruited. In the paper, we will first discuss the notion of representation, clarify what it takes for a representation to be embodied or abstract respectively, and distinguish between conceptual and (other) linguistic representations. We will then put forward a characterization of cognitive control and examine its representational infrastructure. The remainder of the paper will be devoted to arguing that language augments cognitive control. To that end, we will draw on two lines of research, which investigate how language augments cognitive control: i. research on the availability of linguistic labels, and ii. research on the active usage of a linguistic code, specifically in inner speech. Eventually, we will argue that the cognition-enhancing capacity of language can be explained once we assume that it provides us with a. abstract, non-embodied representations, and with b. abstract, sparse linguistic representations that may serve as easy-to-manipulate placeholders for fully embodied or otherwise more detailed representations. (shrink)

Amartya Sen has demonstrated a possible inconsistency between a (liberal) right and Pareto optimality. Neither Sen nor the subsequent literature have discussed the origin of the rights that lead to the liberal paradox. In this article I examine one possible origin of rights definitions-a constitutional contract agreed to by all members of the community. Constitutional rights are show to be vulnerable to a similar paradox as with liberal rights, but if the writers of the constitution were correct in their choice (...) of actions to protect, such paradoxes will be unlikely and involve small welfare losses when they do occur. The article demonstrates that both the origin of rights and their potential role in advancing the interests of citizens can be explained using a utilitarian/welfarist methodology. (shrink)