Computer simulations show that an unstructured neural-network model [Shultz, T. R., & Bale, A. C. (2001). Infancy, 2, 501–536] covers the essential features␣of infant learning of simple grammars in an artificial language [Marcus, G. F., Vijayan, S., Bandi Rao, S., & Vishton, P. M. (1999). Science, 283, 77–80], and generalizes to examples both outside and inside of the range of training sentences. Knowledge-representation analyses confirm that these networks discover that duplicate words in the sentences are nearly identical and that (...) they use this near-identity relation to distinguish sentences that are consistent or inconsistent with a familiar grammar. Recent simulations that were claimed to show that this model did not really learn these grammars [Vilcu, M., & Hadley, R. F. (2005). Minds and Machines, 15, 359–382] confounded syntactic types with speech sounds and did not perform standard statistical tests of results. (shrink)

The apolipoprotein E gene plays an important role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease , and amyloid plaque comprised mostly of the amyloid-beta peptide ) is one of the major hallmarks of AD. However, the relationship between these two important molecules is poorly understood. We examined how A treatment affects APOE expression in cultured cells and tested the role of the transcription factor NF-B in APOE gene regulation. To delineate NF-B's role, we have characterized a 1098 nucleotide segment containing the (...) 5'-flanking region of the human APOE gene . Sequence analysis of this region suggests the presence of two potential NF-B elements. To demonstrate promoter activity, the region was cloned upstream of a promoterless luciferase gene. This segment was able to drive expression of luciferase in transient transfections of human fetal glial cells. Promoter activity was stimulated twofold by A treatment. Pretreatment with double-stranded DNA decoy oligonucleotides against NF-B reduced A stimulation. Deletion and mutagenetic analyses demonstrated that the distal NF-B element was functional and showed a strong DNA-protein complex band in gel shift analysis, similar to that from control NF-B consensus element. An anti-inflammatory and anti-NF-B drug, sodium salicylate, significantly blocked A-induced APOE promoter function. Our data provide evidence that upregulation of APOE by A in astroglial cells is mediated by an NF-B-element present in the 5'-flanking region of the APOE gene. (shrink)

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

Scientific authority and physician authority are both challenged by Thomas Kuhn's concept of incommensurability. If competing “paradigms” or “world views” cannot rationally be compared, we have no means to judge the truth of any particular view. However, the notion of local or partial incommensurability might provide a framework for understanding the implications of contemporary philosophy of science for medicine. We distinguish four steps in the process of translating medical science into clinical decisions: the doing of the science, the appropriation of (...) the scientific findings by the clinician, the transfer of the findings from the clinician to the patient, and the choice of a treatment regimen. Incommensurability can play a role in each stage. There is at least some theory- and value-ladenness in science that is dependent on the world view of those who construct the scientific theories. Clinicians who must use the results of scientific research will inevitably interpret the research from the standpoint of their own world view. There may be further incommensurability when these data are communicated to the patient. Finally, clinician and patient values must come into play in any decision about choice of treatment. No stage of medical research or practice is value-free. This position does not imply relativism; some scientific accounts are better than others. However, the challenge of the incommensurabilists shows that further analysis is needed to establish how particular accounts are better or worse. (shrink)

This concise, lively introduction to ancient Greek philosophy will help beginning students of both classical studies and philosophy get their bearings within an important yet complex array of names, schools, and ideas. The book illuminates the key period from the sixth to the third century BC, looking at the ideas that engaged the Greeks, in particular those of the Presocratics, the Sophists, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the earliest Hellenistic philosophers. After chronologically mapping the main figures and their interconnections, _Introducing Greek (...) Philosophy_ focuses on themes especially relevant to philosophy today, including the origins of the universe and its mathematical structures; divine creation versus evolution and natural law; probability theory and the criteria for truth; political debates on democracy, citizen rights, and state obligations; and finally ethics, happiness, and the best way to live. (shrink)

We review scholarship that examines relationships - and distinctions - between religion and delusion. We begin by outlining and endorsing the position that both involve belief. Next, we present the prevailing psychiatric view that religious beliefs are not delusional if they are culturally accepted. While this cultural exemption has controversial implications, we argue it is clinically valuable and consistent with a growing awareness of the social - as opposed to purely epistemic - function of belief formation. Finally, we review research (...) on continuities between religious and delusional cognition, which reveals that religious content is quite common in delusions and which provides tentative evidence for a positive relationship between religious belief and delusion-like belief in the general population. (shrink)

Although contemporary sociologists of science have sometimes claimed Max Weber as a methodological precursor, they have not examined Weber's own writings about science. Between 1908 and 1912 Weber published a series of critical studies of the extension of scientific authority into public life. The most notable of these concerned attempts to implement the experimental psychology or psycho-physics laboratory in factories and other real-world settings. Weber's critique centered on the problem of social measurement. He emphasized the discontinuities between the space of (...) the laboratory and that of the factory, showing how several qualitative and historically conditioned differences between the two settings rendered the transfer of instruments and methods between them highly problematic. Weber's critical arguments prepared the ground for his greatest foray into empirical sociology, a survey he directed for the Verein fur Sozialpolitik investigating the conditions and attitudes affecting the lives and performance of industrial workers. Using a different measuring instrument - the questionnaire - Weber tried to implement a concept of social measurement which implied a different ontology, drawn not from natural sciences but from the historical sciences. (shrink)

Comment on S. Neale's, "Facts and Free Logic".

Applies the book’s main ideas to mental content. The suggestion is that individual concepts, the concepts we use to think about individual objects, should be understood in the RWR or reference-conditional way, so that non-referring ones may be components in genuine thoughts. This is applied to perceptual content, and it is suggested that the RWR approach does best justice to the content of hallucinations.

The sources of the attractiveness of descriptivism and of direct reference theories are identified and shown to be wanting. The intermediate position, RWR, is one in which a proper name may or may not have a bearer, though if it has one it will have it essentially, and if it lacks one this will also be essential. A full development of the view makes use of the notion of the practice of using a name, and a preliminary attempt is made (...) to identify the main components of the concept of a name-using practice and to say something constructive about their character. (shrink)

First Published in 1979. Paperback 1985. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informal company. This is an overview of Russell's philosophy, focussing in particular on his earlier work. Carter headings: Meaning; Names; Descriptions; The Perfect Language; Knowledge; Ontology; Mathematics.

Many theories provide semantics for English by proxy of semantics for the "logical form" of English sentences. The paper presents a dilemma: if there is no algorithm for moving between English and logical form, English itself has not been given a semantic theory. But if there is an algorithm, it can be incorporated in the theory, which would then apply directly to English. In the worst case, logical form is an obstacle to providing semantics for English. In the best case, (...) it is unnecessary. (shrink)

First published in 1953, this seminal introduction to political philosophy is intended for both the student of political theory and for the general reader. After an introduction which explains the nature and purpose of philosophy, Dr Murray provides a critical examination of the principle theories advanced by political philosophers from Plato to Marx, paying special attention to contemporary issues. The book also makes an attempt to define the essential issues of philosophical significance in contemporary politics, with special reference to the (...) conflict between political authority and individual rights, and to show how the different moral assumptions underlying authoritarian and democratic systems of government are ultimately based upon different theories of logic. (shrink)