Focal brain metabolic effects detected by proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) represent prospective indices of clinical status and guides to treatment design. Sampling bilateral pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pACC), anterior middle cingulate cortex (aMCC), and thalamus in 40 adult patients and 16 healthy controls, we examined relationships of the neurometabolites glutamate+glutamine (Glx), creatine+phosphocreatine (Cr), and choline-compounds (Cho) with OCD diagnosis and multiple symptom types. The latter included OC core symptoms (Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale - YBOCS), depressive symptoms (...) (Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale - MADRS), and general functioning (Global Assessment Scale - GAS). pACC Glx was 9.7% higher in patients than controls. Within patients, Cr and Cho correlated negatively with YBOCS and MADRS, while Cr correlated positively with the GAS. In aMCC, Cr and Cho correlated negatively with MADRS, while Cr in thalamus correlated positively with GAS. These findings present moderate support for glutamatergic and cingulocentric perspectives on OCD. Based on our prior metabolic model of OCD, we offer one possible interpretation of these group and correlational effects as consequences of a corticothalamic state of elevated glutamatergic receptor activity alongside below-normal glutamatergic transporter activity. (shrink)

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

The paper argues that intensional phenomena can be explained without appealing to "exotic" entities: one that don't exist, are merely possible, or are essentially abstract.

The paper evaluates Hume's alleged projectivism about causation and moral values.

Russell says that logical constructions are fictions. Does this show that he took them not to be real things?

I argue that there is no straightforward inference from there being fictional characters to any interesting form of realism. One reason is that “fictional” may be an intensional operator with wide scope, depriving the quantifier of its usual force. Another is that not all uses of “there are” are ontologically committing. A realist needs to show that neither of these phenomena are present in “There are fictional characters”. Other roads to realism run into difficulties when negotiating the role that presupposition (...) plays when we make intuitive evaluations of the truth or falsehood of sentences involving fiction, for we may presuppose things we do not believe. This means that a judgment of truth, implicitly relative to a presupposition we do not believe, can be sincerely made by someone who, from a more austere perspective, would regard the judgment as false. (shrink)

Next to the Ninus Romance, to which more attention has been paid, the most interesting fragments of Greek Romance are the so-called Chione Fragments, which have been recently re-edited by Lavagnini. Before discussing the problem of their significance, it is necessary briefly to recapitulate their history.

‘Heliodori Aethiopica, sive Fabula … complectens amores castos Theagenis et Chancleae Libris X quorum singuli, quoad initium et finem, cum editione Graeca Basil[iensi] MDXXXIV. 4. collati, cum ipsa penitus consentire comperti sunt.… ‘Codex Graecus Chartaceus Ms. in 8 Saec. XV plurimis in locis manu Saec. XVI suppletus. Constat foliis scriptis 211.’.

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

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)

Further examines the sense in which moral judgements are universalizable. Distinguishes between moral and logical theses of universalizability and shows how the moral does not follow from the logical. Universalizability, in the form maintained in this book, is a logical, not a moral, thesis; furthermore, nothing substantially moral follows from the logical thesis. The chapter presents the exact import of the thesis and considers the role of moral principles.

We argue that thoughts are structures of concepts, and that concepts should be individuated by their origins, rather than in terms of their semantic or epistemic properties. Many features of cognition turn on the vehicles of content, thoughts, rather than on the nature of the contents they express. Originalism makes concepts available to explain, with no threat of circularity, puzzling cases concerning thought. In this paper, we mention Hesperus/Phosphorus puzzles, the Evans-Perry example of the ship seen through different windows, and (...) Mates cases, and we believe that there are many additional applications. (shrink)