Recent progress in the study of short‐distance (cell‐to‐cell) movement of plant virus, facilitated by ‘movement proteins’, has led to a resurgence of interest in long‐distance virus transport in the phloem. Relatively little is known about phloem‐specific barriers to virus movement or about the form in which virus enters, travels within and exits this tissue. Progress in understanding virus and photoassimilate transport is limited by a paucity of information on the substructure and properties of plasmodesmata at specific interfaces. The direction of (...) virus movement, once it has entered the phloem, can be understood by following photoassimilate translocation, a complex and dynamic process influenced by plant growth, development and vascular topology. (shrink)

Philosophers often consider problems of free will and moral luck in isolation from one another, but both are about control and moral responsibility. One problem of free will concerns the difficult task of specifying the kind of control over our actions that is necessary and sufficient to act freely. One problem of moral luck refers to the puzzling task of explaining whether and how people can be morally responsible for actions permeated by factors beyond their control. This chapter explicates and (...) assesses skeptical, compatibilist, and libertarian approaches to moral luck. First, I argue that what makes the above problems of free will and moral luck distinct is largely their emphasis on different kinds of luck. Second, I describe and evaluate skeptical arguments from constitutive and circumstantial luck that it is impossible to act freely. Third, I explicate and assess various support and implication relationships between various kinds of compatibilism and libertarianism, on the one hand, and causal, constitutive, circumstantial, and resultant moral luck, on the other. (shrink)

Nozick argues, in “Anarchy, State, and Utopia”, correctly I think, that we can go from an equal distribution of wealth to an unequal one through just means. Nozick then asks: If people voluntarily move from a just distribution of wealth, D1, to a different distribution, D2, “isn’t D2 also just?” While Nozick thinks the new distribution of wealth, D2, is just, I think that it is at least possible to go from a just state of affairs to an un-just state (...) of affairs by just means. I then argue that any unequal distribution of wealth can not maximize the good derived from wealth. Therefore, on the basis of plausible utilitarian ideas, any distribution of wealth that isn’t at least roughly equal is un-just, even it was arrived at by just means from aa equal and just distribution of wealth. (shrink)

This paper provides an overview of the history of the notion of essence in 20th century analytic philosophy, focusing on views held by influential analytic philosophers who discussed, or relied on essence or cognate notions in their works. It in particular covers Russell and Moore’s different approaches to essence before and after breaking with British idealism, the (pre- and post-)logical positivists’ critique of metaphysics and rejection of essence (Wittgenstein, Carnap, Schlick, Stebbing), the tendency to loosen the notion of logical necessity (...) to accommodate certain metaphysical truths in Wittgenstein and others, Quine’s logical rehabilitation of metaphysics and criticism of de re modality, the modal view of essence promoted by the development of quantified modal logic (C. I. Lewis, Barcan Marcus, Kripke) and direct reference theory (Barcan Marcus, Kripke, Putnam), and the emergence of the notion of metaphysical necessity (Kneale, Kripke), and finally Fine’s re-establishment of a Neo-Aristotelian, hyperintensional notion of essence in contemporary metaphysics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Preface: Virtual Entities in ScienceRobert Harlander, Jean-Philippe Martinez, Friedrich Steinle, and Adrian WüthrichIt is not only since the sudden increase of online communication due to the COVID-19 situation that the concept of the “virtual” has made its way into everyday language. In this context, it mostly denotes a digital substitute for a real object or process. Virtual reality is perhaps the best-known term in this respect. With these digital (...) connotations, “virtuality” has also been used in science and research: Chemists use virtual laboratories, biologists do virtual scanning of molecular structures, and geologists engage in virtual field trips. But the concept of the virtual has a much longer tradition, dating back to long before the dawn of the digital age. Virtual images and virtual displacements were introduced in classical physics already in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, respectively. They represent auxiliary objects or processes without instantiation, with the purpose of efficiently describing specific physical systems. In today’s physics, the term “virtual” is mostly associated with the quantum world, first and foremost with the “virtual particle” of quantum field theory. It has become such an integral part of modern high energy physics that its ontological character may be considered to go beyond the purely auxiliary, which is typically associated with the virtual. [End Page 263]In other disciplines, however, use of the term virtual without a digital connotation is much rarer. While concepts like “virtual adrenaline” show up in physiological research around 1940s, and Charles Darwin, in a private note in January 1840,1 spoke of “virtual change” in the context of embryology, these examples seem to be singular occurrences of entities that were explicitly called “virtual.” The basic idea behind the terminology of the virtual, however, might be much more common, even outside of physics. The “invisible hand” in economics, or the “vital force” in biology, for instance, may carry aspects of a virtual entity, even if they have not been referred to that way.These different observations raise several questions about the status of virtual entities in science. What has led scientists to call one entity “virtual” and not another? Do all virtual entities in science have the same roots and meet the same characteristics? Are they more than auxiliary objects or processes? Why does physics seem to occupy a specific position with respect to the use of the notion of virtuality? These are some points that led us to discuss virtual entities in science during a workshop, out of which grew the present collection. We invited contributions that addressed the historical formation and philosophical interpretation of concepts of virtual entities in physics and other disciplines—in whatever terms they may come. The main goal of the workshop was to bring to the fore similarities and differences in the meanings and functions of these concepts, so as to be able to precisely characterize why certain entities are considered virtual in specific contexts, why a different terminology was often used in each individual case, and in what sense the virtual entities relate to the real world.The organization of the workshop was part of our project “The formation and development of the concept of virtual particles,” a subproject of the Research Unit “The Epistemology of the Large Hadron Collider,” funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and Der Wissenschaftsfonds (FWF). The workshop took place online on four consecutive Fridays in March 2021. It brought together contributors who discussed the role of the concept of the virtual in theoretical as well as experimental activities, and investigated into the origins of the terminology of the virtual as it was applied to the various disciplines of natural science. Dealing with historical, philosophical, but also methodological questions, the presentations covered a wide time range, from the Middle Ages to the present day. While physics naturally emerged as the dominant field, natural philosophy, computer science and biology were also addressed. The papers in this volume were contributed by participants in this workshop and approach the subject from different angles. [End Page 264]First, Friedrich Steinle provides us with an introductory piece that reflects on the specific meaning of the use of the term ‘virtual’ in science. He highlights and... (shrink)

The Vienna Circle was an influential group of philosophers in the early 20th century. Its members were dedicated to do philosophy and to conduct research in accordance with the guidelines of the scientific world-conception. For some of them, Oswald Spengler was a dangerous antagonist due to the success and influence of his metaphysical philosophy of history in Der Untergang des Abendlandes and other works. In this paper, I will explore systematically the Circle’s critical reception of Spengler regarding his methodological approaches, (...) ontological positions, and political philosophy. I will, thereby, also evaluate the criticism brought forth against Spengler. (shrink)

Post- and Transhumanism are being introduced with respect to foundational questions, utopian issues, normative and evaluative elements, ontological perspectives and arts. The topics are divided up into five sections with the following titles: Confessions, Lands of Cockaygne, Neo-Socratic Reflections, Ontologies of Becoming and Paragone of the Arts.

There is an ethics of blaming the person who deserves blame. The Christian scriptures imply the following no-vengeance condition: a person should not vengefully overtly blame a wrongdoer even if she gives the wrongdoer the exact negative treatment that he deserves. I explicate and defend this novel condition and argue that it demands a revolution in our blaming practices. First, I explain the no-vengeance condition. Second, I argue that the no-vengeance condition is often violated. The most common species of blame (...) involves anger; anger conceptually includes a desire for vengeance; and there are many pleasures in payback. Third, I clarify that it is possible to blame non-vengefully in anger and highlight three good uses for anger in non-vengeful blame. Fourth, I offer two reasons that justify the divine command prohibiting vengeance, and I note that the Christian God is merely sufficient to make non-vengeance morally obligatory. Fifth, I defend the no-vengeance condition against four biblical objections. (shrink)

The conceptualisation of kinship and its study remain contested within anthropology. This paper draws on recent cognitive science, developmental cognitive psychology, and the philosophy of science to offer a novel argument for a view of kinship as progeneratively or reproductively constrained. I shall argue that kinship involves a form of extended cognition that incorporates progenerative facts, going on to show how the resulting articulation of kinship’s progenerative nature can be readily expressed by an influential conception of kinds, the homeostatic property (...) cluster view. Identifying the distinctive role that our extended cognitive access to progenerative facts plays in kinship delivers an integrative, progenerativist view that avoids standard performativist criticisms of progenerativism as being ethnocentric, epistemically naïve, and reductive. (shrink)

Progress in addiction science is hampered by disagreements and ambiguity around its core construct: addiction. Addiction Ontology (AddictO) offers a path to a solution of the kind that has addressed similar problems in other areas of science: a set of clearly and uniquely defined entities to which terms such as ‘addiction’, addictive disorder’ and ‘substance dependence ’can be applied for ease of reference while recognizing that it is the construct definitions and their unique IDs that are central, not the terms.

This open-access editorial discusses confronting silences in different disciplinary contexts, such as science and technology studies, cultural anthropology, and philosophy. It has a focus on race and concludes with thoughts about Indigenous expertise, the Australian referendum on the Indigenous Voice, to parliament, and racism.

The Description for this book, Understanding Rawls: A Reconstruction and Critique of A Theory of Justice, will be forthcoming.

This book is a history of the crucial developmental years of quantum theory with an emphasis on the literature rather than an overview of this period focusing on personalities or personal stories of the scientists involved. This book instead focuses on how the theoretical discoveries came about, when and where they were published, and how they became accepted as part of the scientific canon.

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Volume 103, Issue 3, Page 728-733, November 2021.

In this paper I begin by explaining what epistemic injustice is and what ordinary language philosophy is. I then go on to ask why we might doubt the usefulness of ordinary language philosophy in examining epistemic injustice. In the first place, we might wonder how ordinary language philosophy can be of use, given that many of the key terms used in discussing epistemic injustice, including ‘epistemic injustice’ itself, are not drawn from our ordinary language. We might also have doubts about (...) the usefulness of ordinary language philosophy in this area, given ordinary language philosophers’ aversion to theory. Finally, we might have doubts about the usefulness of ordinary language philosophy due to the fact that the study of epistemic injustice is clearly a study of practical matters concerning the way the world is and has been historically. If ordinary language philosophy is just concerned with grammar, what use can it be to practical and social philosophy concerning current issues? In response to these worries, I demonstrate the usefulness of ordinary language philosophy in practice by applying the insights of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Alan R. White to a problem that Miranda Fricker raises, but does not answer: about whether there is a confidence condition on knowledge. I also make use of Gilbert Ryle's distinction between ‘the use of ordinary language’ and ‘the ordinary use of an expression’ to show that the terminology used in examining epistemic injustice is ordinary in some sense. (shrink)

The article reconciles contentious issues between code biology and biosemiotics. The framework of semantic biology and molecular meaning woven around organic codes by Marcello Barbieri defied classical informational conceptualizations of meaning in the biological realm while the discourse on meaning and agency and their respective (in)dependency on interpretation continues. Whereas the role of codes in agency is often secondary to other aspects, I present here a more consistent picture– integrating codes and artifacts to smoothly transcend from the world of mechanistic (...) molecular meaning to organismic agency. Interpretation is presented as a call-to-action based on intraindividual states, and sense-making as call-to-change based on interindividual communication. (shrink)

The question of capitalism’s relationship to issues of race, racism and processes of racialisation has become increasingly prominent in contemporary debates. This special issue of Historical Materialism on ‘Race and Capital’ seeks to intervene in these debates. In this Introduction, we situate the special issue within this wider political, historical and theoretical context. We begin by reconstructing some of the key tensions and fault lines within contemporary discussions of race and racism, particularly in relation to the Marxist tradition. Against those (...) who claim a primarily oppositional relationship between the Marxist tradition and anti-racist thinking, we chart a historical account of key moments in which Marxist movements and thinkers have attempted to articulate distinctively historical-materialist accounts of race and racism. We then situate the key themes of the special issue – and the various articles that compose the issue – against this background. (shrink)

Does a competent person suffering from a terminal illness or enduring an otherwise burdensome existence, who considers his life no longer of value but is incapable of ending it, have a right to be helped to die? Should someone for whom further medical treatment would be futile be allowed to die regardless of expressing a preference to be given all possible treatment? These are some of the questions that are asked and answered in this wide-ranging discussion of both the morality (...) of medically assisted death and the justifiability of making certain instances legal. A case is offered in support of the moral and legal permissibility of specified instances of medically assisted death, along with responses to the main objections that have been levelled against it. The philosophical argument is bolstered by empirical evidence from The Netherlands and Oregon where voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are already legal. (shrink)

This volume includes Whewell's seminal studies of the logic of induction (with his critique of Mill's theory), arguments for his realist view that science discovers necessary truths about nature, and exercises in the epistemology and ontology of science. The book sets forth a coherent statement of a historically important philosophy of science whose influence has never been greater: every one of Whewell's fundamental ideas about the philosophy of science is presented here.

Nicomachean Ethics/NE, Book III, Chapters 1-5, provides Aristotle’s account of “Voluntary Movement.” It, thus, draws the Passion-Action distinction, only posited earlier in Categories, while also serving as the linchpin of NE’ discussion of Virtue, in explicitly connecting it to Right Reason. My explication of this text renders its terminology consistent with the Law of Excluded Middle and rebuts two criticisms of the Eudaimonistic Axiology on which it is based. These results are shown to be entailments of Aristotle’s doctrine that Voluntary (...) is (a) Relative. That categorization is then used to help treat a problematic case of Deliberation beyond his purview. (shrink)

This afterword to Species and Beyond provides some reflections on species, with special attention to what I think the most significant developments have been in the thinking of biologists and philosophers working on species over the past 25 years, as well as some bad jokes.

W artykule omówionych zostało siedemnaście listów skierowanych przez poetę Mieczysława Jastruna do „krytyka Skamandra”, Karola Wiktora Zawodzińskiego. Listy te przechowywane są w archiwum Biblioteki Narodowej w Warszawie. Ów blok korespondencji rozpada się na dwie części: pierwszą stanowią przesyłki skreślone przez Jastruna w okresie międzywojennym, drugą – z okresu powojennego, wysyłane do 1948 roku. Te rękopisy Jastruna są wielotematyczne, jednak wiodącą rolę pełnią w nich refleksje poświęcone ogólnym sprawom poezji i aktualnym zjawiskom życia literackiego – tak międzywojennego, jak i czasu, gdy (...) poeta pełnił w latach powojnia także obowiązki redaktora łódzkiego, marksistowskiego periodyku „Kuźnica” (stąd też część korespondencji napisana została na firmowych kartkach pocztowych czasopisma lub na jego papierze firmowym); dostarczają one informacji dopełniających wiedzę o obu pisarzach, ich stanowiskach natury artystycznej i światopoglądowej, stanowią również asumpt do dalszych badań obszaru krytyki literackiej, choćby w zakresie wskazanych w artykule polemik. (shrink)

Approx. 60–80 million couples globally are affected by the problem of infertility. The issue is important both for the couple trying to conceive and for the whole society in which the couple lives. Lifestyle, including nutrition, may have both a positive and a negative impact on the outcomes of infertility treatment. The aim of this paper is to assess the relationship between knowledge in the area of fertility diet and its actual use, and types of fertility disorders among women undergoing (...) treatment in a fertility clinic. A group of women was analyzed statistically, divided into 3 groups according to their couple’s cause of infertility – the causes of infertility were described as: the male factor, the female factor, and the idiopathic factor. The study group answered questions that comprised a fertility diet knowledge test; the frequency of consumption of particular food products in a individual groups was also analyzed. Correspondence analysis showed differences between the groups in the number of points scored in the fertility diet knowledge test, as well as in the consumption of sweets, crisps and sticks, and nuts and seeds. Women among whom the main cause of infertility was defined as the male factor scored the highest numbers of points in the fertility diet knowledge test, women with the idiopathic cause of infertility scored slightly lower numbers of points, while women whose main cause of infertility was defined as the female factor scored the lowest numbers of points. Women from couples with idiopathic infertility consumed sweets, crisps and sticks the most often, followed by women with the cause of infertility identified on their side, with the lowest frequency of consumption of sweets identified among women whose partner was infertile. Nuts and seeds were consumed the most frequently by women whose partners were infertile, followed by women with the cause of infertility identified on their side, while women with the idiopathic cause of infertility consumed nuts and seeds the least frequently. These examples show that correspondence analysis is well suited to the assessment of the influence of lifestyle on fertility; in addition, it makes it possible to recognize certain correlations that may not be observed in standard statistical tests. (shrink)

A guide to Nietzsche's most personal book.

This article reviews The expressive moment: How interaction (with music) shapes human empowerment 9780262034937.

Occupying a space in-between conventional scholarship and imaginative storytelling, The University in Crumbs: A Register of Things Seen and Heard is an experimental work that dramatizes the everyday life of the academy.