Stable evolutionary strategy of Homo sapiens (SESH) is built in accordance with the modular and hierarchical principle and consists of the same type of self-replicating elements, i.e. is a system of systems. On the top level of the organization of SESH is the superposition of genetic, social, cultural and techno-rationalistic complexes. The components of this triad differ in the mechanism of cycles of generation - replication - transmission - fixing/elimination of adoptively relevant information. This mechanism is implemented either in accordance (...) with the Darwin-Weismann modus, or according to the Lamarck modus, the difference between them is clear from the title. The integral attribute of the system of systems including ESSH is the production of evolutionary risks. The sources of evolutionary risk for stable adaptive strategy of Homo sapiens are the imbalance of (1) the intra-genomic co-evolution (intragenomic conflicts); (2) the gene-cultural coevolution; (3) the inter-cultural co-evolution; (4) techno-humanitarian balance; (5) intertechnological conflicts (technological traps). At least phenomenologically the components of the evolutionary risk are reversible, but in the aggregate they are in potentio irreversible destructive ones for bio-social, and cultural self-identity of Homo sapiens. When the actual evolution is the subject of a rationalist control and/or manipulation, the magnitude of the 4th and 5th components of the evolutionary risk reaches the level of existential significance. (shrink)

The publication of the Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant marked the beginning of an intellectual revolution not only in Philosophy, but also in other spheres of intellectual activity. Every year interest to this work is only growing up, especially in the context of the development of cognitive sciences and technologies related to the development and implementation of artificial intelligence systems. However, both Kant’s contemporaries and subsequent generations of researchers had questions about the basic concepts, outlined in the first (...) Critique. Nikolay Lossky became one of such outstanding experts in Kant’s philosophy, who carried out a metacritique of transcendental idealism. His analysis is interesting because it is characterized by consistency, depth and inclusiveness, despite the fact that he was not a supporter of Kant’s philosophy. The proposed article explicates the main points of the metacritique of pure reason carried out by Lossky. The aim is to systematize the advantages and disadvantages of transcendental idealism highlighted by him in order to assess the validity of objections and identify points that paradoxically escaped Lossky’s attention. In particular, it is shown that the highest evaluation of Lossky is awarded to Kant’s efforts to create an epistemology that does not rely as presuppositions on any other branches of human knowledge; the resolution of contradictions between Empiricism and Rationalism; the creation of the doctrine of synthetic rationality and transcendental logic; the idea of the need for the immanence of knowledge to consciousness. Lossky identified as the key shortcomings of transcendental idealism a range of contradictions grouped around such concepts as the things in themselves, affection, experience, inner sense, transcendental schema, and unity of apperception. At the same time, it is shown that such a key concept for Kant’s theoretical philosophy as transcendental reflection has disappeared from the Lossky’s field of consideration. The study is preceded by a brief description of Lossky’s characteristics, including personal ones, as a meta-critic of pure reason. (shrink)

The article compares views of C.G. Jung and N.O. Lossky on the nature of time, including in the context of contemporary to them physical theories - quantum mechanics by W. Pauli and relativistic physics by A. Einstein. In particular, the author points to the similarity of ideas of both thinkers that the psyche relativizes time not only subjectively, but also objectively. Jung and Lossky provide this statement with a similar empirical basis, for example, the researches of T. Flournoy, as well (...) as similar theoretical arguments by postulating a fundamental acausal principle of the connection of all things, which is better suited for describing psychic and some physical phenomena than the classical causal explanation. In analytical psychology, such a principle is synchronicity, in hierarchical personalism - gnoseological coordination. Both concepts are genetically related to the G.W. Leibniz idea of pre-established harmony, which was reinterpreted by Jung and Lossky through different worldview foundations. Jung in his reasoning relied on the transcendental idealism of I. Kant, the principle of complementarity and the discoveries of quantum mechanics, Lossky - on intuitivism, the principle of subordination and on his own interpretation of Einsteins theories. Jung comes to the conclusion that the psyche has a timeless character, and Lossky comes to the conclusion that it has a super-temporal character. Jungs timelessness indicates the transcendental nature of psyche and the strive to get away from the classical causal explanation, saving it according to the principle of complementarity only to consider the phenomenal side of being and mainly physical processes. One of the pioneers of quantum mechanics Pauli was of the same opinion in general. Because of there is nothing transcendent in hierarchical personalism, Losskys super-temporality is of a strive to find a deeper basis for occurring in time processes, and, according to the principle of subordination, to include time in the hierarchical structure of the universe, prescribing for it a role of one of the two key forms of psychic and psycho-material processes characteristic of a certain stage of being. (shrink)

This is a review of the book: Sheehan H. Marxism and the Philosophy of Science. A Critical History. The First Hundred Years. (L.: Verso, 2017. XII. 450 p.). The keynote of the book serves the conviction that Marxism is a sort of “super-theory” that can explain not only any social and political life, but also profound philosophy of science, including natural science. Science is presented in the book as a form of social practice. The main idea of the Marxist philosophy (...) of science is the status of the theory of dialectical materialism. The author shows that Marxist ideas could be considered as the origins of many disciplines: the sociology of science, the history of science, the history of technology; they had a noticeable effect on non-Marxist thought as well. However, Stalinism and Lysenkoism significantly decelerated the development of the Marxist philosophy of science. (shrink)

The theory of evolution of complex and comprising of human systems and algorithm for its constructing are the synthesis of evolutionary epistemology, philosophical anthropology and concrete scientific empirical basis in modern (transdisciplinary) science. «Trans-disciplinary» in the context is interpreted as a completely new epistemological situation, which is fraught with the initiation of a civilizational crisis. Philosophy and ideology of technogenic civilization is based on the possibility of unambiguous demarcation of public value and descriptive scientific discourses (1), and the object and (...) subject of the cognitive process (2). Both of these attributes are no longer valid. For mass, everyday consciousness and institutional philosophical tradition it is intuitively obvious that having the ability to control the evolutionary process, Homo sapiens came close to the borders of their own biological and cultural identity. The spontaneous coevolutionary process of interaction between the «subject» (rational living organisms) and the «object» (material world), is the teleological trend of the movement towards the complete rationalization of the World as It Is, its merger with the World of Due. The stratification of the global evolutionary process into selective and semantic (teleological) coevolutionary and therefore ontologically inseparable components follows. With the entry of anthropogenic civilization into the stage of the information society, firsty, the post-academic phase of the historical evolution of scientific rationality began, the attributes of which are the specific methodology of scientific knowledge, scientific ethos and ontology. Bioethics as a phenomenon of intellectual culture represents a natural philosophical core of modern post- academic (human-dimensional) science, in which the ethical neutrality of scientific theory principle is inapplicable, and elements of public-axiological and scientific-descriptive discourses are integrated into a single logic construction. As result, hermeneutics precedes epistemology not only methodologically, but also meaningfully, and natural philosophy is regaining the status of the backbone of the theory of evolution – in an explicit form. (shrink)

The phenomenon of rationalism and irrationalism, contextually related to the transformation methodology and the social function of modern (post-industrial) science – social verification, interpretation and knowledge, etc., are analyzes.

Extracellular nucleic acids are found in different biological fluids in the organism and in the environment: DNA is a ubiquitous component of the organic matter pool in the soil and in all marine and freshwater habitats. Data from recent studies strongly suggest that extracellular DNA and RNA play important biological roles in microbial communities and in higher organisms. DNA is an important component of bacterial biofilms and is involved in horizontal gene transfer. In recent years, the circulating extracellular nucleic acids (...) were shown to be associated with some diseases. Attempts are being made to develop noninvasive methods of early tumor diagnostics based on analysis of circulating DNA and RNA. Recent observations demonstrated the possibility of nucleic acids exchange between eukaryotic cells and extracellular space suggesting their participation in so far unidentified biological processes. BioEssays 29:654–667, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The author examines the nature of Herzen's relationship with Slavophilism in its conflict with Westernism and discusses his incipient religiosity.

There are some arguments supporting the pessimistic meta-induction, coming from the direction of quantum theory (A. Kukla and J. Walmsley), from the direction of Laudan’s list with successful but false theories, and from the specific direction of the phlogiston theory (whom Kukla Walmsley, and S. Psillos consider to be false). Against these arguments we believe we can successfully oppose, in the first case the interactive quantum realism of I. Niiniluoto, in the second case the realism of the theoretical theoretical constituents (...) responsible for the empirical success of the theories of S. Psillos, and in the third case the analysis of the phlogiston theory done by V. Verronen, R. Vihalemm and E. McMullin (who suggested that this theory was simultaneously insufficiently mature and approximately true). Our conclusion does not necessary prove that the perspective of the scientific realism is true, but rather that the pessimistic meta-induction attack against it proves to be unconvincing. (shrink)

We discuss N. I. Vavilov’s 1922 landmark publication, “The Law of Homologous Series in Variation,” and highlight its salient points. Vavilov drew upon his considerable experience in the field with wild and cultivated crop plants and summarized what he noticed in the form of a law. The law stated that comparable variant forms tended to appear in different varieties of the same species, different species of the same genus, different genera of the same family, and so on. His survey of (...) the older literature suggested that the law applied to multicellular animals as well. Vavilov acknowledged that such “parallel” series might be the outcome of convergent evolution (as conventionally understood). At the same time, by way of an alternative hypothesis, he posed a question that continues to engage evolutionary biology to this day. Namely, does the existence of such parallelisms reflect underlying structural and developmental principles (based on the laws of physics and chemistry) which constrain the range of possible plant and animal forms? Vavilov’s original 1922 paper from the _Journal of Genetics_ (12:47–89) is available as supplementary material in the online version of this article. (shrink)

Gornick on V. S. Naipaul, James Baldwin, George Gissing, Randall Jarrell, H. G. Wells, Loren Eiseley, Allen Ginsberg, Hayden Carruth, Saul Bellow, and Philip Roth and the intimate relationship between emotional damage and great literature.

The morbidity of tick‐borne encephalitis (TBE) varies yearly by as much as 10‐fold among the people of Western Siberia. This long‐term variation is dependent on many factors such as the density of the tick populations, the prevalence of TBE virus (TBEV) among sub‐adult ticks, the yearly virulence of the TBEV, and prophylactic measures. Here we highlight the role of small mammal hosts in the circulation of TBEV through the ecosystem. Refining classical models of non‐viremic horizontal transmission, we emphasize the recently (...) understood fact that the physiological and immunological status of the small mammal hosts affects the tick and virus‐host interactions. In addition to its theoretical interest, our approach may lead to some practical improvements in the precision of epidemiological forecasts and perhaps in forestalling the severity of outbreaks of TBE, or, at least, in forewarning medical authorities and the general public of impending TBE outbreaks. (shrink)

The monograph is an English, expanded and revised version of the book Cheshko, V. T., Ivanitskaya, L.V., & Glazko, V.I. (2018). Anthropocene. Philosophy of Biotechnology. Moscow, Course. The manuscript was completed by me on November 15, 2019. It is a study devoted to the development of the concept of a stable evolutionary human strategy as a unique phenomenon of global evolution. The name “An Evolutionary Metaphysics (Cheshko, 2012; Glazko et al., 2016). With equal rights, this study could be entitled “Biotechnology (...) as a result and factor of the evolutionary processˮ. The choice in favor of used “The Evolutionary Metaphysics of Human Enhancement Technologiesˮ was made in accordance with the basic principle of modern post-academician and human-sized science, a classic example of which is biotechnology. The “Metaphysics of Evolution” and “Evolutionary Metaphysics” concepts are used in several ways in modern philosophical discourse. In any case, the values contain a logical or associative reference to the teleological nature of the evolutionary process (Hull, 1967, 1989; Apel, 1995; Faye, 2016; Dupre, 2017; Rose, 2018, etc). In our study, the “evolutionary metaphysics” serves to denote the thesis of the rationalization and technologization of global evolution and anthropogenesis, in particular. At the same time, the postulate of an open future remains relevant in relation to the results of the evolutionary process. The theory of evolution of complex, including the humans system and algorithm for its constructing are а synthesis of evolutionary epistemology, philosophical anthropology and concrete scientific empirical basis in modern science. ln other words, natural philosophy is regaining the status bar element theoretical science in the era of technology-driven evolution. The co-evolutionary concept of 3-modal stable evolutionary strategy of Homo sapiens is developed. The concept based оn the principle of evolutionary complementarity of anthropogenesis: value of evolutionary risk and evolutionary path of human evolution are defined bу descriptive (evolutionary efficiency) and creative-teleological (evolutionary correctness) parameters simultaneously, that cannot bе instrumental reduced to others ones. Resulting volume of both parameters define the vectors of blological, social, cultural and techno-rationalistic human evolution Ьу two gear mechanism genetic and cultural co-evolution and techno-humanitarian balance. The resultant each of them сап estimated Ьу the ratio of socio-psychological predispositions of humanization / dehumanization in mentality. Explanatory model and methodology of evaluation of creatively teleological evolutionary risk component of NBIC technological complex is proposed. Integral part of the model is evolutionary semantics (time-varying semantic code, the compliance of the blological, socio-cultural and techno-rationalist adaptive modules of human stable evolutionary strategy). It is seem necessary to make three clarifications. First, logical construct, “evolutionary metaphysics” contains an internal contradiction, because it unites two alternative explanatory models. “Metaphysics”, as a subject, implies deducibility of the process from the initial general abstract principle, and, consequently, the outcome of the development of the object is uniquely determined by the initial conditions. Predicate, “evolutionary”, means stochastic mechanism of realizing the same principle by memorizing and replicating random choices in all variants of the post-Darwin paradigm. In philosophy, random choice corresponds to the category of “free will” of a reasonable agent. In evolutionary theory, the same phenomenon is reflected in the concept of “covariant replication”. Authors will attempt to synthesize both of these models in a single transdisciplinary theoretical framework. Secondly, the interpretation of the term “evolutionary (adaptive) strategyˮ is different from the classical definition. The difference is that the adaptive strategy in this context is equivalent to the survival, i.e. it includes the adaptation to the environment and the transformation (construction) of the medium in accordance with the objectives of survival. To emphasize this difference authors used verbal construction “adaptiveˮ (rather than “evolutionaryˮ) strategy as more adequate. In all other cases, the two terms may be regarded as synonymous. Thirdly, the initial two essays of this series were published in one book in 2012. Their main goal was the development of the logically consistent methodological concept of stable adaptive (evolutionary) strategy of hominines and the argumentation of its heuristic possibilities as a transdisciplinary scientific paradigm of modern anthropology. The task was to demonstrate the possibilities of the SESH concept in describing and explaining the evolutionary prospects for the interaction of social organization and technology (techno-humanitarian balance) and the associated biological and cultural mechanisms of the genesis of religion (gene-cultural co-evolution). In other words, it was related to the sphere of cultural and philosophical anthropology, i.e. to the axiological component of any theoretical constructions describing the behavior of self-organizing systems with human participation. In contrast, the present work is an attempt to introduce this concept into the sphere of biological anthropology and, consequently, its main goal is to demonstrate the possibility of verification of its main provisions by means of procedures developed by natural science, i.e. refers to the descriptive component of the same theoretical constructions. The result of this in the future should be methods for assessing, calculating and predicting the risk of loss of biological and cultural identity of a person, associated with a permanent and continuously deepening process of development of science and technology. (shrink)

In October of 2014, news outlets began reporting on a case of a lesbian couple suing a sperm bank for receiving the wrong donor's sperm.1 As the lawsuit Cramblett v. Midwest Sperm Bank alleged, not only did the couple receive the wrong donor's sperm but they had specifically chosen a white donor with blonde hair and blue eyes and the sperm they received had been from a black donor.2 Both women were white. The couple gave birth to a black/mixed-race child (...) in 2012 and claimed that their daughter's race posed particular challenges for their family, from facing prejudice in their nearly all white community to difficulties dealing with their daughter's hair. The couple sued for "wrongful birth" and "breach of warranty,"... (shrink)

The previously introduced algorithm \sqema\ computes first-order frame equivalents for modal formulae and also proves their canonicity. Here we extend \sqema\ with an additional rule based on a recursive version of Ackermann's lemma, which enables the algorithm to compute local frame equivalents of modal formulae in the extension of first-order logic with monadic least fixed-points \mffo. This computation operates by transforming input formulae into locally frame equivalent ones in the pure fragment of the hybrid mu-calculus. In particular, we prove that (...) the recursive extension of \sqema\ succeeds on the class of `recursive formulae'. We also show that a certain version of this algorithm guarantees the canonicity of the formulae on which it succeeds. (shrink)

V. 1. Structures and processes -- v. 2. Domains and categories.

The reversal of Roe v. Wade raises the prospect that other due process guarantees upon which individuals have organised their lives, including the constitutional rights to same-sex intimacy and marriage, will be overturned. These potential upheavals in the hard-won legal infrastructure of basic social status call for a careful look at reliance arguments for sustaining constitutional precedent. When does reliance on a judicial decision provide reason for a court to sustain a precedent in the face of substantial doubts or convictions (...) that the original decision was importantly mistaken?Our commitments to democratic law pose distinctive challenges for reliance arguments in the public law domain that do not burden reliance arguments in the private law domain. A persuasive reliance argument in the public law context must offer a merits-independent rationale identifying limited circumstances in which reliance would justify honouring a prior (mistaken) decision and honouring it prospectively, into the future. I detail the challenges and offer a democratic account to identify when overturning a mistaken decision would impose an unfair and inequitable hardship. On this account, abortion, contraception, and same-sex intimacy rights warrant continued affirmation given reliance behaviours, but not other rights, including rights to gun ownership and freedom of contract. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 127 Chernyshevskii: The Man and the Journalist. By William F. Woehrlin. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1971. Pp. 404. $12.50) Professor Woehrlin's book on Nicholas Chernyshevskii is the first full, rich, and precise treatment of that crucially important Russian intellectual in English. The narrative moves, in ten chapters, from "Boyhood in Saratov," "University Years," "The Teacher," and "The Journalist" to a consideration of its protagonist's concern with (...) "Philosophy," "Aesthetics and Literary Criticism," "Economics and Social Theory," and "Politics and the Theory of Revolution." It closes with chapters on "The Revolutionary Movement" and on "Prison and Exile." The volume contains also a bibliography, notes unfortunately relegated to the back, an index, and two photographs of Chcrnyshevskii. The book is on the whole attractively presented, although there are some misprints in the text and several misspelled names in the index. Fairness, judiciousness, care, and common sense characterize Professor Woehrlin's work. Consistently sympathetic and understanding in regard to his subject, he is nevertheless poles apart from the hackneyed hagiography of Soviet specialists. "Were Chernyshevskii's philosophical writings to be judged from the point of view of technical philosophy alone, there would be little to recommend them" (p. 140). Entirely derivative in his philosophy, the Russian radical combined Feuerbach's rejection of God and of German idealism with "the older position of materialistic monism, buttressed by the scientific popularizers of his own day" (p. 141). It was especially this latter orientation, peculiarly congenial to him, that he proceeded to preach with absolute conviction. Chernyshevskii's importance resided in the facts that on the basis of his world view he affirmed the need of revolution in Russia and that his message had a profound impact on the emerging Russian radicalism. Yet the author indicates, in a characteristicaily scrupulous and balanced examination of the sources, that Chernyshevskii as publicist also tried to influence the government in the direction of more far-reaching peasant reform and that there is no conclusive evidence that he himself took part in revolutionary activities. There is distinctly more to praise than to criticize in Professor Woehrlin's book, but the reader does wish at times that the author would develop his analysis. As man, Chernyshevskii stands clearly and sympathetically delineated; yet the author does little to resolve psychological contradictions or offer insights. In terms of ideas, Professor Woehrlin suggests that What Is To Be Done? could be approached as a parody (pp. 314 ft.). But surely more than a suggestion is needed to establish that point. And if not a parody, then what was the real nature of that strange novel and what did it mean to its author? It is when dealing with the obsessive, utopian side of Chernyshevskii that Professor Woehrlin often finds himself ill at ease. But, while one is always entitled to ask for more, one must also be grateful for what is given. Professor Woehrlin has written a very useful book and the best introduction to Chernyshevskii in any language. NICHOLAS V. RIASANOVSKY University of California, Berkeley... (shrink)

The article discusses the original critical dialectical approach of the Soviet philosopher Valentin F. Asmus. His publications on the heritage of Western philosophical thought in the journal Pod znamenem marksizma are examples of this approach. In the 1920s and 1930s, Asmus published a number of articles analyzing a variety of the ideas developed by Western European philosophers: “An Advocate for Philosophical Intuition (Bergson and His Critique of the Intellect)” (1926); “The Alogism of William James” (1927); “The Dialectics of Necessity (...) and Freedom in Spinoza’s Ethics” (1927); “Kant’s General and Transcendental Logic” (1928); “Cosmogony and Cosmology of Descartes” (1937); “Fichte and the Vocation of Scholar” (1937); “Nicholas of Cusa. Selected Philosophical Works” (1938); and “Tommaso Campanella” (1939). These articles differed from the journal’s usual rhetoric, which was shaped in accordance with the official Soviet state ideology. Asmus, through the thinkers he examined, showed the fundamental importance of philosophy for the human personality. This article argues that Asmus, despite his closeness to dialectical materialism, adapted the official terminology and issues in his historical and philosophical articles in a way that he advanced the human right to spirituality, creative activity, and individual freedom. (shrink)

Deleuze and Philosophy provides an exploration of the continuing philosophical relevance of Gilles Deleuze. This collection of essays uses Deleuze to move between thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Husserl, Hume, Locke, Kant, Foucault, Badiou and Agamben. As such the reader is left with a comprehensive understanding not just of the philosophy of Deleuze but how he can be situated within a much broader philosophical trajectory. Constantin Boundas has gathered together recent scholarship on Deleuze's philosophy by an acclaimed line-up of international (...) contributors, all of whom seek to provide new and previously unexplored theoretical terrains that will be of interest to both the Deleuze specialist and student alike. Three of the essays are by key French Deleuzians whose work is not widely available in translation. This enticing collection is essential reading for anyone interested not just in Deleuze but in the history of philosophical ideas. Contributors include: Zsuzsa Baross, Veronique Bergen, Ronald Bogue, Bruce Baugh, Rosi Braidotti, Claire Colebrook, Bela Egyed, Philippe Mengue, Dorothea Olkowski, Davide Panagia, Daniel W. Smith, Jeremie Valentin, Arnaud Villani. (shrink)

An objective, honest, impartial history of our country's philosophy in the Soviet period—in a word, a history meeting the requirements of the times—is yet to be written. But it is much needed. Its creation is one of the most important, but perhaps also one of the most difficult of our tasks. There are still many superimposed layers that must be peeled away: for example, the bitter truth must be told about those who inscribed in this history—of course honorifically—their own names (...) and those of dogmatists who shared their ideas. But fortunately, it is not only naked emperors and their stooges, not only their subjects with their mutilated destinies, who will figure in a historical narration oriented toward the truth and facts. This grim context makes even brighter the noble role played by those figures—personalities in the highest sense of the word—whose names, works, and very lives were simply "expunged" from history. And by those who remained alive and in philosophy in the direst times, those who despite all the persecution, all the tribulations they endured, abandoned neither their honor nor philosophical truth. The unofficial authority of talented, creatively thinking scholars has always been extremely high. One of those highly authoritative philosophers of our country, one who today has an international name, was Valentin Ferdinandovich Asmus. (shrink)

“Resistir significa en primer lugar rechazar. Hoy, la insurgencia consiste en ese rechazo que no tiene nada de negativo, que es un acto indispensable, vital “ V. F.Hace ya seis años, en 1997, dos importantes editoriales publicaron en Barcelona, México y Buenos Aires, una traducción al español de El horror económico, y tres años después apareció en nuestra lengua Una extraña dictadura, ambos de la destacada ensayista y novelista francesa Vivianne Forrester. Estas obras se convirtieron en éxit..

The theory of mind (ToM) framework has been criticised by emerging alternative accounts. Each alternative begins with the accusation that ToM's validity as a research paradigm rests on the assumption of the ‘unobservability’ of other minds. We argue that the critics' discussion of the unobservability assumption (UA) targets a straw man. We discuss metaphysical, phenomenological, epistemological, and psychological readings of UA and demonstrate that it is not the case that ToM assumes the metaphysical, phenomenological, or epistemological claims. However, ToM supports (...) the psychological UA as a claim about cognitive processes responsible for mindreading. The latter can be interpreted as a claim that (a) neither the other's ‘mindedness’ in general nor the other's particular mental states are observable (i.e. apprehended perceptually); (b) particular mental states are unobservable, whereas some aspects indicative of ‘mindedness’ are observable; (c) some mental states are unobservable but some are also observable. Whereas the critics tend to attribute (a) to ToM, most ToM accounts actually take positions (b) or (c). We conclude that the allegations against ToM for positing UA are seriously misdirected. We further bring out an important stipulation of any account of observability of mental states: mental states are not observable in the same way as the sensory properties of physical objects. (shrink)