The scaling of body parts is central to the evolution of morphology and shape. Most traits scale proportionally with each other and body size such that larger adults are essentially magnified versions of smaller ones. This pattern is so ubiquitous that departures from it – disproportionate scaling between trait and body size – pique interest because it can generate dramatically exaggerated traits. These extreme morphologies are frequently hypothesized to result from sexual selection and their study has a long history, with (...) several hypotheses seeking to explain their evolution. Despite this effort, surprisingly little progress has been made in demonstrating the forms of selection that produce different scaling patterns or in identifying the mechanisms that underlie the expression and evolution of scaling relationships. Here we review recent insights regarding the proximate mechanisms that regulate and integrate trait growth and that offer a new framework for studying the evolution of morphological scaling. (shrink)

Among all organisms, the size of each body part or organ scales with overall body size, a phenomenon called allometry. The study of shape and form has attracted enormous interest from biologists, but the genetic, developmental and physiological mechanisms that control allometry and the proportional growth of parts have remained elusive. Recent progress in our understanding of body‐size regulation provides a new synthetic framework for thinking about the mechanisms and the evolution of allometric scaling. In particular, insulin/IGF signaling, which plays (...) major roles in longevity, diabetes and the regulation of cell, organ and body size, might also be centrally involved in regulating organismal shape. Here we review recent advances in the fields of growth regulation and endocrinology and use them to construct a developmental model of static allometry expression in insects. This model serves as the foundation for a research program that will result in a deeper understanding of the relationship between growth and form, a question that has fascinated biologists for centuries. BioEssays 29:536–548, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This volume features 16 essays on the philosophy of technology that discuss its identity, its position in philosophy in general, and the role of empirical studies in philosophical analyses of engineering ethics and engineering practices. This volume is published about fifteen years after Peter Kroes and Anthonie Meijers published a collection of papers under the title The empirical turn in the philosophy of technology, in which they called for a reorientation toward the practice of engineering, and sketched the likely benefits (...) for philosophy of technology of pursuing its major questions in an empirically informed way. The essays in this volume fall apart in two different kinds. One kind follows up on The empirical turn discussion about what the philosophy of technology is all about. It continues the search for the identity of the philosophy of technology by asking what comes after the empirical turn. The other kind of essays follows the call for an empirical turn in the philosophy of technology by showing how it may be realized with regard to particular topics. Together these essays offer the reader an overview of the state of the art of an empirically informed philosophy of technology and of various views on the empirical turn as a stepping stone into the future of the philosophy of technology. (shrink)

Reproduced here in facsimile, this volume was originally published in 1980 and is available individually. The collection is also available in a number of themed mini-sets of between 5 and 13 volumes, or as a complete collection.

In a relatively little-known interview, conducted by Thomas Bertonneau, Girard remarks that with Heidegger there is an aspect he "would almost call a worship of the old sacred," something that struck him as "pretty scary … sinister." But, almost in the same breath, Girard continues, "And yet there can be no doubt that Heidegger is a genius."1This doubled attitude to Heidegger, where on the one side the German philosopher is basically a hostile relic of the archaic sacred, and on the (...) other he has contributed something of genius to contemporary thought, has not been sufficiently examined among Girardians. The default position seems to be a dismissal on account of the former and an unwillingness to engage in respect... (shrink)

In popular articles that play down the genetical differences among human populations, it is often stated that about 85% of the total genetical variation is due to individual differences within populations and only 15% to differences between populations or ethnic groups. It has therefore been proposed that the division of Homo sapiens into these groups is not justified by the genetic data. This conclusion, due to R.C. Lewontin in 1972, is unwarranted because the argument ignores the fact that most of (...) the information that distinguishes populations is hidden in the correlation structure of the data and not simply in the variation of the individual factors. The underlying logic, which was discussed in the early years of the last century, is here discussed using a simple genetical example. (shrink)

Are inferences, theoretical and practical, subject to requirements of rationality? If so, are these of the form 'if … ought …' or 'ought … if …'? If the latter, how are we to understand the 'if'? It seems that, in all cases, we get unintuitive implications if 'ought' connotes having reason. It is difficult to formulate such requirements, and obscure what they explain. There might also be a requirement forbidding self-contradiction. It is a good question whether self-contradiction constitutes, or evidences, (...) irrationality; but talk of a rational requirement causes trouble. (shrink)

"These essays make a splendid book. Ignatieff's lectures are engaging and vigorous; they also combine some rather striking ideas with savvy perceptions about actual domestic and international politics.

This article provides a comparative institutional analysis between El Niño/southern Oscillation forecasting systems in the Pacific and southern Africa with a focus on how scientific information is connected to the decision-making process. With billions of dollars in infrastructure and private property and human health and well-being at risk during ENSO events, forecasting systems have begun to be embraced by managers and firms at multiple levels. The study suggests that such systems need to consciously support the coproduction of knowledge. A critical (...) component of such coproduction seems to be managing the boundaries between science and policy and across disciplines, scale, and knowledges to create information that is salient, credible, and legitimate to multiple audiences. This research suggests institutional mechanisms that appear to be useful in managing such boundaries, including mechanisms for structuring convening, translation, collaboration, and mediation functions. (shrink)

It is well-known that Plato’s Republic introduces a tripartition of the incarnate human soul; yet quite how to interpret his ‘parts’ 1 is debated. On a strong reading, they are psychological subjects – much as we take ourselves to be, but homunculi, not homines. On a weak reading, they are something less paradoxical: aspects of ourselves, identified by characteristic mental states, dispositional and occurrent, that tend to come into conflict. Christopher Bobonich supports the strong reading in his Plato’s Utopia Recast: (...) His Later Ethics and Politics. In his The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle, Hendrik Lorenz agrees with Bobonich that the parts of the soul are ‘the subjects or bearers of psychological states’. Any ascription to my Mental Conflict of the opposed, weak view needs qualification: my Plato is highly ambivalent.2 But my intention here is less to defend an earlier self – though I predict failing to escape it – than to reconsider tripartition in the Republic in the light of Bobonich’s virtuosity and Lorenz’s lucidity. They persuade me of the inexhaustibility of the text, notably within Book 4 from 436 to 439. About these pages we may indeed disagree: they find them decisive in favour of their view, as I don’t. When Socrates remarks, ‘Let us have our understanding still more precise, lest as we proceed we become involved in dispute’, he was not anticipating the dissensions of interpreters. (shrink)

Girardian anthropology tells us that the birth of human meaning and its signs are the result of a primitive catastrophe. But if these origins are exposed by the biblical record it is because another, transformative semiosis has opened in human existence. Girard’s seminal remarks on the Greek logos and the logos of John, endorsing Heidegger’s divorce of the two, demonstrate this claim and its source in the nonviolence of the gospel logos. In effect, there is a second catastrophe, one embedded (...) in the bible and reaching its full exposition in the cross, generating a new semiosis in humanity. The transformation may be measured by viewing the original semiosis in a Kantian frame, as a transcendental a priori structured by violence. The second catastrophe generates an equivalent new a priori of nonviolence. The work of Charles Peirce illustrates both the way in which interpretants (of signs) open us progressively to new meanings, and how this process may ultimately be conditioned by love. The catastrophe of the gospel, therefore, works both on the dramatic individual level, with Paul of the New Testament as the great example, but also in slow‑motion over semiotic history, changing the meaning of existence from violence to nonviolence. (shrink)

A theory of human origins that is one-half Charles Darwin and one-half Cain and Abel is bound to entail a lot of rethinking of traditional themes. Rene Girard's thesis of original human violence and the Bible's power to reveal it has been around for more than a generation, but its consequences for Christian theology are still only slowly being unpacked. Anthony Bartlett's book makes a signal contribution, representing an astonishing leap forward in understanding what a biblical disclosure of founding (...) violence means for Christian thought and life. If human language arose directly out of the primal experience of murder, then semiotics becomes a core area for theological examination. Tracing the discipline of semiotics through postmodern thinkers, then back through its birth in the Latin era, Bartlett shows how Girard's thought is itself a semiotic emergence, beyond standard Christian metaphysics. Above all, Girardian theory of human signs demands we see the generative impact of violence in our language and thought, and then, conversely, that the Word of God, crucified without retaliation and risen in the same identity, brings a totally new sign and relation into history, offering a thoroughgoing transformation of human life and meaning. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Types of Knowledge in Technology A Neglected Topic Empirical Studies Philosophical Explorations References and Further Reading.

Does Aristotle by his phrase “syllogisms of things to be done” mean syllogisms of a distinctive and inherently practical content, perhaps syllogisms subject to an unfamiliar logic? Or does he just mean syllogisms that are relevant in contexts concerning what to do next? I propose the second interpretation, taking the syllogisms in question to constitute the deductive kernel of stretches of practical thinking. They are pieces of deduction that take on a practical function in context.

Are inferences, theoretical and practical, subject to requirements of rationality? If so, are these of the form 'if … ought …' or 'ought … if …'? If the latter, how are we to understand the 'if'? It seems that, in all cases, we get unintuitive implications if 'ought' connotes having reason. It is difficult to formulate such requirements, and obscure what they explain. There might also be a requirement forbidding self-contradiction. It is a good question whether self-contradiction constitutes, or evidences, (...) irrationality; but talk of a rational requirement causes trouble. (shrink)

In the absence of reliable external evidence for the career of Theocritus, scholars, both ancient and modern, have drawn numerous biographical inferences from a wide range of passages in his poems referring to place names, personal names, topographic features, deities and festivals, athletes, even varieties of fish and plant life. This paper argues that most of these belong in the realm of fantasy. Beyond his Sicilian origins and his extended residence in Alexandria, where his main associations are with its royal (...) patrons and its intellectual and literary life, we have little evidence with which to reconstruct the life of Theocritus as a writer. The chronology of his poetic activity is subject to similar uncertainty, although it can be argued that it extended over a longer period of time than many traditional accounts assume. (shrink)

The workshop – presented by the director of a new center and the coordinator of an alliance intended to amplify and extend the influence of an established center – focused on the challenges involved in founding, growing, and sustaining centers for business ethics within university business schools. The discussion draws on experience at the Center for Business and Society, Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado, and the Center for Business Ethics, Bentley College and Bentley’s Alliance for Ethics & Social (...) Responsibility. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 91 Heft: 2 Seiten: 243-265.

In this collection of richly documented case studies, experts in many textual traditions examine the ways in which important texts were preserved, explicated, corrected, and used for a variety of purposes. The authors describe the multiple ways in which scholars in different cultures have addressed some of the same tasks, revealing both radical differences and striking similarities in textual practices across space, time and linguistic borders. This volume shows how much is learned when historians of scholarship, like contemporary historians of (...) science, focus on earlier scholars' practices, and when Western scholarly traditions are treated as part of a much larger, cross-cultural inquiry. (shrink)

Shows how the classical tradition has shaped human endeavors, from art and government to mathematics and medicine.

The paper reiterates the account of Aristotle's conception of eudaimonia to be found in my monograph Virtue and Reason in Plato and Aristotle, and then faces the charge that it makes the agent's motivation unattractively egocentric (viz. on his own eudaimonia).

This paper discusses two debated questions about how best to interpret the contribution to the Symposium that Socrates pretends to derive from Diotima: Within the Lesser Mysteries, is the erōs that is being defined and characterized, with appeal to the notion of “generation in beauty”, a generic erōs that is equivalent to Socratic desire in general, or a specific erōs that is erotic in our sense? Within the Greater Mysteries, is interpersonal erōs maintained, or supplanted? I find that neither answer (...) to unproblematic, but argue that either can be reconciled with the text, and suggest that both leave open the really interesting questions. I then, in answer to, concede that there are radical shifts of focus, but conclude that it is most likely that interpersonal erōs has a continuing role in, eventually, making the lover worthy of “becoming dear to the gods and, if any man can, immortal himself also”. Here I appeal especially to the phrase “ungrudging philosophy”, taking it to signify an activity that is not kept to oneself, but shared with another. (shrink)

A long encyclopedia entry, sketching his life, analysing his work.

To make behavioral choices that are in line with our goals and our moral beliefs, we need to gather and consider information about our current situation. Most information present in our environment is not relevant to the choices we need or would want to make and thus could interfere with our ability to behave in ways that reflect our underlying values. Certain sources of information could even lead us to make choices we later regret, and thus it would be beneficial (...) to be able to ignore that information. Our ability to exert successful self-governance depends on our ability to attend to sources of information that we deem important to our decision-making processes. We generally assume that, at any moment, we have the ability to choose what we pay attention to. However, recent research indicates that what we pay attention to is influenced by our prior experiences, including reward history and past successes and failures, even when we are not aware of this history. Even momentary distractions can cause us to miss or discount information that should have a greater influence on our decisions given our values. Such biases in attention thus raise questions about the degree to which the choices that we make may be poorly informed and not truly reflect our ability to otherwise exert self-governance. (shrink)

In my article I evaluate Searle's account of mental causation, in particular his account of the causal efficacy of unconscious intentional states. I argue that top-down causation and overdetermination are unsolved problems in Searle's philosophy of mind, despite his assurances to the contrary. I also argue that there are conflicting claims involved in his account of mental causation and his account of the unconscious. As a result, it becomes impossible to understand how unconscious intentional states can be causally efficacious. My (...) conclusion will be that if Searle's conception of unconscious intentionality is to play a genuine role in the causal explanation of human action, it needs to be rethought. (shrink)

I discuss various crucial points, most notably the relation between desire and the good.