En este artículo de reflexión se plantea que el concepto de ‘pensamiento crítico’ formulado por los pensadores del Movimiento de Pensamiento Crítico contiene un presupuesto que mina en gran medida su empresa: el movimiento asume que el pensador crítico desarrolla un autoconocimiento directo y transparente, lo que implicaría cuasi-infalibilidad. En la historia de la filosofía algunos pensadores han defendido esta posibilidad de un autoconocimiento directo e infalible, por ejemplo René Descartes y más recientemente Donald Davidson. Sin embargo, tal conocimiento parece (...) tener unos límites más o menos claros que no son tenidos en cuenta por los pensadores del MPC al formular su noción de pensamiento crítico, y debido a este presupuesto su proyecto filosófico e incluso pedagógico podría quedar sin fundamento. (shrink)

The research focuses on the study of public housing built in response to the urgent housing needs in Europe throughout the 20th century. These developments share many of the characteristics of their European counterparts. The Spanish case presents certain peculiarities in its development. The research aims to analyse the context -social, economic and political- that conditioned the massive construction of housing in Spain between 1939 and 1976. An analysis is made of the approved urban planning legislation, housing regulation and the (...) identification of the responsible bodies. (shrink)

According to the standard no miracles argument, science’s predictive success is best explained by the approximate truth of its theories. In contemporary science, however, machine learning systems, such as AlphaFold2, are also remarkably predictively successful. Thus, we might ask what best explains such successes. Might these AIs accurately represent critical aspects of their targets in the world? And if so, does a variant of the no miracles argument apply to these AIs? We argue for an affirmative answer to these questions. (...) We conclude that if the standard no miracles argument is sound, an AI-specific no miracles argument is also sound. (shrink)

Background: Pain has been associated with structural changes of the brain. However, evidence regarding white matter changes in response to acute pain protocols is still scarce. In the present study, we assess the existence of differences in brain white matter related to pain intensity reported by patients undergoing surgical removal of a mandibular impacted third molar using diffusion tensor imaging analysis.Methods: 30 participants reported their subjective pain using a visual analog scale at three postsurgical stages: under anesthesia, in pain, and (...) after the administration of an analgesic. The diffusion data were acquired prior to surgery.Results: DTI analysis yielded significant positive associations of fractional anisotropy in white matter areas related to pain processing with the differences in pain between the three postsurgery stages. Extent and location of these associations depended on the magnitude of the subjective pain differences. Tractography analysis indicated that some pain–tract associations are significant only when pain stage is involved in the contrast, while others are only when anesthesia is involved in the contrast.Conclusions: The association of white matter fractional anisotropy and connectivity, measured before the pain stages, with subjective pain depends on the magnitude of the differences in pain scores. (shrink)

Diseases of complex origin have a component of quantitative genetics that contributes to their susceptibility and phenotypic variability. However, after several studies, a major part of the genetic component of complex phenotypes has still not been found, a situation known as “missing heritability.” Although there have been many hypotheses put forward to explain the reasons for the missing heritability, its definitive causes remain unknown. Complex diseases are caused by multiple intermediate phenotypes involved in their pathogenesis and, very often, each one (...) of these intermediate phenotypes also has a component of quantitative inheritance. Here we propose that at least part of the missing heritability can be explained by the genetic component of intermediate phenotypes that is not detectable at the level of the main complex trait. At the same time, the identification of the genetic component of intermediate phenotypes provides an opportunity to identify part of the missing heritability of complex diseases. (shrink)

The global pesticide complex has transformed over the past two decades, but social science research has not kept pace. The rise of an enormous generics sector, shifts in geographies of pesticide production, and dynamics of agrarian change have led to more pesticide use, expanding to farm systems that hitherto used few such inputs. Declining effectiveness due to pesticide resistance and anemic institutional support for non-chemical alternatives also have driven intensification in conventional systems. As an inter-disciplinary network of pesticide scholars, we (...) seek to renew the social science research agenda on pesticides to better understand this suite of contemporary changes. To identify research priorities, challenges, and opportunities, we develop the pesticide complex as a heuristic device to highlight the reciprocal and iterative interactions among agricultural practice, the agrochemical industry, civil society-shaped regulatory actions, and contested knowledge of toxicity. Ultimately, collaborations among social scientists and across the social and biophysical sciences can illuminate recent transformations and their uneven socioecological effects. A reinvigorated critical scholarship that embraces the multifaceted nature of pesticides can identify the social and ecological constraints that drive pesticide use and support alternatives to chemically driven industrial agriculture. (shrink)

L’enjeu de cet article est de défendre l’internalisme de Bernard Williams à propos de la raison pratique, en adoptant un point de vue différent de ce qui se fait habituellement dans la littérature. Les expériences de pensée impliquant des « excentriques idéalement cohérents » sont généralement présentées dans ce débat comme un argument majeur contre l’internalisme. Je conteste ce point et montre que nos intuitions concernant de telles figures impliquent en réalité une compréhension internaliste de la notion de raisons d’agir. (...) À cette fin, je suggère d’étendre la conception de Williams par une conception internaliste orientée sur le locuteur relativement à la signification des ascriptions de raisons externes. (shrink)

Can scientific evidence outstretch what scientists have mentally entertained, or could ever entertain? This article focuses on the plausibility and consequences of an affirmative answer in a special case. Specifically, it discusses how we may treat automated scientific data-gathering systems—especially AI systems used to make predictions or to generate novel theories—from the point of view of confirmation theory. It uses AlphaFold2 as a case study.

El presente artículo se propone indagar en el comercio de ideas entre William Prynne y la tradición escolástica hispánica, especialmente en lo relativo al origen y límites del poder del rey en cuanto esencialmente subordinado al Parlamento. También se considera al inicio del trabajo la teología calvinista de Prynne, fuertemente enfrentada a la teología católica y arminiano-anglicana. El trabajo termina concluyendo que en el pensamiento de Prynne se da, junto a una radical oposición teológica a arminianos y católicos, una (...) intensa recepción de las ideas políticas de Salamonio, los _schoolmen_ y los _doctors of Salamancha_, tales como Mariana, Suárez, etc., coincidentes en buena medida con las fuentes del Derecho político medieval inglés, tales como Bracton, Fleta y Fortescue. Desde un punto de vista metodológico el artículo ha sido elaborado a partir de un intenso trabajo de fuentes primarias teológicas y políticas de Prynne, accesibles gracias a la base de datos EEBO (_Early English Books Online_), de la Universidad de Michigan. (shrink)

Andres Bonifacio is a household name in the history of the Philippines.His name has been included into many discussion and controversies revolvingover his identity as the Father of the Revolution and being the founder ofKataastaasang, Kagalanggalangag Katipunan . His poems serve as legaciesthat can unlock what kind of person is Andres. Through his poems, he expressedreflections about the situation of the Indios during the time of colonization andthe rage of the revolution. This descriptive study analyzed four selected poemsof Andres Bonifacio (...) and sought to find a new insight into the poems through a Neo-Marxist perspective using a Neo-Marxist lens, specifically the theory of cultural hegemony by Antonio Gramsci. Based on the content analysis of hispoems, it was found out that Bonifacio was affected by the false consciousnesspropagated by the colonizers during the Spanish settlement in the country. Italso answered the question whether Bonifacio is a patriotic man or a nationalistichero. Keywords: Literature, revolution, neo-marxism, poems, Andres Bonifacio, descriptiveresearch, Philippines. (shrink)

As a Franciscan friar, student, teacher, philosopher, theologian, and political theorist, William of Ockham was and remains one of the most stimulating thinkers of the Middle Ages. The one consistent characteristic of his professional output—both as a student and later as an opponent of papal authoritarianism—was the provocative nature of his ideas. In required commentaries on standard theological texts as well as in his later, more independently inspired treatises, Ockham demonstrated a genuine talent for suggesting and sustaining a number (...) of original, unorthodox and, occasionally, even outrageous ideas. Accordingly, Ockham holds the distinction of being the most rejected but influential philosopher-theologian of the fourteenth century, an observation that applies to his views on causality in which, for example, Ockham held the principle of action at a distance in order to save the causal account of some phenomena. One of the more interesting distinctions that he made, however, occurs in his treatment of sacramental theology as part of his account of God's causal activity with respect to the sacraments. (shrink)

Pancreatitis is a complex, progressively destructive inflammatory disorder. Alcohol was long thought to be the primary causative agent, but genetic contributions have been of interest since the discovery that rare PRSS1, CFTR and SPINK1 variants were associated with pancreatitis risk. We now report two associations at genome-wide significance identified and replicated at PRSS1-PRSS2 and X-linked CLDN2 through a two-stage genome-wide study. The PRSS1 variant likely affects disease susceptibility by altering expression of the primary trypsinogen gene. The CLDN2 risk allele is (...) associated with atypical localization of claudin-2 in pancreatic acinar cells. The homozygous CLDN2 genotype confers the greatest risk, and its alleles interact with alcohol consumption to amplify risk. These results could partially explain the high frequency of alcohol-related pancreatitis in men. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:PEACE EDUCATION AND THE NORTHERN IRISH CONFLICT André Lascaris Dominican Theological Center, Nijmegen The Northern Irish conflict can be interpreted as an anachronism. This is true in many aspects. However, in the last ten years we were confronted with many "anachronistic" conflicts: in former Yugoslavia, in Rwanda, Algeria, Colombia, and Afghanistan, to mention only some. In our postmodern times the division of the world into two rather neat halves (...) with two centers of power has gone, the nation state is weakening and in many societies the social glue seems to be losing its cohesive force. We have to live together in pluralistic societies in which we are all a minority at times. Wars between states become less likely, butcivil wars are on the increase. Terrorism becomes a power against which the traditional armies and their weapons are quite useless in spite of many technological developments. The ancient laws concerningthe protection of women and children in wartime are becoming obsolete. Women are invited to get involved in the armed forces. The child soldier is a well-known phenomenon. In our western society a child's world, which exists in isolation from the adult world, is no longer a possibility. Some lessons learned in dealing with theNorthern Irish conflict might turn out to be worthwhile taking up in other situations. In this essay, I reflect with the help ofthe mimetic theory on peace work done by some Dutch people on behalfofNorthern Ireland between 1973 and 1992. The Northern Irish conflict as such is not the subject ofthis paper; the mimetic interpretation of this conflict was admirably covered by people such as Duncan Morrow and the late Frank Wright to which I refer the reader in my bibliography. I will concentrate on the educational aspects ofDutch peace work done in the Northern Irish context. Here it suffices to say that the 136André Lascaris Northern Irish conflict is not a religious one, though religious labels are being used. It is aconflict between two cultures, an Irish one and an AngloSaxon or British one. I. Dutch peace work on behalf ofNorthern Ireland A. A short history In 1973 I was invited to become a member of staff of a conference for influential Northern Irishmen in the Netherlands. Glenn Williams, then secretary general of the KEK (Conference of European Churches) had asked the Dutch Council ofChurches whether it could do something on behalf of Northern Ireland. After some consultation Williams asked the Dutch adult education center 'De Haaf to accommodate "mixed Roman Catholic and Protestant Irish groups in a quiet and spiritual atmosphere." The director of this center, Aat van Rhijn, a Presbyterian minister, asked me to participate in the conference because he wanted a Catholic priest to make the Roman Catholic Northern Irishmen feel represented on the staff. A laywoman, Hermine Keuning, was the third member of the staff. The Dutch Reformed Church provided money. In April 1973 a visit was made to Belfast and contact was established with the Irish Council ofChurches; it soon became our Northern Irish counterpart. In Septembera firstconference was held, quickly followed by a second one. From participants of the first conference a new request for a conference was made and after this one even more conferences were organized, altogether 18 between 1973 and 1983. We worked with neighborhood groups, politicians, paramilitaries, social workers, police officers, adult educators, social workers, journalists and editors, Catholic and Protestant clergymen. In the conferences ofthe protestant politicians and the clergy it was not possible to have a mixed group; we had to be content with having some either Catholic or Protestant "observers" at the conference. Inthe late seventiesthesecurity situation inNorthern Ireland improved. The necessity oftraveling to the Netherlands to have a conference became less evident. Because our work remained in demand, we organized weekends in Northern Ireland itself from 1981 onwards, mainly in Corrymeela, an ecumenical adult education center near Ballycastle. Money was coming from several sources, but mainly from the Dutch Reformed Church. To handle the money well we decided in 1975 to become a trust: the "Dutch Northern Irish Advisory Committee." It was typical ofthis trustthat its constitution stipulated that no conference or any Peace Education andthe Northern Irish Conflict137 other activity... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Narrative Symposium:Conflicting Interests in MedicineLaura Jean Bierut, Sal Cruz-Flores, Laura E. Hodges, Anthony A. Mikulec, Govind K. Nagaldinne, Erine L. Bakanas, John F. Peppin, Joel S. Perlmutter, William H. Seitz Jr., Edward Diao, Andre N. Sofair, and David M. Zientek• To Recruit or Not to Recruit for a Clinical Trial• An Unexpected Lesson• Am I on call for the entire Midwest?• Why is Medicare Wasting Away?• The Downside (...) of the Informed Consent Juggernaut• Expert Testimony at the Food and Drug Administration: Who Wants the Truth?• Crossroads: The Intersection of Personal, Professional Society, and Industry Relationships• A Change of Heart• The Evolution of Conflicts of Interest in a New Subspecialty: A Case Study of the Development of Interventional CardiologyCopyright © 2011 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

En este artículo se presentan dos demostraciones del teorema de interpolación: Una para la lógica proposicional y otra para la lógica de primer orden. Ambas se realizan en el contexto de la teoría de modelos. El teorema de interpolación afirma que si A y B son fórmulas, donde A no es una contradicción, B no es válida, y B es una consecuencia lógica de A, entonces existe una fórmula C que esta escrita en el lenguaje común al de A y (...) de B, tal que C es una consecuencia lógica de A y B es una consecuencia lógica de C. El teorema de interpolación fue demostrado por primera vez para la lógica de primer orden por William Craig en 1957, y desde entonces se ha investigado la posibilidad de generalizarlo o aplicarlo. Dicho teorema tiene generalizaciones o aplicaciones en teoría de la demostración, teoría de modelos abstracta, ciencias de la computación, lógica modal, lógica intuicionista, etc. Se presentan ejemplos de aplicaciones o generalizaciones de la propiedad de interpolación relacionados con lógicas infinitarias, cuantificadores generalizados, segundo orden, no clásicas, abstractas, etc. También se ofrecen referencias de problemas abiertos sobre interpolación en el contexto de la teoría de modelos abstracta. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to analyze the association between physical activity and eating habits during the COVID-19 pandemic among Brazilian adults. A sample of 1,929 participants answered an online survey, however 1,874 were included in the analysis. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on eating habits was assessed inquiring about participants' intake of fruits, vegetables, fried foods, and sweets during the pandemic. Physical activity was assessed by asking participants about their weekly frequency, intensity and number of minutes/hours engaging (...) in structured physical activities per week. Participants were then stratified into categories based on moderate-to-vigorous intensity and into active or inactive. Increased sweets consumption was the most commonly reported change to eating habits, followed by an increase in the consumption of vegetables, fruits, and fried foods. Physical activity practice was related to lower consumption of fried foods and sweets. A cluster analysis revealed subjects with higher the level of physical activity was more likely to follow a healthy diet. Thus, physical activity was positively associated with healthier eating habits. Health authorities must recommend regular physical as a strategy to improve overall health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Future studies should address the physical activity interventions to improve health status during a pandemic. (shrink)

La siguiente ponencia-taller tiene por finalidad explicar cómo podría aplicarse el Método de George Polya para resolver problemas (matemáticos) en el contexto de la Lógica Matemática, especialmente en la lógica Matemática elemental (la lógica de primer orden con identidad). Es una propuesta pedagógica experimental (además de las ya existentes) que tal vez pueda ser útil para la enseñanza de la lógica matemática en ciencias o en humanidades. Dicha ponencia se presentó (vía web) con motivo de la celebración del Día Mundial (...) de Lógica 2022 en dos ocasiones: En la Universidad Central de Venezuela (Venezuela) y en la Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (Logic & Analytics Group - La Paz y La Sociedad Científica de Filosofía de la UMSA, Bolivia). Es un proyecto pedagógico en construcción. (shrink)

Arnold Burms: Professor Williams has said that he is willing to answer some of our questions about his work. Given the amount of work he has to do here in a few days, this was a generous decision for which we are genuinely grateful. Professor Van de Putte will start the discussion with some questions about the relation between theory and practice.André Van de Putte: In Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy you situate ethical thought in the context of a (...) movement of reflection. To quote from page 112: “It is too late at this stage to raise the prior question: `Why reflection?' — too late in terms of this inquiry, and always too late in terms of the question itself, since one could answer it without prejudice only by not considering it.” And just before that quotation you also said that “the drive to theory has roots in ethical thought itself” and a little bit further you say: “The important question at this point is why reflection should be taken to require theory.” Now I would like to elaborate a little bit on these remarks and ask you to comment on what I'm going to say.Three things should be stressed concerning ethical reflection which are important for moral philosophy and for our understanding of moral philosophy. The first one is this: the person who is reflecting is already part of a concrete society when he or she starts reflecting. That means that he or she has been socialized in a concrete ethos and has already an experience of a substantive ethical life. In this sense he or she does not need to invent ethical life.The second remark is this: ethical reflection is in itself already the expression of an ethical intention. By asking the question `How should one live?', one shows that one is interested in living an ethical life. In this sense I can agree with what I think you say in Ethics, namely that the question `Why should I be moral?' is not meaningful for a moral thinker. The answer to the moral question, the results of his reflection are not meant to convince him or his readers to be moral. On the contrary, he starts precisely from this interest in morality and tries to understand what it means to be moral, what his wish to be moral implies.My third point is the most important. In starting his reflection the thinker has as it were decided that his answer will only be acceptable if it is valid for all, if it can be justified for all. In the moral question itself, a norm of universality is implied. And given the fact that the moral question is itself the expression of an ethical intention, this is important. If he would not assume this norm, he would in my view not really be posing the question. We can immediately understand this if we consider the alternative.Suppose a moral thinker who assumes that an answer to the moral question will be valid only when it suits him. Would we say in this case that this person is really asking the moral question? I do not think so. To put this another way, my thesis is that in the reflection the person who reflects is subjecting himself to the law of thinking itself, to the law of reason, in other words, to the law of universality, of non-contradiction. In the question he discovers this law as a norm for himself asking the moral question and thus as a norm inherent in moral intention. I think that this is precisely what Kant discovered and why for so many there is an important link between ethics and reason and why we are, as you say, driven to theory: since we want a universal answer, since a moral norm implies universality, we are looking for a theory, for a universal justification. But this is not yet the full story. All that I have said only becomes visible on the reflective level. It is only visible, as it were, once one starts reflecting.This means that the norm of universality cannot and must not be understood as a concrete norm which can and should replace the norms of the concrete ethos we all already live in when we start reflecting. I think rationalism in ethics is precisely that: the belief that this norm and what one hopes to deduce from it can and should replace the concrete ethos. I think it must be clear that this cannot be done. As we all know the Kantian imperative is formal and negative and does not produce any content. If we need content — and of course we need it — it should come from our historical ethos. (shrink)

Western philosophy’s relationship with prisons stretches from Plato’s own incarceration to the modern era of mass incarceration. Philosophy Imprisoned: The Love of Wisdom in the Age of Mass Incarceration draws together a broad range of philosophical thinkers, from both inside and outside prison walls, in the United States and beyond, who draw on a variety of critical perspectives (including phenomenology, deconstruction, and feminist theory) and historical and contemporary figures in philosophy (including Kant, Hegel, Foucault, and Angela Davis) to think about (...) prisons in this new historical era. All of these contributors have experiences within prison walls: some are or have been incarcerated, some have taught or are teaching in prisons, and all have been students of both philosophy and the carceral system. The powerful testimonials and theoretical arguments are appropriate reading not only for philosophers and prison theorists generally, but also for prison reformers and abolitionists. (shrink)

This article defends a claim about the conditions under which agents possess normative reasons for action. According to this claim, an agent has a normative reason to φ only if it’s psychologically possible for that reason to motivate the agent to φ. The claim is called‘Williams’s explanatory constraint,’since it’s drawn from Bernard Williams’s work on the topic of practical reason. A two-premise‘master argument’ for Williams’s explanatory constraint is put forward. First, an agent has a normative reason to φ only if (...) that agent has the ability to φ for that reason. The second premise states that an agent has the ability to φ for a normative reason only if it’s psychologically possible for that reason to motivate the agent to φ. It is suggested that the ability to act for a normative reason involves the ability to act from a consequence-sensitive process of practical reasoning. Furthermore, normative reasons for action can motivate agents by being the objects of psychological states—particularly beliefs,desires, and intentions. In reply to the objection that normative reasons can never be objects of psychological states, I contend that all normative reasons are capable of being represented as the objects of psychological states. (shrink)

Lorenz proposed in his (1935) articulation of a theory of behavioral instincts that the objective of ethology is to distinguish behaviors that are “innate” from behaviors that are “learned” (or “acquired”). Lorenz’s motive was to open the investigation of certain “adaptive” behaviors to evolutionary theorizing. Accordingly, since innate behaviors are “genetic”, they are open to such investigation. By Lorenz’s light an innate/acquired or learned dichotomy rested on a familiar Darwinian distinction between genes and environments. Ever since Lorenz, ascriptions of innateness (...) have become widespread in the cognitive, behavioral, and biological sciences. The trend continues despite decades of strong arguments that show, in particular, the dichotomy that Lorenz invoked in his theory of behavioral instincts is literally false: no biological trait is the product of genes alone. Some critics suggest that the failure of Lorenz’s account shows that innateness is not well-defined in biology and the practice of ascribing innateness to various biological traits should be dropped from respectable science. Elsewhere (Ariew 1996) I argued that despite the arguments of critics, there really is a biological phenomenon underlying the concept of innateness. On my view, innateness is best understood in terms of C.H. Waddington’s concept of “canalization”, i.e. the degree to which a trait is innate is the degree to which its developmental outcome is canalized. The degree to which a developmental outcome is canalized is the degree to which the developmental process is bound to produce a particular endstate despite environmental fluctuations both in the development’s initial state and during the course of development. The canalization account differs in many ways to the traditional ways that ethologists such as Konrad Lorenz originally understood the concept of innateness. Most importantly, on the canalization account the distinction between innate and acquired is not a dichotomy, as Konrad Lorenz had it, but rather a matter of degree difference that lies along a spectrum with highly canalized development outcomes on the one end and highly environmentally sensitive development outcomes on the other end. Nevertheless, I justified the canalization account on the basis of a set of desiderata or criteria that I suggested falls-out of what seemed uncontroversial about Lorenz’s account of innateness (briefly): innateness is a property of a developing individual, innateness denotes environmental stability, and innate-ascriptions are useful in certain natural selection explanations (more below). From that same set of desiderata I argued (in my 1996) that neither the concept of heritability nor of norms of reactions—two concepts from population genetics—suffice to ground innateness. In this essay, I wish to provide further support of the canalization account in two ways. First, I wish to better motivate the desiderata by revisiting a debate between Konrad Lorenz and Daniel Lehrman over the meaning and explanatory usefulness of innate ascriptions in ethology. Second, I wish to compare my canalization account of innateness with accounts proposed by contemporary philosophers, one by Stephen Stich (1975), another by Elliott Sober (forthcoming), and a third by William Wimsatt (1986). (shrink)

In the last chapter of In the beginning was the deed: realism and moralism in political argument, Williams raised the question of truthfulness in politics and warned that the media, particularly, television, and the market of communication in general, work in ways contrary to truthfulness -understood as the combination of the virtues of sincerity and accuracy. In this paper we would like to carry on Williams’ line of thinking in connection with the impact of the new social media platforms on (...) politics. Where Williams focused on television, we will consider the impact of the internet public sphere. After reviewing how the digital social media encourages motivated reasoning in general, we propose to focus on two main phenomena derived from it: the rise of conspiracy theories and the moralization of politics. Conspiracy theories epitomize the risk of self-deception Williams was concerned to signal. On the other hand, the process of moralization of politics triggers sectarianism and hate for the “others”, the outgroup. Both phenomena are not exclusive of the internet sphere, but both are boosted by it, and entail a lack of interest in truth and truthfulness, and in this way they threaten the value of truth for democracy. (shrink)

This paper offers an overview of various alternative formulations for Analysis, the theory of Integral and Differential Calculus, and its diverging conceptions of the topological structure of the continuum. We pay particularly attention to Smooth Analysis, a proposal created by William Lawvere and Anders Kock based on Grothendieck’s work on a categorical algebraic geometry. The role of Heyting’s logic, common to all these alternatives is emphasized.

Teleology in biology is making headline news in the United States. Conservative Christians are utilizing a teleological argument for the existence of a supremely intelligent designer to justify legislation calling for the teaching of "intelligent design" (ID) in public schools. Teleological arguments of one form or another have been around since Antiquity. The contemporary argument from intelligent design varies little from William Paley's argument written in 1802. Both argue that nature exhibits too much complexity to be explained by 'mindless' (...) natural forces alone. We need to postulate the existence of an intelligent designer, a creator with forethought and purpose. The inference to an intelligent creator harkens back to Plato’s teleological argument for the order of the cosmos. Plato’s demiurge is a creator that imposes order on the cosmos. Yet, as we shall see when we analyze the distinctly biological form of the more contemporary teleological arguments we will find remanants of Aristotle’s distinctive argument from functional arrangement, but without his distinctive form of telos which is unconscious and immanent rather than intelligent and creative from on high. The aim of this article is to survey various teleological arguments since Antiquity. Since a variant on Paley's argument—ID—is getting so much recent press I will start with a discussion on the nature of Paley’s teleology. (shrink)