The pandemic significantly raised the stakes for the translation of bioethics insights into policy. The novelty, range and sheer quantity of the ethical problems that needed to be addressed urgently within public policy were unprecedented and required high‐bandwidth two‐way transfer of insights between academic bioethics and policy. Countries such as the United Kingdom, which do not have a National Ethics Committee, faced particular challenges in how to facilitate this. This paper takes as a case study the brief career of the (...) Ethics Advisory Board (EAB) for the NHS Covid‐19 App, which shows both the difficulty and the political complexity of policy‐relevant bioethics in a pandemic and how this was exacerbated by the transience and informality of the structures through which ethics advice was delivered. It analyses how and why, after EAB's demise, the Westminster government increasingly sought to either take its ethics advice in private or to evade ethical scrutiny of its policies altogether. In reflecting on EAB, and these later ethics advice contexts, the article provides a novel framework for analysing ethics advice within democracies, defining four idealised stances: the pure ethicist, the advocate, the ethics arbiter and the critical friend. (shrink)

This article examines when deceptive withholding of information is ethically acceptable in research. The first half analyses the concept of deception. We argue that there are two types of accounts of deception: normative and non-normative, and argue that non-normative accounts are preferable. The second half of the article argues that the relevant ethical question which ethics committees should focus on is not whether the person from whom the information is withheld will be deceived, but rather on the reasonableness of withholding (...) the information from the person who is deceived. We further argue that the reasonableness of withholding information is dependent on the context. The last section examines how the context of research should shape our judgements about the circumstances in which withholding information from research participants is ethically acceptable. We argue that some important features of research make it more difficult to justify withholding information in the context of research than elsewhere. (shrink)

Three accounts of effective realism (ER) have been advanced to solve three problems for scientific realism: Fraser and Vickers (forthcoming) develop a version of ER about non-relativistic quantum mechanics that they argue is compatible with all the main realist versions (‘interpretations’) of quantum mechanics avoiding the problem of underdetermination among them; Williams (2019) and Fraser (2020b) propose ER about quantum field theory as a response to the problems facing realist interpretations; Robertson and Wilson (forthcoming) propose ER to deal with (...) the dubious ontological status of the entities belonging to superseded theories. This paper argues for the unification of these proposals based on realism about modal structure and the idea of scale relativity of ontology developed by ontic structural realists. This solves problems some or all the accounts of ER face, especially that of making explicit in what way they are realist. Furthermore, we respond to a recent critique that has been raised against the ontic structural realist account of quantum mechanics that we employ. (shrink)

Wilson's book has two aims: a metaethical aim, to provide a non-moral-realist account of moral judgment and moral theorizing in terms of preferences for certain 'paraworlds' over other 'paraworlds,' and a normative ethical aim, to argue for greater socio-economic, and gender, equality. I am sympathetic to the second normative ethical aim, but I do not consider the metaethical redescription of moral judgment and moral theorizing in terms of preferences for paraworlds to be accurate or helpful. Her critique of "immanentism," (...) or merely making visible and understandable the moral aspects of particular ways of life, in the second part of the book, is valuable, along with her criticisms of virtue theory as the most conservative of the Big Three moral theories. Her rejection of Rawlsian redistribution, in favor of a qualified egalitarianism that includes merit, is also worthy of consideration. (shrink)

A collection of articles on the the principles of social justice from an Australian Catholic perspective. Contents: Forward (Archbishop Philip Wilson), Introduction (James Franklin), The right to life (James Franklin), The right to serve and worship God in public and private (John Sharpe), The right to religious formation (Richard Rymarz), The right to personal liberty under just law (Michael Casey), The right to equal protection of just law regardless of sex, nationality, colour or creed (Sam Gregg), The (...) right to freedom of expression (Damian Grace), The right to choose and freely maintain a state of life, married or single, lay or religious (Marita Winters), The right to education (Anthony Cleary), The right to petition government for the redress of grievances (Paul Russell), The right to a nationality (Andrew Hamilton), The right to have access to the means of livelihood, by migration when necessary (Brenda Hubber), The right of association and peaceful assembly (Michael Hogan), The right to work and choose one's occupation (Ian Blandthorn), The right to personal ownership, use and disposal of property subject to the right of others (Brian Coman), The right to a living wage (Garrick Small), The right to collective bargaining (Keith Harvey), The right to associate by industries and professions to obtain economic justice (Henrik Jurisevic), The right to assistance from society, if necessary from the State, in distress of persons and family (Catherine Althaus), Afterword (James Franklin). (shrink)

Today, there is a family of celebrated police strategies that teach the importance of cracking down on petty crime and urban nuisance as the key to effective crime control. Under the “broken windows” appellation, this strategy is linked in the public mind with New York City and the alleged successes of its police department in reducing the rate of crime over the past two decades. This paper is critical of such order maintenance approaches to policing: I argue that infringements of (...) civil liberty by such departments could be reduced if the departments looked at law more as a good to be served for its own sake and less as an instrument for the promotion of order. In other words, a shot of legalism is the correct medicine to reduce police misconduct that pierces the law’s protections of citizen freedom. -/- This Article contributes to the critical literature on broken windows policing by reassessing the work of the famous Harvard scholar (James Q. Wilson) who fathered it. The Article takes Wilson’s work and turns it on its head, drawing very different prescriptive conclusions than he did himself. (shrink)

The new frontiers in the philosophy of intellectual property lie squarely in territories belonging to moral and political philosophy, as well as legal philosophy and philosophy of economics – or so this collection suggests. Those who wish to understand the nature and justification of intellectual property may now find themselves immersed in philosophical debates on the structure and relative merits of consequentialist and deontological moral theories, or disputes about the nature and value of privacy, or the relationship between national and (...) global justice. Conversely, the theoretical and practical problems posed by intellectual property are increasingly relevant to bioethics and philosophy and public policy, as well as to more established areas of moral and political philosophy. Perhaps this is just to say that the philosophy of intellectual property is coming into its own as a distinct field of intellectual endeavour, providing a place where legal theorists and philosophers can have the sorts of discussions - neither reducible to questions about what the law is, nor wholly divorced from contemporary legal problems - which typify debates about freedom of expression, discrimination and human rights. These are all areas in which legal and philosophical ideas influence each other at the level of method as well as of substance. My hope is that this collection of essays will appeal to those who, whatever their professional specialty or training, share an interest in the philosophy of intellectual property, and that it will build upon and advance existing interdisciplinary dialogue and research in this complex, fascinating, and important area. Authors include John Christman, Stephen Munzer, Alex Rosenberg, Geert Demunijck, Laura Biron, James Wilson . (shrink)

In a time when conservatives believe that the traditional family is under increasing fire, some think an appeal to Darwinian science may be the answer. I argue that these conservatives are wrong to maintain that Darwinian theory can serve as the intellectual foundation for the traditional conception of the family. Contra Larry Arnhart and James Q. Wilson, a Darwinian philosophy of nature simply lacks the stability the traditional family requires; it cannot support the traditional conception of human nature (...) and the normativity it was thought to contain. If conservatives are to maintain these traditional ideas, the theoretical foundation must lie elsewhere. (shrink)

Can new technology enhance purpose-driven, democratic dialogue in groups, governments, and societies? Online Deliberation: Design, Research, and Practice is the first book that attempts to sample the full range of work on online deliberation, forging new connections between academic research, technology designers, and practitioners. Since some of the most exciting innovations have occurred outside of traditional institutions, and those involved have often worked in relative isolation from each other, work in this growing field has often failed to reflect the full (...) set of perspectives on online deliberation. This volume is aimed at those working at the crossroads of information/communication technology and social science, and documents early findings in, and perspectives on, this new field by many of its pioneers. -/- CONTENTS: -/- Introduction: The Blossoming Field of Online Deliberation (Todd Davies, pp. 1-19) -/- Part I - Prospects for Online Civic Engagement -/- Chapter 1: Virtual Public Consultation: Prospects for Internet Deliberative Democracy (James S. Fishkin, pp. 23-35) -/- Chapter 2: Citizens Deliberating Online: Theory and Some Evidence (Vincent Price, pp. 37-58) -/- Chapter 3: Can Online Deliberation Improve Politics? Scientific Foundations for Success (Arthur Lupia, pp. 59-69) -/- Chapter 4: Deliberative Democracy, Online Discussion, and Project PICOLA (Public Informed Citizen Online Assembly) (Robert Cavalier with Miso Kim and Zachary Sam Zaiss, pp. 71-79) -/- Part II - Online Dialogue in the Wild -/- Chapter 5: Friends, Foes, and Fringe: Norms and Structure in Political Discussion Networks (John Kelly, Danyel Fisher, and Marc Smith, pp. 83-93) -/- Chapter 6: Searching the Net for Differences of Opinion (Warren Sack, John Kelly, and Michael Dale, pp. 95-104) -/- Chapter 7: Happy Accidents: Deliberation and Online Exposure to Opposing Views (Azi Lev-On and Bernard Manin, pp. 105-122) -/- Chapter 8: Rethinking Local Conversations on the Web (Sameer Ahuja, Manuel Pérez-Quiñones, and Andrea Kavanaugh, pp. 123-129) -/- Part III - Online Public Consultation -/- Chapter 9: Deliberation in E-Rulemaking? The Problem of Mass Participation (David Schlosberg, Steve Zavestoski, and Stuart Shulman, pp. 133-148) -/- Chapter 10: Turning GOLD into EPG: Lessons from Low-Tech Democratic Experimentalism for Electronic Rulemaking and Other Ventures in Cyberdemocracy (Peter M. Shane, pp. 149-162) -/- Chapter 11: Baudrillard and the Virtual Cow: Simulation Games and Citizen Participation (Hélène Michel and Dominique Kreziak, pp. 163-166) -/- Chapter 12: Using Web-Based Group Support Systems to Enhance Procedural Fairness in Administrative Decision Making in South Africa (Hossana Twinomurinzi and Jackie Phahlamohlaka, pp. 167-169) -/- Chapter 13: Citizen Participation Is Critical: An Example from Sweden (Tomas Ohlin, pp. 171-173) -/- Part IV - Online Deliberation in Organizations -/- Chapter 14: Online Deliberation in the Government of Canada: Organizing the Back Office (Elisabeth Richard, pp. 177-191) -/- Chapter 15: Political Action and Organization Building: An Internet-Based Engagement Model (Mark Cooper, pp. 193-202) -/- Chapter 16: Wiki Collaboration Within Political Parties: Benefits and Challenges (Kate Raynes-Goldie and David Fono, pp. 203-205) -/- Chapter 17: Debian’s Democracy (Gunnar Ristroph, pp. 207-211) -/- Chapter 18: Software Support for Face-to-Face Parliamentary Procedure (Dana Dahlstrom and Bayle Shanks, pp. 213-220) -/- Part V - Online Facilitation -/- Chapter 19: Deliberation on the Net: Lessons from a Field Experiment (June Woong Rhee and Eun-mee Kim, pp. 223-232) -/- Chapter 20: The Role of the Moderator: Problems and Possibilities for Government-Run Online Discussion Forums (Scott Wright, pp. 233-242) -/- Chapter 21: Silencing the Clatter: Removing Anonymity from a Corporate Online Community (Gilly Leshed, pp. 243-251) -/- Chapter 22: Facilitation and Inclusive Deliberation (Matthias Trénel, pp. 253-257) -/- Chapter 23: Rethinking the ‘Informed’ Participant: Precautions and Recommendations for the Design of Online Deliberation (Kevin S. Ramsey and Matthew W. Wilson, pp. 259-267) -/- Chapter 24: PerlNomic: Rule Making and Enforcement in Digital Shared Spaces (Mark E. Phair and Adam Bliss, pp. 269-271) -/- Part VI - Design of Deliberation Tools -/- Chapter 25: An Online Environment for Democratic Deliberation: Motivations, Principles, and Design (Todd Davies, Brendan O’Connor, Alex Cochran, Jonathan J. Effrat, Andrew Parker, Benjamin Newman, and Aaron Tam, pp. 275-292) -/- Chapter 26: Online Civic Deliberation with E-Liberate (Douglas Schuler, pp. 293-302) -/- Chapter 27: Parliament: A Module for Parliamentary Procedure Software (Bayle Shanks and Dana Dahlstrom, pp. 303-307) -/- Chapter 28: Decision Structure: A New Approach to Three Problems in Deliberation (Raymond J. Pingree, pp. 309-316) -/- Chapter 29: Design Requirements of Argument Mapping Software for Teaching Deliberation (Matthew W. Easterday, Jordan S. Kanarek, and Maralee Harrell, pp. 317-323) -/- Chapter 30: Email-Embedded Voting with eVote/Clerk (Marilyn Davis, pp. 325-327) -/- Epilogue: Understanding Diversity in the Field of Online Deliberation (Seeta Peña Gangadharan, pp. 329-358). -/- For individual chapter downloads, go to odbook.stanford.edu. (shrink)

Providing the most thorough coverage available in one volume, this comprehensive, broadly based collection offers a wide variety of selections in four major genres, and also includes a section on film. Each of the five sections contains a detailed critical introduction to each form, brief biographies of the authors, and a clear, concise editorial apparatus. Updated and revised throughout, the new Fourth Edition adds essays by Margaret Mead, Russell Baker, Joan Didion, Annie Dillard, and Alice Walker; fiction by Nathaniel Hawthorne, (...) Ursula K. LeGuin, Anton Chekov, James Joyce, Katherine Mansfield, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Alice Walker, Louise Erdrich, Donald Barthelme, and James McPherson; poems by John Donne, Robert Browning, Walt Whitman, Edwin Arlington Robinson, e.e. cummings, Langston Hughes, W.H. Auden, Philip Levine, and Louise Gluck; and plays by August Wilson, Marsha Norman, Wendy Wasserstein, and Vaclav Havel. The chapter devoted to film examines the relation of film to literature and gives the complete screenplay for Citizen Kane plus close analysis of a scene from the film. With its innovative structure, comprehensive coverage, and insightful and stimulating presentation of all kinds of literature, this is an anthology readers will turn to again and again. (shrink)

DESENVOLVIMENTO EMBRIONÁRIO E DIFERENCIAÇÃO SEXUAL -/- E. I. C. da Silva Departamento de Agropecuária – IFPE Campus Belo Jardim Departamento de Zootecnia – UFRPE sede -/- 1.1 INTRODUÇÃO O sexo foi definido como a soma das diferenças morfológicas, fisiológicas e psicológicas que distinguem o macho da fêmea permitindo a reprodução sexual e assegurando a continuidade das espécies. Os processos de diferenciação sexual são realizados durante o desenvolvimento embrionário, onde ocorre a proliferação, diferenciação e maturação das células germinativas e primordiais, precursoras (...) de ovócitos e espermatozoides em fêmeas e machos, respectivamente. Assim, os embriões machos e fêmeas iniciam o seu desenvolvimento de forma semelhante, de modo que em ambos os sexos se estabelecem em estruturas idênticas a partir das quais se formarão os órgãos reprodutores correspondentes a cada sexo. O conhecimento da origem e do desenvolvimento do aparelho genital é indispensável para entender sua função e as alterações que produzem infertilidade ou esterilidade. 1.2 DETERMINAÇÃO DO SEXO CROMOSSÔMICO Nos mamíferos, o sexo cromossômico é determinado no momento da fertilização, quando um óvulo, que contém um cromossomo X, é fecundado por um espermatozoide portador de um cromossomo X ou um cromossomo Y. No primeiro caso, o complemento cromossômico seria XX, o que originaria uma fêmea (sexo homogamético), e no segundo daria como resultado um macho com a fórmula cromossômica XY (sexo heterogâmico). 1.3 A GÔNADA INDIFERENCIADA A primeira manifestação das gônadas se aprecia no embrião em forma de um par de eminências longitudinais chamadas cristas ou dobras gonodais, situadas em ambos os lados da linha média entre os mesonefros (rins em desenvolvimento) e do mesentério dorsal. Nos embriões dos mamíferos, as células germinativas primordiais (CGP) manifestam-se em estágios precoces do desenvolvimento, podendo ser detectadas pela primeira vez na metade da gastrulação. As CGP são células grandes, de citoplasma claro e núcleo grande e redondo, localizadas na parede do saco vitelino, perto do alantoide. Essas células possuem grande capacidade de proliferação e vão migrar desde o endoderma do intestino e o epitélio do saco vitelino, através do mesentério, até as cristas gonodais. Isso ocorre por volta do 26° dia da gestação no bovino. Sua migração realiza-se graças aos movimentos de translocação passiva e deslocamento ameboide ativo. Desconhece-se o mecanismo pelo qual estas células são dirigidas para as cristas gonodais, porém foram estudadas algumas moléculas que se expressam durante sua migração e que poderiam desempenhar um papel importante na diferenciação deste tipo celular. A fosfatase alcalina é uma enzima que tem sido usada como marcador de CGP para determinar a sua origem e migração. Num estudo recente, foi inserido um marcador fluorescente que se exprime unicamente nas células germinativas primordiais de embriões transgênicos, e utilizando este marcador e a fosfatase alcalina determinou-se a origem e o padrão de migração destas células. O primeiro sinal de diferenciação das células germinativas primordiais é a expressão de fosfatase alcalina, e esta apareceu pela primeira vez na parte mais posterior da linha primitiva. No sétimo dia de desenvolvimento no embrião do camundongo, o endoderma visceral (AF+) é substituído pelo endoderma definitivo (AF-) originado na parte anterior da linha primitiva. O fator de transcrição Oct-4 é expresso nas CGP de ambos os sexos, pelo que acredita-se estar envolvido na mantença a totipotêncialidade das células. O receptor tirosina quinase, cujo ligante é o fator de Steel, é outra das moléculas que expressam as CGP. Tem sido demonstrado que este receptor possui um papel muito importante na sobrevivência deste tipo celular. Existem outros fatores que promovem a sobrevivência e/ou proliferação de CGP in vitro. Em experiências realizadas com o fator de transformação beta I (TGFβ-I), observou-se que este tem um efeito negativo sobre a proliferação das CGP. Outra atividade que tem sido postulada a este fator é o de um agente quimioatraente que possivelmente possa direcionar a migração destas células para a gônada. a) Um formado pelas células germinativas primordiais (precursoras dos gametas masculinos ou femininos), rodeadas de células somáticas das quais posteriormente se derivarão as células de Sertoli no macho e as células da granulosa na fêmea. b) O tecido que formará o estroma da gônada: tecido conjuntivo, vasos sanguíneos e as células intersticiais com atividade esteroidogênica (células de Leydig no testículo e a teca interna do ovário). As células somáticas do primórdio gonodal originam-se do mesoderma. Inicialmente são de três tipos: mesenquimáticas, mesoteliais e endoteliais. As células mesenquimáticas e mesoteliais iniciam grande atividade proliferativa ao chegar as CGP. Observa-se então uma condensação de células de origem mesotelial e mesenquimatoso que forma um agregado compacto denominado "blastema gonodal". A partir deste primórdio embrionário, diferenciam-se dois tecidos gonodais: os cordões sexuais e o estroma. Os cordões sexuais são arranjos epiteliais que se encontram delimitados por uma folha basal, e dentro deles encontramos as CGP. Por sua vez, no estroma encontram-se células do tipo mesenquimático e vasos sanguíneos. Neste momento, as gônadas são indiferenciadas e bipotencialmente sexuais, sendo impossível diferenciar, morfologicamente, uma gônada masculina de uma feminina, mas no caso dos machos genéticos já existe uma diferenciação da gônada a nível molecular. Nesta fase já se encontram presentes as estruturas das quais se desenvolvem os dutos mesonéfricos ou de Wolff precursores do aparelho genital masculino e os dutos paramesonéfricos ou de Müller que darão origem ao aparelho reprodutor feminino. Há uma série de fatores envolvidos no desenvolvimento precoce da gônada, entre os quais o fator esteroidogênico I (SFI: Steroidogenic fator l), que é um membro da subfamília de receptores nucleares, receptores órfãos. Este fator de transcrição tem um local de ligação ao DNA composto por dois dedos-de-Zinc. O SFI foi identificado como um ativador de genes envolvidos na biossíntese de esteroides em diferentes células. O SFI está presente durante o desenvolvimento embrionário em regiões associadas com funções endócrinas como gônadas, adrenais, pituitárias e hipotálamos. Os animais homozigotos para o gene SFI defeituoso, necessitam de gônadas e adrenais e têm a função gonadotrófica alterada. Os ratos sem SFI carecem de gonadotrofos e têm um desenvolvimento anormal do núcleo ventro-medial do hipotálamo; em particular as gônadas deixam de se desenvolver entre os dias 11 a 15 e degeneram-se por apoptose. No entanto, a crista genital forma-se e é colonizada pelas células germinativas, o que indica que estas continuam a receber o sinal adequado para a sua migração. Portanto, o SFI não está envolvido no desenvolvimento precoce da gônada e do sistema urogenital, mas parece estar envolvido na manutenção do crescimento das células somáticas presentes na gônada indiferenciada. O gene associado ao tumor de Wilms (WTI: Wilm's tumor Associated) está envolvido no desenvolvimento da gônada e do rim. Durante o desenvolvimento embrionário, WTI se expressa em todo o mesoderma intermediário e posteriormente na gônada indiferenciada, bem como no rim em formação. WTI regula o sinal indutivo do mesênquima para o epitélio celômico dos mesonefros. Se este for o caso, então WTI é responsável pelo crescimento da crista genital ao dirigir a entrada do epitélio celômico. Dado que estas células darão origem às células de Sertoli, a carência de WTI pode causar o desenvolvimento de embriões XY como fêmeas simplesmente porque não se formam as células de Sertoli. Em geral, todos os genes importantes na diferenciação do mesoderma intermediário e do sistema urogenital intervêm no desenvolvimento da gônada precoce. 1.4 DIFERENCIAÇÃO GONODAL O desenvolvimento das gônadas e ductos genitais descritos até o momento, é o mesmo para ambos os sexos. Igualmente, os genes descritos, que estão envolvidos no desenvolvimento das gônadas, ductos genitais e migração das células germinativas, afetam igualmente os embriões com genótipo XX ou XY. A gônada primitiva consiste anatomicamente de uma medula (interna) e uma crosta (externa), e de acordo com o local onde ocorre a colonização das células germinativas, diferenciara em testículo ou um ovário, respectivamente. Nos mamíferos, a primeira manifestação estrutural de diferenciação sexual é detectada na gônada dos machos, onde as células germinativas estão localizadas na medula. A diferenciação do testículo inicia-se quando os cordões sexuais se separam do epitélio celômico como consequência dos arranjos produzidos por uma invasão do mesênquima e vasos sanguíneos que provoca a compactação dos cordões, agora denominados cordões testiculares. As células que rodeiam os cordões se achatam e formam as células mioides, que são responsáveis pela formação das membranas basais. As células do epitélio interno, ou seja, as células de Sertoli, têm duas funções principais: o suporte das CGP e a síntese da hormona antimulleriana, responsável pela regressão dos ductos de Müller e secretada durante o período de diferenciação sexual. As células do estroma que rodeiam os cordões testiculares diferenciam-se para formar vários tipos de células: células mioides, fibroblastos, endotélio e células de Leydig, que são as mais importantes pela sua atividade endócrina. Posteriormente, os cordões testiculares dão origem aos túbulos seminíferos, que contêm o epitélio que produzirá os espermatozoides ao chegar à puberdade. Na fêmea, durante os estágios iniciais de diferenciação gonodal, não se observam mudanças em relação à gônada indiferenciada, só pode-se observar um certo crescimento devido à proliferação de células somáticas e germinativas. As células germinativas iniciam um período de proliferação, que termina com o início da meiose. Iniciada a meiose, dá-se o processo de foliculogênese; neste momento os cordões epiteliais se fragmentam, de tal maneira que cada ovócito fica rodeado de células epiteliais cobertas por uma folha basal fina (figura 1). Para que a gônada primitiva se desenvolva em testículo é indispensável a presença do cromossoma Y, independentemente do número de cromossomas X que contenha o genoma de um indivíduo. O gene determinante do testículo encontra-se localizado no cromossoma Y, denominado sry em ratos e SRY em humanos. O gene sry se expressa durante o desenvolvimento embrionário na crista genital de embriões de camundongos. A expressão é detectável no dia 10,5, pouco depois do aparecimento das cristas genitais, atinge o seu máximo durante o dia 11,5 e mantém-se até pouco depois de ocorrerem os primeiros sinais morfológicos de diferenciação testicular no dia 12,5. Este padrão de expressão é compatível com a teoria de que sry atua induzindo a ativação dos genes (figura 2) que conduzem ao desenvolvimento testicular, sem que exista a necessidade da expressão contínua de sry para manter a diferenciação do testículo após o dia 12,5. Como mencionado anteriormente, a gônada primitiva é composta por vários tipos de células. No entanto, as células germinativas primordiais não são o local de expressão do sry, já que os embriões que necessitam de células germinativas mantêm a expressão de sry e desenvolvem o sexo gonodal normalmente. As células somáticas na gônada em desenvolvimento incluem também as células de suporte. Sabe-se que é nestas células que o sry é expresso para que se diferenciem em células de Sertoli, e a expressão transitória de sry indica que deve ativar a outros genes para a manutenção das células de Sertoli. Uma vez diferenciadas as células de Sertoli, elas se encarregarão da diferenciação do resto das células na gônada. -/- Figura 1: Representação da diferenciação dos órgãos genitais internos. Adaptado de BRONSON, 1989. Figura 2: Cascada de genes envolvidos na diferenciação sexual, adaptado de KOOPMAN, 1999. O fator sry é necessário para a diferenciação do testículo. Embora não se conheçam os genes que provavelmente regulam esse gene, estudos realizados em camundongos demonstram que este gene parece coordenar-se com certos genes autossômicos. Entre estes genes autossômicos, o sox9, que é produzido pelas células de Sertoli uma vez que são estimuladas por sry, de modo que sox9 é um dos genes relacionados estruturalmente com sry. O Sox9 funciona como um fator de transcrição, mas não se sabe se a proteína tem qualquer outra função estrutural; este gene exprime-se abundantemente nos condrócitos e está relacionado com defeitos do aparelho ósseo chamados displasia campomélica. Curiosamente, os pacientes XY com esta condição sofrem frequentemente de reversão do sexo. O Sox9 é um dos poucos genes, além do SRY, do qual as mutações demonstraram interferir com a determinação sexual masculina. No entanto, apenas 75% dos pacientes com anomalias esqueléticas de tipo displasia campomélica têm reversão sexual e não foram encontrados casos de reversão sexual devido a um defeito de Sox9 que não seja acompanhado de defeitos esqueléticos. Isso indica que o Sox9 é apenas um membro da rede de genes que são ativados para determinar a diferenciação sexual, enquanto a rota que rege a condrogênese é mais sensível a perturbações deste. O momento em que se detecta a expressão do gene Sox9 (11dpc em ratos) coincide com a máxima expressão de sry, o que poderia indicar a possibilidade de que sry regule positivamente a Sox9. De fato, na região do promotor de Sox9 há um local de união ao que potencialmente se pode unir o sry. A expressão de Sox9 durante a diferenciação sexual sugere um papel abaixo de sry na diferenciação das células de Sertoli. O cromossoma X também é importante na diferenciação gonodal. O gene DAX-I foi isolado do lócus DSS (Dosage sensitive sex reversal) do cromossoma X. DAX-I é parte da cascata de determinação sexual, mas não é necessário para a formação do testículo. DAX-I é um membro dos receptores nucleares conhecidos como receptores órfãos. Este gene demonstrou ser um poderoso repressor da transcrição de SFI e de vários genes. Os padrões de expressão de DAX-I são complementares daqueles de SFI, ambos expressos nas cristas genitais. Em resumo, dada a evidência exposta, desenvolveu-se a hipótese de que DAX-I é um antagonista de sry; esse antagonismo é dependente dos níveis relativos de DAX-I e sry e de um limiar que varia de espécie para espécie. A DAX-I foi classificada como o gene antitestículo. Na fêmea (cariótipo XX) é importante que ocorra a inativação de um dos cromossomas sexuais X para que se mantenha o equilíbrio genético ao igualar o conteúdo de DNA dos cromossomas. Esse cromossoma inativado constitui o chamado corpúsculo de Barr. No entanto, para que a meiose se realize, é necessário dos dois cromossomas X ativos nos ovócitos para assegurar a diferenciação ovárica e a fertilidade. 1.5 DIFERENCIAÇÃO DOS DUCTOS SEXUAIS O embrião possui, além das gônadas indiferenciadas, dois sistemas de ductos: os de potencialidade masculina denominam-se ductos de Wolff ou mesonéfricos, e os de potencialidade feminina se chamam ductos de Müller ou paramesonéfricos (figura 1). Se a diferenciação gonodal levou à formação de um testículo, a partir do ducto mesonéfrico ou de Wolff se desenvolverão os ductos eferentes, o epidídimo, os ductos deferentes e as vesículas seminais. As hormonas importantes no desenvolvimento do aparelho genital masculino são a testosterona, produzida pelas células de Leydig, e sua forma 5α reduzida, a 5α di-hidrotestosterona. Acredita-se que a testosterona é responsável pela virilização dos ductos de Wolff, e a di-hidrotestosterona dos órgãos genitais externos. No macho, os canais de Müller atrofiam-se devido à ação de uma hormona fetal de origem testicular denominada hormona inibidora das estruturas de Müller (HIM) ou hormona antimulleriana. Este processo começa assim que os cordões espermáticos se formam e se diferenciam as células de Sertoli. A existência de HIM foi proposta baseada em estudos realizados em bezerras freemartin, devido à existência de uma hormona responsável pela atresia dos ductos de Müller que na fêmea dá origem ao útero e aos ovidutos. Essa hormona provoca a involução do aparelho genital do bovino nas gestações gemelares nas quais os produtos de diferente sexo têm comunicação sanguínea por ter ocorrido a anastomose dos vasos de ambas as placentas (figura 3). A HIM é uma glicoproteína pertencente à subfamília de TGFβ, é expressa pelas células que darão origem às células de Sertoli e é um dos primeiros marcadores de diferenciação nestas células. A HIM é secretada na vida adulta pelas células de Sertoli no testículo e por células da granulosa no ovário. No rato a HIM é expressa-se no 12° dia em um teste padrão que segue muito de perto o aumento na expressão de sry. No macho, esta secreção de HIM continua durante a vida fetal e adulta, contudo os níveis de HIM declinam na puberdade devido a um aumento na secreção de testosterona. Vários fatores intervêm na regulação do gene de HIM, incluindo os acima descritos SFI e Sox9. O gene HIM contém segmentos de DNA que são conservados em várias espécies de vertebrados. Existe um nexo de ligação para SFI, que ativa a transcrição de HIM. A mutação no local de ligação de SFI resulta em reversão do sexo em indivíduos XY incluindo genitais femininos normais, presença de um útero formado enfatizando a importância de SFI na determinação sexual e na expressão de HIM. Embora SFI seja um bom candidato como regulador de HIM, é expresso em outras células, como as de Leydig e adrenais, que não expressam HIM. Em contrapartida, Sox9 é expresso unicamente nas células de Sertoli que são as produtoras de HIM. O gene HIM também tem um nexo de ligação para Sox9. Além disso, Sox9 pode atuar sinergicamente com SFI para promover a secreção de HIM. Ao contrário destes dois fatores de transcrição, DAX-I antagoniza a ação de Sox9 e provavelmente SFI sobre o promotor de HIM. Assim, para que as células de Sertoli secretem HIM, a transcrição de DAX-I deve diminuir. Figura 3: Representação da diferenciação dos órgãos genitais externos. Adaptado de BRONSON, 1989. Os ductos de Wolff tornam-se o sistema de ejaculação do macho. A porção mais próxima dos testículos dá origem ao epidídimo, a parte central ao ducto deferente e a porção mais distal às vesículas seminais. A próstata e a parte membranosa da uretra do macho desenvolvem-se a partir da porção pélvica do seio urogenital. A virilização e diferenciação dos ductos de Wolff dependem da produção de testosterona pelo testículo. Quanto aos órgãos genitais externos do macho, o tubérculo genital é ampliado e as dobras uretrais se fundem para formar a uretra peniana. A fusão das dobras uretrais aproxima os tubérculos genitais para formar o escroto (figura 4). Figura 4: Diferenciação do aparelho genital da fêmea e do macho. Adaptado de KOOPMAN, 1989. A diferenciação dos órgãos genitais da fêmea ocorre de forma passiva, já que a ausência de testículos e por isso da hormona inibidora dos ductos de Müller (HIM), assim como dos andrógenos virilizantes, favorece o desenvolvimento dos ductos de Müller, enquanto os de Wolff sofrem atrofia. A porção cefálica dos ductos de Müller dá origem aos ovidutos, que na sua terminação caudal se fundem com o útero. O contato dos ductos de Müller com o seio urogenital induz uma intensa proliferação celular que resulta na formação da área uterovaginal localizado entre o seio urogenital e os ductos de Müller. As células do prato uterovaginal proliferam e aumentam a distância entre as duas estruturas criando o espaço que formará a vagina quando o prato é canalizado e forma um lúmen. Em contraste com o que ocorre no macho, na fêmea a maior parte do seio urogenital se mantém exposta na superfície da abertura onde desembocam a vagina e a uretra. O tubérculo urogenital da fêmea tem um crescimento limitado e forma o clitóris. A sequência de passos da diferenciação sexual do aparelho genital é resumida na tabela 1. Tabela 1: Destino em desenvolvimento dos rudimentos sexuais dos fetos macho e fêmea dos mamíferos -/- Rudimento sexual Macho Fêmea Gônada Testículo Ovário Ductos de Müller (Paramesonéfricos) Vestígios Útero, parte da vagina, ovidutos Ductos de Wolff (Mesonéfricos) Ductos eferentes deferentes, epidídimo, vesículas seminais Vestígios Seio urogenital Uretra, próstata, glândulas bulbouretrais Parte da vagina, uretra, vestíbulo, glândulas vestibulares Tubérculo genital Pênis Clitóris Pregas vestibulares Escroto Lábios vulvares Fonte: HAFEZ, 2004. 1.6 DIFERENCIAÇÃO SEXUAL DO HIPOTÁLAMO Os processos de diferenciação sexual não se limitam apenas às células somáticas do organismo do feto, mas incluem também os centros nervosos superiores do cérebro. Assim, da mesma maneira que a gônada e os ductos sexuais se desenvolvem para o tipo feminino ou masculino, propôs-se que o cérebro pode ser "masculinizado" ou permanecer "Feminizado". A diferenciação do hipotálamo vai depender do ambiente esteroidal do neonato e ocorre na fase perinatal. Estes eventos serão de grande transcendência na vida reprodutiva do indivíduo. Tanto a fêmea como o macho nascem com a capacidade de secreção de gonadotropinas de acordo com um padrão cíclico; contudo, no macho, a exposição do hipotálamo à ação dos andrógenos testiculares durante os primeiros dias da vida extrauterina provoca a masculinização, com o qual o hipotálamo do macho é programado para que a secreção de gonadotropinas se realize a um ritmo relativamente constante por parte da hipófise (secreção tônica). Na fêmea, tanto a secreção tônica como a cíclica se conservam. No entanto, observou-se que a injeção de testosterona ou o transplante de testículo na rata fêmea durante os primeiros dias de vida, suprime a sua futura atividade estral (secreção cíclica). Por outro lado, se os ovários forem transplantados para o rato macho normal castrado na idade adulta, o animal não desenvolve qualquer atividade cíclica, mas se os machos transplantados forem castrados ao nascer, o ovário é capaz de efetuar mudanças cíclicas e ovulações. Isto foi demonstrado em roedores, mas não em animais domésticos ou na espécie humana. Portanto, o padrão de secreção de gonadotropinas, seja cíclico ou tônico, não depende da hipófise, mas do hipotálamo e sua correta diferenciação. 1.7 CONCLUSÕES A maioria dos conhecimentos no campo da biologia do desenvolvimento e, muito especificamente, dos processos de diferenciação sexual têm sido originados de estudos relacionados com desordens congênitas, que na sua maioria devem-se a defeitos de genes específicos. A análise detalhada destas desordens permitiu entender alguns mecanismos endócrinos, moleculares e genéticos envolvidos na diferenciação sexual. A identificação do gene sry como determinante do testículo foi uma contribuição crucial e abriu as portas à compreensão dos mecanismos moleculares e celulares relacionados com o desenvolvimento do testículo. Se este gene não estiver presente, é criado um programa genético alternativo para levar a cabo a diferenciação gonodal para o ovário. Finalmente, devemos ter presente que é necessária uma correlação entre mudanças morfológicas e expressão de genes durante o desenvolvimento para entender os mecanismos relacionados com a diferenciação. -/- Apoio -/- Realização -/- REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS ANDERSON, Robert et al. The onset of germ cell migration in the mouse embryo. Mechanisms of development, v. 91, n. 1-2, p. 61-68, 2000. AUSTIN, Colin Russell; SHORT, R. V. Reproduction in Mammals: Volume 1, Germ Cells and Fertilization. Londres: Cambridge University Press, 1972. BRONSON, Franklin H. Mammalian reproductive biology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. BUEHR, Mia. The primordial germ cells of mammals: some current perspectives. Experimental cell research, v. 232, n. 2, p. 194-207, 1997. BYSKOV, Anne G. Differentiation of mammalian embryonic gonad. Physiological reviews, v. 66, n. 1, p. 71-117, 1986. CAPEL, Blanche et al. Migration of mesonephric cells into the mammalian gonad depends on Sry. Mechanisms of development, v. 84, n. 1-2, p. 127-131, 1999. CAPEL, Blanche. The battle of the sexes. Mechanisms of development, v. 92, n. 1, p. 89-103, 2000. DERIVAUX, Jules; BARNABÉ, Renato Campanarut. Reprodução dos animais domésticos. Zaragoza: Acribia, 1980. DOMENICE, Sorahia et al. Aspectos moleculares da determinação e diferenciação sexual. Arquivos Brasileiros de Endocrinologia & Metabologia, v. 46, n. 4, p. 433-443, 2002. DONAHOE, Patricia K. et al. Mullerian inhibiting substance activity in bovine fetal, newborn and prepubertal testes. Biology of reproduction, v. 16, n. 2, p. 238-243, 1977. HAFEZ, Elsayed Saad Eldin; HAFEZ, B. Reprodução animal. São Paulo: Manole, 2004. HANLEY, Neil A. et al. Steroidogenic factor 1 (SF-1) is essential for ovarian development and function. Molecular and cellular endocrinology, v. 163, n. 1-2, p. 27-32, 2000. HIORT, Olaf; PAUL-MARTIN, H. The molecular basis of male sexual differentiation. European journal of endocrinology, v. 142, n. 2, p. 101-110, 2000. HOLY, Lubos; MARTÍNEZ JÚSTIZ, G. Colab. Biología de la reproducción bovina. Havana: Revolucionária, 1975. JOSSO, Nathalie et al. The role of anti-Müllerian hormone in gonadal development. Molecular and cellular endocrinology, v. 145, n. 1-2, p. 3-7, 1998. JOST, Alfred et al. Studies on sex differentiation in mammals. In: Proceedings of the 1972 Laurentian Hormone Conference. Londres: Academic Press, 1973. p. 1-41. KNOBIL, Ernst. Knobil and Neill's physiology of reproduction. EUA: Gulf Professional Publishing, 2006. KOFMAN ALFARO, S.; MERCHANT LARIOS, H.; PEREZ PALACIOS, G. Diferenciacion sexual. I. Bases biologicas del dimorfismo sexual. Rev. invest. clín, p. 349-59, 1982. KOOPMAN, Peter. Sry and Sox9: mammalian testis-determining genes. Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences CMLS, v. 55, n. 6-7, p. 839-856, 1999. MCDONALD, L. E. Veterinary endocrinology. Lea & Febiger, Philadelphia, Pa, 1969. MEIZEL, S.; JOHNSON, M. H. Development in mammals. MH Johnson, Ed, v. 3, p. 1-64, 1978. MELLO, Maricilda Palandi de; ASSUMPÇÃO, Juliana de G.; HACKEL, Christine. Genes envolvidos na determinação e diferenciação do sexo. Arquivos Brasileiros de Endocrinologia & Metabologia, v. 49, n. 1, p. 14-25, 2005. -/- REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS MERCHANT-LARIOS, H. Ovarian differentiation. The Vertebrate Ovary, p. 47-81, 1978. MIES FILHO, Antonio. Reprodução dos animais. Porto Alegre: Sulina, 1987. NEF, Serge; PARADA, Luis F. Hormones in male sexual development. Genes & Development, v. 14, n. 24, p. 3075-3086, 2000. PARKER, Keith L.; SCHEDL, Andreas; SCHIMMER, Bernard P. Gene interactions in gonadal development. Annual review of physiology, v. 61, n. 1, p. 417-433, 1999. SWAIN, Amanda; LOVELL-BADGE, Robin. Mammalian sex determination: a molecular drama. Genes & development, v. 13, n. 7, p. 755-767, 1999. WILHELM, Dagmar; PALMER, Stephen; KOOPMAN, Peter. Sex determination and gonadal development in mammals. Physiological reviews, v. 87, n. 1, p. 1-28, 2007. WILSON, Jean D.; GRIFFIN, James E.; GEORGE, Fredrick W. Sexual differentiation: early hormone synthesis and action. Biology of reproduction, v. 22, n. 1, p. 9-17, 1980. -/- Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro da Silva Belo Jardim, 07 de Maio de 2020. (shrink)

The problem of evil is an ideal topic for experimental philosophy. Suffering--which is at the heart of most prominent formulations of the problem of evil--is a universal human experience and has been the topic of careful reflection for millennia. However, interpretations of suffering and how it bears on the existence of God are tremendously diverse and nuanced. We might immediately find ourselves wondering why (and how!) something so universal might be understood in so many different ways. Why does suffering push (...) some people toward atheism while pushing others toward deeper faith? What cultural, psychological, or sociological differences account for this diversity of responses? And, importantly, what light might this diversity of responses shed on the problem of evil and how it has been formulated by philosophers in recent years? The primary aim of this paper is to highlight how the tools and resources of experimental philosophy might be fruitfully applied to the problem of evil. In the first section, we review some recent work in this area and describe the current state of this emergent body of literature. In the second section, we review the broader and more recent theoretical developments on the problem of evil. Finally, in the final section, we outline some potential areas of future empirical research that we see as especially promising given those developments. (shrink)

In this paper, we aim to show that the framework of embedded, distributed, or extended cognition offers new perspectives on social cognition by applying it to one specific domain: the psychology of memory. In making our case, first we specify some key social dimensions of cognitive distribution and some basic distinctions between memory cases, and then describe stronger and weaker versions of distributed remembering in the general distributed cognition framework. Next, we examine studies of social influences on memory in cognitive (...) psychology, and identify the valuable concepts and methods to be extended and embedded in our framework; we focus in particular on three related paradigms: transactive memory, collaborative recall, and social contagion. Finally, we sketch our own early studies of individual and group memory developed within our framework of distributed cognition, on social contagion of autobiographical memories, collaborative flashbulb memories, and memories of high school at a high school reunion. We see two reciprocal benefits of this conceptual and empirical framework to social memory phenomena: that ideas about distributed cognition can be honed against and tested with the help of sophisticated methods in the social cognitive psychology of memory; and conversely, that a range of social memory phenomena that are as yet poorly understood can be approached afresh with theoretically motivated extensions of existing empirical paradigms. (shrink)

Kristie Miller and James Norton present a new account of metaphysical explanation, not as a philosophical technicality but as a feature of everyday life. This is the notion that we all use in ordinary contexts when we give explanations of a certain sort: Miller and Norton build their account on investigation of these explanatory practices.

In this paper we propose that our understanding of pathocentric epistemic injustices can be enriched if they are theorised in terms of predicaments. These are the wider socially scaffolded structures of epistemic challenges, dangers, needs, and threats experienced by ill persons due to their particular emplacement within material, social, and epistemic structures. In previous work we have described certain aspects of these predicaments - pathocentric epistemic injustices, pathophobia, and so on. We argue that thinking predicamentally helps us integrate the various (...) social, epistemic, and practical obstacles experienced by ill persons and also unify the many concepts available for theorising them (microaggessions, epistemic injustices, and so on). (shrink)

A large chorus of voices has grown around the claim that theistic belief is epistemically suspect since, as some cognitive scientists have hypothesized, such beliefs are a byproduct of cognitive mechanisms which evolved for rather different adaptive purposes. This paper begins with an overview of the pertinent cognitive science followed by a short discussion of some relevant epistemic concepts. Working from within a largely Williamsonian framework, we then present two different ways in which this research can be formulated into an (...) argument against theistic belief. We argue that neither version works. (shrink)

Abstract: This paper traces a Kantian and pragmatist line of thinking that connects the ideas of conceptual content, object cognition, and modal constraints in the form of counterfactual sustaining causal laws. It is an idea that extends from Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason through C. I. Lewis’s Mind and the World-Order to the Kantian naturalism of Wilfrid Sellars and the analytic pragmatism of Robert Brandom. Kant put forward what I characterize as a modal conception of objectivity, which he developed as (...) an extended argument stretching from the transcendental deduction through the analogies of experience to the regulative maxims of reason and reflective judgment. In related ways in Lewis and Sellars, the very idea of an object of knowledge (and of intentionality more generally) is connected with a certain lawfulness or modal constraint the necessary representation of which, they argue, is an achievement of conceptualization. While Sellars agreed with the spirit of Lewis’s famous pragmatic conception of the a priori, Sellars’s conception of meaning and conceptual content differed in crucial ways with important consequences for this issue. I argue furthermore that a certain phenomenalist temptation threatens to spoil this insight both among some of Kant’s interpreters and in Lewis’s thought. Finally, I point out that Brandom’s “Kant-Sellars thesis” provides new support for this line of thought. Although questions concerning idealism continue to raise controversies for neo-Kantians and pragmatists, the line of thought itself represents a distinctive and still promising approach to questions concerning intentionality and conceptual content. (shrink)

The Mode of Relativity in Agrippa’s Five Modes does not fit with the other four modes, and disrupts an otherwise elegant system. We argue that it is not the familiar argument from epistemic relativism, but a formal condition on the structure of justifications: the principle that epistemic grounding relations cannot be reflexive. This understanding of Agrippan Relativity leads to a better understanding of the Modes of Hypothesis and Reciprocity, a clearer outline of the structure of Agrippa’s system as a whole, (...) and a new insight into the Two Modes that follow the Five. (shrink)

Biological order provided by α-helical secondary protein structures is an important resource exploitable by living organisms for increasing the efficiency of energy transport. In particular, self-trapping of amide I energy quanta by the induced phonon deformation of the hydrogen-bonded lattice of peptide groups is capable of generating either pinned or moving solitary waves following the Davydov quasiparticle/soliton model. The effect of applied in-phase Gaussian pulses of amide I energy, however, was found to be strongly dependent on the site of application. (...) Moving solitons were only launched when the amide I energy was applied at one of the α-helix ends, whereas pinned solitons were produced in the α-helix interior. In this paper, we describe a general mechanism that launches moving solitons in the interior of the α-helix through phase-modulated Gaussian pulses of amide I energy. We also compare the predicted soliton velocity based on effective soliton mass and the observed soliton velocity in computer simulations for different parameter values of the isotropy of the exciton-phonon interaction. The presented results demonstrate the capacity for explicit control of soliton velocity in protein α-helices, and further support the plausibility of gradual optimization of quantum dynamics for achieving specialized protein functions through natural selection. (shrink)

This article focuses on a particular issue under machine ethics—that is, the nature of Artificial Moral Agents. Machine ethics is a branch of artificial intelligence that looks into the moral status of artificial agents. Artificial moral agents, on the other hand, are artificial autonomous agents that possess moral value, as well as certain rights and responsibilities. This paper demonstrates that attempts to fully develop a theory that could possibly account for the nature of Artificial Moral Agents may consider certain philosophical (...) ideas, like the standard characterizations of agency, rational agency, moral agency, and artificial agency. At the very least, the said philosophical concepts may be treated as signposts for further research on how to truly account for the nature of Artificial Moral Agents. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Sellars formulated his thesis of 'psychological nominalism' in two very different ways: (1) most famously as the thesis that 'all awareness of sorts…is a linguistic affair', but also (2) as a certain thesis about the 'psychology of the higher processes'. The latter thesis denies the standard view that relations to abstract entities are required in order to explain human thought and intentionality, and asserts to the contrary that all such mental phenomena can in principle ‘be accounted for causally' without (...) any use of normative terms in the explanation. Recent 'Hegelian Sellarsians' such as Rorty, McDowell, and Brandom have argued that the holistic, normative themes in (1) support various non-realist or rather (German) 'idealist but common-sense realist' outlooks. By contrast, Sellars' own defenses of (2) reveal psychological nominalism itself to be a naturalistic empiricism intended to sustain the normative-holistic themes in (1) within an exhaustively scientific naturalist conception of reality. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: In a previous article (O’Shea 2006) I provided a concise overview of the reception of Kant’s philosophy among analytic philosophers during the periods from the ‘early analytic’ reactions to Kant in Frege, Russell, Carnap and others, to the systematic Kant-inspired works in epistemology and metaphysics of C. I. Lewis and P. F. Strawson, in particular. In this chapter I use the recently reinvigorated work of Wilfrid Sellars (1912–1989) in the second half of the twentieth century as the basis for (...) presenting some of the most familiar ‘analytic Kantian’ themes that continue to animate current debates. I also argue that the complex relationships between Sellars’ philosophy and Kant’s thought are often misunderstood. Overall the chapter examines Sellars’ analytic appropriations of Kant in three topic-areas of significant current philosophical debate: (1) conceptual analysis and the structure of human knowledge; (2) laws of nature, the causal modalities, and the pragmatic or relative a priori; and (3) the disputes concerning Kant and nonconceptual content. (shrink)

The collaboration of Language and Computing nv (L&C) and the Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Science (IFOMIS) is guided by the hypothesis that quality constraints on ontologies for software ap-plication purposes closely parallel the constraints salient to the design of sound philosophical theories. The extent of this parallel has been poorly appreciated in the informatics community, and it turns out that importing the benefits of phi-losophical insight and methodology into application domains yields a variety of improvements. L&C’s LinKBase® (...) is one of the world’s largest medical domain ontologies. Its current primary use pertains to natural language processing ap-plications, but it also supports intelligent navigation through a range of struc-tured medical and bioinformatics information resources, such as SNOMED-CT, Swiss-Prot, and the Gene Ontology (GO). In this report we discuss how and why philosophical methods improve both the internal coherence of LinKBase®, and its capacity to serve as a translation hub, improving the interoperability of the ontologies through which it navigates. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: I argue that Sellars’s metaconceptual theory of the categories exemplifies and extends a long line of nominalistic thinking about the nature of the categories from Ockham and Kant to the Tractatus and Carnap, and that this theory is far more central than has generally been realized to each of Sellars’s most famous and enduring philosophical conceptions: the myth of the given, the logical space of reasons, and resolving the ostensible clash between the manifest and scientific images of the human (...) being in the world. Sellars’s distinctive contribution to this longstanding (if currently on the defensive) metaconceptual approach to the nature of ontological categories was to interpret and reconstruct it in terms of his own ‘meaning as use’ or norm-governed inferential role semantics. With these resources Sellars sought to preserve the genuine insights in the ‘realist’ or broadly platonic traditions while simultaneously defending the idea that in the end, as he puts it, “a naturalistic ontology must be a nominalistic ontology” (1980a NAO IV §129). (shrink)

Most explanations are either about events (why things happen), or about properties (why objects have the enduring characteristics that they do). Explanations of events have been studied extensively in philosophy and psychology, whereas the explanations of properties have received little or no attention in the literature. The present study is an exploration of the ways in which we explain various types of properties. Ten participants provided explanations of 45 properties by completing sentences of the form: “Xs have p because…” where (...) p is a property of the concept X. When coded into three traditional kinds of explanation (i.e. causal, purposive, categorical), nearly half of the explanations did not fit into any of these categories and were classified as “other”. Different patterns of preference for explanations emerged across the various property types for each domain. A qualitative analysis of the other kind revealed that the most frequent form of explanation involved another property of the object, as in ‘Xs have property p because they have property q”. Explanations of properties showed a homeostatic character. Simply relating two properties of a concept seems sufficient as an explanation of a property. (shrink)

This chapter steps back from the important psychological work on collaborative remembering at the heart of the present volume to take up some broader questions about the place of memory in Western cultural thought, both historically and in contemporary society, offering the kind of integrative and reflective perspective for which philosophy is often known. In particular, the text aims to shed some light on the relationship between collaborative memory and the other two topics in this title—group-level cognizing and individuals—beginning with (...) the relationship between collective intentionality and collaborative remembering, and concluding with some brief comments on the politics of collaborative remembering by drawing on recent work that has been undertaken with eugenics survivors in Canada. (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)

Essentialism is widely regarded as a mistaken view of biological kinds, such as species. After recounting why (sections 2-3), we provide a brief survey of the chief responses to the “death of essentialism” in the philosophy of biology (section 4). We then develop one of these responses, the claim that biological kinds are homeostatic property clusters (sections 5-6) illustrating this view with several novel examples (section 7). Although this view was first expressed 20 years ago, and has received recent discussion (...) and critique, it remains underdeveloped and is often misrepresented by its critics (section 8). (shrink)

Epistemic decision theory (EDT) employs the mathematical tools of rational choice theory to justify epistemic norms, including probabilism, conditionalization, and the Principal Principle, among others. Practitioners of EDT endorse two theses: (1) epistemic value is distinct from subjective preference, and (2) belief and epistemic value can be numerically quantified. We argue the first thesis, which we call epistemic puritanism, undermines the second.

A book review of _Free Choice: A Self-referential Argument_ by J. M. Boyle, Jr., G. Grisez, and O. Tollefsen. The review concerns the pragmatical self-referential argument employed in the book, and points to the fact that the argument is itself self-referentially inconsistent, but on the level of metalogical self-reference.

In the latter half of the twentieth century, philosophers of science have argued (implicitly and explicitly) that epistemically rational individuals might compose epistemically irrational groups and that, conversely, epistemically rational groups might be composed of epistemically irrational individuals. We call the conjunction of these two claims the Independence Thesis, as they together imply that methodological prescriptions for scientific communities and those for individual scientists might be logically independent of one another. We develop a formal model of scientific inquiry, define four (...) criteria for individual and group epistemic rationality, and then prove that the four definitions diverge, in the sense that individuals will be judged rational when groups are not and vice versa. We conclude by explaining implications of the inconsistency thesis for (i) descriptive history and sociology of science and (ii) normative prescriptions for scientific communities. (shrink)

Jim Joyce argues for two amendments to probabilism. The first is the doctrine that credences are rational, or not, in virtue of their accuracy or “closeness to the truth” (1998). The second is a shift from a numerically precise model of belief to an imprecise model represented by a set of probability functions (2010). We argue that both amendments cannot be satisfied simultaneously. To do so, we employ a (slightly-generalized) impossibility theorem of Seidenfeld, Schervish, and Kadane (2012), who show that (...) there is no strictly proper scoring rule for imprecise probabilities. -/- The question then is what should give way. Joyce, who is well aware of this no-go result, thinks that a quantifiability constraint on epistemic accuracy should be relaxed to accommodate imprecision. We argue instead that another Joycean assumption — called strict immodesty— should be rejected, and we prove a representation theorem that characterizes all “mildly” immodest measures of inaccuracy. (shrink)

Christian B. Miller has noted a “realism challenge” for virtue ethicists to provide an account of how the character gap between virtuous agents and non-virtuous agents can be bridged. This is precisely one of Han Feizi’s key criticisms against Confucian virtue ethics, as Eric L. Hutton argues, which also cuts across the Aristotelian one: appealing to virtuous agents as ethical models provides the wrong kind of guidance for the development of virtues. Hutton, however, without going into detail, notes that the (...) notion of rituals in the Confucian tradition may be able to sidestep Han Feizi’s criticism. In this essay, I wish to explore not only how the notion of rituals, alongside its corollaries in Xunzi’s Confucian program for ethical cultivation, indeed addresses Han Feizi’s criticism, but also observe that Aristotle’s tragic poetry plays functionally equivalent roles in his own understanding of ethical upbringing. I will begin by considering Han Feizi’s critique of ethical cultivation in virtue ethics as such and how it poses a specific problem for the acquisition of the ‘constitutive reasoning’ shared by Aristotle and Xunzi. I will then briefly note that this problem trades on the synthetic structure of human nature found in both Aristotle and Xunzi (the rational/irrational parts of the soul and the heartmind/five faculties), which grounds the way they understand ethical action and agency. Finally, I will suggest how both Aristotle and Xunzi understand the role of the arts in their extensive programme of ethical cultivation, allowing them to respond to Han Feizi’s attack as too narrow a construal of their respective ethical projects. It is hoped that, through this, we may gain a better sense of how more recent virtue ethicists may similarly draw on aesthetic resources for ethical development. (shrink)

My topic in this paper is the relationships of metaphysical priority which might hold between the different alethic modal statuses—necessity, contingency, possibility and impossibility. In particular, I am interested in exploring the view that the necessity of necessities is ungrounded while the contingency of contingencies is grounded—a scenario I call ‘necessity first’. I will explicate and scrutinize the contrast between necessity first and its ‘contingency first’ contrary, and then compare both views with ‘multimodal’ and ‘amodal’ alternatives, drawing on David Lewis’s (...) modal realism and Barbara Vetter’s potentialism as example cases. I will then defend the necessity-first point of view from a reversed version of Blackburn’s classic dilemma against theories of the source of necessity. (shrink)

Han Feizi’s criticisms of Confucian and Mohist political recommendations are often thought to involve materialist or historicist arguments, independently of their epistemological features. Drawing largely on Amia Srinivasan’s recent taxonomy of genealogical arguments, this paper proposes a genealogical reading of passages in “The Five Vermin [五蠹 wudu]” and “Eminence in Learning [顯學 xianxue].” This reveals Han Feizi’s arguments to be more comprehensively appreciated as problematizing Confucian and Mohist political judgments as arising from undermining contingencies, rendering them irrelevant, if not detrimental, (...) to any lasting excellence of a state. In doing this, it is also suggested that there is a ‘master argument’ underlying Han Feizi’s criticisms, according to which the epistemology of the Confucians and Mohists are fundamentally unreliable. (shrink)

Introduction in chapter viii of book ii of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke provides various putative lists of primary qualities. Insofar as they have considered the variation across Locke's lists at all, commentators have usually been content simply either to consider a self-consciously abbreviated list (e.g., "Size, Shape, etc.") or a composite list as the list of Lockean primary qualities, truncating such a composite list only by omitting supposedly co-referential terms. Doing the latter with minimal judgment about what (...) terms are co-referential gives us the following list of eleven qualities (in the order in which they appear in this chapter of the Essay): solidity, extension, figure, mobility, motion or rest, number, bulk, texture, motion, size, and situation. Perhaps surprisingly given the attention to the primary/secondary distinction since Locke, Locke's primary qualities themselves have received little more than passing mention in the bulk of the subsequent literature. In particular, no discussion both offers an interpretation of Locke's conception of primary qualities and makes sense of Locke's various lists as lists of primary qualities. A central motivation for this paper is the idea that these two tasks are not independent. (shrink)

This is the first complete English translation and publication of Donoso’s carta de 24 de octubre, 1851, a letter encapsulating many of his views on revolution and decision. This remarkable letter, sent as a diplomatic missive while he was serving the Spanish crown in Paris, describes how Napoleon III––stuck between the 1848 constitution’s prohibition against his election and his impending coup that will crown him emperor––must gain the support of the liberal bourgeoise middle class if he is to maintain his (...) rule over France. The letter is also of great importance to Donoso and Schmitt scholars because it contains the first and only time Donoso uses the complete term “las clases discutidoras,” which, through Schmitt’s injudicious and repeated misspellings as “una clasa discutidora” has become famous for its characterization of the liberal bourgeoisie as the “discussing” or “disputing” class that is incapable of action at the precise historical moment when a decision is most direly needed to save the constitution from inner or outer existential threats. (shrink)

We evaluate the asymptotic performance of boundedly-rational strategies in multi-armed bandit problems, where performance is measured in terms of the tendency (in the limit) to play optimal actions in either (i) isolation or (ii) networks of other learners. We show that, for many strategies commonly employed in economics, psychology, and machine learning, performance in isolation and performance in networks are essentially unrelated. Our results suggest that the appropriateness of various, common boundedly-rational strategies depends crucially upon the social context (if any) (...) in which such strategies are to be employed. (shrink)

One might suppose that Everettian quantum mechanics (EQM) is inhospitable to metaphysial indeterminacy (MI), given that, as A. Wilson (2020) puts it, "the central idea of EQM is to replace indeterminacy with multiplicity" (77). But as Wilson goes on to suggest, the popular decoherence-based understanding of EQM (henceforth: DEQM) appears to admit of indeterminacy in both world number and world nature, where the latter indeterminacy---our focus here---is plausibly metaphysical. After a brief presentation of DEQM (S1), we bolster the (...) case for there being MI in world nature in DEQM (S2). The remainder of the paper is devoted to a comparative assessment of the two main approaches to MI for purposes of accommodating this MI---namely, a metaphysical supervaluationist approach (as per Barnes and Williams 2011) and a determinable-based approach (as per Wilson 2013 and Calosi and Wilson 2018 and 2021). We briefly describe each approach (S3), then offer arguments in favour of a determinable-based approach to world nature MI in DEQM (S4). (shrink)

A dynamical system is called chaotic if small changes to its initial conditions can create large changes in its behavior. By analogy, we call a dynamical system structurally chaotic if small changes to the equations describing the evolution of the system produce large changes in its behavior. Although there are many definitions of “chaos,” there are few mathematically precise candidate definitions of “structural chaos.” I propose a definition, and I explain two new theorems that show that a set of models (...) is structurally chaotic if it contains a chaotic function. I conclude by discussing the relationship between structural chaos and structural stability. (shrink)

In the good old days, when general philosophy of science ruled the Earth, a simple division was often invoked to talk about philosophical issues specific to particular kinds of science: that between the natural sciences and the social sciences. Over the last 20 years, philosophical studies shaped around this dichotomy have given way to those organized by more fine-grained categories, corresponding to specific disciplines, as the literatures on the philosophy of physics, biology, economics and psychology--to take the most prominent four (...) examples--have blossomed. In general terms, work in each of these areas has become increasingly enmeshed with that in the corresponding science itself, increasingly naturalistic (in at least one sense of that term), and in my view, increasingly interesting. (shrink)

This is an introductory article on sociobiology, particularly its relationship to eugenics. Sociobiology developed in the 1960s as a field within evolutionary biology to explain human social traits and behaviours. Although sociobiology has few direct connections to eugenics, it shares eugenics’ optimistic enthusiasm for extending biological science into the human domain, often with reckless sensationalism. Sociobiology's critics have argued that sociobiology also propagates a kind of genetic determinism and represents the zealous misapplication of science beyond its proper reach that characterized (...) the eugenics movement. More recently, evolutionary psychology represents a sophistication of sociobiology that attends to the mind as the "missing link" between evolution and behaviour (Cosmides and Tooby 1992, Pinker 1997). (shrink)

This brief article examines the notion of that there are sorts (or kinds) of people are varying qualities relevant to their eugenic policies, such as sterilization or immigration restriction.

Where does the mind begin and end? Most philosophers and cognitive scientists take the view that the mind is bounded by the skull or skin of the individual. Robert Wilson, in this provocative and challenging 2004 book, provides the foundations for the view that the mind extends beyond the boundary of the individual. The approach adopted offers a unique blend of traditional philosophical analysis, cognitive science, and the history of psychology and the human sciences. The companion volume, Genes and (...) the Agents of Life, explores the theme in the biological sciences. Written with verve and clarity, this ambitious book will appeal to a broad swathe of professionals and students in philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and the history of the behavioural and human sciences. You can download the table of contents here. (shrink)

Perception solves computationally demanding problems at lightning fast speed. It recovers sophisticated representations of the world from degraded inputs, often in a matter of milliseconds. Any theory of perception must be able to explain how this is possible; in other words, it must be able to explain perception's computational tractability. One of the few attempts to move toward such an explanation has been the information encapsulation hypothesis, which posits that perception can be fast because it keeps computational costs low by (...) forgoing access to information stored in cognition. I argue that we have no compelling reason to believe that encapsulation explains (or even contributes to an explanation of) perceptual tractability, and much reason to doubt it. This is because there exist much deeper computational challenges for perception than information access, and these threaten to make the costs of access irrelevant. If this is right, it undermines a core computational motivation for encapsulation and sends us back to the drawing board for explanations of perceptual tractability. (shrink)

This volume of twelve specially commissioned essays about species draws on the perspectives of prominent researchers from anthropology , botany, developmental psychology , the philosophy of biology and science, protozoology, and zoology . The concept of species has played a focal role in both evolutionary biology and the philosophy of biology , and the last decade has seen something of a publication boom on the topic (e.g., Otte and Endler 1989; Ereshefsky 1992b; Paterson 1994; lambert and Spence 1995; Claridge, Dawah, (...) and Wilson 1997; Wheeler and Meier 1999; Howard and Berlocher 1998). (shrink)

It is common to assume that the problem of induction arises only because of small sample sizes or unreliable data. In this paper, I argue that the piecemeal collection of data can also lead to underdetermination of theories by evidence, even if arbitrarily large amounts of completely reliable experimental and observational data are collected. Specifically, I focus on the construction of causal theories from the results of many studies (perhaps hundreds), including randomized controlled trials and observational studies, where the studies (...) focus on overlapping, but not identical, sets of variables. Two theorems reveal that, for any collection of variables V, there exist fundamentally different causal theories over V that cannot be distinguished unless all variables are simultaneously measured. Underdetermination can result from piecemeal measurement, regardless of the quantity and quality of the data. Moreover, I generalize these results to show that, a priori, it is impossible to choose a series of small (in terms of number of variables) observational studies that will be most informative with respect to the causal theory describing the variables under investigation. This final result suggests that scientific institutions may need to play a larger role in coordinating differing research programs during inquiry. (shrink)