The Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI) is an ontology that provides terms with precisely defined meanings to describe all aspects of how investigations in the biological and medical domains are conducted. OBI re-uses ontologies that provide a representation of biomedical knowledge from the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) project and adds the ability to describe how this knowledge was derived. We here describe the state of OBI and several applications that are using it, such as adding semantic expressivity to (...) existing databases, building data entry forms, and enabling interoperability between knowledge resources. OBI covers all phases of the investigation process, such as planning, execution and reporting. It represents information and material entities that participate in these processes, as well as roles and functions. Prior to OBI, it was not possible to use a single internally consistent resource that could be applied to multiple types of experiments for these applications. OBI has made this possible by creating terms for entities involved in biological and medical investigations and by importing parts of other biomedical ontologies such as GO, Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI) and Phenotype Attribute and Trait Ontology (PATO) without altering their meaning. OBI is being used in a wide range of projects covering genomics, multi-omics, immunology, and catalogs of services. OBI has also spawned other ontologies (Information Artifact Ontology) and methods for importing parts of ontologies (Minimum information to reference an external ontology term (MIREOT)). The OBI project is an open cross-disciplinary collaborative effort, encompassing multiple research communities from around the globe. To date, OBI has created 2366 classes and 40 relations along with textual and formal definitions. The OBI Consortium maintains a web resource providing details on the people, policies, and issues being addressed in association with OBI. (shrink)

Vaccine research, as well as the development, testing, clinical trials, and commercial uses of vaccines involve complex processes with various biological data that include gene and protein expression, analysis of molecular and cellular interactions, study of tissue and whole body responses, and extensive epidemiological modeling. Although many data resources are available to meet different aspects of vaccine needs, it remains a challenge how we are to standardize vaccine annotation, integrate data about varied vaccine types and resources, and support advanced vaccine (...) data analysis and inference. To address these problems, the community-based Vaccine Ontology (VO) has been developed through collaboration with vaccine researchers and many national and international centers and programs, including the National Center for Biomedical Ontology (NCBO), the Infectious Disease Ontology (IDO) Initiative, and the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI). VO utilizes the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) as the top ontology and the Relation Ontology (RO) for definition of term relationships. VO is represented in the Web Ontology Language (OWL) and edited using the Protégé-OWL. Currently VO contains more than 2000 terms and relationships. VO emphasizes on classification of vaccines and vaccine components, vaccine quality and phenotypes, and host immune response to vaccines. These reflect different aspects of vaccine composition and biology and can thus be used to model individual vaccines. More than 200 licensed vaccines and many vaccine candidates in research or clinical trials have been modeled in VO. VO is being used for vaccine literature mining through collaboration with the National Center for Integrative Biomedical Informatics (NCIBI). Multiple VO applications will be presented. (shrink)

Several scholars, including Martin Hengel, R. Alan Culpepper, and Richard Bauckham, have argued that Papias had knowledge of the Gospel of John on the grounds that Papias’s prologue lists six of Jesus’s disciples in the same order that they are named in the Gospel of John: Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, James, and John. In “A Note on Papias’s Knowledge of the Fourth Gospel” (JBL 129 [2010]: 793–794), Jake H. O’Connell presents a statistical analysis of this argument, according to which (...) the probability of this correspondence occurring by chance is lower than 1%. O’Connell concludes that it is more than 99% probable that this correspondence is the result of Papias copying John, rather than chance. I show that O’Connell’s analysis contains multiple mistakes, both substantive and mathematical: it ignores relevant evidence, overstates the correspondence between John and Papias, wrongly assumes that if Papias did not know John he ordered the disciples randomly, and conflates the probability of A given B with the probability of B given A. In discussing these errors, I aim to inform both Johannine scholarship and the use of probabilistic methods in historical reasoning. (shrink)

Genetics: Medical, Theological and Ethical Aspects Tibbi, Dini ve Etik Boyutlariyla Genetik -/- Genetik bilimi biyolojinin botanik ve zooloji alanındaki uygulamalarını aşarak, sınırlarını önce antropolojiye sonra tıbba doğru hızla genişletmiştir. Öyle ki artık biyokimyadan onkolojiye kadar neredeyse tüm biyomedikal disiplinler, genetiğin kavramları, ilkeleri ve metodolojisi ile aşılanmıştır. Modern tıbbın uygulama alanında geniş bir yer tutan genetik bilimi, bir hastalığa dair risk analizi, teşhis ve tedavi seçeneklerinin belirlenmesi, prognozun değerlendirilmesi gibi klinik uygulamanın farklı evrelerinde söz sahibi olmaktadır. İçinde bulunduğumuz 21. yüzyılda (...) ise bu etkileşim eskisinden daha da güçlü hale gelerek devam etmektedir. Genetik biliminin klinikteki etkilerinin kapsamlı bir şekilde değerlendirildiği bu kitap, tüm dünyada tıbbın seyrini değiştirecek gelişmelere zemin teşkil eden genetik disiplininin olumlu ve olumsuz etkileri hakkında okuyucuya yetkili ağızlardan bilgiler taşımayı ve daha net bir fikir oluşturmayı hedeflemektedir. Kitapta dört ana bölüm bulunmaktadır. İlk bölümde doğum öncesi genetik uygulamalara, ikinci bölümde doğum sonrası (çocuk ve erişkinde) genetik testlere, üçüncü bölümde tıbbi genetiğin sıcak tartışma konusu olan Spinal Müsküler Atrofi’ye (SMA) ve dördüncü bölümde ise genetik bilgiyi felsefi bakışla ele alan makalelere yer verilmiştir. Genetiğin tıp pratiğini değiştirici ve dönüştürücü etkisine multidisipliner bir yaklaşımla ışık tutmayı amaçlayan bu eserin genetik hakkındaki Türkçe literatüre katkıda bulunmasını ümit ediyoruz. (shrink)

“1950’li yıllarda dönemin büyük felsefecileri arasında dinsel inancı savunan bir kişi bile yoktu. 1990’lı yıllarda Yale’den UCLA’ya, Oxford’dan Heidelberg’e kadar birçok yerde insanın manevi yanını savunan ve geliştiren yüzlerce kitap yazılacak, sel olup akacaktı. Aradaki 40 yıllık süre zarfındaysa sadece ve sadece Alvin Plantinga vardı.” Kelly James Clark Tanrı’nın veya tanrıların varlığı sorusu felsefenin ezeli sorularından biri olagelmişse de Nietzsche’nin Tanrı’nın ölümünü ilan ettiği günden bu yana onu doğrularcasına yaşanan acılar, savaşlar, kötülükler bu konudaki tartışmaların sesini uzun süre bastırdı. Ama (...) özellikle yüzyılın ikinci yarısından sonra palazlanan analitik felsefede meydana gelen “metafiziğe dönüş”, dine yakınlık duyan, en azından dinle ilgilenen filozofların tekrar Yahudi-Hıristiyan ve İslam geleneklerinde anlaşıldığı şekliyle Tanrı’nın varlığına duyulan inancın gerekçelerini yeniden değerlendirmelerine, konuya yeni bir bakış ve araçlarla bakmalarına vesile oldu. Alvin Plantinga’nın bu kitabı, yayımlandığı tarihten itibaren “analitik din felsefesi” alanının da en önemli ve sarsıcı eserlerinden biri hâline geldi ve Tanrı’nın ölmediğini ilan etti. Anselmus’tan Hume’a, Kant ve pozitivistlerden John Mackie gibi modern ateologlara kadar felsefe geleneğiyle hesaplaşan Plantinga, bu abidevi çalışmasında ontolojik, kozmolojik ve teleolojik tanrı kanıtlamalarının eski ve yeni biçimlerinin çıkmazlarını, meziyetlerini ve sunduğu imkânları değerlendiriyor. Tanrı’nın varlığına duyulan inanç ile diğer insanların varlığına ve zihinlerine duyulan inanç arasındaki şaşırtıcı ve sarsıcı bağlantıyı ortaya koyuyor. (shrink)

Bilimi ve bilimsel bilgiyi kültür, değer ve öznel yargılardan izole ederek nesnel bir şekilde ortaya koyabilmeye yönelik hararetli tartışmaların yaşandığı yirminci yüzyıl bilim anlayışının temel gayesi, deney ve gözleme tabi olabilecek fiziki dünyadaki olguları, mantıksal çözümlemeye tabi tutarak birleştirilmiş bilime ulaşmaktır. Bu amaca giden yolda olgulara dayanmayan ve sınanamayan her türlü metafizik öge yok sayılır. Bilimsel bilginin sadece deney ve gözleme tabi olana, diğer bir deyişle olgu verilerine dayandığı iddiasını taşıyan bu düşünce sistemi, özellikle Viyana Çevresi üyeleri tarafından benimsenmiştir. Bu (...) bakımdan Çevre üyelerinin bilimsellik anlayışındaki temel ölçüt olgulara dayanan önermelerin ya da yargıların doğrulanabilmesidir. Bilimsel bilginin sadece olgusal dünyanın gözlemlenmesi ve bu gözlem sonucunda ortaya konulan önermelerin ya da ifadelerin doğrulanmasıyla sağlandığını düşünen Çevre üyelerinin bu savlarındaki amacı bilimi ve onun bilgisini her türlü kültür ve değer alanından uzaklaştırarak metafiziksel unsurlardan arındırılmış nesnel bilgiye ulaşmaktır. Çevre üyelerinin birçoğu bilim alanı içerisinde tartışmaya yol açan meselelerin aslında metafiziksel içerikli ve dolayısıyla bunların görünüşte problemler olduğunu belirterek bu tartışmaların bilimsel bilginin gelişimi önünde bir engel oluşturacağı kanaatindedir (Hızır, 1965, s. 254). Söz gelimi, Carnap’a göre, metafizik ögeler olgusal içeriğe sahip olmadığı ve sınanabilir nitelikte olmadıkları için bilim alanı içerisinde değerlendirilemez. Bu nedenle, metafizik ögeler hem doğrulanması mümkün olmadığı hem de dilin mantıksal dizimine genellikle uymadığı gerekçesiyle anlamsızdır (Öztürk, 2011, s. 155). Bu bakımdan Çevre üyelerine göre, olgulara dayanmayan ve bilimde yanılsamalara yol açan metafizik söylemler bilimden ayıklanmalı ve bilimsel bilgi ancak olgu ve deneye dayanan önermeler üzerinden yürütülmelidir. Öte yandan Çevre düşünürleri mantıksal çözümleme yoluyla olgulara dayanan önermelerin metafiziksel unsurlar içeren önermelerden ayırt edilebileceğini ifade etmiştir. Bu bağlamda metafizik önermeleri, metafizik olmayan önermelerden ayırt edecek ölçütün doğrulanabilirlik olduğunu savunurlar. Çevre üyelerinin bu tutumları bir bakıma bilim ve sözde bilim arasında ayrım yapma ve metafiziği bilimin dışında tutma çabası olarak da değerlendirilebilir (Kabadayı, 2011, s. 39-40). Yirminci yüzyıl bilim anlayışında bilimsel etkinlikte gözlemin ve gözlemi yürüten bilim insanlarının dolaysız öznel duyu verileriyle ilişkili olduğu bu nedenle gözlem verilerinin psikolojizmin etkisinde olduğu fikri ortaya atılır. Başta Neurath olmak üzere dönemin bilim felsefecileri bilimsel bilginin kültür, değer ve psikoloji gibi öznel unsurlardan uzaklaştığı sürece değerli olduğu kanısında olduğu için bu fikre karşı çıkmaktadır (Gillies, 2018, s. 123). Görüldüğü üzere, Çevre üyelerinin temel amacı metafizik önermelerden arındırılmış, olgulara dayanan bir bilime ulaşmaktır. Bu amacın gerçekleşmesine olanak sağlayacak yöntem ise mantıksal çözümlemedir. Bu bağlamda Çevre üyeleri olgulara dayanan ve doğrulanabilen önermelerin, söz dizimi (sentaks) ve anlamsal (semantik) açıdan incelemeye tabi tutulması gerektiğini düşünmektedir (Yardımcı, 2018, s. 13-15). Özellikle Carnap (1935, s. 9-10) doğrulamanın ancak öne sürülen önermenin mantıksal analize tabi tutularak yapılması gerektiğini iddia etmiştir (Irzık, 1962, s. 65). Bununla birlikte, felsefenin işlevi, önermeleri mantıksal analize tabi tutarak yalın hale getirmektir. İşte felsefenin bu yönü Neurath’da bilimin birliği, Carnap’ta ise bilimin sentaksı, yani bilimin mantığı üzerine çalışma anlamına gelir (Hızır, 1965, s. 252). Bilimi, bilim olmayandan ayırma yöntemi olarak kullanılan doğrulama işlemi, teorik bir söylem ve gözlem önermesi arasında yapılan bir işlem olması bakımından mantıksal ve dilsel bir özellik taşır. Buradaki temel sorun ise teorik bir önermenin gözlem önermelerine indirgenebilir nitelikte olması ve gözlem önermelerinin, gözlem ile nasıl ilişki kurduğunu saptamaktır. İşte Viyana Çevresi üyeleri bu ilişkinin protokol önermeleri ile kurulduğu kanaatindedir (Ural, 2012, s. 105-107) çünkü onlara göre; öznelerarası bir bilimin sağlanması için yansız ve anlam karmaşasından arındırılmış bir dil gereklidir (Serin, 2015, s. 55). Bu dil de ancak protokol önermeler aracılığıyla kurulabilir. Bu bağlamda Çevre üyelerinin, metafiziksel ifadeler barındıran önermelerin anlamsızlığı ve bilimleri ortak bir paydada birleştiren fiziksel bir dil oluşturma olmak üzere iki temel hedefinin olduğu söylenebilir (Godfrey-Smith, 2003, s. 25; Salgar, 2012, s. 187). (shrink)

In this book I show that science suffers from a damaging but rarely noticed methodological disease, which I call rationalistic neurosis. It is not just the natural sciences which suffer from this condition. The contagion has spread to the social sciences, to philosophy, to the humanities more generally, and to education. The whole academic enterprise, indeed, suffers from versions of the disease. It has extraordinarily damaging long-term consequences. For it has the effect of preventing us from developing traditions and institutions (...) of learning rationally devoted to helping us learn how to make progress towards a wiser, more civilized world. On our fragile earth, overcrowded, fraught with injustice, inequality and conflict, menaced by unprecedented and terrifying technological and industrial means for change and destruction, we urgently need to acquire a little more wisdom and civilization if we are to avoid repeating horrors of the kind suffered by so many during the 20th century (and already suffered by many in the first few years of the 21st century). We can ill afford to have in our hands instruments of learning botched and bungled from the standpoint of helping us learn how to live more wisely. It may seem scarcely credible that something as important as our institutions of learning can suffer from wholesale, structural defects. Why has this not been noticed before? Why have not armies of scientists and scholars appreciated the point and, long ago, put the matter right? The answer will emerge as my argument unfolds. I will show that one of the most damaging features of rationalistic neurosis is that it has built-in methodological and institutional mechanisms which effectively conceal that anything is wrong. But there is also an immediately obvious reason: specialization, and the resulting fragmentation of academia, has resulted in a situation in which hardly anyone takes responsibility for the overall ideals, the overall aims and methods, of academic inquiry. Academics, these days, are specialists, furiously trying to keep abreast of developments in their own specialist fields. They have no time, and no inducement, to lift their eyes from their particular disciplines, and look at the whole endeavour. Science has long been under attack, at least since the Romantic movement. Blake objected to “Single vision & Newton’s sleep” and declared that “Art is the Tree of Life... Science is the Tree of Death”. Keats lamented that science will “clip an Angel’s wings” and “unweave a rainbow”. Whereas the Enlightenment had valued science and reason as tools for the liberation of humanity, Romanticism found science and reason oppressive and destructive, and instead valued art, imagination, inspiration, individual genius, emotional and motivational honesty rather than careful attention to objective fact. Much subsequent opposition to science stems from, or echoes, the Romantic opposition of Blake, Wordsworth, Keats and many others. There is the movement Isaiah Berlin has described as the “Counter-Enlightenment” (Berlin, 1979, ch. 1). There is existentialism, with its denunciation of the tyranny of reason, its passionate affirmation of the value and centrality of irrationality in human life, from Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche to Heidegger and Sartre (see, for example, Barrett, 1962). There is the attack on Enlightenment ideals concerning science and reason undertaken by the Frankfurt school, by postmodernists and others, from Horkheimer and Adorno to Lyotard, Foucault, Habermas, Derrida, MacIntyre and Rorty (see Gascardi, 1999). The soul-destroying consequences of valuing science and reason too highly is a persistent theme in literature: it is to be found in the works of writers such as D.H. Lawrence, Doris Lessing, Max Frisch, Y. Zamyatin. There is persistent opposition to modern science and technology, and to scientific rationality, often associated with the Romantic wing of the green movement, and given expression in such popular books as Marcuse’s One Dimensional Man, Roszak’s Where the Wasteland Ends, Berman’s The Reenchantment of the World and Appleyard’s Understanding the Present. There is the feminist critique of science and conceptions of science: see, for example, Fox Keller (1984) and Harding (1986). And there are the corrosive implications of the so-called “strong programme” in the sociology of knowledge, and of the work of social constructivist historians of science, which depict scientific knowledge as a belief system alongside many other such conflicting systems, having no more right to claim to constitute knowledge of the truth than these rivals, the scientific view of the world being no more than an elaborate myth, a social construct (see Barnes and Bloor, 1981; Bloor, 1991; Barnes, Bloor and Henry, 1996; Shapin and Schaffer, 1985; Shapin, 1994; Pickering, 1984; Latour, 1987). This latter literature has provoked a counter-attack by scientists, historians and philosophers of science seeking to defend science and traditional conceptions of scientific rationality: see Gross and Levitt (1994), Gross, Levitt and Lewis (1996), and Koertge (1998). This debate between critics and defenders of science came abruptly to public attention with the publication of Alan Sokal’s brilliant hoax article ‘Transgressing the boundaries’ in a special issue of the cultural studies journal Social Text in 1996 entitled Science Wars: see Sokal and Bricmont (1998). What does this book have to contribute, given the above avalanche of criticism of science? The criticisms of science developed in this book are diametrically opposed to the above, in so far as the above criticisms oppose scientific rationality, seek to diminish or restrict its influence, or hold that it is unattainable. My central point is that we suffer, not from too much scientific rationality, but from not enough. What is generally taken to constitute scientific rationality is actually nothing of the kind. It is rationalistic neurosis, a characteristic, influential and damaging kind of irrationality masquerading as rationality. Science is damaged by being trapped within a widely upheld but severely defective philosophy of science; free science from this defective philosophy, provide it with a more intellectually rigorous philosophy, and it will flourish in both intellectual and humanitarian terms. And more generally, as we shall see, academic inquiry as a whole is damaged by being trapped within an intellectually defective philosophy of inquiry; free it from this defective philosophy, from its rationalistic neurosis, and it will flourish in intellectual and human terms. It is not reason that is damaging, but defective pretensions to reason — rationalistic neurosis —masquerading as reason. Thus what I seek to do here is the exact opposite of what all those who oppose science and scientific rationality do. I shall argue that Reason, the authentic article, arrived at by generalizing the progress-achieving methods of science, can have profoundly liberating and enriching consequences for all worthwhile, problematic aspects of life, and thus deserves to enter into every aspect of life. The bare bones of the argument of this book can be stated quite simply like this. Science cannot proceed without making the substantial metaphysical assumption that the universe is physically comprehensible (to some extent at least). But this conflicts with the orthodox view that in science everything is assessed impartially with respect to evidence, nothing being permanently assumed independently of evidence. So the metaphysical assumption of comprehensibility is repressed. Science pretends that no such assumption is made. But this damages science. For the assumption is substantial, influential and highly problematic. It needs to be made explicit within science so that it can be critically scrutinized, so that alternatives can be developed and considered. Pretending the assumption is not being made undermines the intellectual rigour of science, its intellectual value and success. And it does not stop there. For science also makes value assumptions. Quite properly, science is concerned to discover that which is of value. New factual knowledge devoid of all value (whether intellectual or practical) does not contribute to science. But the orthodox view of science holds that values have no place within science. As in the case of metaphysics, here too, science pretends that values have no role to play within the intellectual domain of science. And this damages science. For values are, if anything, even more influential and problematic than metaphysics (in influencing the direction of research). Here too, values need to be made explicit within science so that they can be scrutinized, so that alternatives can be developed and assessed. Pretending that values play no role within the intellectual domain damages science; both the intellectual and the practical aspects of science are adversely affected. Science fails to pursue those avenues of research that lie in the best interests of humanity. And it goes further. Science is pursued in a social, cultural, economic and political context. It is a part of various social, economic and political projects which seek to achieve diverse human objectives. But the idea that science is an integral part of humanitarian or political enterprises with political ends clashes, once again, with the official view of science that the aim of science is to improve factual knowledge. The political objectives of science are repressed. And, once again, this damages science. For, of course, the political objectives of science, like all our political objectives, are profoundly problematic. These need to be made explicit so that they can be scrutinized, so that alternatives can be developed and considered. The pretence that science does not have this political dimension once again undermines the intellectual rigour of science, and its human value. It lays science open to becoming a part of economic, corporate and political enterprises that are not in the best interests of humanity. The upshot of the line of argument just indicated is that we need to bring about a revolution in the aims and methods of science, and of academic inquiry more generally. Natural science needs to change; its relationship with the rest of academic inquiry, with social inquiry and the humanities, needs to change; and most importantly and dramatically, academic inquiry as a whole needs to change. The basic task of the academic enterprise needs to become to help humanity learn how to tackle its problems of living in more cooperatively rational ways than at present. We need to put the intellectual tasks of articulating our problems of living, and proposing and critically assessing possible solutions, possible and actual actions, at the heart of academic inquiry. The basic task needs to be to help humanity learn a bit more wisdom – wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others, wisdom including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides. Natural science, despite its flaws, has massively increased our knowledge and technological know-how. This in turn has led to a massive and sometimes terrifying increase in our power to act. Often this unprecedented power to act is used for human good, as in medicine or agriculture. But it is also used to cause harm, whether unintentionally (initially at least) as when industrialization and modern agriculture lead to global warming, destruction of natural habitats and rapid extinction of species, or intentionally, as when the technology of war is used by governments and terrorists to maim and kill. Before the advent of modern science, when we lacked the means to do too much damage to ourselves and the planet, lack of wisdom did not matter too much. Now, with our unprecedented powers to act, bequeathed to us by science, lack of wisdom has become a menace. This is the crisis behind all the other current global crises: science without wisdom. In these circumstances, to continue to pursue knowledge and technological know-how dissociated from a more fundamental quest for wisdom can only deepen the crisis. As a matter of urgency, we need to free science and academia of their neuroses; we need to bring about a revolution in the academic enterprise so that the basic aim becomes to promote wisdom by intellectual and educational means. At present science and the humanities betray both reason and humanity. The argument of this book, which I have just summarized, begins with a discussion of the philosophical and methodological problems that beset theoretical physics. At once, many of those who are concerned about moral, political and environmental issues that plague our world today, will feel impatient. What have the methodological problems of theoretical physics to do with third world poverty, war and the threat of war, pollution, extinction of species, the menace of conventional, chemical, biological and nuclear armaments? I can only plead with such a reader: patience. The root cause of the sickness of our times does indeed lie, I claim, with a methodological sickness of natural science or, even more specifically, of physical science. What makes the modern world so utterly different from all previous ages is our possession of modern science and technology. This is the instrument that has changed the conditions of human life almost beyond all recognition, and put unprecedented, and sometimes terrifying, powers into our hands. One should not dismiss out of hand the suggestion that a part of our problem may lie with this instrument, this engine, of rapid change. We see, here, too, the way in which intellectual specialization, referred to above, has effectively concealed from view the nature and extent of the problem that confronts us. The argument that I shall develop in what follows begins with physics, with problems concerning the aims and methods of physics. But it then leaps to social science, to philosophy, to the humanities, to education, to psychotherapy, and to politics: in the end there is scarcely an aspect of modern life that is not touched and, potentially, affected by the argument. How many academic experts are prepared to follow, to take seriously, an argument that ranges so recklessly across such a wide range of academic disciplines? How many non-academic non-experts? But just this is what the argument and message of this book requires. I hope that the reader will endure with patience the somewhat esoteric discussion concerning the aims and methods of physics pursued in chapter one. This may not seem to have anything much to do with the urgent problems of our times, but it does. This is in part how the intellectual disaster I seek to expose in this book conceals itself from view: it buries itself in the obscure, recondite field of the philosophy of physics. Those who devote their lives to the philosophy of physics are, by and large, too myopic to see how their specialized field of study has anything to do with the great and dreadful humanitarian problems and disasters of our age; and those who are above all concerned with these humanitarian disasters have no time at all for abstruse issues concerning the aims and methods of physics. And so the connection is never made. As it happens, the methodological neurosis of physics, with which we begin in chapter one, is actually a quite simple matter to grasp. It does not require any real knowledge of physics to understand. Indeed, physicists and philosophers of physics are much more likely to find the argument difficult to follow than are non-experts. We non-scientists can stand back and see the whole wood; scientists, trained to think in terms of the current orthodox conception of science, trapped in the thickets of research, will find this much harder to do. In an attempt to take this peculiar circumstance into account, I have arranged the exposition as follows. In chapter one I give a simple exposition of the case for declaring natural science to suffer from what I call "rationalistic neurosis"; this avoids all technicalities, and goes straight to the heart of the matter. In the appendix I tackle a host of more technical objections that may be made to the elementary argument of chapter one. So, those experts in the fields of the philosophy of physics and philosophy of science who find the argument of chapter one naïve and unconvincing, should consult the appendix before tossing the book away in disgust. I write in the hope that there will be a few who will not dismiss out of hand the suggestion that the question of how we are to go about learning how to live in wiser and more civilized ways might have something to learn from scientific learning, and will take the trouble to pursue the line of argument traced out in this book. I write in the hope that these few will grasp just how desperate our situation is, how urgent the need to change the status quo, and will do everything in their power to alert others to the need to heal the methodological sickness from which our institutions and traditions of learning at present suffer. To begin with, we need a campaigning organization, modelled perhaps on "Friends of the Earth", which might be called something like "Friends of Wisdom". (shrink)

Azərbaycan elm tarixini tədqiq edərkən dövrün tələbindən çıxış edilərək ərəb və fars dillərində yazılmış çoxlu əsərlərə rast gəlirik. Bu əsərlərdən biri də dahi alim Nəsirəddin Tusinin fars dilində məntiqə dair yazdığı Əsasül-iqtibas əsəridir. Əsər ilk dəfə 2022-ci ildə nəşr edilərək oxucu və tədqiqatçıların ixtiyarına verilmişdir. Əsasül-iqtibas əsəri XIII əsrin ortalarında yazılmışdır. Əsərin yazılmasından təqribən səkkiz əsrə yaxın vaxt keçmişdir. Bu müddət ərzində həmin əsərdə istifadə edilən bir sıra termin və sözlər artıq müasir fars dilində istifadə edilmir. Əsərin məntiqə aid olması (...) və həm də bir sıra sözlərin günümüzdə istifadə edilməməsi onun tərcüməsini çətinləşdirən amillər kimi qeyd etmək olar. Bundan əlavə burada istifadə edilən bəzi terminlərin gündəlik danışığımzda fərqli mənada istifadə edildiyindən həmin sözlərin və terminlərin izah edilməsi zərurəti yaranmışdır. Habelə orta əsr müəlliflərinin əsərlərinin tədqiqi zamanı eyni bir sözün müxtəlif müəlliflər tərəfindən fərqli mənalarda işlədildiyinin də şahidi oluruq ki, bu da həmin termin və anlayışların Azərbaycan dilinə tərcüməsi zamanı izahının verilməsinə ehtiyac yaradır. Hal-hazırda müraciət etdiyiniz bu kitab Nəsirəddin Tusinin ən mühüm və genişhəcmli əsərlərindən biri olan “Əsasül-iqtibas”-ın tərcüməsi zamanı əsərin orijinalında işlədilmiş ərəb-fars sözlərinin izahlı tərcüməsi yönündə tərtib edilmişdir. Bu lüğətlərin tərcüməsi və izahı ilə tanış olmaqla Nəsirəddin Tusinin ərəb-fars dillərində yazılmış digər əsərlərinin tərcüməsi zamanı da yararlanmaq olar. Müəyyən bir ixtisas və peşəni və ya həmin peşə və ixtisasa aid olan terminləri başa düşmək üçün həmin istiqamət üzrə tərtib edilən terminolji lüğətlərə ehtiyac duyulur. Bu istiqamətdə zaman-zaman müxtəlif ixtisaslar üzrə terminoloji lüğətlərin nəşr edildiyini müşahidə edirik. Azərbaycan dilində məntiqi terminlərin izahından ibarət xüsusi termonoloji lüğətlərin də tərtib edilməsi zərurəti vardır. Çünki məntiq terminlərinin izahınına adətən rus dilində yazılmış ədəbiyyatda, bir neçə terminin izahı verilmiş məntiq kitablarında və ya fəlsəfi terminlərdən ibarət ensiklopediya və lüğətlərdə rast gəlmək mümkündür. Bir tərəfdən, yaranmış boşluğu doldurmaq, digər tərəfdən isə məntiq ixtisası üzrə təhsil alan tələbə və mütəxəssislərə kömək etmək üçün bu lüğəti tərtib etmək qərarına gəldik. 222 sözün izah və tərcüməsindən ibarət olan bu kitabı həmin istiqamətdə olan boşluğu doldurmaq üçün kiçik və eyni zamanda mühüm bir addım hesab etmək olar. Burada sözlərin tərcüməsi ilə yanaşı bir sıra terminlərin izahı da verilmişdir. Əsasən Əsasül-iqtibas adlı məntiqi əsəri tərcümə edərkən qarşıya çıxan çətin və mürəkkəb sözlərin izahının verilməsinə üstünlük verilmişdir. Tərcümə zamanı müxtəlif illərdə nəşr edilən Əsasül-iqtibas əsərlərinə də müraciət edilmişdir. Bu əsərlərin bəzisində Əsasül-iqtibas əsərində istifadə edilən bəzi terminlərin izahı da verilmişdir. Bu izahlar bəzən tərcümə zamanı ifadənin daha səlis və daha dəqiq başa düşülməsinə imkan vermişdir. Bu lüğət kitabı tərtib edilərkən həmin əsərlərdə mövcud olan terminlər və onların izahından da istifadə edilmişdir. Bəzən məntiqi terminlərlə yanaşı kəlam, fəlsəfə və s. elmlərdə istifadə edilən terminləri də qeyd etmişik. Çünki bu terminlər bizə məntiqdə işlədilən bəzi ifadələrin daha asan başa düşülməsinə imkan verəcəkdir. “Əsasül-iqtibasa dair terminlər” lüğəti adlı bu kitabı bu sahədə atılmış ilk addımlardan biri olduğu üçün gələcəkdə daha sanballı və həcmcə daha geniş terminoloji lüğətlərin hazırlanması nəzərdə tutulur. (shrink)

Her din ve mistik kültürde ortaya çıkan dinî tecrübelerin felsefe, kelam ve fıkıh gibi bilim alanlarında farklı açıklamaları yapılmış, akli olup olmadığı sorgulanmıştır. Vahiy, keramet, vecd, hulul, tecelli gibi kavramlara açıklamalar getirilmiştir. Fakat bu tür tecrübelerin insanın fizyolojik ve psikolojik mekanizmalarıyla ne tür bir bağlantısı olduğu İslam düşünce geleneğinde pek tartışılmamıştır. Bu tür tecrübe yaşayan kişilerin sorunlu olup olmadığı tıbbi açıdan değerlendirilmemiştir. Dini tecrübeleri tıbbî bir sorun olarak ele alıp bu tecrübeleri ‘deney’ konusu yaparak inceleyen ilk düşünür William James’tir (ö.1910). (...) O, The Varieties of Religious Experience adlı kitabında her türlü ‘dini’ olarak ifade edilen tecrübeleri ele alıp açıkladığı gibi, dini olmayan ama dini tecrübelere benzer mistik tecrübeleri de araştırıp, incelemiştir. Fakat James, araştırmasında dini ve mistik tecrübe ayırımı yapmamıştır. İkili bir ayırma tabi tutulmadan bütün tecrübelerin tek bir başlık altında incelenip ‘psikolojik durum’ olarak kabul edilmesi bu bildirinin ele aldığı ana sorundur. Bütün tecrübeler tek bir başlık altında ele alınırsa peygamberlerin tecrübeleri (vahiy) ile bunun dışında yer alan mistik tecrübelerin (vecd, keramet) bir farkı kalmayacaktır. Bu ikisini ayırmak için akli kriterleri ve tecrübelerinin ana iddialarını değerlendirip ele almak gerekir. Vahiy tecrübelerinin temel iddialarıyla mistik tecrübelerin iddialarını karşılaştırdığımızda vahiy tecrübelerinin akli kriterlere uygun olduğu ve tıbbi açıdan hastalıklı bir insanın tecrübesi olmadığı görülecektir. Mistik tecrübeler de ise durum bunun tersi görünmektedir. Mistik tecrübeler geçirenlerin çoğu zaman depresyon, manik ve çoğu zaman da uyuşturucu ile ortaya çıktığı, bunalımlı ve savaş dönemlerinde bu tür tecrübelerin arttığı görülür. Bu şekilde vahiy tecrübesinin doğruluğu ortaya konduğunda toplumu etkileyen dini inançların doğru kaynağına yönelmek mümkün olur. Mistik tecrübelerin ise hastalıklı zihnin ürünü olması nedeniyle insanları saptırıcı, dinden çıkarıcı ve akıl dışı olduğu ortaya çıkar. Bu şekilde dini inançların istikameti doğru bir şekilde çizilmiş olur. (shrink)

I argue that most counterfactuals are false.

Bayesianism is our leading theory of uncertainty. Epistemology is defined as the theory of knowledge. So “Bayesian Epistemology” may sound like an oxymoron. Bayesianism, after all, studies the properties and dynamics of degrees of belief, understood to be probabilities. Traditional epistemology, on the other hand, places the singularly non-probabilistic notion of knowledge at centre stage, and to the extent that it traffics in belief, that notion does not come in degrees. So how can there be a Bayesian epistemology?

There have long been calls from industry for guidance in implementing strategies for sustainable development. The Circular Economy represents the most recent attempt to conceptualize the integration of economic activity and environmental wellbeing in a sustainable way. This set of ideas has been adopted by China as the basis of their economic development, escalating the concept in minds of western policymakers and NGOs. This paper traces the conceptualisations and origins of the Circular Economy, tracing its meanings, and exploring its antecedents (...) in economics and ecology, and discusses how the Circular Economy has been operationalized in business and policy. The paper finds that while the Circular Economy places emphasis on the redesign of processes and cycling of materials, which may contribute to more sustainable business models, it also encapsulates tensions and limitations. These include an absence of the social dimension inherent in sustainable development that limits its ethical dimensions, and some unintended consequences. This leads us to propose a revised definition of the Circular Economy as “an economic model wherein planning, resourcing, procurement, production and reprocessing are designed and managed, as both process and output, to maximize ecosystem functioning and human well-being”. (shrink)

So-called “traditional epistemology” and “Bayesian epistemology” share a word, but it may often seem that the enterprises hardly share a subject matter. They differ in their central concepts. They differ in their main concerns. They differ in their main theoretical moves. And they often differ in their methodology. However, in the last decade or so, there have been a number of attempts to build bridges between the two epistemologies. Indeed, many would say that there is just one branch of philosophy (...) here—epistemology. There is a common subject matter after all. In this paper, we begin by playing the role of a “bad cop,” emphasizing many apparent points of disconnection, and even conflict, between the approaches to epistemology. We then switch role, playing a “good cop” who insists that the approaches are engaged in common projects after all. We look at various ways in which the gaps between them have been bridged, and we consider the prospects for bridging them further. We conclude that this is an exciting time for epistemology, as the two traditions can learn, and have started learning, from each other. (shrink)

Pascal’s Wager involves expected utilities. In this chapter, we examine the Wager in light of two main features of expected utility theory: utilities and probabilities. We discuss infinite and finite utilities, and zero, infinitesimal, extremely low, imprecise, and undefined probabilities. These have all come up in recent literature regarding Pascal’s Wager. We consider the problems each creates and suggest prospects for the Wager in light of these problems.

A comprehensive introduction to the ways in which meaning is conveyed in language. Alan Cruse covers semantic matters, but also deals with topics that are usually considered to fall under pragmatics. A major aim is to highlight the richness and subtlety of meaning phenomena, rather than to expound any particular theory.

Philosothons are events in which students practise Community of Philosophical Inquiry, usually with awards being made using three criteria: critical thinking, creative thinking and collaboration. This seems to generate a tension. On the one hand it recognises collaboration as a valued trait; on the other hand, the element of competition may seem antithetical to collaboration. There are various possible considerations relevant to this apparent problem. We can pose them as seven questions. One, do the awards really recognise the best performers? (...) Two, do the students and teachers see the awards as fair and reasonable? Three, do the awards recognise cooperation as a valuable contribution? Four, do Philosothons generate enthusiasm and goodwill? Five, might awards motivate students to try harder to do well? Six, if competition is normal in society, does it follow that it is justified as part of the Philosothon? Seven, do awards have a role in bringing the event to a climax? In this article, we will develop and evaluate the arguments suggested by these questions. Our conclusion is that the competitive element in the Philosothon is not antithetical to the collaborative ideal of philosophy. (shrink)

When agents insert technological systems into their decision-making processes, they can obscure moral responsibility for the results. This can give rise to a distinct moral wrong, which we call “agency laundering.” At root, agency laundering involves obfuscating one’s moral responsibility by enlisting a technology or process to take some action and letting it forestall others from demanding an account for bad outcomes that result. We argue that the concept of agency laundering helps in understanding important moral problems in a number (...) of recent cases involving automated, or algorithmic, decision-systems. We apply our conception of agency laundering to a series of examples, including Facebook’s automated advertising suggestions, Uber’s driver interfaces, algorithmic evaluation of K-12 teachers, and risk assessment in criminal sentencing. We distinguish agency laundering from several other critiques of information technology, including the so-called “responsibility gap,” “bias laundering,” and masking. (shrink)

I argue that metaphysical views of material objects should be understood as 'packages', rather than individual claims, where the other parts of the package include how the theory addresses 'recalcitant data', and that when the packages meet certain general desiderata - which all of the currently competing views *can* meet - there is nothing in the world that could make one of the theories true as opposed to any of the others.

Algorithmic systems and predictive analytics play an increasingly important role in various aspects of modern life. Scholarship on the moral ramifications of such systems is in its early stages, and much of it focuses on bias and harm. This paper argues that in understanding the moral salience of algorithmic systems it is essential to understand the relation between algorithms, autonomy, and agency. We draw on several recent cases in criminal sentencing and K–12 teacher evaluation to outline four key ways in (...) which issues of agency, autonomy, and respect for persons can conflict with algorithmic decision-making. Three of these involve failures to treat individual agents with the respect they deserve. The fourth involves distancing oneself from a morally suspect action by attributing one’s decision to take that action to an algorithm, thereby laundering one’s agency. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: So far in this book, we have examined algorithmic decision systems from three autonomy-based perspectives: in terms of what we owe autonomous agents (chapters 3 and 4), in terms of the conditions required for people to act autonomously (chapters 5 and 6), and in terms of the responsibilities of agents (chapter 7). -/- In this chapter we turn to the ways in which autonomy underwrites democratic governance. Political authority, which is to say the ability of a government to exercise (...) power, may be justifiable or not. Whether it is justified and how it can come to be justified is a question of political legitimacy. Political legitimacy is another way in which autonomy and responsibility are linked. This relationship is the basis of the current chapter, and it is important in understanding the moral salience of algorithmic systems. We will draw the connection as follows. We begin, in section 8.1, by describing two uses of technology: crime predicting technology used to drive policing practices and social media technology used to influence elections (including by Cambridge Analytica and by the Internet Research Agency). In section 8.2 we consider several views of legitimacy and argue for a hybrid version of normative legitimacy based on one recently offered by Fabienne Peter. In section 8.3 we will explain that the connection between political legitimacy and autonomy is that legitimacy is grounded in legitimating processes, which are in turn based on autonomy. Algorithmic systems—among them PredPol and the Cambridge Analytica-Facebook-Internet Research Agency amalgam—can hinder that legitimation process and conflict with democratic legitimacy, as we argue in section 8.4. We will conclude by returning to several cases that serve as through-lines to the book: Loomis, Wagner, and Houston Schools. -/- The link below is to an open-access copy of the chapter. (shrink)

This paper lays out the basic structure of any view involving coincident entities, in the light of the grounding problem. While the account is not novel, I highlight fundamental features, to which attention is not usually properly drawn. With this in place, I argue for a number of further claims: The basic differences between coincident objects are modal differences, and any other differences between them need to be explained in terms of these differences. More specifically, the basic difference is not (...) a difference in sort. A number of recent defenses of coincidence, which share the basic structure I outline, misidentify what, in their accounts, plays the basic role of addressing the grounding problem. More tentatively, I argue Coincident entities differ only in these modal properties, and properties they entail. In particular, they do not differ in properties like ‘being a tree,’ ‘being a statue,’ or aesthetic properties, and finally in light of how the account of coincidence offered addresses the grounding problem, the grounding problem provides no reason to prefer monism to pluralism. (shrink)

An analytic investigation of Antioch's "Sexual Offense Policy.".

This article discusses the views of Immanuel Kant on sexual perversion (what he calls "carnal crimes against nature"), as found in his Vorlesung (Lectures on Ethics) and the Metaphysics of Morals (both the Rechtslehre and Tugendlehre). Kant criticizes sexual perversion by appealing to Natural Law and to his Formula of Humanity. Neither argument for the immorality of sexual perversion succeeds.

This article responds to four critics of Democracy in Spite of the Demos and reiterates its central thesis. Christopher Holman and Théophile Pénigaud attempt to maintain the critical value of democracy by invoking different elements of the deliberative tradition, while Benjamin Schupmann answers my charges by appealing to a strong liberal constitutionalism. I argue that these attempts repeat the ambivalence described and criticized in the book: democracy is taken as an end in itself, but with asterisks that introduce conditions and (...) qualifications. As long as democracy is only desirable given certain caveats, the critical weight is placed on these caveats and not on the figure of democracy. Andrew Norris takes a different approach, interrogating the book’s use of ideology critique and the concept of “socially necessary delusion.” This intervention presents difficulties to the concluding suggestion of the book, but I maintain that that these difficulties can be productive and generative rather than limiting or prohibitive. (shrink)

This paper defends the traditional view that the laws of nature are contingent, or, if some of them are necessary, this is due to analytic principles for the individuation of the law-governed properties. Fundamentally, I argue that the supposed explanatory purposes served by taking the laws to be necessary --showing how laws support counterfactuals, how properties are individuated, or how we have knowledge of properties--are in fact undermined by the continued possibility of the imagined scenarios--this time, described neutrally--which seemed to (...) disprove the claim to necessity in the first place. I speculate that this will be true for any proposed necessary a posteriori truths, and is a basis for rejecting their supposed metaphysical significance. (shrink)

Many biologists and philosophers have worried that importing models of reasoning from the physical sciences obscures our understanding of reasoning in the life sciences. In this paper we discuss one example that partially validates this concern: part-whole reductive explanations. Biology and physics tend to incorporate different models of temporality in part-whole reductive explanations. This results from differential emphases on compositional and causal facets of reductive explanations, which have not been distinguished reliably in prior philosophical analyses. Keeping these two facets distinct (...) facilitates the identifi cation of two further aspects of reductive explanation: intrinsicality and fundamentality. Our account provides resources for discriminating between different types of reductive explanation and suggests a new approach to comprehending similarities and differences in the explanatory reasoning found in biology and physics. (shrink)

Joseph Priestley was a man of many and varied intellectual interests. This thesis surveys his philosophical thought, with a central focus on his philosophical theology. The subject can be divided into two parts, natural theology and moral theology. Priestley's natural theology is a perhaps unique attempt to combine and harmonize materialism, determinism and theism, under the auspices of Newtonian methodology. His materialism is based on three arguments: that interaction between matter and spirit is impossible; that a dynamic theory of matter (...) breaks down the active/passive dichotomy assumed by many dualists; and that Newton's "Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy" require the rejection of the "hypothesis" of the soul. His determinism arises from his theory of causation. He attempts to show that the only acceptable account of causation is one in which every cause is invariably followed by the same effect, and that libertarianism violates this central assumption of scientific thought. His theism rests on the Argument from Design. He defends the Argument by trying to show that none of the alternatives to Design advanced in Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion constitute a plausible scientific hypothesis. His critics accused his synthesis of materialism, determinism and theism of leading to atheism or pantheism. His defence against these charges is that his system is essentially theistic, and that its ontology is determined by the Argument from Design. Priestley's moral theology is also in part a response to Hume's Dialogues. He offers a number of replies to the "problem of evil". Evil and adversity heighten our appreciation of good; they are a consequence of the finitude of the creation; they follow from the desirability of having a world governed by general laws; and they make possible the achievement of moral character. Character-formation is his main defence, and his methodology requires him to show that adversity leads more often than not to positive results. This requirement is embodied in his progressivist philosophy of history. History, he holds, exhibits temporal purpose and Design, just as nature exhibits atemporal purpose and Design. Priestley's political thought can be seen as arising from his moral theology, mediated by the notions of "luxury", which he regards as morally harmless, and "idleness", which is the main source of moral evil. His combination of liberalism and radicalism is examined both for internal consistency and as a response to the events of his day, ending with the French Revolution. Priestley is interesting partly for his unorthodoxy, partly for the inter-connectedness of his diverse concerns, and partly because he debated with distinguished contemporaries. Throughout the thesis his views are juxtaposed with those of Hume, Reid, Price, Boscovich, Burke and a number of other thinkers. (shrink)

This essay is a case study of the self-destruction that occurs in the work of a social-constructionist historian of science who embraces a radical philosophy of science. It focuses on Thomas Laqueur's Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud in arguing that a history of science committed to the social construction of science and to the central theses of Kuhnian, Duhemian, and Quinean philosophy of science is incoherent through self-reference. Laqueur's text is examined in detail in order (...) to make the main point; a similar phenomenon in the work of the feminist historian of science Evelyn Fox Keller is then briefly discussed. (shrink)

This paper develops an understanding of climate denial as an expression of alienation in the sense described by Marx. We first argue for an expanded and differentiated conception of climate denial, theorizing four distinct types that go beyond the simple rejection of an anthropogenic warming trend: naturalist denialism, technological denialism, gradualist denialism, and politicized denialism. We then claim that these forms of climate denial illustrate and are illustrative of Marx’s concept of alienation from species-being (Gattungswesen). The article is intended as (...) a contribution to the growing literature on climate denial as a social and ideological problem rather than as an individual epistemic or moral issue. (shrink)

Robert Wilson’s The Eugenic Mind Project is a major achievement of engaged scholarship and socially relevant philosophy and history of science. It exemplifies the virtues of interdisciplinarity. As principal investigator of the Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada project, while employed in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Alberta, Wilson encountered a proverbial big ball of mud with questions and issues that involved local individuals living through a painful set of memories and implicated his institutional home in (...) outstanding moral obligations. It is engaged scholarship because it required building relationships with affected persons and taking responsibility for his institution’s legacy, as well as transforming Wilson’s own outlook along the way. It is socially relevant philosophy and history of science because it brings to light issues that remain salient today, especially how eugenic themes are ubiquitous in societal discourse and evinced in everyday decisions. It is interdisciplinary because to accomplish this type of analysis requires intellectual gymnastics that range over diverse domains of research: from standpoint theory and disability studies to oral history and governmental policy; from the evolutionary biology of prosociality and variation to conceptual questions about the categorization of human traits and types. (shrink)

This is a study of the treatment of library patron privacy in licenses for electronic journals in academic libraries. We begin by distinguishing four facets of privacy and intellectual freedom based on the LIS and philosophical literature. Next, we perform a content analysis of 42 license agreements for electronic journals, focusing on terms for enforcing authorized use and collection and sharing of user data. We compare our findings to model licenses, to recommendations proposed in a recent treatise on licenses, and (...) to our account of the four facets of intellectual freedom. We find important conflicts with each. (shrink)

Feminist science critics, in particular Sandra Harding, Carolyn Merchant, and Evelyn Fox Keller, claim that misogynous sexual metaphors played an important role in the rise of modern science. The writings of Francis Bacon have been singled out as an especially egregious instance of the use of misogynous metaphors in scientific philosophy. This paper offers a defense of Bacon.

In recent years, educational institutions have started using the tools of commercial data analytics in higher education. By gathering information about students as they navigate campus information systems, learning analytics “uses analytic techniques to help target instructional, curricular, and support resources” to examine student learning behaviors and change students’ learning environments. As a result, the information educators and educational institutions have at their disposal is no longer demarcated by course content and assessments, and old boundaries between information used for assessment (...) and information about how students live and work are blurring. Our goal in this paper is to provide a systematic discussion of the ways in which privacy and learning analytics conflict and to provide a framework for understanding those conflicts. -/- We argue that there are five crucial issues about student privacy that we must address in order to ensure that whatever the laudable goals and gains of learning analytics, they are commensurate with respecting students’ privacy and associated rights, including (but not limited to) autonomy interests. First, we argue that we must distinguish among different entities with respect to whom students have, or lack, privacy. Second, we argue that we need clear criteria for what information may justifiably be collected in the name of learning analytics. Third, we need to address whether purported consequences of learning analytics (e.g., better learning outcomes) are justified and what the distributions of those consequences are. Fourth, we argue that regardless of how robust the benefits of learning analytics turn out to be, students have important autonomy interests in how information about them is collected. Finally, we argue that it is an open question whether the goods that justify higher education are advanced by learning analytics, or whether collection of information actually runs counter to those goods. (shrink)

In this article we revisit the concept of a profession. Definitions of the concept are readily encountered in the literature on professions and we have collected a sample of such definitions. From this sample we distil frequently occurring elements and ask whether a synthesis of these elements adequately explains the concept. We find that bringing the most frequently occurring elements together does not adequately address the reason that society differentiates professions from other occupations or activities -- why there is a (...) concept of ‘profession’ at all. We suggest an alternative approach that attempts to make sense of the concept at a more general level. This more philosophical approach employs analytical tools from Julius Kovesi, Patricia Hanna and Bernard Harrison to address the question of what is the point of the concept. (shrink)

While the image of the slave as the antithesis of the freeman is central to republican freedom, it is striking to note that slaves themselves have not contributed to how this condition is understood. The result is a one-sided conception of both freedom and slavery, which leaves republicanism unable to provide an equal and robust protection for historically outcast people. I draw on the work of Frederick Douglass – long overlooked as a significant contributor to republican theory – to show (...) one way why this is so. Focusing the American Revolution, the subsequent republican government established new political institutions to maintain the collective interests of the whole population. The political revolution was held in place by processes of public reason that reflected the values and ideas of the people that had rebelled. The black population, however, had not been part of this revolution. After emancipation, black Americans were required to accept terms of citizenship that had already been defined, leaving them socially dominated, subject to the prejudices and biases within the prevailing ideas of public discourse. Douglass argued that republican freedom under law is always dependent on a more fundamental revolution, that he calls a ‘radical revolution in thought’, in which the entire system of social norms and practices are reworked together by members of all constituent social groups – women and men, black and white, rich and poor – so that it reflects a genuinely collaborative achievement. Only then can we begin the republican project of contestatory freedom as independence or non-domination that today’s republicans take for granted. (shrink)

The mature materialism of Joseph Priestley's Disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit of 1777 is based on three main arguments: that Newton's widely-accepted scientific methodology requires the rejection of the 'hypothesis' of the soul; that a dynamic theory of matter breaks down the active/passive dichotomy assumed by many dualists; and that interaction between matter and spirit is impossible. In Matter and Spirit it is the first two arguments which are given greatest prominence; but it is the third argument which first (...) brought Priestley to take materialism seriously. It was an argument which had persistently troubled him in his dualist years, but it was not until 1774 in the Examination that he 'first entertained a serious doubt of the truth of the vulgar hypothesis'. Underlying this fact is an episode of some complexity which this article examines. (shrink)

I give concise derivations of Price's equation and the criteria for kin and group selection, prove that kin and group selection are equivalent, and discuss the controversies about altruism.

In this article, I examine the ethical and political dimensions of Hannah Arendt’s fundamental categories of thinking, judgment, and action, with the aim of uncovering and defending the coherence of the otherwise enigmatic nature of their interplay. In so doing, I attempt to resolve many of the tensions and ambiguities that appear to permeate Arendt’s account of judgment, by offering an analysis of its aesthetic structure that will later allow me to offer a new interpretation of the precise relation that (...) holds between thinking and judgment, as well as of judgment’s relation with regard to both morality and politics in general, making extended use of a writing analogy that involves thought experimentation. In this light, the category of judgment will be shown to serve as the bridge that seamlessly connects Arendt’s private conception of thinking, which is personal, contemplative, and anti-teleological, with the intersubjective realm of political action in the public sphere. The nexus binding the three categories together will be shown to consist specifically of an ontogenetic chain of interdependence that begins with thinking and culminates in action, where each successor category in the sequence can be viewed as a higher-order version of its immediate predecessor category. From this, I then explain the way they are able to collectively create a positive feedback loop that turns on the axis of our progress as thinkers, as well as on the state of our moral development as individuals, and which, in the process, creates potential openings for genuine political progress. (shrink)

Questions of privacy have become particularly salient in recent years due, in part, to information-gathering initiatives precipitated by the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, increasing power of surveillance and computing technologies, and massive data collection about individuals for commercial purposes. While privacy is not new to the philosophical and legal literature, there is much to say about the nature and value of privacy. My focus here is on the nature of informational privacy. I argue that the predominant accounts of privacy (...) are unsatisfactory and offer an alternative: for a person to have informational privacy is for there to be limits on the particularized judgments that others are able to reasonably make about that person. (shrink)

Civil liberty and privacy advocates have criticized the USA PATRIOT Act (Act) on numerous grounds since it was passed in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks in 2001. Two of the primary targets of those criticisms are the Act’s sneak-and-peek search provision, which allows law enforcement agents to conduct searches without informing the search’s subjects, and the business records provision, which allows agents to secretly subpoena a variety of information – most notoriously, library borrowing records. Without attending to (...) all of the ways that critics claim the Act burdens privacy, I examine whether those two controversial parts of the Act, the section 213 sneak-and-peak search and the section 215 business records gag-rule provisions, burden privacy as critics charge. I begin by describing the two provisions. Next, I explain why those provisions don’t burden privacy on standard philosophical accounts. Moreover, I argue that they need not conflict with the justifications for people’s claims to privacy, nor do they undermine the value of privacy on the standard accounts. However, rather than simply concluding that the sections don’t burden privacy, I argue that those provisions are problematic on the grounds that they undermine the value of whatever rights to privacy people have. Specifically, I argue that it is important to distinguish rights themselves from the value that those rights have to the rights-holders, and that an essential element of privacy rights having value is that privacy right-holders be able to tell the extent to which they actually have privacy. This element, which is justified by the right-holders’ autonomy interests, is harmed by the two provisions. (shrink)

Reid said little in his published writings about his contemporary Joseph Priestley, but his unpublished work is largely devoted to the latter. Much of Priestley's philosophical thought- his materialism, his determinism, his Lockean scientific realism- was as antithetical to Reid's as was Hume's philosophy in a very different way. Neither Reid nor Priestley formulated a full response to the other. Priestley's response to Reid came very early in his career, and is marked by haste and immaturity. In his last decade (...) Reid worried much about Priestley's materialism, but that concern never reached publication. I document Reid's unpublished response to Priestley, and also view Reid's response from Priestley's perspective, as deduced from his published works. Both thinkers attempted to base their arguments on Newtonian method. Reid's position is the more puzzling of the two, since he nowhere makes clear how Newtonian method favours mind-body dualism over materialism, which is the central debate between them. (shrink)

Compares and contrasts Open Theism with Theological Determinism, Molinism, and Process Theism.

Surveillance plays a crucial role in public health, and for obvious reasons conflicts with individual privacy. This paper argues that the predominant approach to the conflict is problematic, and then offers an alternative. It outlines a Basic Interests Approach to public health measures, and the Unreasonable Exercise Argument, which sets forth conditions under which individuals may justifiably exercise individual privacy claims that conflict with public health goals. The view articulated is compatible with a broad range conceptions of the value of (...) health. (shrink)

Although they were never to meet and corresponded only briefly, Catharine Macaulay and Mary Wollstonecraft shared a mutual admiration and a strong intellectual bond. Macaulay’s work had a profound and lasting effect on Wollstonecraft, and she developed and expanded on many of Macaulay’s ideas. While she often took these in a different direction, there remains a great synergy between their ideas to the extent that we can understand Wollstonecraft’s own feminist arguments by approaching them through the frameworks and ideas that (...) Macaulay provided. These included the principles of classical republicanism, particularly in its understanding of the values of freedom, equality and virtue, and an understanding of reason as grounded in immutable principles that apply equally to both sexes. On the question of women’s freedom and social equality with men, I argue that though Macaulay sets up the problem in far richer and more detailed philosophical terms, in the end it is Wollstonecraft that has the more compelling account of its far-reaching social implications and of how this might be addressed. (shrink)

The paper is an introduction to geometric algebra and geometric calculus for those with a knowledge of undergraduate mathematics. No knowledge of physics is required. The section Further Study lists many papers available on the web.

Does Hume want to weaken our notion of causality? For some he does. My paper is an attempt to refute this interpretation of Hume. My analysis of the texts is an attempt to show that Hume actually endorses the view that the idea of necessary connection, that is associated with the idea of causality, is important and that this idea does exist. Furthermore, this idea is produced by an interesting impression. This impression is unusual as it is a specific internal (...) impression or determination of the mind. (shrink)