Background: Individuals with psychopathic traits demonstrate an attenuated emotional response to aversive stimuli. However, recent evidence suggests heterogeneity in emotional reactivity among individuals with psychopathic or callous-unemotional (CU) traits, the emotional detachment dimension of psychopathy. We hypothesize that primary variants of psychopathy will respond with blunted affect to negatively valenced stimuli, whereas individuals marked with histories of childhood trauma/maltreatment exposure, known as secondary variants, will display heightened emotional reactivity. To test this hypothesis, the present study examined fear-potentiated startle between psychopathy (...) variants while viewing aversive, pleasant, and neutral scenes. Method: 238 incarcerated adolescent (M age = 16.8, SD = 1.11 years) boys completed a picture-startle paradigm and self-report questionnaires assessing CU traits, antisocial-aggressive behavior, and maltreatment. Results: Latent profile analyses identified four classes; primary variants (high CU traits, high aggression, low maltreatment; n = 46), secondary variants (high CU traits, high aggression, high maltreatment; n = 42), and two nonpsychopathic groups differentiated on maltreatment experience (n = 148). Findings from an ANOVA comparing identified groups on startle amplitude difference scores (i.e., aversive-neutral) suggested a main effect for group, F(3,196)=8.91, p<.001, η2 = .12. Primary variants of juvenile psychopathy displayed reduced startle potentiation to aversive images (threat and victim scenes), whereas secondary variants distinguished by high levels of childhood maltreatment did not. Conclusions: Findings add to a rapidly growing body of literature supporting the possibility of multiple developmental pathways to psychopathy (i.e., equifinality), and extend it by finding support for divergent potential biomarkers between primary and secondary psychopathy variants. (shrink)

Wall, G. Locke's attack on innate knowledge.--Harris, J. Leibniz and Locke on innate ideas.--Greenlee, D. Locke's idea of idea.--Aspelin, G. Idea and perception in Locke's essay.--Greenlee, D. Idea and object in the essay.--Mathews, H. E. Locke, Malebranche and the representative theory.--Alexander, P. Boyle and Locke on primary and secondary qualities.--Ayers, M. R. The ideas of power and substance in Locke's philosophy.--Allison, H. E. Locke's theory of personal identity.--Kretzmann, N. The main thesis of Locke's semantic theory.--Woozley, A. D. Some remarks (...) on Locke's account of knowledge.--Laudan, L. The nature and sources of Locke's views on hypotheses. (shrink)

Recently, bioethicists and the UNCRPD have advocated for supported medical decision-making on behalf of patients with intellectual disabilities. But what does supported decision-making really entail? One compelling framework is Anita Silvers and Leslie Francis’ mental prosthesis account, which envisions supported decision-making as a process in which trustees act as mere appendages for the patient’s will; the trustee provides the cognitive tools the patient requires to realize her conception of her own good. We argue that supported decision-making would be better understood (...) as a collaborative process, giving patients with intellectual disabilities the opportunity to make decisions in a respectful relationship with trusted others. We offer an alternative account of supported decision-making where the primary constraint is to protect the patient from domination by the trustee. This is advantageous in its preservation of the prospects for genuine collaboration, for the mental prosthesis approach ultimately reinforces a problematic ideal of isolated patient self-determination. (shrink)

According to Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophers, everything depends for its existence on something else. But what would a world devoid of fundamentalia look like? In this paper, I argue that the anti-foundationalist “neither-one-nor-many argument” of the Indian Mādhyamika Śrīgupta commits him to a position I call “metaphysical indefinitism.” I demonstrate how this view follows from Śrīgupta’s rejection of mereological simples and ontologically independent being, when understood in light of his account of conventional reality. Contra recent claims in the secondary literature, I (...) clarify how the Madhyamaka metaphysical dependence structure is not a straightforward infinitism since it does not honor strict asymmetry or transitivity. Instead, its dependence relations are irreflexive and extendable, admitting of dependence chains of indefinite (though not actually infinite) length and dependence loops of non-zero length. Yet, the flexible ontology of Śrīgupta's Madhyamaka can accommodate a contextualist account of asymmetry and support a revisable theory of conventional truth, delivering significant payoffs for the view, including the capacity to accommodate developments in scientific explanation. (shrink)

There’s a common line of reasoning which supposes that the phenomenal unity of conscious experience is grounded in a mind-like simple subject. To the contrary, Mādhyamika Buddhist philosophers like Śrīgupta (seventh–eighth century) argue that any kind of mental simple is incoherent and thus metaphysically impossible. Lacking any unifying principle, the phenomenal unity of conscious experience is instead an unfounded illusion. In this paper, I present an analysis of Śrīgupta’s "neither-one-nor-many argument" against mental simples and show how his line of reasoning (...) is driven by a set of implicit questions concerning the nature of and relation between consciousness and its intentional object. These questions not only set the agenda for centuries of intra-Buddhist debate on the topic, but they are also questions to which any defender of unified consciousness or a simple subject of experience arguably owes responses. (shrink)

This chapter presents an overview of the life, work, and philosophical contributions of Śāntarakṣita (c. 725–788), who is known for his synthesis of Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka with elements of the Dignāga-Dharmakīrti tradition of logic and epistemology. His two most important independent treatises, the Compendium of True Principles (Tattvasaṃgraha) and the Ornament of the Middle Way (Madhyamakālaṃkāra), are characterized by an emphasis on the indispensable role of rational analysis on the Buddhist path as well as serious and systematic engagement with competing Buddhist (...) and non-Buddhist schools of thought. Śāntarakṣita employs a pedagogical-rhetorical device of provisionally adopting what he deems to be successively more rational views to reject less rational ones. Using this approach, in the Ornament of the Middle Way, he recommends a gradual path to arrive at an understanding of the Madhyamaka ultimate truth by incorporating Yogācāra idealist ontology into his presentation of conventional truth. In this same text, he presents an influential iteration of the neither-one-nor-many argument for the Madhyamaka ultimate truth, the emptiness of intrinsic nature—i.e., the universal negation of ontologically independent being—leaving a lasting and significant impact on both Indian and Tibetan Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophy. (shrink)

Making decisions with an, often significant, element of risk seems to be an integral part of many of the projects of the diverse profession of engineering. Whether it be decisions about the design of products, manufacturing processes, public works, or developing technological solutions to environmental, social and global problems, risk taking seems inherent to the profession. Despite this, little attention has been paid to the topic and specifically to how our understanding of engineering as a distinctive profession might affect how (...) we should make decisions under risk. This paper seeks to remedy this, firstly by offering a nuanced account of risk and then by considering how specific claims about our understanding of engineering as a social profession, with corresponding social values and obligations, should inform how we make decisions about risk in this context. (shrink)

Canonical defenders of the principle of sufficient reason (PSR), such as Leibniz and Spinoza, are metaphysical foundationalists of one stripe or another. This is curious since the PSR—which says that everything has a ground, cause, or explanation—in effect, denies fundamental entities. In this paper, I explore the apparent inconsistency between metaphysical foundationalism and approaches to metaphysical system building that are driven by a commitment to the PSR. I do so by analyzing how Indian Buddhist philosophers arrive at foundationalist and anti-foundationalist (...) positions motivated by implicit commitments to different versions of the PSR. I begin by introducing the Buddhist principle of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) as a proto-PSR that is restricted to causal explanation. Next, I show how Vasubandhu’s Sautrāntika Abhidharma metaphysics is shaped by a qualified commitment to both causal and metaphysical grounding versions of the PSR. I then reveal how Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka metaphysics is driven by an unrestricted and exceptionless commitment to causal and metaphysical grounding versions of the PSR. Finally, I consider how Nāgārjuna’s account may put him in a unique position to respond to a common contemporary objection to the PSR from necessitarianism. I conclude by addressing a competing interpretation on which Nāgārjuna is best understood as an anti-rationalist rather than an uber-rationalist, as I characterize him. (shrink)

The contents of our conscious mind can seem unpredictable, whimsical, and free from external control. When instructed to attend to a stimulus in a work setting, for example, one might find oneself thinking about household chores. Conscious content thus appears different in nature from reflex action. Under the appropriate conditions, reflexes occur predictably, reliably, and via external control. Despite these intuitions, theorists have proposed that, under certain conditions, conscious content resembles reflexes and arises reliably via external control. We introduce the (...) Reflexive Imagery Task, a paradigm in which, as a function of external control, conscious content is triggered reliably and unintentionally: When instructed to not subvocalize the name of a stimulus object, participants reliably failed to suppress the set-related imagery. This stimulus-elicited content is considered ‘high-level’ content and, in terms of stages of processing, occurs late in the processing stream. We discuss the implications of this paradigm for consciousness research. (shrink)

Some philosophers argue that we should be suspicious about shame. For example, Nussbaum endorses the view that shame is a largely irrational or unreasonable emotion rooted in infantile narcissism. This claim has also been used to support the view that we should largely abandon shaming as a social activity. If we are worried about the emotion of shame, so the thought goes, we should also worry about acts which encourage shame. I argue that this line of reasoning does not license (...) the leap from the critique of shame to the critique of shaming. This is because shaming does not always aim to inflict shame on its targets. Many acts of shaming (which I label ‘performative shaming’) should simply be understood as aiming to serve their characteristic function of shoring up social norms and standards. (shrink)

The U.S. Supreme Court's majority opinion in Vacco v. Quill assumes that the principle of double effect explains the permissibility of hastening death in the context of ordinary palliative care and in extraordinary cases in which painkilling drugs have failed to relieve especially intractable suffering and terminal sedation has been adopted as a last resort. The traditional doctrine of double effect, understood as providing a prohibition on instrumental harming as opposed to incidental harming or harming asa side effect, must be (...) distinguished from other ways in which the claim that a result is notintended might be offered as part of ajustification for it. Although double effectmight appropriately be invoked as a constrainton ordinary palliative care, it is not clearthat it can be coherently extended to justifysuch practices as terminal sedation. A betterapproach would reconsider double effect'straditional prohibition on hastening death as ameans to relieve suffering in the context ofacute palliative care. (shrink)

How should we interpret the popular objection that stigmatised subjects are not treated as individuals? The Eidelson View claims that stigma, because of its connection to stereotypes, violates an instance of the general requirement to respect autonomy. The Self-Presentation View claims that stigma inhibits the functioning of certain morally important capacities, notably the capacity for self-presentation. I argue that even if we are right to think that stigma violates a requirement to respect autonomy, this is insufficient to account for the (...) full weight of the charge that stigmatised subjects are not treated as individuals. We need the Self-Presentation View to explain a special threat to agency. I then address the worry that focusing on a concern with being treated as individuals opens the door to the suggestion that treating as superior can be just as morally troubling as stigma. This objection is fatal for the Eidelson View. But the Self-Presentation View has a number of resources for deflating the worry. We should not exclude the possibility of a moral symmetry between some cases of stigma and some cases of treating as superior. Rather, we should provide a nuanced account of the circumstances in which either phenomenon is detrimental for self-presentation. (shrink)

Jan Westerhoff defends an account of thoroughgoing non-foundationalism that he calls “irrealism,” which is implicitly modeled on a Madhyamaka Buddhist view. In this paper, I begin by raising worries about the irrealist’s account of human cognition as taking place in a brain-based representational interface. Next, I pose first-order and higher-order challenges to how the irrealist—who defends a kind of global error theory—can sensibly accommodate an unlocalized appearance-reality distinction, both metaphysically and epistemologically. Finally, although Westerhoff insists that irrealism itself is not (...) an ontological theory and that the irrealist’s rejection of absolutely general quantification precludes his commitment to any ultimately true theories, I propose strategies inspired by the Svātantrika commentarial tradition of Madhyamaka for how the irrealist might develop a lightweight account of unrestricted quantification that could be used to advance a lightweight ultimately true theory. This, I suggest, may allow the irrealist to (i) preserve a commitment to an unlocalized appearance-reality distinction, (ii) underwrite a distinction between ordinary veridical states and metaphysically accurate epistemic states, and (iii) provide an explanation for the massive error that he claims characterizes ordinary cognition. (shrink)

Dharmakīrti’s (c. seventh century) Examination of Relations (Sambandhaparīkṣā) is unique in the Indian Buddhist canon for its being the only extant root text devoted entirely to the topic of the ontological status of relations. But the core thesis of this treatise—that relations are only nominally real—is in prima facie tension with another claim that is central to Dharmakīrti’s epistemology: that there exists some kind of “natural relation” (svabhāvapratibandha) that reliably underwrites inferences. Understanding how Dharmakīrti can consistently rely on natural relations (...) to prop up his presentation of inferential reasoning while at the same time advancing an anti-realist account of relations is critical for making sense of his system of logic and epistemology, which came to be nearly universally adopted in Tibetan Buddhism cutting across traditions. Chomden Rikpé Reldri (1227–1305), who was perhaps the most prolific commentator on logic and epistemology in the history of Tibetan philosophy, composed two texts commenting on the Examination of Relations, neither of which have received any scholarly attention to date. In this paper, I provide an introduction to Chomden Reldri’s two commentaries and consider how they may illuminate Dharmakīrti’s text and also what they reveal about the understanding of Dharmakīrti’s account of relations in early Tibetan scholasticism. I then present a translation of Dharmakīrti’s Examination of Relations together with Chomden Reldri’s commentary, Annotations and Topical Outline of the Examination of Relations (’Brel pa brtag pa’i mchan dang sa bcad gnyis). (shrink)

Although ethics is an essential component of undergraduate medical education, research suggests current medical ethics curricula face considerable challenges in improving students’ ethical reasoning. This paper discusses these challenges and introduces a promising new mode of graduate and professional ethics instruction for overcoming them. We begin by describing common ethics curricula, focusing in particular on established problems with current approaches. Next, we describe a novel method of ethics education and assessment for medical students that we have devised, the Medical Ethics (...) Bowl. Finally, we suggest pedagogical advantages to MEBs when compared to other ethics curricula. (shrink)

Most medical research and a substantial amount of non-medical research, especially that involving human participants, is governed by some kind of research ethics committee (REC) following the recommendations of the Declaration of Helsinki for the protection of human participants. The role of RECs is usually seen as twofold: firstly, to make some kind of calculation of the risks and benefits of the proposed research, and secondly, to ensure that participants give informed consent. The extent to which the role of the (...) REC includes the former is not uncontroversial. Indeed, the most prevalent debate on the role of RECs sees liberals and strong paternalists arguing over the importance of informed consent given by competent agents versus the significance of making benevolent decisions on behalf of others. On the one hand, liberals argue for the rights of competent adults to decide for themselves the kinds and extents of risks to which they wish to expose themselves. On the other hand, proponents of strong paternalism raise concerns about the likelihood of participants being able to truly understand the complex data involved in research. They support a role for RECs in which they exercise duties of benevolence towards patients and participants by limiting the extent to which they can be exposed to significant, permanent and irreversible harms. In this paper, we will argue that when it comes to decisions about risk it is neither possible nor desirable for RECs to adopt either role. (shrink)

Schopenhauer’s pessimistic philosophy is a depressing read. He writes many pages about how suffering is the norm, and any happiness we feel is merely a temporary alleviation of suffering. Even so, his account of suffering rings true to many readers. What are we to do with our lives if Schopenhauer is right, and we are doomed to suffer? In this paper, I use William James’ pragmatic method to find practical implications of Schopenhauer’s pessimism. I provide a model for how we (...) are to live our lives in a suffering world, a model that provides means to reduce suffering. (shrink)

This is a transcript of a conversation between P F Strawson and Gareth Evans in 1973, filmed for The Open University. Under the title 'Truth', Strawson and Evans discuss the question as to whether the distinction between genuinely fact-stating uses of language and other uses can be grounded on a theory of truth, especially a 'thin' notion of truth in the tradition of F P Ramsey.

Longchen Rabjampa (1308–64), scholar of the Tibetan Buddhist Nyingma tradition, presents a novel doxographical taxonomy of the so-called Svātantrika branch of Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophy, designating the Indian Mādhyamika Śrīgupta (c. 7th/8th century) as the exemplar of a Svātantrika sub-school which maintains that appearance and emptiness are metaphysically distinct. This paper compares Longchenpa’s characterization of this “distinct-appearance-and-emptiness” view with Śrīgupta’s own account of the two truths. I expose a significant disconnect between Longchenpa’s Śrīgupta and Śrīgupta himself and argue that the impetus (...) for Longchenpa’s doxographical innovation originates not in Buddhist India, but within his own Tibetan intellectual milieu, tracing back to his twelfth-century Sangpu Monastery predecessors, Gyamarwa and Chapa. (shrink)

"I would like to address the nature of transgression and its logic or itinerary in Sade's work. If this task is somewhat speculative and incomplete, it perhaps mirrors the foundational incompleteness of the more than sixteen extant volumes of Sade's writings. For a more exhaustive, if not definitive, resolution of the very issue of transgression, the analysis would have to continue the debate between Derrida and Foucault over the validity of Bataille's celebrated account of transgression, which in turn draws upon (...) the earlier work of Roger Caillois." (opening paragraph of the article). (shrink)

Many of us share a strong intuition that fictional literature possesses cognitive value in the sense that it has the capacity to expand and/or clarify our knowledge or understanding of the world. If we agree that we learn something when we read and discuss certain texts, we may nevertheless find the form this learning takes to be anything but obvious.

"This self-consistent evolution of the fragments, their causal relationships, and their quantum properties is at the heart of the FCQG-SM framework, providing a unified description of quantum mechanics, general relativity, and the Standard Model.".

Μολονότι ο Προυντόν δεν κατέχει πλέον τη θέση αυτή, τον 19ο αιώνα θεωρούνταν, και πιθανόν να ήταν, ο επιδραστικότερος θεωρητικός της δημοκρατικής και σοσιαλιστικής παράταξης. Η επανεμφάνιση στον σύγχρονο θεωρητικό αλλά και τον δημόσιο λόγο μιας σειράς εννοιών και ιδεών, όπως φεντεραλισμός, αμοιβαιότητα, αποκέντρωση, πλουραλισμός, εξισορρόπηση και ριζοσπαστική μεταρρύθμιση, κάνουν απαραίτητη την εκ νέου εξέταση και αξιολόγηση του έργου αυτού του σπουδαίου, αλλά και αντιφατικού, στοχαστή. Τα κείμενα του τόμου συνθέτουν ένα μωσαϊκό το οποίο προσφέρει στον αναγνώστη μια εισαγωγή στο (...) έργο του Προυντόν, μέσα από μια ποικιλία προοπτικών. Ο τόμος συμπληρώνεται από την πρώτη μετάφραση στα ελληνικά κειμένων του Προυντόν για τη διαλεκτική, την κατάργηση της πολιτικής και θρησκευτικής αυθεντίας και την οργάνωση της κοινωνίας στη βάση της αμοιβαιότητας. Ο αναγνώστης θα βρει επίσης ένα αναλυτικό χρονολόγιο για τη ζωή και το έργο του Προυντόν, καθώς και έναν εκτενή οδηγό πλοήγησης στη βιβλιογραφία. (Από την παρουσίαση στο οπισθόφυλλο του βιβλίου) Περιεχόμενα Πρόλογος των επιμελητών ΠΟΛΙΤΙΚΗ ΚΑΙ ΟΙΚΟΝΟΜΙΑ Κώστας Γαλανόπουλος Η φιλοσοφική βάση του μεταρρυθμιστικού αναρχισμού του Προυντόν Βάνα Καραφουλίδου Κοινότητα και ομοσπονδία. Το χαμένο στοίχημα του Προυντόν Γιώργος Δρίτσας Καταμερισμός της εργασίας, μηχανή και ελευθερία στον Προυντόν Αλέξανδρος Σχισμένος Αναρχισμός και αμοιβαιότητα, οικονομισμός και σεξισμός. Αντιφάσεις μεταξύ του επαναστατικού και του συντηρητικού στοιχείου στο έργο του Προυντόν ΚΡΙΤΙΚΗ ΤΗΣ ΙΔΙΟΚΤΗΣΙΑΣ Διονύσης Ε. Δράκος Η σύλληψη της ιδιοκτησίας στο έργο του Προυντόν Λευτέρης Χουντουλίδης Τι είναι ιδιοκτησία; Από την αγωνία των ορισμών στην εργασία των εννοιών του Πιερ-Ζοζέφ Προυντόν Η ΜΕΘΟΔΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΠΡΟΥΝΤΟΝ Νίκος Μαρούπας Αναρχισμός όπως πραγματισμός. Η συμβολή του Προυντόν στη φιλοσοφία της εμπειρίας Γιώργος Φαράκλας Για τη σειραϊκή διαλεκτική Γιώργος Σαγκριώτης Το δικαίωμα του Προυντόν Ο ΠΡΟΥΝΤΟΝ ΣΤΗΝ ΕΠΟΧΗ ΤΟΥ Δημήτρης Φούφουλας Πολεμικές των ονειροπόλων κατά τον μακρό 19ο αιώνα: Ο Προυντόν, ο Λερού και η επαναστατική συγκυρία του 1848 Γιάννης Μήτρου Για την αισθητική του καλλιτεχνικού μέσου. Το αισθητικό και οι κοινωνικές του μετατοπίσεις στον Προυντόν Γιώργος Μιχαηλίδης Η αισθητική επανάσταση. Προυντόν και Βάγκνερ Ο ΠΡΟΥΝΤΟΝ ΣΤΗΝ ΕΠΟΧΗ ΜΑΣ Γιάννης Φλυτζάνης Η πρόσληψη της θεωρίας του Προυντόν από τον Ανρί Λεφέβρ. Η προοπτική μιας ριζοσπαστικής δημοκρατίας και η διαμάχη με τους καταστασιακούς Γιάννης Κτενάς Κοινό, δίκαιο, φεντεραλισμός. Ο Προυντόν των Λαβάλ και Νταρντό Ο ΠΡΟΥΝΤΟΝ ΣΤΗΝ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΑ ΤΩΝ ΙΔΕΩΝ Έντουαρντ Κάσλετον / Edward Castleton Πριν ο Θεός γίνει κακός. Ο Πιερ-Ζοζέφ Προυντόν και η πρόσληψη της γερμανικής φιλοσοφίας στη Γαλλία στα μέσα του 19ου αιώνα ΚΕΙΜΕΝΑ ΤΟΥ ΠΡΟΥΝΤΟΝ Γεγονότα κοινά σε όλες τις επιστήμες Η κοινωνία χωρίς την αυθεντία Απαλοιφή των κυβερνητικών λειτουργιών. Θρησκεύματα Για το συνεταιρισμό, εντός της αμοιβαιότητας Βιβλιογραφία Χρονολόγιο Βιογραφικά συγγραφέων -/- Επιμέλεια: Κώστας Γαλανόπουλος, Γιάννης Κτενάς, Γιώργος Φαράκλας. (shrink)

That every expression of language that is {true on the basis of its meaning expressed using language} must have a connection by truth preserving operations to its {meaning expressed using language} is a tautology. The accurate model of the actual world is expressed using formal language and formalized natural language.

Conversational Artificial Intelligence (CAI) systems (also known as AI “chatbots”) are among the most promising examples of the use of technology in mental health care. With already millions of users worldwide, CAI is likely to change the landscape of psychological help. Most researchers agree that existing CAIs are not “digital therapists” and using them is not a substitute for psychotherapy delivered by a human. But if they are not therapists, what are they, and what role can they play in mental (...) health care? To answer these questions, we appeal to two well-established and widely discussed concepts: cognitive and affective artifacts. Cognitive artifacts are artificial devices contributing functionally to the performance of a cognitive task. Affective artifacts are objects which have the capacity to alter subjects’ affective state. We argue that therapeutic CAIs are a kind of cognitive-affective artifacts which contribute to positive therapeutic change by (i) simulating a (quasi-)therapeutic interaction, (ii) supporting the performance of cognitive tasks, and (iii) altering the affective condition of their users. This sheds new light on why virtually all existing mental health CAIs implement principles and techniques of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy — a therapeutic orientation according to which affective change and, ultimately, positive therapeutic change is mediated by cognitive change. Simultaneously, it allows us to conceptualize better the potential and limitations of applying these technologies in therapy. (shrink)

Morphological and morphometric study of umbilical cord of 50 newborn babies were carried out during January to December 1998 at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Dhaka to expand the knowledge of gross anatomy of the umbilical cord of Bangladesh. The length of the cords irrespective of sex was ranged from 28 to 93 cm with a mean (±SD) of 55.6 (±10.78).The length of the umbilical cord of male was significantly longer than female (P<0.001). The diameter of the cord irrespective of (...) sex varied from 1 to 1.9 cm with a mean (±SD) of 1.45 +0.31 cm. The mean circumference length percentage ratio index of umbilical cord was 8.31. Thirty-three (66%) cords were inserted eccentrically, all being paracentral in position. The rest were inserted centrally. False knots were more frequent (47; 94%). Only one (2%) showed a true knot in addition of false knot. In 2(4%) cases cord had not any true or false knot. It is concluded that the gross morphological and morphometrical features of the umbilical cord in Bangladesh appear to be similar to those described in western literature. -/- . (shrink)

One of the predominant debates in AI Ethics is the worry and necessity to create fair, transparent and accountable algorithms that do not perpetuate current social inequities. I offer a critical analysis of Reuben Binns’s argument in which he suggests using public reason to address the potential bias of the outcomes of machine learning algorithms. In contrast to him, I argue that ultimately what is needed is not public reason per se, but an audit of the implicit moral assumptions of (...) societies within which algorithms are built and applied. Public justification is appealing since it offers us the possibility to align the decision-making outcomes of the algorithm with the core moral values of stakeholders within a constitutional democratic society. My concern is that the common moral principles that form the foundation of public reason are not necessarily neutral, as they still express specific moral ideals and normative standards even if there is moral agreement by society as a whole, or among different stakeholders within society. Appealing to such normative standards may thus still lead to algorithmic outcomes being biased as common moral values may very well still be discriminatory even though they are formed from a consensus, and even if public reason is applied as a kind of filter for potential algorithmic outcomes. Hence, I argue that these implicit moral norms within society that we take as a given in public reasoning, need to be audited from generation to generation in order to effectively mitigate potential algorithmic bias. (shrink)

In this paper, I reply to 18 of the essays on panpsychism in this issue. Along the way, I sketch out what a post-Galilean science of consciousness, one in which consciousness is taken to be a fundamental feature of reality, might look like.

In 1956, a few writings of Wittgenstein that he didn't publish in his lifetime were revealed to the public. These writings were gathered in the book Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (1956). There, we can see that Wittgenstein had some discontentment with the way philosophers, logicians, and mathematicians were thinking about paradoxes, and he even registered a few polemic reasons to not accept Gödel’s incompleteness theorems.

Pekakak adalah salah satu tokoh yang memiliki pengetahuan mendalam dan perencanaan yang cermat. Saat fajar menyingsing, ia terlihat bertengger di atas pohon. Dengan kemampuan sempurna untuk mengontrol kecepatan penerbangan miliknya, seperti kapan harus memperlambat atau mempercepat, dia dapat dengan mudah menghitung cara optimal untuk menangkap ikan.

Some philosophers understand natural kinds to be the categories which are constraints on enquiry. In order to elaborate the metaphysics appropriate to such an account, I consider the complicated history of scurvy, citrus, and vitamin C. It may be tempting to understand these categories in a shallow way (as mere property clusters) or in a deep way (as fundamental properties). Neither approach is adequate, and the case instead calls for middle-range ontology: starting from categories which we identify in the world (...) and elaborating their structure, but not pretending to jump ahead to a complete story about fundamental being. (shrink)

Modern-day societies seem to be dominated by a hedonistic approach to happiness. A less short-term and more process-based definition of happiness - eudaimonism - has been proposed by Aristotle. Can this definition of happiness exist in consumer societies as proposed by Zygmunt Bauman and how can we begin to explore such a question? This essay will provide a comparison between two ideal types: eudaimonism and consumer society. With this comparison, we hope to provide a conceptual framework for further research within (...) this subject. (shrink)

Presentist Fragmentalism is a novel interpretation of quantum mechanics. This paper develops the resulting theory of Quantum Gravity.

This paper continues and extensive exploration of the QG and TOE resulting from the PF interpretation of QM. Some highlights are an exploration of symmetries of the Standard Model, outlines of testable predictions of implications for QG, that this theory can simultaneously give an account of dark matter and dark energy, probabilities and statevector collapse vs. gravity, applications of the causal interaction tensor Cαβγδ(Fi, Fj). Note the first section mentions qualia but this is not a psychological theory this is an (...) ontic theory. (shrink)

This paper appears to give a Theory of Everything.

The Argument from Inductive Risk (AIR) is taken to show that values are inevitably involved in making judgements or forming beliefs. After reviewing this conclusion, I pose cases which are prima facie counterexamples: the unreflective application of conventions, use of black-boxed instruments, reliance on opaque algorithms, and unskilled observation reports. These cases are counterexamples to the AIR posed in ethical terms as a matter of personal values. Nevertheless, it need not be understood in those terms. The values which load a (...) theory choice may be those of institutions or past actors. This means that the challenge of responsibly handling inductive risk is not merely an ethical issue, but is also social, political, and historical. (shrink)

"Over three years of study and fellowship, sixteen Muslim, Jewish, and Christian scholars sought to answer one question: “Do our three scriptures unite or divide us?” They offer their answers in this book: sixteen essays on how certain ways of reading scripture may draw us apart and other ways may draw us, together, into the source that each tradition calls peace. Reading scriptural sources in the classical and medieval traditions, the authors examine how each tradition addresses the “other” within its (...) tradition and without, how all three traditions attend to poverty as a societal and spiritual condition, and what it means to read scripture while facing the challenges of modernity. Ochs and Johnson have assembled a unique approach to inter-religious scholarship and a rare look at scriptural study as a pathway to peace. “Scriptural reasoning, the growing practice of Jews, Christians, and Muslims reading their scriptures together, makes good academic and common sense in a time of crisis. This ground-breaking book, the outcome of an imaginative 3-year experiment by the Princeton Center of Theological Inquiry, shows scholars and thinkers of the Abrahamic traditions going deeper into the traditions and into their contemporary situation. The result is something new, wise, and relevant… full of promise for the future. Where else can one find testimonies to Jews, Christians, and Muslims coming together not only in study, thinking, and wisdom-seeking but also in play, joy, and friendship?”--David F. Ford, Regius Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge and Director, Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme". (shrink)

Some scientific categories seem to correspond to genuine features of the world and are indispensable for successful science in some domain; in short, they are natural kinds. This book gives a general account of what it is to be a natural kind and puts the account to work illuminating numerous specific examples.

forall x: Calgary is a full-featured textbook on formal logic. It covers key notions of logic such as consequence and validity of arguments, the syntax of truth-functional propositional logic TFL and truth-table semantics, the syntax of first-order (predicate) logic FOL with identity (first-order interpretations), symbolizing English in TFL and FOL, and Fitch-style natural deduction proof systems for both TFL and FOL. It also deals with some advanced topics such as modal logic, soundness, and functional completeness. Exercises with solutions are available. (...) It is provided in PDF (for screen reading, printing, and a special version for dyslexics), HTML, and in LaTeX source code. (shrink)

There are extensive discussions of the 5D AdS metric that arises naturally from a metric that accounts for the A-series, the B-series, and x^a; black holes, including their information, entropy, temperature, energy, and energy density; the Big Bang; the finitude of singularities here; inflation; AdS/CFT and dS; symmetry groups of this theory of gravity not including and including those of the standard model, with evaluations of how integrated and how plausible they are; how the theory of quantum gravity here gives (...) general relativity in one limit and quantum mechanics in another limit; and much more. -/- Of particular interest is the physics based argument for the continuation of awareness after death, which starts on about page 196 and spans several pages. (shrink)

Do the ethical features of an artwork bear on its aesthetic value? This movie endorses misogyny, that song is a civil rights anthem, the clay constituting this statue was extracted with underpaid labor—are facts like these the proper bases for aesthetic evaluation? I argue that this debate has suffered from a false presupposition: that if the answer is yes (for at least some such ethical features), such considerations feature as pro tanto contributions to an artwork's overall aesthetic value, i.e., as (...) merits or flaws which make something have more or less overall aesthetic value. As the case of ethically laden, aesthetic evaluation makes clear, however, good aesthetic judgement is irreducibly multi-dimensional, e.g., "the movie has an engaging soundtrack, tasteful camera work, and takes a misogynistically prurient perspective on its female lead.'' Such a "non-summative" judgement refuses to reduce those various dimensions of aesthetic value to a single aggregate aesthetic evaluation, like "it's a 6/10" or "it's a pretty good movie!" I defend both the modest claim that such non-summative evaluations are not mistaken and the extremist claim that summative (i.e., unidimensional) aesthetic evaluation is defective by considering other domains of normative assessment in which summing seems inappropriate, notably including evaluations of people's character. (shrink)

The no-miracles argument and the pessimistic induction are arguably the main considerations for and against scientific realism. Recently these arguments have been accused of embodying a familiar, seductive fallacy. In each case, we are tricked by a base rate fallacy, one much-discussed in the psychological literature. In this paper we consider this accusation and use it as an explanation for why the two most prominent `wholesale' arguments in the literature seem irresolvable. Framed probabilistically, we can see very clearly why realists (...) and anti-realists have been talking past one another. We then formulate a dilemma for advocates of either argument, answer potential objections to our criticism, discuss what remains (if anything) of these two major arguments, and then speculate about a future philosophy of science freed from these two arguments. In so doing, we connect the point about base rates to the wholesale/retail distinction; we believe it hints at an answer of how to distinguish profitable from unprofitable realism debates. In short, we offer a probabilistic analysis of the feeling of ennui afflicting contemporary philosophy of science. (shrink)

According to the cognitive model of psychopathology, maladaptive beliefs about oneself, others, and the world are the main factors contributing to the development and persistence of various forms of mental suffering. Therefore, the key therapeutic process of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)—a therapeutic approach rooted in the cognitive model—is cognitive restructuring, i.e., a process of revision of such maladaptive beliefs. In this paper, I examine the philosophical assumptions underlying CBT and offer theoretical reasons to think that the effectiveness of belief revision (...) in psychotherapy is very limited. This is the case, I argue, because the cognitive model wrongly assumes that our body of beliefs is unified, while it is in fact fragmented. (shrink)

We are political creatures, and we all need others who care about the development of our character and who offer guidance and advice; “if this were not so, we there would be no need for an instructor” (N. Ethics, 1003b12-3). We imitate those who have already successfully developed courage or moderation, acting as if we were brave or moderate, struggling at first, but slowly training ourselves...but, if “acting-as-if” and imitation are the keys to developing virtue, then surely the Poetics will (...) provide a clue to Bk. II of the Ethics, and in a way that may add to our understanding of how ethics and aesthetics are connected. (shrink)

Tradução para o português do ensaio "Freedom and Resentment”, de P. F. Strawson. Publicado originalmente em Proceedings of the British Academy, v. 48, 1960. Republicado em Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays. Londres: Methuen, 1974. [Routledge, 2008, p. 2-28]. Publicado na coletânea: Ensaios sobre a filosofia de Strawson: com a tradução de Liberdade e ressentimento & Moralidade social e ideal individual. Organizadores: Jaimir Conte & Itamar Luís Gelain. Editora da UFSC, 2015. ISBN: 9788532807250.

Tradução para o português do ensaio "Social Morality and Individual Ideal”. Publicado originalmente em Philosophy: The Journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, vol. XXXVI, n. 136, p. 1-17, Jan. 1961. Republicado em: STRAWSON, P. F. Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays. Londres: Methuen, 1974. [Routledge, 2008, p. 26-44]. ]. Publicado na coletânea: Ensaios sobre a filosofia de Strawson: com a tradução de Liberdade e ressentimento & Moralidade social e ideal individual. Organizadores: Jaimir Conte & Itamar Luís Gelain. Editora da (...) UFSC, 2015. ISBN: 9788532807250. (shrink)

A critical note on Christopher Bartel and Jack M. C. Kwong, ‘Pluralism, Eliminativism, and the Definition of Art’, Estetika 58 (2021): 100–113. Art pluralism is the view that there is no single, correct account of what art is. Instead, art is understood through a plurality of art concepts and with considerations that are different for particular arts. Although avowed pluralists have retained the word ‘art’ in their discussions, it is natural to ask whether the considerations that motivate pluralism should lead (...) us to abandon art talk altogether; that is, should pluralism lead to eliminativism? This paper addresses arguments both for and against this move. We ultimately argue that pluralism allows one to retain the word ‘art’, if one wants it, but only in a loose, conversational sense. The upshot of pluralism is that talk of art in general cannot be asked to do theoretical and philosophical work. (shrink)