We consider the complex interactions between rape culture and epistemology. A central case study is the consideration of a deferential attitude about the epistemology of sexual assault testimony. According to the deferential attitude, individuals and institutions should decline to act on allegations of sexual assault unless and until they are proven in a formal setting, i.e., a criminal court. We attack this deference from several angles, including the pervasiveness of rape culture in the criminal justice system, the epistemology of testimony (...) and norms connecting knowledge and action, the harms of tacit idealizations away from important contextual factors, and a contextualist semantics for 'knows' ascriptions. (shrink)

Bianca-Alexandra Savu ABSTRACT: This article discusses the proposal of accommodating grounding theories and structural realism, with the aim to provide a metaphysical framework for structural realism. Ontic structural realism, one of the most accepted metaphysical versions for structural realism, is taken into account here, with the intention of analyzing the framework in which...

Counterspeech is communication that tries to counteract potential harm brought about by other speech. Theoretical interest in counterspeech partly derives from a libertarian ideal – as captured in the claim that the solution to bad speech is more speech – and partly from a recognition that well-meaning attempts to counteract harm through speech can easily misfire or backfire. Here we survey recent work on the question of what makes counterspeech effective at remedying or preventing harm, in those cases where it (...) is effective, as well as work investigating when and why there is a duty to engage in counterspeech. We suggest that the most fruitful area for philosophical inquiry on this topic, currently, relates to the questions about efficacy. Specifically, we argue that there is a need for better frameworks for conceptualizing the efficacy of counterspeech. Philosophers have collaborative work to do, alongside social scientists, in developing these frameworks. (shrink)

Abstract In the last fifteen years philosophers and linguists have turned their attention to slurs: derogatory expressions that target certain groups on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality and so on. This interest is due to the fact that, on the one hand, slurs possess puzzling linguistic properties; on the other hand, the questions they pose are related to other crucial issues, such as the descriptivism/expressivism divide, the semantics/pragmatics divide and, generally speaking, the theory of meaning. Despite these (...) recent investigations about pejoratives, there is no widely accepted explanation of slurs:in my paper I consider the intuitions we have about slurs and I assess the difficulties that the main theories encounter in explaining how these terms work in order to identify the phenomena that a satisfactory account of slurs needs to explain. Then, I focus on the pragmatic theories that deal with the notions of conventional implicature and pragmatic presupposition: I assess the objections that have been raised and I propose two ways of defending the presuppositional account, taking into consideration the notion of cancellability. I will claim that the reason why most pragmatic strategies seem to fail to account for slurs is that they assume a rigid divide between conventional implicatures and presuppositions that should not be taken for granted. Reconsidering the relationship between these two notions gives a hint about how a pragmatic account of slurs should look like. Finally, I assess the problem of which presupposition slurs in fact trigger. (shrink)

The Introduction to "Non-Derogatory Uses of Slurs", special issue of Grazer Philosophische Studien.

In this paper we discuss two issues addressed by Stanley in How Propaganda Works: the status of slurs (Section 1) and the notion of positive propaganda (Section 2). In particular, in Section 1 we argue contra Stanley that code words like ‘welfare’ are crucially different from slurs in that the association between the lexical item and an additional social meaning is not as systematic as it is for slurs. In this sense, slurs bring about a special kind of propagandistic effect, (...) even if it typically concerns informal contexts rather than public debates. In Section 2, we consider positive propaganda and its relation to emotional effects. For Stanley, positive propaganda relies on the production of emotional effects, feature which risks to erode rational debates even if there is a good purpose behind. Instead, we argue that positive propaganda can work with no appeal to emotions. To this end, we focus on the use of ‘she’ as the default personal pronoun in academic writing and suggest that this measure can count as positive propaganda which rather than eroding rational debates by relying on emotional effects, closely resembles affirmative action aimed at counterbalance a pre-existing form of injustice and inequality. (shrink)

According to an attractive account of belief, our beliefs have centered content. According to an attractive account of communication, we utter sentences to express our beliefs and share them with each other. However, the two accounts are in conflict. In this paper I explore the consequences of holding on to the claim that beliefs have centered content. If we do in fact express the centered content of our beliefs, the content of the belief the hearer acquires cannot in general be (...) identical to the content the speaker expresses. I sketch an alternative account of communication, the Recentering model, that accepts this consequence and explains how expressed and acquired content are related. (shrink)

It is easy to imagine being someone else from the first-person point of view. Such imaginings give rise to a puzzle. In this paper I explain what the puzzle is and then consider several existing attempts of solving the puzzle. I argue that these attempts are unsuccessful. I propose a Lewisian account of first-person imagination and make the case that this account has the potential to solve the puzzle.

I present a reconstruction of F.H.C. Crick's two 1957 hypotheses "Sequence Hypothesis" and "Central Dogma" in terms of a contemporary philosophical theory of causation. Analyzing in particular the experimental evidence that Crick cited, I argue that these hypotheses can be understood as claims about the actual difference-making cause in protein synthesis. As these hypotheses are only true if restricted to certain nucleic acids in certain organisms, I then examine the concept of causal specificity and its potential to counter claims about (...) causal parity of DNA and other cellular components. I first show that causal specificity is a special kind of invariance under interventions, namely invariance of generalizations that range over finite sets of discrete variables. Then, I show that this notion allows the articulation of a middle ground in the debate over causal parity. (shrink)

Research on personal identity often relies on imaginary cases and tends to theorise about our nature from the first-person perspective. In this paper I argue that a problem arises when we combine the two methods and assess imaginary cases from the first-person perspective. The problem is that the link between de se imagination and modality is broken. De se imagination regularly gives rise to de se modal illusions. De se modal illusions come in two varieties: there are de se illusions (...) of possibility and de se illusions of impossibility. I present a systematic account of the two types of illusion. I further make the case that the proposed account is compatible with maintaining a general link between imaginability and possibility. I apply the account to two concrete cases and use it to undercut the motivation behind a central theory of personal ontology, Dualism, and a central account of personal persistence, Lockeanism. (shrink)

Causal selection is the task of picking out, from a field of known causally relevant factors, some factors as elements of an explanation. The Causal Parity Thesis in the philosophy of biology challenges the usual ways of making such selections among different causes operating in a developing organism. The main target of this thesis is usually gene centrism, the doctrine that genes play some special role in ontogeny, which is often described in terms of information-bearing or programming. This paper is (...) concerned with the attempt of confronting the challenge coming from the Causal Parity Thesis by offering principles of causal selection that are spelled out in terms of an explicit philosophical account of causation, namely an interventionist account. I show that two such accounts that have been developed, although they contain important insights about causation in biology, nonetheless fail to provide an adequate reply to the Causal Parity challenge: Ken Waters's account of actual-difference making and Jim Woodward's account of causal specificity. A combination of the two also doesn't do the trick, nor does Laura Franklin-Hall's account of explanation (in this volume). We need additional conceptual resources. I argue that the resources we need consist in a special class of counterfactual conditionals, namely counterfactuals the antecedents of which describe biologically normal interventions. (shrink)

Experimental modeling in biology involves the use of living organisms (not necessarily so-called "model organisms") in order to model or simulate biological processes. I argue here that experimental modeling is a bona fide form of scientific modeling that plays an epistemic role that is distinct from that of ordinary biological experiments. What distinguishes them from ordinary experiments is that they use what I call "in vivo representations" where one kind of causal process is used to stand in for a physically (...) different kind of process. I discuss the advantages of this approach in the context of evolutionary biology. (shrink)

It is a widely held view in philosophy that propositions perform a plethora of different theoretical roles. Amongst other things, they are believed to be the semantic values of sentences in contexts, the objects of attitudes, the contents of illocutionary acts, and the referents of that-clauses. This assumption is often combined with the claim that propositions have their truth-values eternally. In this paper I aim to show that these two assumptions are incompatible: propositions cannot both fulfill the mentioned roles and (...) be eternally true or false. Following Kaplan and Lewis’s Operator Argument, I argue that compositional semantic values of sentences in contexts do not correspond to eternal propositions. Thus, either we regard the non-eternal entities that in fact realize the semantic role of propositions as also fulfilling the remaining propositional roles, or we abandon the assumption that there is a unique realizer of all the roles. The Operator Argument has recently come under attack, mainly for its tense-logical assumptions. However, rejecting these assumptions is not a sufficient defense of the compatibility of the two claims, since the extensional alternative to the tense-logical framework does not allow us to universally retain eternal propositions as compositional semantic values of sentences either. (shrink)

This article discusses the significance of historical research in normative political philosophy. Methodologically ahistoricist philosophers argue that historical research has limited relevance to political philosophy as it only serves to validate if a theory is sufficiently historically fact-sensitive. However, this perspective allows for minimal engagement with intellectual history. In contrast, I advocate for a more substantial role of historical research, suggesting that it not only provides evidence to refute political philosophical views but also serves as a source of imaginative resources. (...) I show that thinkers from across the humanities, like R.J. Collingwood, Quentin Skinner, Michel Foucault, Raymond Geuss, David Graeber, and Bernard Williams, have recognised the importance of these imaginative resources in shaping methodological reflections. These thinkers are concerned that limiting the relevance of history to normative theorising exposes ahistoricist thinkers to imaginative failures. I argue that this is best construed as a concern about the epistemic reliability of their evaluative judgments. Imaginative failures can introduce biases that unjustifiably restrict the range of solutions to practical collective problems they contemplate. Historical research serves a normative function that is unavailable to the methodologically ahistoricist approach by preventing such failures. (shrink)

I examine different arguments that could be used to establish indeterminism of neurological processes. Even though scenarios where single events at the molecular level make the difference in the outcome of such processes are realistic, this falls short of establishing indeterminism, because it is not clear that these molecular events are subject to quantum mechanical uncertainty. Furthermore, attempts to argue for indeterminism autonomously (i.e., independently of quantum mechanics) fail, because both deterministic and indeterministic models can account for the empirically observed (...) behavior of ion channels. (shrink)

I want to exhibit the deeper metaphysical reasons why some common ways of describing the causal role of genes in development and evolution are problematic. Specifically, I show why using the concept of information in an intentional sense in genetics is inappropriate, even given a naturalistic account of intentionality. Furthermore, I argue that descriptions that use notions such as programming, directing or orchestrating are problematic not for empirical reasons, but because they are not strictly causal. They are intentional. By contrast, (...) other notions that are part of the received view in genetics and evolutionary theory are defensible if understood correctly, in particular the idea that genes are the main replicators in evolution. The paper concludes that dropping all intentional or intentionally laden concepts does not force us to accept the so-called causal parity thesis, at least not in its stronger form. (shrink)

There is an intimate connection between personal identity, prudential concern, and anticipation. But just how close is the connection? In this paper, I develop and motivate phenomenal accounts of both anticipation and prudential concern which suggest that the link between anticipation and personal identity and the one between anticipation and prudential concern is less tight than often assumed. I start by arguing against two influential accounts of anticipation, and present an alternative view based on the notion of phenomenal continuity, which (...) detaches anticipation from identity. Next, I consider the relationship between anticipation and prudential concern and make the case that, here too, there is more space between the two than orthodoxy alleges. A qualified form of anticipation may be sufficient for prudential concern, but anticipation is not necessary for prudential concern. Finally, I argue that prudential concern is grounded in phenomenal continuity, rather than psychological continuity. This secures a close alignment between anticipation and prudential concern and offers a plausible explanation as to why anticipation is a guide to prudential concern. (shrink)

This paper examines causal theories of reference with respect to how plausible an account they give of non-physical natural kind terms such as ‘gene’ as well as of the truth of the associated theoretical claims. I first show that reference fixism for ‘gene’ fails. By this, I mean the claim that the reference of ‘gene’ was stable over longer historical periods, for example, since the classical period of transmission genetics. Second, I show that the theory of partial reference does not (...) do justice to some widely held realist intuitions about classical genetics. This result is at loggerheads with the explicit goals usually associated with partial theories of reference, which is to defend a realist semantics for scientific terms. Thirdly, I show that, contrary to received wisdom and perhaps contrary to physics and chemistry, neither reference fixism nor partial reference are necessary in order to hold on to scientific realism about biology. I pinpoint the reasons for this in the nature of biological kinds, which do not even remotely resemble natural kinds (i.e., Lockean real essences) as traditionally conceived. (shrink)

Optimists about mind-uploading believe that we can survive uploading. Pessimists about mind-uploading, on the other hand, believe that we cannot survive uploading. An under-explored middle ground between the two is a selective form of optimism, which claims that we can survive some forms of uploading, such as gradual replacement uploading, but not others, such as scan-and-copy uploading. Is selective optimism about uploading a rational stance? In this paper I argue that the answer is: yes. The paper has a negative and (...) a positive part. First, I defuse a recent objection against selective optimism from Wiley and Koene (2016). Wiley and Koene argue that gradual replacement uploading is metaphysically equivalent to scan-and-copy uploading, and hence optimism about the former and pessimism about the latter is unfounded. I show that Wiley and Koene’s case for the supposed metaphysical equivalence fails, since there is a significant metaphysical contrast between the two types of uploading involving immanent causation. In the second part of the paper, I present a positive case for selective optimism about gradual uploading building on this contrast in immanent causation. (shrink)

Biological modalities, i.e., biologically possible, impossible, or necessary states of affairs have not received much attention from philosophers. Yet, it is widely agreed that there are biological constraints on physically possible states of affairs, such that not everything that is physically possible is also biologically possible, even if everything that is biologically possible is also physically possible. Furthermore, biologists use concepts that appear to be modal in nature, such as the concept of evolvability in evolutionary developmental biology, or “evo-devo.” The (...) present chapter investigates what kind of modality underlies the concept of evolvability. This concept tries to capture the capacity of an organism or a lineage to sustain genetic changes that enable it to evolve or to evolve adaptively. The basic idea of the proposed approach is to construe evolvability as a kind of accessibility in a modal space. The difficult part is to specify this modal space and the relevant accessibility relation. While there may not be a general way of defining such a relation, there exist model systems for which it is possible, e.g., evolving small RNAs. The modal space in such cases turns out to be quite distinct from those constructed by philosophers, e.g., David Lewis’s similarity metric for possible worlds. Even though the biological case examined here is quite special, attending to the way in which biological possibilities are modeled in this case harbors some general lessons about biological modalities, in particular their dependence on the explanatory goals of the models modeling modality. (shrink)

The aim of this work is to move from the foreign dominated to the self-dominated by encouraging people to draw their own conclusions with the help of own rational consideration. Here a room as an environment that is encouraging innovation, which can be denoted as “Innovation Lab”, and making processes as can be regarded as “Smart Lab” is an essential base. The question related to this generalized self-organizational learning method investigated in our paper is how a UVC, which is a (...) room that connects people from different physical places to one synchronous and virtual perceivable place, which is built on these preconditions, can be operated both resource and learning-efficient for both the course participants and the educational organization. A practical approach of implementing a virtual classroom concept, including informative tutorial-feedback, is developed conceptually that also accounts for and implements the results of reinforcement machine-learning methods in AI applications. The difference that makes the difference is gained by reimplementing the AI tools in an AI instrument, in a “Smart Lab” environment and that in the teaching environment. By means of this, a cascaded feedback-loop system is informally installed, which gains feedback at different levels of abstraction. By this learning on each stage, in a collaborative and together decentralized and sequential fashion takes place, as the selforganizational implementations lead implicitly, also by means of the in the course implemented tools, to increasingly self-control. As such in the course, a tool is implemented, as generalizations by means of reinforcement learnings are to be emergently foreseen by this method, which goes beyond the tools, that have already been implemented before. This AI-enhanced learning coevolution shall then, predictively, as well increase the potential of the course participants as the educational organization according to the Wittgensteinean parable: A ladder leading into a selfly-organized future. (shrink)

Our reflections on LAWS issues are the result of the work of our research group on AI and ethics at the Informatics Center in partnership with the Information Science Department, both from the Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil. In particular, our propositions and provocations are tied to Bianca Ximenes’s ongoing doctoral thesis, advised by Prof. Geber Ramalho, from the area of computer science, and co-advised by Prof. Diego Salcedo, from the humanities. Our research group is interested in answering two (...) tricky questions: What would an ethical AI be? And how can one guarantee that a given intelligent system will follow intercultural human ethical principles? (shrink)

In this paper, the author examines the concept of "demonic" in Thomas Mann’s novel, Doctor Faustus, under a historical and philosophical perspective. The demonic represents Mann’s attempt to interpret the German history and its tragic turn in 20th century through the fictional mask of the main character’s life, the composer Adrian Leverkühn, who, as Faust before him, made a deal with the devil, losing his soul in exchange for genius and success. The work proceeds from a comparison between Mann’s character (...) of Satan and the theologian Paul Tillich’s idea of demonic expressed in his 1926 essay Das Dämonische. Ein Beitrag zur Sinndeutung der Geschichte, where it is interpreted as a dialectic and ambiguous concept: not merely negative, but also positive in its existing. Tillich’s concept of demonic is strongly connected to Mann’s, who elected music as a mean to express the demonic, precisely for its supreme ambiguity: on one hand it is mathematically structured, on the other it voluptuously attracts the listener to an inarticulate ancient chaos. (shrink)

The Introduction highlights the three main themes of the book: (1) the ontological and epistemological status of everyday human consciousness, (2) the distribution of consciousness in the natural world, and (3) panpsychism. The individual contributions to the book are summarized and related literature is briefly discussed.

In this paper I focus on the conditions that have to be met for Chisholm’s Paradox (CP) to occur. My claim is that identity and structure are notions closely related to each other. I propose a discussion in which the minimal framework for CP is set, then analyze the paradox in terms of S5, and suggest that in order to capture the core of the paradox one should use a dynamic valuation function for the model. Identity appears, at this point, (...) to be dependent upon a structuralist point of view. (shrink)

This paper intends to give a philosophical analysis of the concepts of consciousness and rationality, and particularly to display the correlation existing between what is usually called the “normal state of consciousness” and what should be called the “normal state of rationality”. Eventually, it draws consequences for the correlation existing between “altered/aberrant states of consciousness” and “altered/aberrant rationality”. Although it argues from a broad phenomenological perspective, its grounding technicalities belong to the field of process thought, as fleshed out by the (...) later Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947). (shrink)

Ich rekonstruiere und kritisiere Hans Drieschs Argumentation für die Behauptung, daß biologischen Prozessen nur eine substanzdualistische Ontologie der belebten Materie (Vitalismus) gerecht werden kann. Meine Diagnose lautet, daß Drieschs Argumentation zwar logisch schlüssig ist bzw. durch leichte Modifikationen in eine logisch gültige Form gebracht werden kann, aber von empirisch unbegründeten, metaphysischen Prämissen über die Möglichkeiten eines energieumwandelnden Mechanismus ausgeht.

Many philosophers reduce ordinary knowledge to sensory or, more generally, to perceptual knowledge, which refers to entities belonging to the phenomenic world. However, ordinary knowledge is not only the result of sensory-perceptual processes, but also of non-perceptual contents that are present in any mind. From an epistemological point of view, ordinary knowledge is a form of knowledge that not only allows epistemic access to the world, but also enables the formulation of models of it with different degrees of reliability. Usually (...) epistemologists focus their attention on scientific knowledge, believing that ordinary knowledge does not, or cannot, have an epistemology for it is not in any way rigorous. The papers collected in this volume analyse different aspects of ordinary knowledge and of its epistemology. (shrink)

It has been claimed that the intentional stance is necessary to individuate behavioral traits. This thesis, while clearly false, points to two interesting sets of problems concerning biological explanations of behavior: The first is a general in the philosophy of science: the theory-ladenness of observation. The second problem concerns the principles of trait individuation, which is a general problem in philosophy of biology. After discussing some alternatives, I show that one way of individuating the behavioral traits of an organism is (...) by a special use of the concept of biological function, as understood in an enriched causal role (not selected effect) sense. On this view, a behavioral trait is essentially a special kind of regularity, namely a regularity that is produced by some regulatory mechanism. Regulatory mechanisms always require goal states, which can only be provided by functional considerations. As an example from actual (as opposed to folk) science, I examine the case of social behavior in nematodes. I show that the attempt to explain this phenomenon actually transformed it. This supports the view that scientific explanation does not explain an explanandum phenomenon that is given prior to the explanation; rather, the explanandum is changed by the explanation. This means that there could be a plurality of stances that have some heuristic value initially, but which will be abandoned in favor of a functional characterization eventually. (shrink)

Griffiths et al. (2015) have proposed a quantitative measure of causal specificity and used it to assess various attempts to single out genetic causes as being causally more specific than other cellular mechanisms, for example, alternative splicing. Focusing in particular on developmental processes, they have identified a number of important challenges for this project. In this discussion note, I would like to show how these challenges can be met.

John Searle has argued that functions owe their existence to the value that we put into life and survival. In this paper, I will provide a critique of Searle’s argument concerning the ontology of functions. I rely on a standard analysis of functional predicates as relating not only a biological entity, an activity that constitutes the function of this entity and a type of system but also a goal state. A functional attribution without specification of such a goal state has (...) no truth-value. But if completed with a goal state, functional attributions understood as four-place relations attain a truth-value. The truth conditions of all attributions of function involve a dependence claim of the goal state on the function bearer’s activity. The nature of this dependence may differ; I consider five different possibilities: causality, mechanistic constitution, mereology, supervenience and metaphysical grounding. If these dependency relations are objective, Searle’s central ontological thesis fails. What he ought to have said is that our valuing survival or other goal states may be the reason why biology seeks functional knowledge, but this has nothing to do with ontology. I will show further that Searle also raised an interesting challenge concerning the relationship of functional and causal truths, but it does not threaten the objectivity of functions either. At best, it could show that functional vocabulary is eliminable. However, I will show that functional vocabulary is not so eliminable. (shrink)

This study uncovered the sentiments of Filipino parents on the mandatory Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) in senior high school. The study employed the qualitative approach using text mining. The data used in this study were the selected 100 Facebook comments of parents on the online news articles posted on Facebook, headlining the mandatory ROTC in senior high school. The orange software was used to determine the most frequently used words in parents' sentiments on the mandatory ROTC in old high (...) school and to analyze the parents’ sentiments. Meanwhile, thematic analysis was utilized to formulate the definitions of parents' sentiments on the issue. The study revealed that the most frequently used words found on the sentiments of parents on the mandatory ROTC in senior high school as generated by Word Cloud in Orange software are ROTC, train, discipline, yes, mandatory, military, good, student, youth, country, and need. The study further revealed that Filipino parents believed that ROTC inculcates values, trains students to prepare for war, and is suitable for the country. They also thought that the Filipino youth needs discipline nowadays, that a highly qualified official should handle ROTC, and that it should be mandatory for all, except for the physically incapable. It was concluded that most Filipino parents favored implementing the compulsory ROTC in senior high school as the benefits that students and the country would derive outweigh the issues or oppositions against the proposed program. (shrink)

Self-locating attitudes and assertions provide a challenge to the received view of mental and linguistic intentionality. In this paper I try to show that the best way to meet this challenge is to adopt relativistic, centred possible worlds accounts for both belief and communication. First, I argue that self-locating beliefs support a centred account of belief. Second, I argue that self-locating utterances support a complementary centred account of communication. Together, these two claims motivate a unified centred conception of belief and (...) communication. (shrink)

The recent literature on causality has seen the introduction of several distinctions within causality, which are thought to be important for understanding the widespread scientific practice of focusing causal explanations on a subset of the factors that are causally relevant for a phenomenon. Concepts used to draw such distinctions include, among others, stability, specificity, proportionality, or actual-difference making. In this contribution, I propose a new distinction that picks out an explanatorily salient class of causes in biological systems. Some select causes (...) in complex biological systems, I argue, have the property of enabling coherent causal control of these systems. Examples of such control variables include hormones and other signaling molecules, e.g., TOR (target of rapamycin), morphogens or the products of homeotic selector genes in embryonic pattern formation. I propose an analysis of this notion based on concepts borrowed from causal graph theory. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate why anorexia nervosa emerged in non-Western nations after Western globalization efforts. Using Simone de Beauvoir’s theory of gender from The Second Sex alongside Michel Foucault’s conceptualization of the “docile body,” I argue that the emergence of anorexia nervosa in non-Western nations reflects the Western sovereign’s subordination of women. While patriarchal oppression is not exclusive to the West, I contend that the political ideology behind Western industrialization has allowed new avenues for patriarchal oppression to permeate. To (...) conclude, I demand that mainstream discourse on anorexia nervosa consider the political conditions which are catalytic to its occurrence. (shrink)

Linguistic structures have recently started to attract attention from economists as determinants of economic phenomena. This paper provides the first comprehensive review of this nascent literature and its achievements so far. First, we explore the complex connections between language, culture, thought and behaviour. Then, we summarize the empirical evidence on the relationship between linguistic structures and economic and social outcomes. We follow up with a discussion of data, empirical design and identification. The paper concludes by discussing implications for future research (...) and policy. (shrink)

Several authors have used the notion of causal specificity in order to defend non-parity about genetic causes (Waters 2007, Woodward 2010, Weber 2017, forthcoming). Non-parity in this context is the idea that DNA and some other biomolecules that are often described as information-bearers by biologists play a unique role in life processes, an idea that has been challenged by Developmental Systems Theory (e.g., Oyama 2000). Indeed, it has proven to be quite difficult to state clearly what the alleged special (...) role of genetic causes consists in. In this paper, I show that the set of biomolecules that are normally considered to be information-bearers (DNA, mRNA) can be shown to be the most specific causes of protein primary structure, provided that causal specificity is measured over a relevant space of biological possibilities, disregarding physical as well as logically possible states of the causal variables. (shrink)

A growing number of linguistic attempts to explain how languages change use cultural-evolutionary models involving selection or drift. Developmental constraints and biases, which take center stage in evolutionary developmental biology or evo-devo, seem to be absent within this framework, even though linguistics is home to numerous notions of constraint. In this paper, we show how these evo-devo concepts could be applied to linguistic change and why they should. This requires some conceptual groundwork, due to important differences between linguistic and biotic (...) evolution. In biological evolution, development generates the organism's variable traits on which selection and drift act. In linguistic evolution by analogy, we say development generates the linguistic variants on which selection and drift can act. “Linguistic development” then picks out how individual speakers produce and comprehend language. It involves much more than just learning. Using this broad notion of development, we distinguish between different types of bias that could operate in the processes of linguistic innovation and transmission, which correspond to genetic mutation and biological reproduction, respectively. Having thus sharpened our conceptual toolbox, we then reanalyze two well-documented cases of linguistic change and show that, in both these cases, linguists have only considered Neo-Darwinian evolutionary explanations, falsely deploying an exclusive disjunction of selection and drift. We show that there is at least a third relevant alternative in these examples, namely developmental constraint or bias in the sense we explicate here. (shrink)

We are developing the Neurological Disease Ontology (ND) to provide a framework to enable representation of aspects of neurological diseases that are relevant to their treatment and study. ND is a representational tool that addresses the need for unambiguous annotation, storage, and retrieval of data associated with the treatment and study of neurological diseases. ND is being developed in compliance with the Open Biomedical Ontology Foundry principles and builds upon the paradigm established by the Ontology for General Medical Science (OGMS) (...) for the representation of entities in the domain of disease and medical practice. Initial applications of ND will include the annotation and analysis of large data sets and patient records for Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and stroke. (shrink)

Unlike in physics, the category of thought experiment is not very common in biology. At least there are no classic examples that are as important and as well-known as the most famous thought experiments in physics, such as Galileo’s, Maxwell’s or Einstein’s. The reasons for this are far from obvious; maybe it has to do with the fact that modern biology for the most part sees itself as a thoroughly empirical discipline that engages either in real natural history or in (...) experimenting on real organisms rather than fictive ones. While theoretical biology does exist and is recognized as part of biology, its role within biology appears to be more marginal than the role of theoretical physics within physics. It could be that this marginality of theory also affects thought experiments as sources of theoretical knowledge. Of course, none of this provides a sufficient reason for thinking that thought experiments are really unimportant in biology. It is quite possible that the common perception of this matter is wrong and that there are important theoretical considerations in biology, past or present, that deserve the title of thought experiment just as much as the standard examples from physics. Some such considerations may even be widely known and considered to be important, but were not recognized as thought experiments. In fact, as we shall see, there are reasons for thinking that what is arguably the single most important biological work ever, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, contains a number of thought experiments. There are also more recent examples both in evolutionary and non-evolutionary biology, as we will show. Part of the problem in identifying positive examples in the history of biology is the lack of agreement as to what exactly a thought experiment is. Even worse, there may not be more than a family resemblance that unifies this epistemic category. We take it that classical thought experiments show the following characteristics: They serve directly or indirectly in the non-empirical epistemic evaluation of theoretical propositions, explanations or hypotheses. Thought experiments somehow appeal to the imagination. They involve hypothetical scenarios, which may or may not be fictive. In other words, thought experiments suppose that certain states of affairs hold and then try to intuit what would happen in a world where these suppositions are true. We want to examine in the following sections if there are episodes in the history of biology that satisfy these criteria. As we will show, there are a few episodes that might satisfy all three of these criteria, and many more if the imagination criterion is dropped or understood in a lose sense. In any case, this criterion is somewhat vague in the first place, unless a specific account of the imagination is presupposed. There will also be issues as to what exactly “non-empirical” means. In general, for the sake of discussion we propose to understand the term “thought experiment” here in a broad rather than a narrow sense here. We would rather be guilty of having too wide a conception of thought experiment than of missing a whole range of really interesting examples. (shrink)

What is the relationship between Frege’s puzzle and the puzzle of the de se? An increasingly influential view claims that the de se puzzle is merely an instance of Frege’s puzzle and that the idea that de se attitudes pose a distinctive theoretical challenge rests on a myth. Here we argue that this view is misguided. There are important differences between the two puzzles. First, unlike Frege puzzle cases, de se puzzle cases involve unshareable Fregean senses. Second, unlike Frege puzzle (...) cases, de se puzzle cases cannot be resolved by objective information alone. Further, there seem to be pure cases of each puzzle: instances of the de se puzzle which do not have a Fregean structure, and instances of Frege’s puzzle, which do not involve de se attitudes. We conclude that the two puzzles are fundamentally different and that the traditional theory of attitudes needs to be amended. (shrink)

Philosophers have predominantly regarded morality and aesthetics judgments as fundamentally different. However, whether this claim is empirically founded has remained unclear. In a novel task, we measured brain activity of participants judging the aesthetic beauty of artwork or the moral goodness of actions depicted. To control for the content of judgments, participants assessed the age of the artworks and the speed of depicted actions. Univariate analyses revealed whole-brain corrected, content-controlled common activation for aesthetics and morality judgments in frontopolar, dorsomedial and (...) ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. Temporoparietal cortex showed activation specific for morality judgments, occipital cortex for aesthetics judgments. Multivariate analyses revealed both common and distinct whole-brain corrected representations for morality and aesthetics judgments in temporoparietal and prefrontal regions. Overall, neural commonalities are more pronounced than predominant philosophical views would predict. They are compatible with minority accounts that stress commonalities between aesthetics and morality judgments, such as sentimentalism and a valuation framework. (shrink)

This paper identifies a new source that explains environmental behaviour: the presence of future tense marking in language. We predict that languages that grammatically mark the future affect speakers' intertemporal preferences and thereby reduce their willingness to address environmental problems. We first show that speakers of languages with future tense marking are less likely to adopt environmentally responsible behaviours and to support policies to prevent environmental damage. We then document that this effect holds across countries: future tense marking is an (...) important determinant of climate change policies and global environmental cooperation. The results suggest that there may be deep and surprising obstacles for attempts to address climate change. (shrink)

Darwin famously held that his use of the term "chance" in evolutionary theory merely "serves to acknowledge plainly our ignorance of the causes of each particular variation". Is this a tenable view today? Or should we revise our thinking about chance in evolution in light of the more advanced, quantitative models of Neo-Darwinian theory, which make substantial use of statistical reasoning and the concept of probability? Is determinism still a viable metaphysical doctrine about biological reality after the quantum revolution in (...) physics, or dowe have to abandon it in favor of an objective indeterminism? In light of such reflections, what is the relevant interpretation of probability in evolutionary theory? Do biologists use the concept of probability because they are finite cognitive agents or because the evolutionary process is fundamentally probabilistic? In this paper, I will show that we do not yet fully understand the nature of chance in evolution. (shrink)

Although consolation is one of the classic religious subjects it plays no role in the current debate about religious emotions. One reason for this neglect could be that this debate is mostly based on classical emotions such as joy and fear, love and hope, and that consolation is not understood as an emotion. This paper tries to show that consolation in fact can and should be seen as an emotion. After naming and refuting some reasons that speak against taking consolation (...) to be an emotion, I will explain how consolation can be positively conceptualized as an emotion within a recent theory of emotions. It will be decisive to see that the experience of consolation can be understood not only hedonistically-qualitatively, but also intentionally. This structural conception allows for a differentiated description of various types of consolation as an emotion, also, in the tradition of William James, of a secular as well as a religious form of consolation. (shrink)

Lynne Baker's concept of a first-person perspective is not as clear and straightforward as it might seem at first glance. There is a discrepancy between her argumentation that we have first-person perspectives and some characteristics she takes first-person perspectives to have, namely, that the instances of this capacity necessarily persist through time and are indivisible and unduplicable. Moreover, these characteristics cause serious problems concerning personal identity.

We have begun work on two separate but related ontologies for the study of neurological diseases. The first, the Neurological Disease Ontology (ND), is intended to provide a set of controlled, logically connected classes to describe the range of neurological diseases and their associated signs and symptoms, assessments, diagnoses, and interventions that are encountered in the course of clinical practice. ND is built as an extension of the Ontology for General Medical Sciences — a high-level candidate OBO Foundry ontology that (...) provides a set of general classes that can be used to describe general aspects of medical science. ND is being built with classes utilizing both textual and axiomatized definitions that describe and formalize the relations between instances of other classes within the ontology itself as well as to external ontologies such as the Gene Ontology, Cell Ontology, Protein Ontology, and Chemical Entities of Biological Interest. In addition, references to similar or associated terms in external ontologies, vocabularies and terminologies are included when possible. Initial work on ND is focused on the areas of Alzheimer’s and other diseases associated with dementia, multiple sclerosis, and stroke and cerebrovascular disease. Extensions to additional groups of neurological diseases are planned. The second ontology, the Neuro-Psychological Testing Ontology (NPT), is intended to provide a set of classes for the annotation of neuropsychological testing data. The intention of this ontology is to allow for the integration of results from a variety of neuropsychological tests that assay similar measures of cognitive functioning. Neuro-psychological testing is an important component in developing the clinical picture used in the diagnosis of patients with a range of neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis, and following stroke or traumatic brain injury. NPT is being developed as an extension to the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations. (shrink)