Naturalist views of persons, such as those of the philosophers Annette Baier and Marjorie Grene, emphasize that human persons are cultural animals: We are living, embodied, organic beings, embedded in nature, the product of Darwinian evolution, but dependent on culture. Such naturalist views of persons typically eschew science fiction and look askance at the philosophical fantasies and thought experiments that often populate philosophical treatments of personal identity. Marge Piercy’s dystopian, cyberpunk, science fiction novel He, She and It weaves a complex (...) tale around the debate over the status of its central character Yod, a cyborg created in a lab but humanized through the efforts of two women, Malkah Shipman and her granddaughter Shira Shipman. Is Yod a person, despite having been engineered in a lab for a specific purpose? Piercy’s tale both challenges and ultimately supports a naturalist view of persons while simultaneously forewarning us of possible new styles of persons to come. (shrink)

In Beyond Physicalism, an interdisciplinary group of physical scientists, behavioral and social scientists, and humanists from the Esalen Institute’s Center for Theory and Research argue that physicalism must be replaced by an expanded scientific naturalism that accommodates something spiritual at the heart of nature.

This study aimed to determine the experiences of male and female students on Flexible Learning (FL) during the COVID-19. A qualitative method using a phenomenological approach was used to ascertain the students' experiences, while written questionnaires were utilized to gather the information. The 24 students taking Development Communication and Public Administration were chosen based on set criteria. Both male and female flexible learning participants appreciated its benefits, including convenience and reduced academic stress. They both faced technology-related challenges and suggested improvements. (...) However, differences emerged in their experiences. Males found FL fun, emphasizing family time, while females highlighted skill development and concerns about teaching methods. Females also mentioned practical skill development not emphasized by males. These variations may stem from differing learning preferences and experiences. Variations in male and female experiences in Flexible Learning highlight the need for teachers to tailor instruction, offer mental health support, and incorporate skill development. Improved teacher training and clear guidelines are crucial, as are gender-inclusive program design and regular feedback mechanisms to create equitable and effective educational experiences. (shrink)

Suppose for reductio that I know a proposition of the form <p and I don’t know p>. Then by the factivity of knowledge and the distribution of knowledge over conjunction, I both know and do not know p ; which is impossible. Propositions of the form <p and I don’t know p> are therefore unknowable. Their particular kind of unknowability has been widely discussed and applied to such issues as the realism debate. It hasn’t been much applied to theories of (...) the nature of knowledge. That is what I’m going to do here. (shrink)

A fascinating recent turn in epistemology focuses on inquiring attitudes like wondering and being curious. Many have argued that these attitudes are governed by norms similar to those that govern our doxastic attitudes. Yet, to date, this work has only considered norms that might *prohibit* having certain inquiring attitudes (``norms of restriction''), while ignoring those that might *require* having them (``norms of expansion''). We aim to address that omission by offering a framework that generates norms of expansion for inquiring attitudes. (...) The framework draws on inferential erotetic logic, which we explain and augment with some theorems. We explore several of the norms that it yields - some sympathetically, others unsympathetically. (shrink)

This paper extends several themes from recent work on norms of assertion. It does as much by applying those themes to the speech act of asking. In particular, it argues for the view that there is a species of asking which is governed by a certain norm, a norm to the effect that one should ask a question only if one doesn’t know its answer.

This paper explores the nature of curiosity from an epistemological point of view. First it motivates this exploration by explaining why epistemologists do and should care about what curiosity is. Then it surveys the relevant literature and develops a particular approach.

Without directly addressing the Demarcation Problem for logic—the problem of distinguishing logical vocabulary from others—we focus on distinctive aspects of logical vocabulary in pursuit of a second goal in the philosophy of logic, namely, proposing criteria for the justification of logical rules. Our preferred approach has three components. Two of these are effectively Belnap’s, but with a twist. We agree with Belnap’s response to Prior’s challenge to inferentialist characterisations of the meanings of logical constants. Belnap argued that for a logical (...) constant to exist, its rules must be conservative over a previously given consequence relation and guarantee the uniqueness of the constant. The twist is that we require logical vocabulary to be provably conservative, not over a previously given formal consequence relation, but over a previously given meaningful vocabulary of a language. Uniqueness is also a feature defined in terms of provability: if two syntactically distinguished expressions are governed by the same rules, then formulas with them as main operators are interderivable. Belnap’s criteria are not only those for the existence of a logical constant, but more: they are what distinguishes logical vocabulary from all other expressions. It is the defining mark of a logical constant that it is provably conservative over the fragment of the language which excludes it and that its rules guarantee its uniqueness. The third component is the topic neutrality of logic. The provable conservativeness of logic over a previously given vocabulary of a language is motivated, in part, by appeal to molecularism in the theory of meaning. Molecularity is a feature endorsed by the theory of meaning as a whole, so it does not distinguish logical constants from other expressions. The same is true for conservativeness. We argue that molecularity, and hence conservativeness, are implicit presuppositions of speakers’ use of language: the addition of new vocabulary to a language is presupposed to be conservative. But this presupposition is one that we should be able reflectively to endorse (such as when attempting a rational reconstruction of the use of the vocabulary). Thus, where conservativeness is found to fail, this defect should be remedied and the use of the vocabulary corrected (as in classical negation) or excised altogether (as in pejoratives). We go on to characterise a notion of topic neutrality, which we argue applies to logical vocabulary. We then note that reflective endorsement of the conservativeness of a topic neutral vocabulary requires a proof that the vocabulary is conservative relative to any base vocabulary. Thus we require that logical vocabulary be demonstrably conservative. Allying this requirement, distinctive of logic, to a general consideration about the commitments of assertion yields a mode of justification for logical constants akin to some conceptions of Harmony, i.e., to the idea that the consequences of assertion of a logical complex need to be warranted by the grounds and ought to be the strongest consequences warranted by the grounds. Intuitionistic logic acquires a somewhat familiar justification but emanating from a new motivation. (shrink)

Among Dunn’s many important contributions to relevance logic was his work on the system RM (R-mingle). Although RM is an interesting system in its own right, it is widely considered to be too strong. In this chapter, I revisit a closely related system, RM0 (sometimes known as ‘constructive mingle’), which includes the mingle axiom while not degenerating in the way that RM itself does. My main interest will be in examining this logic from two related semantical perspectives. First, I give (...) a purely operational bisemilattice semantics for it by adapting previous work of Humberstone. Second, I examine a more conventional algebraic semantics for it and discuss how this relates to the operational semantics. A novel operational semantics for J (intuitionistic logic) as well as its conventional Heyting algebraic semantics emerge as special cases of the corresponding semantics for RM0. The results of this chapter suggest that RM0 is a more interesting logic than has been appreciated and that Humberstone’s operational semantic framework similarly deserves more attention than it has received. (shrink)

What is intellectual humility? In this essay, we aim to answer this question by assessing several contemporary accounts of intellectual humility, developing our own account, offering two reasons for our account, and meeting two objections and solving one puzzle.

I present a reconstruction of the logical system of the Tractatus, which differs from classical logic in two ways. It includes an account of Wittgenstein’s “form-series” device, which suffices to express some effectively generated countably infinite disjunctions. And its attendant notion of structure is relativized to the fixed underlying universe of what is named. -/- There follow three results. First, the class of concepts definable in the system is closed under finitary induction. Second, if the universe of objects is countably (...) infinite, then the property of being a tautology is \Pi^1_1-complete. But third, it is only granted the assumption of countability that the class of tautologies is \Sigma_1-definable in set theory. -/- Wittgenstein famously urges that logical relationships must show themselves in the structure of signs. He also urges that the size of the universe cannot be prejudged. The results of this paper indicate that there is no single way in which logical relationships could be held to make themselves manifest in signs, which does not prejudge the number of objects. (shrink)

I argue that recent attempts to vindicate blame have failed to fully face the vengeful feelings and angry outbursts that have led to scepticism about blame’s ethical status. This paper ende...

Abstract: Contemporary analytic philosophers of the “reactive attitudes” tend to share a simple conception of guilt as “self-directed blame”—roughly, an “unpleasant affect” felt in combination with, or in response to, the thought that one has violated a moral requirement, evinced substandard “quality of will,” or is blameworthy. I believe that this simple conception is inadequate. As an alternative, I offer my own theory of guilt’s logic and its connection to morality. In doing so, I attempt to articulate guilt’s defining thought (...) or proposition through an extended investigation and analysis of guilt’s many competing metaphors, which I trace from the Hebrew Bible to the New Testament to Shakespeare to contemporary vernacular. My interpretation of this literary genealogy offers a way to understand guilt’s seemingly disparate metaphors in terms of a single master-image that illuminates our self-conceptions and our relationship to morality. I conclude by making a very brief start toward a moral vindication of guilt against the backdrop of Nietzschean and Freudian analyses that explicitly call guilt’s place in a healthy social and personal life into question. I suggest that once guilt’s logic is made explicit, we can see that it makes sense of, honors, and addresses some of our deepest aspirations and needs. (shrink)

I argue that fitting resentment tracks unacceptable ‘ecological’ imbalances in relative social strength between victims and perpetrators that arise from violations of legitimate moral expectations. It does not respond purely, or even primarily, to offenders’ attitudes, and its proper targets need not be fully developed moral agents. It characteristically involves a wish for the restoration of social equilibrium rather than a demand for moral recognition or good will. To illuminate these contentions, I focus on cases that I believe demonstrate a (...) corollary thesis, namely, that strength, broadly construed, is a necessary condition of resentment-worthiness. I argue that weakness can make resentment unfitting in two ways. First, weakness may prevent a wrongdoer from shifting the balance of social power. Second, a weak wrongdoer may do social damage but be so lowly that resentment, which would represent him as excessively strong, would be inapt. Finally, I consider how accepting the ecological view might affect our theorizing about moral responsibility and the ethics of blame. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophers of moral responsibility are in widespread agreement that we can only be blamed for actions that express, reflect, or disclose something about us or the quality of our wills. In this paper I reject that thesis and argue that self disclosure is not a necessary condition on moral responsibility and blameworthiness: reactive responses ranging from aretaic appraisals all the way to outbursts of anger and resentment can be morally justified even when the blamed agent’s action expresses or discloses (...) nothing significant about his or her “deep self,” judgments and cares, or the quality of his or her will. I argue that the self-disclosure requirement on responsibility overestimates the extent to which our blaming practices and responsibility judgments are responsive to agents as opposed to actions, and that this mistake has the potential to distort both our reactive responses and our understanding of blamed agents’ characters. (shrink)

This study aims to determine the factors that may affect in constructing the contextualized learning activity sheets based on the learners’ results and the teachers’ self-assessment using a descriptive correlation research design. The findings of the study revealed that the teachers have varied levels of competence in terms of cultural knowledge and on average, they were at the Proficient level of competency. In addition, teachers’ self-assessments indicated that they strongly practiced the criteria in constructing contextualized IPED LAS. However, still at (...) the Advanced Beginner level based on the learners’ results. It can be concluded that teachers are competent in handling IPED based on their profile and cultural knowledge yet, Advance Beginners in terms of assessment skills. Teachers with higher educational qualifications improved their assessment skills. It is recommended that the regional and division IPED specialist should conduct quarterly training for teachers on the Indigenous Knowledge System and Practices (IKSP) and other IPED-related topics. Teachers may conduct indigenization mapping as part of the pedagogical strategy of handling IPED to encourage localization and indigenization of content. With the findings and results, the project ETASIP is made to aid teachers in planning for their assessment strategies. (shrink)

While the consequences of mathematically-based software, algorithms and strategies have become ever wider and better appreciated, ethical reflection on mathematics has remained primitive. We review the somewhat disconnected suggestions of commentators in recent decades with a view to piecing together a coherent approach to ethics in mathematics. Calls for a Hippocratic Oath for mathematicians are examined and it is concluded that while lessons can be learned from the medical profession, the relation of mathematicians to those affected by their work is (...) significantly different. There is something to be learned also from the codes of conduct of cognate but professionalised quantitative disciplines such as engineering and accountancy, as well as from legal principles bearing on professional work. We conclude with recommendations that professional societies in mathematics should sponsor an (international) code of ethics, institutional mission statements for mathematicians and syllabuses of ethics courses for incorporation into mathematics degrees. (shrink)

What is the role of affective experience in explaining how our desires provide us with reasons for action? When we desire that p, we are thereby disposed to feel attracted to the prospect that p, or to feel averse to the prospect that not-p. In this paper, we argue that affective experiences – including feelings of attraction and aversion – provide us with reasons for action in virtue of their phenomenal character. Moreover, we argue that desires provide us with reasons (...) for action only insofar as they are dispositions to have affective experiences. On this account, affective experience has a central role to play in explaining how desires provide reasons for action. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the principle of respect for autonomy can serve as the basis for laws that significantly limit conduct, including orders mandating isolation and quarantine. This thesis is fundamentally at odds with an overwhelming consensus in contemporary bioethics that the principle of respect for autonomy, while important in everyday clinical encounters, must be 'curtailed', 'constrained', or 'overridden' by other principles in times of crisis. I contend that bioethicists have embraced an indefensibly 'thin' notion of autonomy that (...) uproots the concept from its foundations in Kantian ethics. According to this thin conception, respect for autonomy, if unconditioned by competing principles (beneficence, justice, non-maleficence) would give competent adults the right to do anything they desired to do so long as they satisfied certain baseline psychological conditions. I argue that the dominant 'principlist' model of bioethical reasoning depends on this thin view of autonomy and show how it deprives us of powerful analytical tools that would help us to think seriously about the foundations of human rights, justice, and law. Then, I offer a brief sketch of a 'thick', historically grounded notion of autonomy and show what we could gain by taking it seriously. (shrink)

This paper argues that questions can be bullshit. First it explores some shallowly interrogative ways in which that can happen. Then it shows how questions can also be bullshit in a way that’s more deeply interrogative.

This paper argues that epistemologists should theorize about wisdom and critically examines a number of attempts to do as much. It then builds and argues for a particular theory of what wisdom is.

Recent years have seen the rise of ‘Just Culture’ as an ideal in the patient safety movement, with numerous hospitals and professional organisations adopting a Just Culture response to incidents ranging from non-culpable human error to intentional misconduct. This paper argues that there is a deep problem with the Just Culture model, resulting from its impoverished understanding of the value of punitive, fundamentally backward-looking, practices of holding people accountable. I show that the kind of ‘accountability’ and ‘punishment’ contemporary Just Culture (...) advocates endorse disrespects both patients and providers. I claim, first, that punishment is good because it respects participants in the healthcare system by restoring an equilibrium of social and moral status that wrongdoing disturbs, and, second, that it only does so when it communicates a backward-looking message of resentful blame. (shrink)

Aritsotle's hyle is contrasted with Plato's chora and Aquinas's prima materia. It is argued that Plato and Aristotle developed their concepts in response to very different needs, and that Aquinas's theory reflects a conflation of their views by Neoplatonic commentators. Hyle is shown to be an active potential to a determinate form in contrast to Aquinas's prima materia, which is a purely indeterminate passive potential. This gives a point of attachment in Aristotle's philosophy of nature for the later notion of (...) universal laws of nature. (shrink)

They say that argumentative writing skills are best learned through writing argumentative essays. I say that while this is excellent practice for argumentative writing, an important exercise to practice structuring such essays and build critical thinking skills simultaneously is what I call the four-sentence paper. The exercise has the template They say..., I say..., one might object..., I reply... One might object that the assignment oversimplifies argumentative writing, stifles creativity, promotes an adversarial attitude, or that students can’t consider objections well (...) anyway. I reply that a simplified form of argumentative writing is fine for beginners, especially since the template is ubiquitous in philosophy; that any assignment template has room for creativity; that considering objections is consistent with good manners; and that despite some pitfalls of trying to defend a thesis and consider objections, students are capable of considering objections well with proper instruction and practice. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that providers who conscientiously refuse to provide legal and professionally accepted medical care are not always morally required to refer their patients to willing providers. Indeed, we will argue that refusing to refer is morally admirable in certain instances. In making the case, we show that belief in a sweeping moral duty to refer depends on an implicit assumption that the procedures sanctioned by legal and professional norms are ethically permissible. Focusing on examples of female (...) genital cutting, clitoridectomy and ‘normalizing’ surgery for children with intersex traits, we argue that this assumption is untenable and that providers are not morally required to refer when refusing to perform genuinely unethical procedures. The fact that acceptance of our thesis would force us to face the challenge of distinguishing between ethical and unethical medical practices is a virtue. This is the central task of medical ethics, and we must confront it rather than evade it. There are no data in this work. (shrink)

This article critically examines numerous attempts to build a knowledge-first ethics of belief. These theories specify a number of potential "knowledge norms for belief".

This chapter argues that adequately facing and responding to medical error requires making space for blame. In vindicating blame as a response to medical error, this essay does not advocate a return to a “bad apple” blame culture in which unlucky practitioners are unfairly scapegoated. It does, however, defend the targeted feeling and expression of angry, and even resentful, blaming attitudes toward health-care providers who make at least certain kinds of mistakes. The chapter makes the case that the angry and (...) resentful feelings associated with blame reflect a conception of oneself as a person worthy of consideration, and that expressing these feelings allows victims and families to fight for their dignity and self-respect. Along the way, it distinguishes between shaming and blaming, explaining that blaming, unlike shaming, characteristically aims to draw offenders into a moral dialogue. As a result, a good blaming practice can provide a logic within which providers who make costly errors may seek forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing. (shrink)

I start with a critical discussion of some attempts to ground epistemic normativity in curiosity. Then I develop three positive proposals. The first of these proposals is more or less purely philosophical; the second two reside at the interdisciplinary borderline between philosophy and psychology. The proposals are independent and rooted in different literatures. Readers uninterested in the first proposal (and the critical discussion preceding it) may nonetheless be interested in the second two proposals, and vice versa. -/- The proposals are (...) as follows. First I argue that, among several ways in which the notion of curiosity might be used to delineate significant truths from trivial ones, a particular way is the most promising. Second, I argue that curiosity has some underappreciated epistemic roles involving memory. Third, I argue that curiosity has some underappreciated epistemic roles involving coherence. (shrink)

Suppose that you are engaging with someone who is your oppressor, or someone who espouses a heinous view like Nazism or a ridiculous view like flat-earthism. In contexts like these, there is a disparity between you and your interlocutor, a dramatic normative difference across which you are in the right and they are in the wrong. As theorists of humility, we find these contexts puzzling. Humility seems like the *last* thing oppressed people need and the *last* thing we need in (...) dealing with those whose views are heinous or ridiculous. Responding to such people via humility seems uncalled for, even inappropriate. But how could this be, given that humility is a *virtue*? The purpose of the paper is to explore this puzzle. We explain what the puzzle is and then attempt to draw some lessons from it: first, the lesson that the importance of humility is limited in several ways, and second, the lesson that humility nonetheless has several important roles to play, even for people who are in the right in contexts of disparity. (shrink)

What is the relationship between knowledge and ethics? Does what we know and the reason that secures knowledge determine ethical responsibility, or might ethical responsibility itself awaken and animate the enterprise of knowing? The dissertation affirms the priority of ethics by juxtaposing two accounts of the relationship between truth and goodness. It critiques Hegel's systematic conception of absolute knowing by showing that this knowing elides the anarchical ethical demand arising from the other person. Hegel's dialectic reconciles the problem of the (...) relation with the other by transposing it to the plane of cognition where it becomes spirit's self-knowing. However, Emmanuel Levinas's phenomenological reduction of the structures of knowing exposes an ethical level of experience that both inspires and interrupts this adventure of knowing. ;After the introduction of this problematic, Chapter 1 examines the challenge that Levinas poses to Hegel, discovering in experience and subjectivity a ground where real dialogue can take place. Chapter 2 traces the reconception of subjectivity by which Hegel brings all exteriority within the experience of self-consciousness and compares this with Levinas's notion of "lived experience." In Chapter 3, I show how Levinas's account of sensibility and enjoyment resists incorporation into Hegel's notion of self-consciousness. Chapter 4 examines the encounter with the other person and explicates why Hegel's and Levinas's accounts cannot be reconciled or made to complement one another, for the non-allergic responsibility incurred in the face to face relation is inassimilable to the antagonism of the same and the other experienced as self-consciousness. Then, in Chapter 5, I trace Hegel's pursuit of a more authentic recognition of otherness through the development of the concept of spirit, paying special attention to the role of language. The ultimate accomplishment of spiritual recognition in Hegel's account is again challenged by Levinas's notion of responsibility, which signifies as an ethical "saying" apart from the "said." Finally, I contest the absoluteness of knowing without denying the dialectic that animates it by suggesting that philosophy can be maintained as a human enterprise, a pursuit of knowing that is ever subject to and interrupted by the face of the other. (shrink)

There is a perplexing transition in Dr. Reza Davari's thought, when he problematizes the relation between Iranian and Western history/cultures, on which this paper is focusing. The interperative objective is to clarify this transition on the basis of the implicit relation between the two most fundamental concepts in his earlier and later thought respectively westernization and underdevelopment. Although, by this transition, the level of discussion transits from an ontologico-philosophical to an intellectualist one. So, there are two different levels of problematization (...) in his thought which differ deeply. Therefore, we are not just dealing with the substitution of fundamental concepts, but with different problematizations and different levels of discussion. Obviously, there will be new problems arising which are not just concerning with the justification of the transition but with the problematization of westernization itself. Finally, it's been concluded that in order to clarify these new problems, we should step back to the level of philosophical discussion, and first of all to the clarification of the I-not-I relation which has been neglected thoroughly in the whole project. (shrink)

Epistemology is normative. This normativity has been widely recognized for a long time, but it has recently come into direct focus as a central topic of discussion. The result is a recent and large turn towards focusing on epistemic value. I’ll start by describing some of the history and motivations of this recent value turn. Then I’ll categorize the work within the value turn into three strands, and I’ll discuss the main writings in those strands. Finally, I’ll explore some themes (...) that are ripe for further development. (shrink)

This is the introduction to the volume Kantian Nonconceptualism (Palgrave 2016).

:Recently, Allais, Hanna and others have argued that Kant is a nonconceptualist about intuition and that intuitions refer objectively, independently of the functions of the understanding. Kantian conceptualists have responded, which the nonconceptualists also cite as textual evidence for their reading) that this view conflicts with the central goal of Kant’s Transcendental Deduction: to argue that all intuitions are subject to the categories. I argue that the conceptualist reading of KrV, A 89 ff./B 122 ff. is unfounded. Further, I argue (...) that the nonconceptualists are wrong to believe that intuitions as such refer objectively and that they are mistaken about the relation between figurative synthesis and intellectual synthesis. (shrink)

A physicalist view of qualia labelled non-eliminative reductionism is outlined. If it is true, qualia and physicalism can co-exist without difficulty. First, qualia present no particular problem for reductionist physicalism - they are entirely physical, can be studied and explained using the standard scientific approach, and present no problem any harder than any other scientists face. Second, reductionist physicalism presents no particular problem for qualia – they can be encompassed within an entirely physicalist position without any necessity, either to reduce (...) them to non-existence, or to treat them as new fundamental properties. It is suggested that the position also has sufficient explanatory power to successfully deal with the 'why like anything – why does experience exist at all' question and to counter both Chalmers' Conceivability Argument and Jackson's Knowledge Argument. (shrink)

A physicalist view of qualia labelled non-eliminative reductionism is outlined. If it is true, qualia and physicalism can co-exist without difficulty. First, qualia present no particular problem for reductionist physicalism - they are entirely physical, can be studied and explained using the standard scientific approach, and present no problem any harder than any other scientists face. Second, reductionist physicalism presents no particular problem for qualia – they can be encompassed within an entirely physicalist position without any necessity, either to reduce (...) them to non-existence, or to treat them as new fundamental properties. It is suggested that the position also has sufficient explanatory power to successfully deal with the 'why like anything – why does experience exist at all' question and to counter both Chalmers' Conceivability Argument and Jackson's Knowledge Argument. (shrink)

Descartes' methodical doubt is being criticized by naïve realists and others who don't find doubt as a good starting point for metaphysical thought, however, the philosophical achievements of his method have been absorbed in all later philosophies. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate how an inevitable question concerning the foundation of Descartes' mathesis universalis, which led him to investigate this foundation by applying this very method in Metaphysics, has finally enabled him to discover his most important philosophical principle, (...) i.e., the necessary relation between being and reason in the identity of the "I". To demonstrate this, after summarizing the fundamental ideas of mathesis uneversalis, and showing the inner necessity of introducing the methodical doubt to fortify these ideas, the decisive role of metaphysical doubt as the third step of the methodical doubt, and malicious demon as its second phase would be highighted. It would also become clear that the metaphysical doubt has a great importance as a turning point from different aspects: as a knot that ties mathesis universalis with its underlying Metaphysics; as a bridge from within the psychological "I" to the metaphysical "I". (shrink)

Endogenous Cushing syndrome (CS) results from hypercortisolemia caused by excess adrenocorticotropic hormone production in a pituitary adenoma or ectopic tumor, or by an adrenal tumor that directly produces excess cortisol. The diagnosis can usually be ascertained with a reasonable degree of certainty based on clinical and laboratory findings of hypercortisolism. There are patients, however, in whom the production of excess cortisol exhibits a cyclic or intermittent pattern, and, as a result, the clinical symptoms may be quite complex and varied. In (...) these patients the hypothalamic- pituitary-adrenal axis may be normal between cycles, and dexamethasone suppression testing may produce a paradoxical response. In the present article, the authors provide a definition of cyclic Cushing syndrome, review the causes and its potential pathophysiological mechanisms, and discuss the treatment options based on a review of the available literature. (DOI: 10.3171/FOC-07/09/E4). (shrink)

I outline and develop a particular physicalist perspective on qualia, and suggest that it may be the basis of a correct account of the relationship of mental states to the physical world. Assume that a quale is a perspective on a physical state in the organism – the reality as known as distinct from the reality as such – but that the perspective, though it entails irreducible experiential knowledge, has no physical substance over that encompassed in the physical state itself. (...) Assume this physical state is also a brain state. The position is a useful one. First, reductionist physicalism is true, but experiential qualities are irreducible physical knowledge, and a required part of our physical world view. Second, experiences are not additional problems over those addressed externally, but only how these problems seem when known internally – an experience just is the physical state that underlies its external counterpart, and the same standard scientific account suffices to explain both, permitting a science of consciousness to develop by applying the same standard external–observer–based methods adopted in older scientific disciplines. Finally, challenges to physicalism associated with the ‘unbridgeable gap’, Leibniz's Law, Jackson's knowledge argument, and Chalmers' hard problem of consciousness are successfully countered. (shrink)

Abstract -/- The objective of this paper is to clarify that the distinction Malkam Khan makes between natural (ordinary) and scientific reason, is crucial to his entire thought, and he makes this distinction because he is aware of the critical status the idea of method has in the formation of the scientific reason. So, I try to prove that the idea of method and the distinction he makes between these two reasons are the same idea which is to be considered (...) as his central idea. According to Malkam Khān, following the principles of this reason is the key to prosperity and progress. So, he believes that in order not to be colonized, we should progress, and in order to become prosperous, we should act according to the principles of scientific reason. On the basis of this analysis I claim that he thinks like a strategist, therefore, whenever we want to interpret his thought as a consistent whole, we should consider this particular approach. My own approach in this paper is in harmony with the main argument of Malkam Khān, trying to interpret his thought not on the basis of his personal character, his concealed intentions, or simple political events in which he was a part, but on the basis of seeing his thought as scientifically (objectively) as possible by focusing on his own writings in different stages of his thought-life, and analyzing them structurally. (shrink)

a revised version of the published version is uploaded here.

We extend Langdon Winner's idea that artifacts have politics into the realm of mathematics. To do so, we first provide a list of examples showing the existence of mathematical artifacts that have politics. In the second step, we provide an argument that shows that all mathematical artifacts have politics. We conclude by showing the implications for embedding ethics into mathematical curricula. We show how acknowledging that mathematical artifacts have politics can help mathematicians design better exercises for their mathematics students.

Shared intentions supporting cooperation and other social practices are often used to describe human social life but not the social lives of nonhuman animals. This difference in description is supported by a lack of evidence for rebuke or stakeholding during collaboration in nonhuman animals. We suggest that rebuke and stakeholding are just two examples of the many and varied forms of social maintenance that can support shared intentions. Drawing on insights about mindshaping in social cognition, we show how apes can (...) be stakeholders of a different sort in joint action. Drawing on pluralistic social maintenance methods of behavior enforcement, we show ape joint action can be supported by different forms of positive and negative social pressures, and not just protest. We explain how diverse relationships, contexts, social structures, and forms of communication may play a role in forming and successfully fulfilling joint commitments for humans, great apes, and other animals. (shrink)