Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

With the current international competition among global companies, Business English as a Lingua Franca (BEFL) has become a necessity. As for one, Boardwalk Direct Selling Company recognizes the adoption of the BEFL concept within the organization to equip its workforce with adequate English language skills at par with global standards. This study aims to assess the organization’s current English proficiency and the readiness of its employees to embrace BEFL. This also presents the major English language skills areas that need improvement (...) through training intervention. A stratified sampling method is utilized to extract data via an online survey. Respondents are strategically chosen to represent different strata such as organizational departments or groups, job levels, tenure, and age. A convenient size of 34 respondents participated in this study. Generally, respondents acknowledge the importance of the English language skill set in their job functions and as criteria for their career growth. Half of the sampling population affirms their English language proficiency. However, the study reveals that Boardwalk employees are willing to subject themselves to improving their English skills, most particularly in speaking and writing aspects. Given their willingness, the employees recommend that the company strengthen its BEFL trainings across the organization. Moreover, with the current setup of mostly working from home due to COVID restrictions, majority of the employees prefer online learning. (shrink)

In contrast to individualistic explanations of social injustice that appeal to implicit attitudes, structural explanations are unintuitive: they appeal to entities that lack clear ontological status, and the explanatory mechanism is similarly unclear. This makes structural explanations unappealing. The present work proposes a structural explanation of one type of injustice that happens in conversations, discursive injustice. This proposal meets two goals. First, it satisfactorily accounts for the specific features of this particular kind of injustice; and second, it articulates a structural (...) explanation that overcomes their unattractiveness. The main idea is that discursive injustice is not the result of biased interlocutors, but of problematic discursive norms. (shrink)

Despite its central role in his important theories of self and external world, Hume’s account of numerical identity has been neglected or misunderstood. The account is designed as a response to a difficulty concerning identity apparently original with Hume. I argue that the problem is real, crucial, and remains unresolved today. Hume’s response to the difficulty enlists his idiosyncratic, empiricist views on time: time consists of discrete, partless moments, some of which coexist with successions of others. Time is more like (...) a wall of variously sized bricks than like a continuous line. Hume’s arguments that time (and space) are not infinitely divisible have met with literal contempt. I show that his unusual views are motivated and consistent. The topic of identity leads naturally to Hume’s account of personal identity and his later retraction--one of the most widely discussed topics in Hume scholarship. I give a new, straightforward explanation of the retraction, by arguing that Hume’s views on consciousness preclude his prior account of the self as a fiction. I then suggest that Hume’s fundamental problem for personal identity is his general difficulty concerning identity. Discussing Hume’s metaphysics raises perhaps the most central and difficult topic in Hume scholarship--how to reconcile the constructive, theoretical Hume with the skeptical Hume. The prevailing view for the last century has been that Hume’s skepticism is limited, leaving room for his theorizing. I argue, rather, that Hume is an unlimited Pyrrhonian skeptic in relevant respects, and that this interpretation of him best reconciles his two sides. (shrink)

I argue that an individual has aspects numerically identical with it and each other that nonetheless qualitatively differ from it and each other. This discernibility of identicals does not violate Leibniz's Law, however, which concerns only individuals and is silent about their aspects. They are not in its domain of quantification. To argue that there are aspects I will appeal to the internal conflicts of conscious beings. I do not mean to imply that aspects are confined to such cases, but (...) the best way to start is to recognize them experientially. We can feel the conflicts within ourselves. In doing so we can feel some of our aspects. I will try to enhance our understanding of the concept of aspect by listing and formalizing some principles for its use. After that I will argue that all sorts of individual things have aspects, not just people who are conflicted. (shrink)

Love enhancement can give us as a say on whom we love and thus ‘free’ us from our brain chemistry, which is mostly out of our control. In that way, we become more autonomous in love and in our life in general, as long as love enhancement is a free, voluntary choice. So goes the argument in favour of this addition to medical interventions of relationships. In this paper, I show that proponents of love enhancement have overlooked, or at least (...) underestimated, the fact that love itself impacts people’s choices. Since this could include the choice for love or anti-love drugs, I call for a re-formulation of the underlying view on autonomy before this medical intervention is made available to the public. (shrink)

In 'The Moral Problem', Michael Smith defends a conception of normative reasons that is nonrelative. Given his understanding of normative reasons, nonrelativity commits him to the convergence hypothesis: that, as a result of the process or correction of beliefs and rational deliberation, 'all' agents would converge on having the same set of desires. I develop several reasons for being pessimistic about the truth of this hypothesis. As a result, if normative reasons exist, we have a reason to be skeptical of (...) either Smith's understanding of what normative reasons are or of his insistence that they are nonrelative. (shrink)

One of the attractions of the Humean instrumentalist theory of practical rationality is that it appears to offer a special connection between an agent's reasons and her motivation. The assumption that Humeanism is able to assert a strong connection between reason and motivation has been challenged, most notably by Christine Korsgaard. She argues that Humeanism is not special in the connection it allows to motivation. On the contrary, Humean theories of practical rationality do connect reasons and motivation in a unique (...) and attractive way, though the nature of this connection has sometimes been misunderstood by both defenders and detractors of the theory. (shrink)

Rutherford and Ray think that human beings have mental mechanisms that help them to detect individuals that, deliberately, do not follow a rule. In the same way, they hold that autism is not a disorder in which these mechanisms are damaged. This idea seems contrary to the thesis, supported by some researchers, that autistic people have a theory of mind deficit. This is because of, if Rutherford and Ray are right, autistic people can detect other people’s intentions. In this paper, (...) Rutherford and Ray’s experiment is analyzed and it is concluded that they do not prove that people with autism can understand intentions. Such an experiment only shows that autistic people and general population share common logical-linguistic abilities. (shrink)

For the sake of universalism and against totalitarianism, discursive ethics has shown with Jürgen Habermas a practical deficit by denying moral philosophy the possibility of reflecting on the alienating conditions for dialogue through a specific ethos. This article examines how Hartmut Rosa's theory of resonance can revitalise the debate on the conditions that can undermine the basis for dialogue in accelerated societies, based not on the concept of ethos, but on the concept of mode of world-relationship [Modus der Weltbeziehung].

According to perdurantism, objects persist by being spread out over time, just as composite three-dimensional objects are spread out over space. Just as a composite three-dimensional object is spread out over space by having spatial parts, objects persist, according to perdurantism, by having temporal parts. Perdurantism can be stated more precisely by saying what exactly a temporal part is. In the sequel, Theodore Sider's definition of "instantaneous temporal part" shall be assumed: x is an instantaneous temporal part of y at (...) instant t =df. x exists at, but only at, t; x is part of y at t; and x overlaps at t everything that is part of y at t. Much more could be and has been said about how perdurantism should be formulated. Though interesting in their own right, nothing of importance here turns on these matters of formulation. (shrink)

Hume's Treatise arguments concerning space, time, and geometry, especially ones involving his denial of infinite divisibility; have suffered harsh criticism. I show that in the section "Of the ideas of space and time," Hume gives important characterizations of his skeptical approach, in some respects Pyrrhonian, that will be developed in the rest of the Treatise. When that approach is better understood, the force of Hume's arguments can be appreciated, and the influential criticisms of them can be seen to miss the (...) mark. (shrink)

The paper has two complementary objectives. First, it sustains an analysis of the concept of ‘coloniality’ that accounts for the epistemic imbalance in the modern world, demonstrating precisely how Africa is adversely affected, having been caught up in the throes of coloniality and its epistemic implications. Second – and complementarily – the paper attempts to bring this very concept of ‘coloniality’ into the discourse on Africa’s emigration crisis, arguing that Africa’s emigration crisis is traceable, inter alia, to the epistemic imbalance (...) in the very structure of modernity. This imbalance results from the stifling of Africa’s epistemic resources under Western epistemic hegemony. Epistemic coloniality, of course interacting with some material factors, creates a sufficient condition for emigration. It is further theorized that the apparent lack of epistemic will on the part of Africans to mobilize some surviving epistemic resources to address some problems on their own is also a function of coloniality. (shrink)

According to the Weak Supplementation Principle (WSP)—a widely received principle of mereology—an object with a proper part, p , has another distinct proper part that doesn't overlap p . In a recent article in this journal, Nikk Effingham and Jon Robson employ WSP in an objection to endurantism. I defend endurantism in a way that bears on mereology in general. First, I argue that denying WSP can be motivated apart from the truth of endurantism. I then go on to offer (...) an explanation of WSP's initial appeal, argue that denying WSP fails to have untoward consequences for the rest of mereology, and show that the falsity of WSP is consistent with a primary guiding thought behind it. (shrink)

Metaphysical considerations aside, today’s inheritors of the tradition of natural philosophy are primarily scientists. However, they are oblivious to the human factor involved in science and in seeing how political, religious, and other ideologies contaminate our visions of nature. In general, philosophers observe human (historical, sociological, and psychological) processes within the construction of theories, as well as in the development of scientific activity itself. -/- In our time, feminism—along with accompanying ideas of identity politics under the slogan “diversity, inclusion, equity”—has (...) emerged in science policies. The vast majority of scientists (including myself) are convinced that discrimination is reprehensible. We also believe that all individuals of any sex, race, ethnic group, or ideology should be valued in academia solely based on his or her merits and potential through equality programs. However, as I will show in this article, political indoctrination has inadmissibly undertaken the struggle for equality in academic institutions in Western countries. I argue here that universities and research institutes should be politically free (neutral) to encourage academic freedom. -/- One negative aspect of equality programs is that worldwide, scientists are harassed for expressing opinions related to the “gender” issue. This situation severely restricts scientists’ freedom of expression, even within the limits of the law. Codes of conduct extending beyond legal boundaries are examples of this issue. Scientists who express their views about “gender” are often harassed, bullied, and socially or academically excluded. Thus, we are witnessing a wave of proselytizing in research institutes and science-associated media. Today, there is widespread biased propaganda of “victimhood”. This propaganda proposes positive discrimination and increasing women’s participation in unnatural ways. It also bends the history of science by overvaluing the creations of forgotten women, offering lectures on indoctrination, organizing congresses on gender and science, and persecuting anyone who sees the subject differently. All of this covered by a multitude of associations that financially benefit from these discourses through succulent subsidies of public money. Apparently, feminism is no longer about fighting against discrimination. Instead, it is about imposing an ideology and giving more power to one group of people. Thus, we must ask whether the end justifies the means. (shrink)

This essay interprets Butler’s distinction between identity in the loose and popular sense and in the strict and philosophical sense. Suppose there are different standards for counting the same things. Then what are two distinct things counting strictly may be one and the same thing counting loosely. Within a given standard identity is one-one. But across standards it is many-one. An alternative interpretation using the parts-whole relation fails, because that relation should be understood as many-one identity. Another alternative making identity (...) relative to sort fails, because whole and parts can be of the same sort. (shrink)

There is more than one way to say that composition is identity. Yi has distinguished the Weak Composition thesis from the Strong Composition thesis and attributed the former to David Lewis while noting that Lewis associates something like the latter with me. Weak Composition is the thesis that the relation between the parts collectively and their whole is closely analogous to identity. Strong Composition is the thesis that the relation between the parts collectively and their whole is identity. Yi is (...) right that Strong Composition does not fully reflect my view. We must recognize further what, borrowing Lewis's characterization, could be called the "stronger, and stranger" Composition thesis, or what I'll call the Stronger Composition thesis for short. On Strong Composition, it is only collectively that the parts are identical with the whole. On Stronger Composition, they are individually identical with it as well. I will explain and motivate this thesis. (shrink)

The work argues that engaging Africa's cultural and epistemic resources as social imaginaries, and not as metaphysical or ontological “essences,” could help practitioners of African philosophy overcome the cluster of shortcomings and undesirable features associated with “ethnophilosophy.” A number of points are outlined to buttress this claim. First, the framework of social imaginaries does not operate with the false assumption that Africa's cultural forms and epistemic resources are static and immutable. Second, this framework does not lend itself to sweeping generalizations (...) about Africa or large swathes of it. Third, the framework of social imaginaries remedies ethnophilosophy's problem of collectivism. Fourth, unlike ethnophilosophy, it does not romanticize and canonize a supposedly “idyllic” African past, which militates against a realistic and forward‐looking philosophizing. Finally, with the framework of social imaginaries, Africa's indigenous cultural and epistemic resources become amenable to being engaged with critical philosophical rigor. This not only enhances their potential for cross‐cultural philosophical conversation but also enhances their usefulness for addressing current sociopolitical issues affecting Africa. The discussion in this paper somewhat touches upon the question of method in African philosophy, using the ethnophilosophy problem to navigate the vast gamut of issues involved. (shrink)

ABSTRACT According to David Lewis, alteration is "qualitative difference between temporal parts of something." It follows that moments, since they are simple and lack temporal parts, cannot alter from future to present to past. Here then is another way to put McTaggart's paradox about change in tense. I will appeal to my theory of Aspects to rebut the thought behind this rendition of McTaggart. On my theory, it is possible that qualitatively differing things be numerically identical. I call these differing, (...) numerically identical things "aspects." I will argue that alteration can be a qualitative difference between temporal aspects of something that lacks temporal parts. So a moment can alter in tense. By rejecting Lewis's assumption my theory can solve this version of McTaggart's paradox. (shrink)

Confucius gave counsel that is notoriously hard to follow: "What you do not wish for yourself, do not impose on others" (Huang 1997: 15.24). People tend to be concerned with themselves and to be indifferent to most others. We are distinct from others so our self-concern does not include them, or so it seems. Were we to realize this distinctness is merely apparent--that our true self includes others--Confucius's counsel would be easier to follow. Concern for our true self would extend (...) concern beyond the narrow selves we appear to be. The neo-Confucians held just such a view. They espoused an identity with the universe and everything in it, arguing that this identity explains a natural concern for everyone and everything, not just for our narrow selves. However, many things in the universe differ from each other, that is, some have qualities others lack. If they are all one and the same thing then that one thing differs from itself. I will suggest that the objection can be answered with some metaphysical innovation. I will address the objection by sketching a theory--call it the theory of aspects--that explains how numerically identical things can differ qualitatively. (shrink)

Berkeley desarrolla su teoría de la visión en la obra de juventud Ensayo para una nueva teoría de la visión, que por lo general ha sido leída atendiendo sólo a sus aspectos científicos o perceptuales. En este artículo propongo una lectura distinta, que busca mostrar que el Ensayo no sólo atiende aspectos científicos sino, por el contrario, anticipa el inmaterialismo de obras posteriores. Esto lo hace porque Dios cumple un importante papel en él, lo cual se debe, entre otras cosas, (...) a que la teoría de la visión es desarrollada en función de Dios, pues de Él depende tanto la vista y los objetos visibles como el argumento del lenguaje visual. (shrink)

Construing the instantiation of a universal by a particular in terms of my theory of aspects resolves the basic mystery of this "non-relational tie", and gives theoretical unity to the four characteristics of instantiation discerned by Armstrong. Taking aspects as distinct in a way akin to Scotus's formal distinction, I suggest that instantiation is the sharing of an aspect by a universal and a particular--a kind of partial identity. This approach allows me to address Plato's multiple location and One over (...) Many problems, Bradley's problem concerning the instantiation of relations, and the problem of change. (shrink)

Neo-Humean instrumentalist theories of reasons for acting have been presented with a dilemma: either they are normatively trivial and, hence, inadequate as a normative theory or they covertly commit themselves to a noninstrumentalist normative principle. The claimed result is that no purely instrumentalist theory of reasons for acting can be normatively adequate. This dilemma dissolves when we understand what question neo-Humean instrumentalists are addressing. The dilemma presupposes that neo-Humeans are attempting to address the question of how to act, 'simpliciter'. Instead, (...) they are evaluating actions from the agent's normative perspective. (shrink)

The following paper presents and discuses the epistemological premises of one of the relativistic expressions of the so-called constructivism i.e. the social constructionism. Firstly, we trace constructivism’s theoretical origins and later, we distinguish the main ideas of Kenneth Gergen’s social constructionist proposal. The analysis is done in the following way: (a) we analyse the epistemological premises and the philosophical problems arising from them, and (b) we analyse the problematic impact these premises have in the praxis of social sciences. Finally, we (...) conclude that the exclusion of clear philosophical distinctions inside social constructionism undermines social constructionism’s plausibility. El siguiente artículo presenta y discute los postulados epistemológicos de una de las expresiones relativistas del denominado constructivismo i.e. el construccionismo social. En primer momento, se rastrean los orígenes teóricos del constructivismo y, posteriormente, se distinguen los principales postulados del construccionismo social de Kenneth Gergen. El análisis se realiza del siguiente modo: (a) Se analizan los supuestos epistemológicos y los problemas filosóficos derivados de éstos, y (b) Se analizan las consecuencias que los postulados construccionistas tienen en la praxis que llevan a cabo las ciencias sociales. Finalmente, se concluye que la exclusión de distinciones filosóficas claras por parte del construccionismo social le resta plausibilidad al enfoque. (shrink)

Neo-Humean instrumentalists hold that anagent's reasons for acting are grounded in theagent's desires. Numerous objections have beenleveled against this view, but the mostcompelling concerns the problem of ``aliendesires'' – desires with which the agent doesnot identify. The standard version ofneo-Humeanism holds that these desires, likeany others, generate reasons for acting. Avariant of neo-Humeanism that grounds anagent's reasons on her values, rather than allof her desires, avoids this implication, but atthe cost of denying that we have reasons to acton innocent whims. (...) A version of neo-Humeanismthat holds that an agent has reason to satisfyall of her desires that are not in conflictwith her values appears to allow us to grantthe reason-giving force of innocent whims whiledenying the reason-giving force of alien desires. (shrink)

There is a familiar problem in moral theories that recognize positive obligations to help others related to the practical room these obligations leave for ordinary life, and the risk that open-ended obligations to help others will consume our lives and resources. Responding to this problem, Kantians have tended to emphasize the idea of limits on positive obligations but are typically unsatisfactorily vague about the nature and extent of these limits. I argue here that aspects of Kant’s discussion of duties of (...) virtue owed to ourselves suggest a useful metric we can use in discussing these limits and that generalizing this account and combining it with elements of Barbara Herman’s view, offers us an attractive model of moral deliberation with the resources we need to engage the critic’s challenge properly. (shrink)

Oliver's and Rodriguez-Pereyra's important interpretation of the problem of universals as one concerning truthmakers neglects something crucial: that there is a numerical identity between numerically distinct particulars. The problem of universals is rather how to resolve the apparent contradiction that the same things are both numerically distinct and numerically identical. Baxter's account of instantiation as partial identity resolves the apparent contradiction. A seeming objection to this account is that it appears to make instantiation symmetric, since partial identity is symmetric. Armstrong's (...) standard reply is that the difference between a particular and a universal is what makes instantiation asymmetric. Brown suggests, though, that the instantiation of a universal by a universal is sometimes symmetric. However, the examples on which he relies are not universals. (shrink)

Is a social complex identical to many united people or is it a group entity in addition to the people? For specificity, I will assume that a social complex is a plural subject in Margaret Gilbert’s sense. By appeal to my theory of Aspects, according to which there can be qualitative difference without numerical difference, I give an answer that is a middle way between metaphysical individualism and metaphysical holism. This answer will enable answers to two additional metaphysical questions: (i) (...) how can two social complexes have all the same members and (ii) how can there be a social complex of social complexes? (shrink)

Benefit/cost analysis is a technique for evaluating programs, procedures, and actions; it is not a moral theory. There is significant controversy over the moral justification of benefit/cost analysis. When a procedure for evaluating social policy is challenged on moral grounds, defenders frequently seek a justification by construing the procedure as the practical embodiment of a correct moral theory. This has the apparent advantage of avoiding difficult empirical questions concerning such matters as the consequences of using the procedure. So, for example, (...) defenders of benefit/cost analysis (BCA) are frequently tempted to argue that this procedurejust isthe calculation of moral Tightness – perhaps that what itmeansfor an action to be morally right is just for it to have the best benefit-to-cost ratio given the accounts of “benefit” and “cost” that BCA employs. They suggest, in defense of BCA, that they have found the moral calculus – Bentham's “unabashed arithmetic of morals.” To defend BCA in this manner is to commit oneself to one member of a family of moral theories (let us call thembenefit/cost moral theoriesorB/C moral theories) and, also, to the view that if a procedure is (so to speak) the direct implementation of a correct moral theory, then it is a justified procedure. Neither of these commitments is desirable, and so the temptation to justify BCA by direct appeal to a B/C moral theory should be resisted; it constitutes an unwarranted short cut to moral foundations – in this case, an unsound foundation. Critics of BCA are quick to point out the flaws of B/C moral theories, and to conclude that these undermine the justification of BCA. But the failure to justify BCA by a direct appeal to B/C moral theory does not show that the technique is unjustified. There is hope for BCA, even if it does not lie with B/C moral theory. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Whether explicitly or implicitly, Kant's critical project weighs heavily upon Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception. This article argues that we can understand Merleau-Ponty's text as a phenomenological rewriting of the Critique of Pure Reason from within the paradoxical structures of lived experience, effectively merging Kant's Transcendental Aesthetic and Transcendental Analytic. Although he was influenced by Husserl's and Heidegger's interpretations of Kant's first version of the Transcendental Deduction, Merleau-Ponty develops a unique position between Kant, Husserl, and Heidegger via an embodied and (...) lived synthesis that collapses Kant's distinction between sensibility and the understanding, and that makes sense of temporality and subjectivity as a paradoxical trajectory. (shrink)

The article studies historically and systematically one of the most important aspects of Suárez’s metaphysics: the actualism, which consists in a reinterpretation of the Aristotelian doctrine of potency and act, which rejects the potency in its own sense and replaces it by the idea of an actuated potency (i.e., possessing an own being).

Many believe that the rational evaluation of actions depends on the rational evaluation of even basic desires. Hume, though, viewed desires as "original existences" which cannot be contrary to either truth or reason. Contemporary critics of Hume, including Norman, Brandt and Parfit, have sought a basis for the rational evaluation of desires that would deny some basic desires reason-giving force. I side with Hume against these modern critics. Hume's concept of rational evaluation is admittedly too narrow; even basic desires are, (...) despite their nonrepresentational nature, subject to rational evaluation. But this evaluation is not relevant to their tendency to generate reasons for action, and does not undermine the spirit of the Humean view of rational action. (shrink)

From his initial writings on imagination and memory, to his recent studies of the glance and the edge, the work of American philosopher Edward S. Casey continues to shape 20th-century philosophy. In this first study dedicated to his rich body of work, distinguished scholars from philosophy, urban studies and architecture as well as artists engage with Casey's research and ideas to explore the key themes and variations of his contribution to the humanities. -/- Structured into three major parts, the volume (...) reflects the central concerns of Casey's writings: an evolving phenomenology of imagination, memory, and place; representation and landscape painting and art; and edges, glances, and voice. Each part begins with an extended interview that defines and explains the topics, concepts, and stakes of each of area of research. Readers are thus offered an introduction to Casey’s fascinating body of work, and will gain a new insight into particular aspects and applications of Casey's research. -/- With a complete bibliography and an introduction that at once stresses each of Casey’s areas of research while putting into perspective their overarching themes, this authoritative volume identifies the overall coherence and interconnections of Edward S. Casey's work and his impact in contemporary thought. (shrink)

Despite decades of theorising and empirical research, the problems of corporate governance seem intractable, particularly the relationships between investors and companies. The thought experiment in this paper asks us to look at the problem through a fresh lens. It draws on the quaint British legal custom of calling shareholders “members”, and then uses the political philosopher Michael Walzer’s idea of membership in states, clubs, neighbourhoods, and families to draw lessons for the corporate world. This paper suggests that seeing how Walzer (...) conceives “strangers” in a polity, with fewer rights but a path to membership, lets us rethink shareholder rights as something to be earned, through engagement and commitment, that is, through stewardship. Rethinking what membership of a company might mean points to a pragmatic escape from short-termism without institutional reform. (shrink)

A classic question of Socrates scholarship is whether Plato’s Apology is a reliable source for the philosophy of the historical Socrates. This essay argues that the Apology, like other texts, provides reliable evidence about events in Socrates’ life and general features of his character, but does not give scholars grounds for confidence that we know anything precise about the philosophical views of Socrates. Philosophical views are very sensitive to the precise wording. Through discussion of the Apology's special literary characteristics and (...) circumstances, and a comparison of the Apology to other sources, the paper argues that we have a number of significant reasons to doubt that Plato’s text gives a historically accurate version of Socrates' philosophical views. (shrink)

Comparative valuation of different policy interventions often requires interpersonal comparability of benefit. In the field of health economics, the metric commonly used for such comparison, quality adjusted life years (QALYs) gained, has been criticized for failing to respect the equality of all persons’ intrinsic worth, including particularly those with disabilities. A methodology is proposed that interprets ‘full quality of life’ as the best health prospect that is achievable for the particular individual within the relevant budget constraint. This calibration is challenging (...) both conceptually and operationally as it shifts dramatically when technology or budget developments alter what can be achieved for incapacitated individuals. The proposal nevertheless ensures that the maximal achievable satisfaction of one person’s preferences can carry no more intrinsic value than that of another. This approach, which can be applied to other domains of social valuation, thus prevents implicit discrimination against the elderly and those with irremediable incapacities. (shrink)

Drawing on an analysis of the distinction between perfect and imperfect duties suggested by The Metaphysics of Morals, I argue that Kant’s Categorical Imperative (CI) requires that maxims be universalizable in the sense that they can be regarded as universal laws consistent with the integrity and effective exercise of rational agency. This account, I claim, has a number of advantages over Korsgaard’s practical contradic-tion interpretation of the CI both in terms of the criteria of assessment that Korsgaard uses and in (...) those of broader textual considerations. (shrink)

The ancient theory of substance and accident is supposed to make sense of complex unities in a way that respects both their unity and their complexity. On Hume’s view such complex unities are only fictitiously unities. This result follows from his thoroughgoing critique of the theory of substance. I will characterize the theory Hume is critiquing as it is presented in Locke, presupposing what Bennett calls the “Leibnizian interpretation.” Locke uses the word ‘substance’ in two senses. Call substance in the (...) first sense “individual substance” and in the second sense “pure substance.” I will discuss the seven main parts of Hume’s view: (I) that we have no idea of pure substance, (II) that there is no complex individual substance, except in a loose sense, (III) that the fiction of complex individual substance arises in a way parallel to that of the fiction of identity through time, and (IV) results in the fiction of pure substance, (V) that simple qualities and perceptions satisfy the definition of individual substance, (VI) that there is no such thing as inherence, and (VII) that there is no such thing as pure substance. Hume’s views on substance are often mentioned without being discussed in detail. Kemp Smith, Stroud, and Garrett, for example, mostly summarize various claims of Hume in the course of expounding on his theory of the idea of personal identity. In contrast, I will attempt to present a systematic treatment of Hume on substance as a refutation of Locke. (shrink)

Readers and historians have often misunderstood Berkeley's philosophy by believing that he denies the existence of the external world. From which they conclude that his philosophy inevitably leads to solipsism. Faced with these readings, in this paper I discuss the relationship between ontology and the external world in Berkeley with the aim of clarifying some interpretative errors and showing three things: 1) that is a mistake to believe Berkeley’s philosophy eliminate the external world and lead to solipsism, 2) that his (...) own ontology is the key to understand the constitution of the external world, and 3) that God gives the ultimate meaning of that world. / Es habitual que algunos lectores confundan la postura de Berkeley al creer que niega la existencia del mundo externo y que su filosofía lleva inevitablemente al solipsismo. Frente a estas lecturas, analizo en este artículo el tema de la relación entre ontología y mundo externo en Berkeley, con el propósito de aclarar algunos desaciertos interpretativos sobre el asunto y mostrar con ello tres cosas: 1) que se trata de un error creer que su filosofía elimina el mundo externo y lleva al solipsismo, 2) que en la propia ontología está la clave para entender la constitución del mundo externo, y 3) que Dios le da el sentido último a ese mundo. (shrink)

Hume’s critique of traditional abstraction entails a result that undercuts his account of the idea of identity. To save his account of identity, Hume would have to accept abstraction as well. What links these two discussions is (1) Hume’s widely shared assumption that traditional abstraction is separating in the mind what are inseparable in reality, (2) his principle that what are different are mentally separable, and (3) his principle that we cannot conceive of the impossible. Given these, it will turn (...) out that abstraction is mentally separating something from itself, which will entail that abstraction is conceiving of something as distinct from itself. But it is impossible for something to be distinct from itself, and so it is inconceivable. Therefore abstraction is impossible. Yet consider Hume’s account of the idea of identity. On that account, to conceive of an identity is to conceive of something as one single thing viewed one way and as two distinct things viewed another. How we can take these opposing views of the same thing is a problem that I’ve termed Hume’s Difficulty concerning Identity. It will turn out that we can take the opposing views only if we can conceive of the single thing viewed one way as somehow distinct from itself when viewed the other way. That is, we must be able to conceive of something as distinct from itself. However, if we cannot conceive of something as distinct from itself when abstracting, then we cannot do it when conceiving of an identity. So traditional abstraction and Hume’s account of the idea of identity stand or fall together. (shrink)

La propuesta inmaterialista de Berkeley, elaborada definitivamente en sus Principles (1710), tiene como antecedente remoto los postulados del capadocio Gregorio de Nisa, quien en algunas de sus obras desarrolló argumentos, en relación con la materia, muy semejantes a los que planteó Berkeley casi catorce siglos después. El presente escrito tiene por objetivo mostrar que las concepciones de ambos pensadores tienen elementos en común, lo que permite sostener que el filósofo de Cesarea es un antecede lejano del inmaterialismo berkeleyano. // Berkeley's (...) immaterialism has as a remote antecedent in the postulates of the Cappadocian Gregory of Nyssa, who in some of his works developed arguments, concerning the matter, very similar to those that Berkeley presented almost fourteen centuries later. This paper aims to show that both philosophical conceptions have elements in common, which allows us to assert that the Cappadocian father is a distant precedent of Berkeley's immaterialism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT An apparent objection against my theory of instantiation as partial identity is that identity is necessary, yet instantiation is often contingent. To rebut the objection, I show how it can make sense that identity is contingent. I begin by showing how it can make sense that identity is temporary. I rely heavily on Andre Gallois’s formal theory of occasional identity, but argue that there is a gap in his explanation of how his formalisms make sense that needs to be (...) filled by appeal to my theory of Aspects. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to consider whether critical rationalism has any ideas which could usefully be applied to the internet. Today we tend to take the internet for granted and it is easy to forget that it was only about two decades ago that it began to be used to any significant extent. Accordingly in section 1 of the paper, there is a brief consideration of the history of the internet. At first sight this makes it looks implausible (...) that any of Popper’s ideas could be applicable to the internet, since Popper died before the internet came into general use. However, section 2 argues that Popper’s theory of World 3 does apply very well to the internet. This application is significant because, as shown in section 3, it leads to the problem of misinformation, which is one of the most significant problems generated by the internet. In section 4 there is an attempt to solve this problem using ideas taken from Popper’s epistemology. It is argued that there should be changes in education designed to prepare students for the internet age. Teaching in the internet age should focus on presenting to the students not just the accepted theories but also the evidence on which they are based. An illustration of how this might be done is given by considering an example from science teaching, namely the teaching of Newtonian mechanics in the last years of school or first years of university. (shrink)

En este artículo analizo algunas cuestiones centrales de la obra Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, como son el lenguaje, el conocimiento sensible, la materia y Dios, a la par que desarrollo nuevos temas como el argumento del sostenedor o algunos aspectos teológicos. Pese a que estas cuestiones aparecen dispersas a lo largo de la obra considero que deben estudiarse en conjunto y en el orden en que las presento, porque ayuda a comprender mejor lo planteado en los Dialogues a (...) la vez que esclarece la propuesta inmaterialista, tal y como fue presentada en el escrito de 1713. / In this paper I analyze some of the central issues of Berkeley´s work Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, as language, sensitive knowledge, matter and God, as well as I develop new topics as the upholder argument or some theological aspects. In spite of the fact that these issues are scattered along the work, I consider they must be studied as a whole and in the order I present them, because it helps to better understand what is proposed in Dialogues and at the same time it clarifies the immaterialist proposal, as it was presented in the work of 1713. (shrink)

La creencia de Berkeley en los milagros ha sido poco estudiada por los especialistas debido, quizá, a su connotación teológica; sin embargo, una vez que se estudia la cuestión resulta que tal creencia no es, como se podría pensar, sólo resultado de la fe, por el contrario, una lectura atenta muestra que la creencia en los milagros es compatible con la filosofia inmaterialista y, de hecho, es coherente con ella. Aunado a esto, la creencia en los milagros permite mostrar que (...) para Berkeley el conocimiento de Dios no se basa única y exclusivamente en presupuestos a priori. // Berkeley's belief in miracles has been little studied by philosophy scholars, perhaps due to its theological connotation. However, once the question is studied it turns out that such belief is not, as someone could think, only the result of faith. In this paper, I assert that a careful reading shows that belief in miracles is the result of reason, and is compatible and consistent with immaterialist philosophy. In addition to this, the belief in miracles allows us to show that for Berkeley the knowledge of God is not based solely and exclusively on a priori presuppositions. (shrink)

Acts of violence and murder have historically proved difficult to accommodate in standard accounts of the formula of universal law (FUL) version of Kant’s Categorical Imperative (CI). In “Murder and Mayhem,” Barbara Herman offers a distinctive account of the status of these acts that is intended to be appropriately didactic in comparison to accounts like the practical contradiction model. I argue that while Herman’s account is a promising one, the distinction she makes between coercive and non-coercive violence and her response (...) to concerns with the classification of the latter as imperfect duties raise significant questions about the status of some duties. I suggest that we look, instead, to Kant’s treatment of suicide in The Metaphysics of Morals for an account of norms of non-violence and, in particular, to the connection between this duty and concerns with inner freedom and moral health. I argue that we can use this account to inform our general understanding of duties prohibiting killing and violence, and that the resulting account is a promising one. (shrink)

Medicine, like law, is a pragmatic, probabilistic activity. Both require that decisions be made on the basis of available evidence, within a limited time. In contrast to law, medicine, particularly evidence-based medicine as it is currently practiced, aspires to a scientific standard of proof, one that is more certain than the standards of proof courts apply in civil and criminal proceedings. But medicine, as Dr. William Osler put it, is an "art of probabilities," or at best, a "science of uncertainty." (...) One can better practice medicine by using other evidentiary standards in addition to the "scientific." To employ only the scientific standard of proof is inappropriate, if not impossible; furthermore, as this review will show, its application in medicine is fraught with bias. Evidence is information. It supports or undermines a proposition, whether a hypothesis in science, a diagnosis in medicine, or a fact or point in question in a legal investigation. In medicine, physicians marshal evidence to make decisions on how to best prevent, diagnose, and treat disease, and improve health. In law, courts decide the facts and render justice. Judges and juries assess evidence to establish liability, to settle custody and medical issues, and to determine a defendant's guilt or innocence. (shrink)