Respect for victims requires that we have social systems for punishing and condemning (reproving) serious crimes. But, the conditions of social marginalization and political subordination of the communities from which an overwhelming number of prisoners in the United States come place serious barriers in the face of effective reprobation. Mass incarceration makes this problem worse by disrupting and disrespecting entire communities. While humanities education in the prisons is far from a total solution, it is one way to make reprobation meaningful, (...) so long as the prison classroom is a place where the educators’ values are also put at risk. (shrink)

Representing species-specific proteins and protein complexes in ontologies that are both human and machine-readable facilitates the retrieval, analysis, and interpretation of genome-scale data sets. Although existing protin-centric informatics resources provide the biomedical research community with well-curated compendia of protein sequence and structure, these resources lack formal ontological representations of the relationships among the proteins themselves. The Protein Ontology (PRO) Consortium is filling this informatics resource gap by developing ontological representations and relationships among proteins and their variants and modified forms. Because (...) proteins are often functional only as members of stable protein complexes, the PRO Consortium, in collaboration with existing protein and pathway databases, has launched a new initiative to implement logical and consistent representation of protein complexes. We describe here how the PRO Consortium is meeting the challenge of representing species-specific protein complexes, how protein complex representation in PRO supports annotation of protein complexes and comparative biology, and how PRO is being integrated into existing community bioinformatics resources. The PRO resource is accessible at http://pir.georgetown.edu/pro/. (shrink)

The Protein Ontology (PRO) provides a formal, logically-based classification of specific protein classes including structured representations of protein isoforms, variants and modified forms. Initially focused on proteins found in human, mouse and Escherichia coli, PRO now includes representations of protein complexes. The PRO Consortium works in concert with the developers of other biomedical ontologies and protein knowledge bases to provide the ability to formally organize and integrate representations of precise protein forms so as to enhance accessibility to results of protein (...) research. PRO (http://pir.georgetown.edu/pro) is part of the Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry. (shrink)

The Protein Ontology (PRO) web resource provides an integrative framework for protein-centric exploration and enables specific and precise annotation of proteins and protein complexes based on PRO. Functionalities include: browsing, searching and retrieving, terms, displaying selected terms in OBO or OWL format, and supporting URIs. In addition, the PRO website offers multiple ways for the user to request, submit, or modify terms and/or annotation. We will demonstrate the use of these tools for protein research and annotation.

The Protein Ontology (PRO; http://proconsortium.org) formally defines protein entities and explicitly represents their major forms and interrelations. Protein entities represented in PRO corresponding to single amino acid chains are categorized by level of specificity into family, gene, sequence and modification metaclasses, and there is a separate metaclass for protein complexes. All metaclasses also have organism-specific derivatives. PRO complements established sequence databases such as UniProtKB, and interoperates with other biomedical and biological ontologies such as the Gene Ontology (GO). PRO relates to (...) UniProtKB in that PRO’s organism-specific classes of proteins encoded by a specific gene correspond to entities documented in UniProtKB entries. PRO relates to the GO in that PRO’s representations of organism-specific protein complexes are subclasses of the organism-agnostic protein complex terms in the GO Cellular Component Ontology. The past few years have seen growth and changes to the PRO, as well as new points of access to the data and new applications of PRO in immunology and proteomics. Here we describe some of these developments. (shrink)

Part 1 [Hodes, 2021] “looked under the hood” of the familiar versions of the classical propositional modal logic K and its intuitionistic counterpart. This paper continues that project, addressing some familiar classical strengthenings of K and GL), and their intuitionistic counterparts. Section 9 associates two intuitionistic one-step proof-theoretic systems to each of the just mentioned intuitionistic logics, this by adding for each a new rule to those which generated IK in Part 1. For the systems associated with the intuitionistic counterparts (...) of D and T, these rules are “pure one-step”: their schematic formulations does not use □ or ♢. For the systems associated with the intuitionistic counterparts of K4, etc., these rules meet these conditions: neither □ nor ♢ is iterated; none use both □ and ♢. The join of the two systems associated with each of these familiar logics is the full one-step system for that intuitionistic logic. And further “blended” intuitionistic systems arise from joining these systems in various ways. Adding the 0-version of Excluded Middle to their intuitionistic counterparts yields the one-step systems corresponding to the familiar classical logics. Each proof-theoretic system defines a consequence relation in the obvious way. Section 10 examines inclusions between these consequence relations. Section 11 associates each of the above consequence relations with an appropriate class of models, and proves them sound with respect to their appropriate class. This allows proofs of some failures of inclusion between consequence relations. Section 12 proves that the each consequence relation is complete or weakly complete, that relative to its appropriate class of models. The Appendix presents three further results about some of the intuitionistic consequence relations discussed in the body of the paper. For Keywords, see Part 1. (shrink)

The Protein Ontology (PRO; http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/pr) formally defines and describes taxon-specific and taxon-neutral protein-related entities in three major areas: proteins related by evolution; proteins produced from a given gene; and protein-containing complexes. PRO thus serves as a tool for referencing protein entities at any level of specificity. To enhance this ability, and to facilitate the comparison of such entities described in different resources, we developed a standardized representation of proteoforms using UniProtKB as a sequence reference and PSI-MOD as a post-translational modification (...) reference. We illustrate its use in facilitating an alignment between PRO and Reactome protein entities. We also address issues of scalability, describing our first steps into the use of text mining to identify protein-related entities, the large-scale import of proteoform information from expert curated resources, and our ability to dynamically generate PRO terms. Web views for individual terms are now more informative about closely-related terms, including for example an interactive multiple sequence alignment. Finally, we describe recent improvement in semantic utility, with PRO now represented in OWL and as a SPARQL endpoint. These developments will further support the anticipated growth of PRO and facilitate discoverability of and allow aggregation of data relating to protein entities. (shrink)

Let I be a countable jump ideal in $\mathscr{D} = \langle \text{The Turing degrees}, \leq\rangle$ . The central theorem of this paper is: a is a uniform upper bound on I iff a computes the join of an I-exact pair whose double jump a (1) computes. We may replace "the join of an I-exact pair" in the above theorem by "a weak uniform upper bound on I". We also answer two minimality questions: the class of uniform upper bounds on I (...) never has a minimal member; if ∪ I = L α [ A] ∩ ω ω for α admissible or a limit of admissibles, the same holds for nice uniform upper bounds. The central technique used in proving these theorems consists in this: by trial and error construct a generic sequence approximating the desired object; simultaneously settle definitely on finite pieces of that object; make sure that the guessing settles down to the object determined by the limit of these finite pieces. (shrink)

Résumé Si l’absence de moralité des psychopathes a été largement étudiée, il existe peu de recherches sur leurs capacités esthétiques. Pourtant, beaucoup d’études cliniques de cas montrent qu’ils présentent un grave déficit dans ce domaine. Cet article se propose d’en chercher les causes. Il analyse les forces et les limites de l’hypothèse d’un manque d’empathie pour expliquer ces carences esthétiques, et montre pourquoi l’hypothèse d’un manque de distance psychique se révèle plus féconde. Celle-ci permet en outre de comprendre le lien (...) de l’esthétique et de l’éthique par leur filiation commune : elles ont pour socle commun la capacité à prendre de la distance par rapport à des intérêts étroitement égoïstes. (shrink)

Psychopaths are the bugbears of moral philosophy. They are often used as examples of perfectly rational people who are nonetheless willing to do great moral wrong without regret; hence the disorder has received the epithet “moral insanity” (Pritchard 1835). But whereas philosophers have had a great deal to say about psychopaths’ glaring and often horrifying lack of moral conscience, their aesthetic capacities have received hardly any attention, and are generally assumed to be intact or even enhanced. Popular culture often portrays (...) psychopaths in ways that suggest a great gap between their amorality and their aesthetic sensitivity. In The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991), Hannibal Lecter appreciates fine art, fashion, and wine, while he eats his way through his enemies. His real-life counterparts, however, do not demonstrate the same sensitivities. There is no evidence that psychopaths are capable of real aesthetic appreciation, and some evidence that they are not. In this paper, we set out the limited evidence for the psychopath’s deficient aesthetic sensitivity. The best explanations of what the psychopath lacks turn out to implicate abilities that are also thought to be central to moral thought and action: an impaired capacity for empathizing with others and deficient ability to take a disinterested attitude towards things (socalled distance). We endorse the latter explanation. Thinking about what underlies the psychopath’s deficient aesthetic understanding turns out to throw light on a difficult problem: the connection between ethics and aesthetics. (shrink)

The recent literature on mental causation has not been kind to nonreductive, materialist functionalism (‘functionalism’, hereafter, except where that term is otherwise qualified). The exclusion problem2 has done much of the damage, but the epiphenomenalist threat has taken other forms. Functionalism also faces what I will call the ‘problem of metaphysically necessary effects’ (Block, 1990, pp. 157-60, Antony and Levine, 1997, pp. 91-92, Pereboom, 2002, p. 515, Millikan, 1999, p. 47, Jackson, 1998, pp. 660-61). Functionalist mental properties are individuated partly (...) by their relation to the very effects those properties’ instantiations are thought to cause. Consequently, functionalist causal generalizations would seem to have the following problematical structure: The state of being, among other things, a cause of e (under such-andsuch conditions) causes e (under those conditions).3 The connection asserted lacks the contingency one would expect of a causal generalization. Mental states of the kind in question are, by metaphysical necessity, causes of e; any state that does not cause e is thereby a different kind of state. Yet, a mental state’s being the sort of state it is must play some causal role if functionalism is to account for mental causation.4 In what follows, I first articulate more fully the problem of metaphysically necessary effects. I then criticize three functionalist attempts to solve the problem directly. Given the failure of functionalist efforts to meet the problem head-on, I consider less direct strategies: these involve formulating functionalism or its causal claims in such a way that they appear not to generate the problem of metaphysically necessary effects. I argue against these indirect solutions, in each case concluding either that the problem still arises or that avoiding it requires the adoption of an unorthodox form of functionalism (itself a surprising result). In the final.. (shrink)

This volume, a lightly-edited version of Professor Samuel Scolnicov’s 1974 Ph.D. thesis, is a fitting tribute to his impressive career. It will perhaps be most useful for those interested in better understanding Scolnicov’s work and his views on Plato as a whole, not least for the comprehensive list of his publications that requires a full twelve pages of print. Scholars with an interest in Plato’s method of hypothesis will also find some useful remarks on key passages in the Meno, Phaedo, (...) and Republic as well as on Greek mathematical analysis.Illuminating other aspects of Scolnicov’s work is clearly part of the intention behind enabling broader access to this study. As Harold Tarrant notes in his introduction... (shrink)

Review of Daoist Identity. History, Lineage, and Ritual, by Livia Kohn and Harold D. Roth.

This chapter contains sections titled: Modern Legal Theory and the Impact of Realism Policy Science Legal Process References.

As a senior physicist colleague and our friend, Robert N. Boyd, wrote in a journal (JCFA, Vol. 1,. 2, 2022), Our universe is but one page in a large book [4]. For example, things and Beings can travel between Universes, intentionally or unintentionally. In this short remark, we revisit and offer short remark to Neil’s ideas and trying to connect them with geometrization of musical chords as presented by D. Tymoczko and others, then to Escher staircase and then to Jacob’s (...) ladder which seems to point to possibility to interpret Jacob’s vision as described in the ancient book of Genesis as inter dimensional or heavenly staircase, e.g. an inter dimensional bridge between heaven and earth (see also classic book: Hofstadter, Godel, Escher, Bach). Jacob’s vision of angels going down to earth from that staircase has been depicted for instance in William Blake art etc. In our communication with others via physics literature and discussions etc, we came to several conclusions as follows: Firstly, possibility of quantum wormhole effect to mirror particle universe, which sometimes it is termed non-orientable wormhole. While such mirror particles effect have been more than 50 years predicted with the so-called parity violation (cf. Lee & Yang, 1950s), and that is called symmetry breaking. Secondly, a series of extended experiments on laser irradiated cold water may suggest possible transition from a phase of water to be at least partially fourth phase of water, which may be composed of crystalline water (see e.g. Gerald Pollack, and also Harold Aspden on liquid crystalline). If we can imagine laser cooling effect can be done in protracted time, then we can achieve a physical representation of Aspden’s liquid crystalline. Therefore, in subsequent article (Part II) we outlined simple model of such an effect of tunneling via quantum liquid crystalline Universe, which may likely be modeled with iced-water. It is interesting to remark here that certain experiments by Stockholm University scientists have shown that X-ray triggered water can exhibit properties just like liquid crystal (cf. PRL, 2020). That is why we consider it possible that there can be quantum phase transition where liquid water (comprised of iced cubes and water) can exhibit effects such as tunneling in quantum liquid crystalline Universe. Last but not least, we admit that what we outlined here is just an initial phase; and if you wish, perhaps we can call such experiments as “wormhole-at-lab” experiments (abbreviated: WHALE). (shrink)

The present article was partly inspired by G. Pollack’s book, and also Dadoloff, Saxena & Jensen (2010). As a senior physicist colleague and our friend, Robert N. Boyd, wrote in a journal (JCFA, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2022), for example, things and Beings can travel between Universes, intentionally or unintentionally [4]. In this short remark, we revisit and offer short remark to Neil Boyd’s ideas and trying to connect them with geometry of musical chords as presented by D. Tymoczko and (...) others, then to Escherian staircase and then to Jacob’s ladder which seems to pointto possibility to interpret Jacob’s vision as described in the ancient book of Genesis as interdimensional staircase, e.g. an interdimensional bridge between heaven and earth (cf. classic book: Hofstadter, Godel, Escher, Bach). Jacob’s vision of angels going down to earth from that staircase has been depicted for instance in William Blake art etc. In our communication with others via physics literature and discussions etc, we came to several conclusions as follows: Firstly, possibility of wormhole effect to mirror particle universe, which sometimes it is termed non-orientable wormhole. While such mirror particles effect have been more than 50 years predicted with the so-called parity violation (cf. Lee & Yang, 1950s), and that is called symmetry breaking. Secondly, a series of extended experiments on laser irradiated cold water may suggest possible transition from a phase of water to be at least partially fourth phase of water, which may be composed of crystalline water (see e.g. Gerald Pollack, and also Harold Aspden on liquid crystalline). If we can imagine laser cooling effect can be done in protracted time, then we can achieve a physical representation of Aspden‘s liquid crystalline. Therefore, in this article we outline a series of simple experiments of laser irradiated iced-water along with beryl and selenite crystals in order to see possibility of such a quantum tunneling via quantum liquid crystalline Universe hypothesis, which may likely be modeled with iced-water. It is interesting to remark here that certain experiments by Stockholm University scientists have shown that X-ray triggered water can exhibit properties just like liquid crystal (cf. PRL, 2020). That is why we consider it possible that there can be quantum phase transition where liquid water (comprised of iced cubes and water) can exhibit effects such as tunneling in quantum liquid crystalline Universe. Last but not least, we admit that what we outlined here is just aninitial phase; and if you wish, perhaps we can call such experiments as “wormhole-at-lab” experiments (abbreviated: WHALE). (shrink)

Collected and edited by Noah Levin -/- Table of Contents: -/- UNIT ONE: INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPORARY ETHICS: TECHNOLOGY, AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, AND IMMIGRATION 1 The “Trolley Problem” and Self-Driving Cars: Your Car’s Moral Settings (Noah Levin) 2 What is Ethics and What Makes Something a Problem for Morality? (David Svolba) 3 Letter from the Birmingham City Jail (Martin Luther King, Jr) 4 A Defense of Affirmative Action (Noah Levin) 5 The Moral Issues of Immigration (B.M. Wooldridge) 6 The (...) Ethics of our Digital Selves (Noah Levin) -/- UNIT TWO: TORTURE, DEATH, AND THE “GREATER GOOD” 7 The Ethics of Torture (Martine Berenpas) 8 What Moral Obligations do we have (or not have) to Impoverished Peoples? (B.M. Wooldridge) 9 Euthanasia, or Mercy Killing (Nathan Nobis) 10 An Argument Against Capital Punishment (Noah Levin) 11 Common Arguments about Abortion (Nathan Nobis & Kristina Grob) 12 Better (Philosophical) Arguments about Abortion (Nathan Nobis & Kristina Grob) -/- UNIT THREE: PERSONS, AUTONOMY, THE ENVIRONMENT, AND RIGHTS 13 Animal Rights (Eduardo Salazar) 14 John Rawls and the “Veil of Ignorance” (Ben Davies) 15 Environmental Ethics: Climate Change (Jonathan Spelman) 16 Rape, Date Rape, and the “Affirmative Consent” Law in California (Noah Levin) 17 The Ethics of Pornography: Deliberating on a Modern Harm (Eduardo Salazar) 18 The Social Contract (Thomas Hobbes) -/- UNIT FOUR: HAPPINESS 19 Is Pleasure all that Matters? Thoughts on the “Experience Machine” (Prabhpal Singh) 20 Utilitarianism (J.S. Mill) 21 Utilitarianism: Pros and Cons (B.M. Wooldridge) 22 Existentialism, Genetic Engineering, and the Meaning of Life: The Fifths (Noah Levin) 23 The Solitude of the Self (Elizabeth Cady Stanton) 24 Game Theory, the Nash Equilibrium, and the Prisoner’s Dilemma (Douglas E. Hill) -/- UNIT FIVE: RELIGION, LAW, AND ABSOLUTE MORALITY 25 The Myth of Gyges and The Crito (Plato) 26 God, Morality, and Religion (Kristin Seemuth Whaley) 27 The Categorical Imperative (Immanuel Kant) 28 The Virtues (Aristotle) 29 Beyond Good and Evil (Friedrich Nietzsche) 30 Other Moral Theories: Subjectivism, Relativism, Emotivism, Intuitionism, etc. (Jan F. Jacko). (shrink)

In many spheres, the law takes the legal concept of causation to correspond to the folk concept (the correspondence assumption). Courts, including the US Supreme Court, tend to insist on the "common understanding" and that which is "natural to say" (Burrage v. United States) when it comes to expressions relating to causation, and frequently refuse to clarify the expression to juries. As recent work in psychology and experimental philosophy has uncovered, lay attributions of causation are susceptible to a great number (...) of unexpected factors, some of which seem rather peripheral to causation. One of those is the norm effect (Knobe & Fraser, 2008): Agents who, in acting as they do, break a salient norm, are more likely to be considered as having caused a certain consequence than when they do not violate a norm. According to some (e.g., Alicke, 1992) this constitutes a bias. According to others (e.g., Sytsma, 2020), the folk concept of causation is sensitive to normative factors, and there’s nothing wrong with that. In this paper, we explore the question whether the norm effect should be considered a bias from the legal perspective on the one hand, and from the psychological perspective on the other. To do this, we test whether norms which are nonpertinent to the consequences or outright silly also impact causation judgements. The data from two preregistered experiments (total N=593) clearly show they do. This, we argue, makes the bias interpretation plausible from the psychological perspective, and both plausible and problematic from the legal perspective. It also shows that the law should abstain from unreflectively assuming conceptual correspondence between legal and ordinary language concepts. (shrink)

This paper motivates taking seriously the possibility that brains are basically protean: that they make use of neural structures in inventive, on-the-fly improvisations to suit circumstance and context. Accordingly, we should not always expect cognition to divide into functionally stable neural parts and pieces. We begin by reviewing recent work in cognitive ontology that highlights the inadequacy of traditional neuroscientific approaches when it comes to divining the function and structure of cognition. Cathy J. Price and Karl J. Friston, and Colin (...) Klein identify the limitations of relying on forward and reverse inferences to cast light on the relation between cognitive functions and neural structures. There is reason to prefer Klein’s approach to that of Price and Friston’s. But Klein’s approach is neurocentric - it assumes that we ought to look solely at neural contexts to fix cognitive ontology. Using recent work on mindreading as a case study, we motivate adopting a radically different approach to cognitive ontology. Promoting the Protean Brain Hypothesis, we posit the possibility that we may need to look beyond the brain when deciding which functions are being performed in acts of cognition and in understanding how the brain contributes to such acts by adapting to circumstance. (shrink)

The practice of Emergency Management in Michigan raises anew the question of whose knowledge matters to whom and for what reasons, against the background of what projects, challenges, and systemic imperatives. In this paper, I offer a historical overview of state intervention laws across the United States, focusing specifically on Michigan’s Emergency Manager laws. I draw on recent analyses of these laws to develop an account of a phenomenon that I call epistemic redlining, which, I suggest, is a form of (...) group-based credibility discounting not readily countenanced by existing, ‘culprit-based’ accounts of epistemic injustice. I argue that epistemic redlining plays a crucial role in ongoing projects of racialized subordination and dispossession in Michigan, and that such discounting tends to have structural causes that can be difficult to identify and uproot. Contrary to the general thrust of recent work on the topic, I argue that epistemic redlining ought to be understood as a form of epistemic injustice. (shrink)

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

This essay joins Wilhelm Dilthey’s conception of the metaphysical impulse as a flight from the tragedy of human finitude with Ludwig Wittgenstein’s understanding of how language bewitches intelligence. We contend that there are features of the phenomenology of language that play a constitutive and pervasive role in the formation of metaphysical illusion.

William Whewell raised a series of objections concerning John Stuart Mill’s philosophy of science which suggested that Mill’s views were not properly informed by the history of science or by adequate reflection on scientific practices. The aim of this paper is to revisit and evaluate this incisive Whewellian criticism of Mill’s views by assessing Mill’s account of Michael Faraday’s discovery of electrical induction. The historical evidence demonstrates that Mill’s reconstruction is an inadequate reconstruction of this historical episode and the scientific (...) practices Faraday employed. But a study of Faraday’s research also raises some questions about Whewell’s characterization of this discovery. Thus, this example provides an opportunity to reconsider the debate between Whewell and Mill concerning the role of the sciences in the development of an adequate philosophy of scientific methodology.Keywords: Inductivism; Experiment; Theory; Methodology; Electromagnetism. (shrink)

I offer a new interpretation of Heidegger’s analysis of anxiety in Being and Time as an account of the relationship between individual agents and the public normative practices of their communities. According to a prominent recent interpretation, Heidegger’s discussions of anxiety, death and the “call of conscience” together explain how we can respond to the norms of our practices as reasons and subject them to critical reflection. I argue that this is only part of the story. Anxiety is an occasion (...) for Dasein to take responsibility for its ongoing activity of interpreting the possibilities for living and acting made available by the normative practices of its community, which is presupposed and overlooked from the perspective of everyday Dasein. Public normativity underdetermines Dasein’s conception of what it would mean to take up any of the possibilities available in its world as a way of living its own life. (shrink)

What responsibilities do audiences have in engaging with artworks? Certain audience responses seem quite clear: for example, audiences should not vandalize or destroy artworks; they should not disrupt performances. This paper examines other kinds of resisting responses that audiences sometimes engage in, including petitioning the artist to change their works, altering copies of artworks, and creating new artworks in another artist’s fictional world. I argue for five claims: (1) while these actions can sometimes infringe on the rights of artists, the (...) rights of artists are not absolute; (2) the fact that such actions are based on mistaken interpretations of the artworks has no normative weight; (3) there can be reason to object to additions and alterations whose conception of the artwork is morally worse than the original (and so, there can be reason to support additions and alterations whose conception is morally better); (4) petitioning raises special moral problems; and, most important, (5) some of these actions are valuable because they involve creative and aesthetic activity. Those acts of audience resistance that are creative, morally improve on the original work, and that minimize the infringement of the artists’ rights are good, and should be encouraged. (shrink)

The Homeostatic Property Cluster (HPC) account of natural kinds has become popular since it was proposed by Richard Boyd in the late 1980s. Although it is often taken as a defining natural kinds as such, it is easy enough to see that something's being a natural kind is neither necessary nor sufficient for its being an HPC. This paper argues that it is better not to understand HPCs as defining what it is to be a natural kind but instead as (...) providing the ontological realization of (some) natural kinds. (shrink)

In this volume, leading philosophers of psychiatry examine psychiatric classification systems, including the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, asking whether current systems are sufficient for effective diagnosis, treatment, and research. Doing so, they take up the question of whether mental disorders are natural kinds, grounded in something in the outside world. Psychiatric categories based on natural kinds should group phenomena in such a way that they are subject to the same type of causal explanations and respond similarly to (...) the same type of causal interventions. When these categories do not evince such groupings, there is reason to revise existing classifications. The contributors all question current psychiatric classifications systems and the assumptions on which they are based. They differ, however, as to why and to what extent the categories are inadequate and how to address the problem. Topics discussed include taxometric methods for identifying natural kinds, the error and bias inherent in DSM categories, and the complexities involved in classifying such specific mental disorders as "oppositional defiance disorder" and pathological gambling. -/- Contributors George Graham, Nick Haslam, Allan Horwitz, Harold Kincaid, Dominic Murphy, Jeffrey Poland, Nancy Nyquist Potter, Don Ross, Dan Stein, Jacqueline Sullivan, Serife Tekin, Peter Zachar. (shrink)

Extant research has shown that ordinary causal judgments are sensitive to normative factors. For instance, agents who violate a norm are standardly deemed more causal than norm-conforming agents in identical situations. In this paper, we explore two competing explanations for the Norm Effect: the Responsibility View and the Bias View. According to the former, the Norm Effect arises because ordinary causal judgment is intimately intertwined with moral responsibility. According to the alternative view, the Norm Effect is the result of a (...) blame-driven bias. In a series of five preregistered experiments (N = 2688), we present evidence that predominantly favours the Bias View. In particular, and against predictions made by the Responsibility View, we show that participants deem agents who violate nonpertinent or silly norms – norms that do not relate to the outcome at hand – as more causal, and that this effect cannot be explained in terms of plausible mediators such as the agent’s foreknowledge and desire, or the foreseeability of harm. We close with a discussion regarding the implications of these findings, in as regards the just assessment of proximate cause in the law. (shrink)

This paper and its sequel “look under the hood” of the usual sorts of proof-theoretic systems for certain well-known intuitionistic and classical propositional modal logics. Section 1 is preliminary. Of most importance: a marked formula will be the result of prefixing a formula in a propositional modal language with a step-marker, for this paper either 0 or 1. Think of 1 as indicating the taking of “one step away from 0.” Deductions will be constructed using marked formulas. Section 2 presents (...) the model-theoretic concepts, based on those in [7], that guide the rest of this paper. Section 3 presents Natural Deduction systems IK and CK, formalizations of intuitionistic and classical one-step versions of K. In these systems, occurrences of step-markers allow deductions to display deductive structure that is covered over in familiar “no step” proof-theoretic systems for such logics. Box and Diamond are governed by Introduction and Elimination rules; the familiar K rule and Necessitation are derived (i.e. admissible) rules. CK will be the result of adding the 0-version of the Rule of Excluded Middle to the rules which generate IK. Note: IK is the result of merely dropping that rule from those generating CK, without addition of further rules or axioms (as was needed in [7]). These proof-theoretic systems yield intuitionistic and classical consequence relations by the obvious definition. Section 4 provides some examples of what can be deduced in IK. Section 5 defines some proof-theoretic concepts that are used in Section 6 to prove the soundness of the consequence relation for IK (relative to the class of models defined in Section 2.) Section 7 proves its completeness (relative to that class). Section 8 extends these results to the consequence relation for CK. (Looking ahead: Part 2 will investigate one-step proof-theoretic systems formalizing intuitionistic and classical one-step versions of some familiar logics stronger than K.). (shrink)

In a study that goes beyond the ego affirmed by Freudian psychology, David Levin offers an account of personal growth and self-fulfillment based on the development of our capacity for listening. Drawing on the work of Dewey, Piaget, Erikson, and Kohlberg, he uses the vocabulary of phenomenological psychology to distinguish four stages in this developmental process and brings us the significance of these stages for music, psychotherapy, ethics, politics, and ecology. This analysis substantiates his claim that the development of (...) our listening capacity is a process that fits Foucault's conception of a practice of the self, forming our character as social beings and moral agents. David Levin contends that our self- development as auditory beings is necessary for the achievement of a just and democratic society. (shrink)

This paper considers two reasons that might support Russell’s choice of a ramified-type theory over a simple-type theory. The first reason is the existence of purported paradoxes that can be formulated in any simple-type language, including an argument that Russell considered in 1903. These arguments depend on certain converse-compositional principles. When we take account of Russell’s doctrine that a propositional function is not a constituent of its values, these principles turn out to be too implausible to make these arguments troubling. (...) The second reason is conditional on a substitutional interpretation of quantification over types other than that of individuals. This reason stands up to investigation: a simple-type language will not sustain such an interpretation, but a ramified-type language will. And there is evidence that Russell was tacitly inclined towards such an interpretation. A strong construal of that interpretation opens a way to make sense of Russell’s simultaneous repudiation of propositions and his willingness to quantify over them. But that way runs into trouble with Russell’s commitment to the finitude of human understanding. (shrink)

The problem of underdetermination is thought to hold important lessons for philosophy of science. Yet, as Kyle Stanford has recently argued, typical treatments of it offer only restatements of familiar philosophical problems. Following suggestions in Duhem and Sklar, Stanford calls for a New Induction from the history of science. It will provide proof, he thinks, of “the kind of underdetermination that the history of science reveals to be a distinctive and genuine threat to even our best scientific theories” (Stanford 2001, (...) p. S12). This paper examines Stanford’s New Induction and argues that it – like the other forms of underdetermination that he criticizes – merely recapitulates familiar philosophical conundra. (shrink)

A growing body of literature has revealed ordinary causal judgement to be sensitive to normative factors, such that a norm-violating agent is regarded more causal than their non-norm-violating counterpart. In this paper, we explore two competing explanations for this phenomenon: the Responsibility View and the Bias View. The Bias View, but not the Responsibility View, predicts features peripheral to the agent’s responsibility to impact causal attributions. In a series of three preregistered experiments (N = 1162), we present new evidence that (...) the Norm Effect arises from such peripheral features, namely from nonpertinent or entirely silly norm violations. Furthermore, we show that this effect cannot be explained by recourse to the agent’s foreknowledge or desire of the outcome, nor by its foreseeability: the Norm Effect arises even when participants judge the norm-violating agent’s doing as equally foreseeable. This, we argue, provides evidence in favour of the Bias View. (shrink)

This article tackles the sole surviving ancient commentary on what was perhaps the second most important Platonic work, with special interest for the manner in which the ancients tackled the setting of Plato's dialogues, Socratic ignorance, Socratic eros, the central myth-like Palinode, and the question of oral as against written teaching.

In this paper we compare the propositional logic of Frege’s Grundgesetze der Arithmetik to modern propositional systems, and show that Frege does not have a separable propositional logic, definable in terms of primitives of Grundgesetze, that corresponds to modern formulations of the logic of “not”, “and”, “or”, and “if…then…”. Along the way we prove a number of novel results about the system of propositional logic found in Grundgesetze, and the broader system obtained by including identity. In particular, we show that (...) the propositional connectives that are definable in terms of Frege’s horizontal, negation, and conditional are exactly the connectives that fuse with the horizontal, and we show that the logical operators that are definable in terms of the horizontal, negation, the conditional, and identity are exactly the operators that are invariant with respect to permutations on the domain that leave the truth-values fixed. We conclude with some general observations regarding how Frege understood his logic, and how this understanding differs from modern views. (shrink)

Free will skepticism maintains that what we do, and the way we are, is ultimately the result of factors beyond our control and because of this we are never morally responsible for our actions in the basic desert sense—the sense that would make us truly deserving of praise and blame. In recent years, a number of contemporary philosophers have advanced and defended versions of free will skepticism, including Derk Pereboom (2001, 2014), Galen Strawson (2010), Neil Levy (2011), Bruce Waller (2011, (...) 2015), and myself (Caruso 2012, 2013, forthcoming). Critics, however, often complain that adopting such views would have dire consequences for ourselves, society, morality, meaning, and the law. They fear, for instance, that relinquishing belief in free will and basic desert moral responsibility would leave us unable to adequately deal with criminal behavior, increase anti-social conduct, and undermine meaning in life. -/- In response, free will skeptics argue that life without free will and basic desert moral responsibility would not be as destructive as many people believe (see, e.g., Pereboom 2001, 2014; Waller 2011, 2015; Caruso 2016, forthcoming). According to optimistic skeptics, prospects of finding meaning in life or of sustaining good interpersonal relationships, for instance, would not be threatened. And although retributivism and severe punishment, such as the death penalty, would be ruled out, incapacitation and rehabilitation programs would still be justified (see Pereboom 2001, 2013, 2014; Levy 2012; Caruso 2016; Pereboom and Caruso, forthcoming). In this paper, I attempt to extend this general optimism about the practical implications of free will skepticism to the question of creativity. -/- In Section I, I spell out the question of creativity and explain why it’s relevant to the problem of free will. In Section II, I identify three different conceptions of creativity and explain the practical concerns critics have with free will skepticism. In Section III, I distinguish between three different conceptions of moral responsibility and argue that at least two of them are consistent with free will skepticism. I further contend that forward-looking accounts of moral responsibility, which are perfectly consistent with free will skepticism, can justify calling agents to account for immoral behavior as well as providing encouragement for creative activities since these are important for moral and creative formation and development. I conclude in Section IV by arguing that relinquishing belief in free will and basic desert would not mean the death of creativity or our sense of achievement since important and realistic conceptions of both remain in place. (shrink)

Argument that Lewis and others are wrong that physicalism is if true then contingently true.

The paper deals with the theory of universals of Sebastian Izquierdo (1601–1681), a Spanish Jesuit author working in Rome, as he formulated and defended it in Disputation 17 of his major philosophical work The Lighthouse of Sciences (Pharus scientiarum), published in Lyon in 1659. Izquierdo’s discussion centers around three questions: What is universality? Is there some intellect-independent universality? What is the nature of the intellect-dependent universality? Izquierdo’s approach may be seen as a search for the third way between the (moderate) (...) realism of the Thomists and the Scotists and the (conceptualist) nominalism of some Jesuits such as Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza (1578–1641). (shrink)

This paper has three aims: to define autonomism clearly and charitably, to offer a positive argument in its favour, and to defend a larger view about what is at stake in the debate between autonomism and its critics. Autonomism is here understood as the claim that a valuer does not make an error in failing to bring her moral and aesthetic judgements together, unless she herself values doing so. The paper goes on to argue that reason does not require the (...) valuer to make coherent her aesthetic and moral evaluations. Finally, the paper shows that the denial of autonomism has realist commitments that autonomism does not have, and concludes that issues of value realism and irrealism are relevant to the debates about autonomism in ways that have not hitherto been recognized. (shrink)

It is well known that there are, at least, two sorts of cases where one should not prefer a direct inference based on a narrower reference class, in particular: cases where the narrower reference class is gerrymandered, and cases where one lacks an evidential basis for forming a precise-valued frequency judgment for the narrower reference class. I here propose (1) that the preceding exceptions exhaust the circumstances where one should not prefer direct inference based on a narrower reference class, and (...) (2) that minimal frequency information for a narrower (non-gerrymandered) reference class is sufficient to yield the defeat of a direct inference for a broader reference class. By the application of a method for inferring relatively informative expected frequencies, I argue that the latter claim does not result in an overly incredulous approach to direct inference. The method introduced here permits one to infer a relatively informative expected frequency for a reference class R', given frequency information for a superset of R' and/or frequency information for a sample drawn from R'. (shrink)

Divers presents a set of de re modal truths which, he claims, are inconvenient for Lewisean modal realism. We argue that there is no inconvenience for Lewis.

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

© British Society of Aesthetics 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society of Aesthetics. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] adaptation of literary works into films has been almost completely neglected as a philosophical topic. I discuss two questions about this phenomenon:What do we mean when we say that a film is faithful to its source?Is being faithful to its source a merit in a film adaptation?In response to, I set out two distinct (...) senses of fidelity: story fidelity and thematic fidelity. I then argue, in response to, that thematic fidelity, but not story fidelity, is an aesthetic merit in a film adaptation. The key steps in this argument involve showing that merely preserving the story from one medium to another does not typically involve an aesthetically... (shrink)

Contrary to economics or history, for example, there does not exist an organized field dedicated to the philosophy of political science. Given that the philosophical issues raised by political science research are just as pressing and vibrant as those raised in these more organized fields, fostering a field that labels itself Philosophy of Political Science (PoPS) is important. PoPS is advanced here as a fruitful meeting place where both philosophers and practicing political scientists contribute and discuss—with philosophical discussions that are (...) close to and informed by actual developments in political science, making philosophy of science continuous with the sciences in line with contemporary naturalist philosophy of science. The topics scrutinized in the different chapters of the Handbook will figure prominently in PoPS, as we lay out in this chapter. (shrink)