Considerable variation exists not only in the kinds of transposable elements (TEs) occurring within the genomes of different species, but also in their abundance and distribution. Noting a similarity to the assortment of organisms among ecosystems, some researchers have called for an ecological approach to the study of transposon dynamics. However, there are several ways to adopt such an approach, and it is sometimes unclear what an ecological perspective will add to the existing co-evolutionary framework for explaining transposon-host interactions. This (...) review aims to clarify the conceptual foundations of transposon ecology in order to evaluate its explanatory prospects. We begin by identifying three unanswered questions regarding the abundance and distribution of TEs that potentially call for an ecological explanation. We then offer an operational distinction between evolutionary and ecological approaches to these questions. By determining the amount of variance in transposon abundance and distribution that is explained by ecological and evolutionary factors, respectively, it is possible empirically to assess the prospects for each of these explanatory frameworks. To illustrate how this methodology applies to a concrete example, we analyzed whole-genome data for one set of distantly related mammals and another more closely related group of arthropods. Our expectation was that ecological factors are most informative for explaining differences among individual TE lineages, rather than TE families, and for explaining their distribution among closely related as opposed to distantly related host genomes. We found that, in these data sets, ecological factors do in fact explain most of the variation in TE abundance and distribution among TE lineages across less distantly related host organisms. Evolutionary factors were not significant at these levels. However, the explanatory roles of evolution and ecology become inverted at the level of TE families or among more distantly related genomes. Not only does this example demonstrate the utility of our distinction between ecological and evolutionary perspectives, it further suggests an appropriate explanatory domain for the burgeoning discipline of transposon ecology. The fact that ecological processes appear to be impacting TE lineages over relatively short time scales further raises the possibility that transposons might serve as useful model systems for testing more general hypotheses in ecology. (shrink)

Rirchard Rorty has criticized the rigiditiy of the classical ethics of Kant, and he claims that we do not have absolute and universal moral norms.

El artículo propone una interpretación de la obra literaria "Las Crónicas de Narnia" del autor ingles C. S Lewis. Tal interpretación posibilita considerar la alegoría religiosa que esta obra literaria realiza sobre la experiencia de la divinidad a través de la figura del León.

From the European point of view Zbigniew Antoni Jordan as a historian of the newest Polish philosophy In his article, the author presents Zbigniew Jordan’s works in the area of the history of philosophy, which are not well known in Poland. This representative of Lvov and Warsaw School was abroad, writing his habilitation thesis, when the World War II broke out. The war did not prevent him from active participation in the political life of Polish emigrants in Great Britain. For (...) the needs of current political activity he accomplished a lot of reliable and objective analyses of some geopolitical phenomena, which were a consequence of just finished war. Such kind of works made him take up serious historical studies and he started to use obtained experience to analyze the state and works of modern Polish philosophy, and especially the works of Lvov and Warsaw School. Furthermore, the article is an attempt to show the significance of Jordan’s works in propagating the history of Polish philosophy abroad. (shrink)

Zbigniew Jordan (1911–1977) – an outline to philosophical biography The 100th anniversary of Zbigniew Jordan’s birthday, which is coming soon, is an opportunity to remind this forgotten philosopher, classified in the second generation of Lvov and Warsaw School. His complex fortune reflects dilemmas and perplexities of Polish intelligence in the war and post-war times. Jordan, after defending his doctoral thesis in philosophy at Poznań University, continued his studies at Paris Sorbonne. At that time the prepared his postdoctoral thesis on the (...) notion of infinity. His work on this theme was interrupted by the outbreak of the WWII and Jordan participated in operations of Polish Army in the west. After the end of the war he started working in Radio Free Europe, Paris “Culture” and then in the centres of sovietology research in Europe and the United Stated. He has never come back to philosophy and only in the 1960s he undertook research work at English Universities at first as a lecturer and then as a professor of sociology. He died in the USA in 1977. Although Zbigniew Antoni Jordan did not accomplish any crucial discoveries in science, his life story is nearly a symbol of the historical turbulence and dilemmas, which were experienced by Polish intelligence at emigration. (shrink)

It is often argued that the great quantity of evil in our world makes God’s existence less likely than a lesser quantity would, and this, presumably, because the probability that some evils are gratuitous increases as the overall quantity of evil increases. Often, an additive approach to quantifying evil is employed in such arguments. In this paper, we examine C. S. Lewis’ objection to the additive approach, arguing that although he is correct to reject this approach, there is a sense (...) in which he underestimates the quantity of pain. However, the quantity of pain in that sense does not significantly increase the probability that some pain is gratuitous. Therefore, the quantitative argument likely fails. (shrink)

C.S. Peirce defended a pragmatist view of assertion in terms of its normative effect. This paper has two goals. First, to reconstruct and assess Peirce’s argument for the thesis that to assert a proposition is to make oneself responsible for its truth. Second, to argue that Peirce interpreted “responsibility for truth” as the acquisition of a dialogical commitment, namely, the duty to defend the proposition asserted by giving reasons upon challenge.

The paper studies Heidegger's reading of the poet Stefan George (1868-1933), particularly of his poem "Das Wort" (1928), in the context of Heidegger's narrative of the history of metaphysics. Heidegger reads George's poem as expressing certain experiences with language: first, the constitutive role of language, of naming and discursive determination, in granting things stable identities; second, the unnameable and indeterminable character of language itself as a constitutive process and the concomitant insight into the human being's dependency on language and (...) her incapacity to master in subjectively. Heidegger characterizes this experience as "transitional" (übergänglich). It is shown that in Heidegger's historical narrative, this places George's poem in the ongoing transition (Übergang) from the Hegelian and Nietzschean end of metaphysics to a forthcoming "other beginning" of thinking. (shrink)

Intersemiotic translation (IT) was defined by Roman Jakobson (The Translation Studies Reader, Routledge, London, p. 114, 2000) as “transmutation of signs”—“an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems.” Despite its theoretical relevance, and in spite of the frequency in which it is practiced, the phenomenon remains virtually unexplored in terms of conceptual modeling, especially from a semiotic perspective. Our approach is based on two premises: (i) IT is fundamentally a semiotic operation process (semiosis) and (ii) (...) IT is a deeply iconic-dependent process. We exemplify our approach by means of literature to dance IT and we explore some implications for the development of a general model of IT. (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 are frequently tempted to argue that this procedure just is the calculation of moral Tightness – perhaps that what it means for 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 and, also, to the view that if a procedure is 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)

Clarence I. Lewis (1883-1964) delineated the structure of mind based on his “conceptual pragmatism.” Human mind grounds itself on the ongoing dynamic interaction of relational processes, which is essentially mediated and structural. Lewis’s pragmatism anchors itself on the theory of knowledge that has the triadic structure of the given or immediate data, interpretation, and the concept. Lewis takes the a priori given as a starting point of meaningful experience. The interpretative work of mind is the mediator of the a priori (...) given and the concepts. The a priori given is the principle that determines the application of concepts in our interpretative process. Our mind interprets the given in relating to other possible experience. In other words, the meaning of the a priori given is determined by mind, the subject of interpretative process, which performs constructive and legislative activity, and allows room for the existence of alternatives. Lewis’s theory of knowledge calls for pragmatic justification of value experience. In his ethical theory, Lewis pursues to find answers for how to build up the objectivity of value experience regarding the work of mind as conceptual apparatus. For Lewis, knowledge is a claim about valuation and normativity. In our value experience, the normative significance of our empirical assessments for action comprises objective significance for future experience. Mind is “principle- content apparatus” composed of imperatives as the a priori given principles and the contents of experience as a whole.Imperatives are the result of lessons accumulated from the past and function as rules for the future. Individuals start their experience from imperatives and organize their own experience by doing based on the inferential process, which is directional from the past to the future. (shrink)

A surprising fact in the historiography of the Hispanic philosophy of this century is its almost total opacity towards the American philosophy, in spite of the real affinity between the central questions of American pragmatism and the topics addressed by the most relevant Hispanic thinkers of the century: Unamuno, Ortega y Gasset, d'Ors, Vaz Ferreira. In this paper that situation is studied, paying special attention to Charles S. Peirce, his personal connections with the Hispanic world, the reception of his texts (...) in Spanish, and some of the connections that lie almost hidden under the mutual ignorance which divides the two traditions. -/- . (shrink)

A History of Intelligence and “Intellectual Disability” examines how the concepts of intellectual ability and disability became part of psychology, medicine and biology. Focusing on the period between the Protestant Reform and 1700, this book shows that in many cases it has been accepted without scientific and psychological foundations that intelligence and disability describe natural or trans-historical realities.

The paper is a part of the project of retrieving C.B. Macpherson’s thesis of possessive individualism and his contribution to investigations about democratic theory and the “Western political ontology” valuable especially in today’s context of expansion, crisis and – arguably – subsequent, experienced today, revival of the project of “neoliberal democracy”. The aim of my paper is to present theory of possessive individualism as the missing center of critical theory of democracy. The task is conducted through a brief reconstruction of (...) Macpherson’s investigations into the history of liberal doctrine and argumentation about the continuing validity and firmness of this approach despite its alleged “definitive refutation” in contemporary historiography of modern social and political thought. (shrink)

Molecular clocks based upon amino acid sequences in proteins have played a major role in the clarification of evolutionary phylogenies. Creationist criticisms of these methods sometimes rely upon data that might initially seem to be paradoxical. For example, human cytochrome c differs from that of an alligator by 13 amino acids but differs by 14 amino acids from a much more closely related primate, Otolemur garnettii. The apparent anomaly is resolved by taking into consideration the variable substitution rate of cytochrome (...) c, particularly among primates. This paper traces some of the history of extensive research into the topic of rate heterogeneity in cytochrome c including data from cytochrome c pseudogenes. (shrink)

The article is an attempt to pinpoint the areas of Ludwig Wittgenstein aesthetic thought, in which he is crossing the borders principally imposed upon the method and the language of his philosophy. I am directing my attention to metaphysical and mystical motifs of his reflection devoted to aesthetics, the essence of art and the essence of reality. I wish to discuss this issue based on the texts of Arthur C. Danto containing analysis of chosen notions of Wittgenstein’s aesthetic investigations. Additionally (...) in this matter I am appealing to appropriate theses of Leszek Sosnowski and Wojciech Sady, concerning above issues. (shrink)

Reseña introductoria para una interpretación teológica de la obra literaria de C.S. Lewis.

I review Stefan Roski's "Bolzano's Conception of Grounding".

Weak inflammatory response after Salmonella infection can cause persistent infection and facilitate the long survival of pathogens. Honey can induce key immunomodulators such as TNF-α, interleukin-6 (IL-6) and IL-1, that it can be used in the treatment of bacterial infectious diseases caused by Salmonella typhi. The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of honey on the mRNA expression of IL-6 in Salmonella enterica Typhi induced of BABL/c mice. The study used experimental pretest-posttest control design. Honey treatment was (...) given for 7 days commencing after the induction of Salmonella bacteria. 20 BABL/c males mice whose weight 25-29 grams, were divided into four groups where 5 mice per group within; the negative control group was given regular feed without bacteria induction, the positive control group was given regular feed with bacteria induction, 0.27 ml/kg-weight honey group and 0.27 ml/kg-weight of Propolis honey group. Blood samples for examination of mRNA expression was examined three times that prior to the induction, 24 hours after induction and 72 hours after induction of Salmonella. The results showed that 0.27 ml/kg-weight of Propolis honey group showed the highest mRNA expression (p = 0.000) for both after 24 hours after induction of Salmonella typhi (p = 0.000) and 72 hours after induction of Salmonella typhi (p = 0.000). We conclude that there was effect of honey on the mRNA IL-6 expression in Salmonella typhi induced of BALB/c mice. (shrink)

Zájem současné sociologie a dalších společenských věd o výzkumy spokojenosti a štěstí zatemňuje skutečnost, že původně právě sociologie chtěla „štěstí" poskytovat a nahrazovat tak náboženské přístupy ke světu. Tento implicitně nábo- ženský charakter je patrný i v rané české sociologii v dílech prvních propagátorů sociologie, jako byl především Emanuel Makovička, a později u některých následovníků a epigonů T. G. Masaryka, v meziválečném období zejména u Ladislava Kunteho, R. I. Malého, Alexandra Sommera-Batěka, Jindřicha Fleischnera a Jana Duška. Z hlediska vývoje české (...) sociologie šlo o zcela okrajové postavy, ačkoli mnohé z nich vynikly v jiných oblastech, jako celek jsou nicméně vyjádřením jednoho z aspektů dobových teoretických úvah o společnosti, jejím uspořádání a vývoji, na který by nemělo být zapomínáno. Zatímco T. G. Masaryka a pozdější akademické sociology „omezoval" vědecký charakter jejich práce, a i pokud směřovali k sociálnímu reformismu, oddělovali jej od teoretické sociologie, „sociologie vedoucí ke štěstí" nalezla plné uplatnění ve vizích a ambiciózních projek- tech těchto amatérských takésociologů - třebaže skončily faktickými nezdary nebo ani nedošly praktického naplnění, ostatně stejně jako v případě jejich pravzoru, Comtova pozitivistického apoštolátu. (shrink)

Science and valuation — remarks about the condition of philosophical re ection on science this text is an attempt at a more general look at twentieth‐century philosophical re ection on science conceived as persistent trials to eliminate the non‐eliminateable, i.e. valuations. In this article, I recall the most important concepts of knowledge developed in the twentieth‐century philosophy of science by exposing assumed axiology in, among other things: the Vienna Circle, Karl raimund Popper’s falsi cationism, the historical and social approach of (...) thomas S. Kuhn’s paradigm, and the concept of the ideals of knowledge by Stefan Amsterdamski. I argue that the axiology, and more broadly philosophy is an indelible com‐ ponent of each accepted concept of scienti c knowledge. each concept of knowledge assumes a form of its valuation. (shrink)

Scholars are grateful to Cyril Lionel Robert James (1901-1989) and Herbert Aptheker (1915-2003) for their pioneering work in the field of slave revolts. What they've virtually never mentioned, however, let alone explored, was Aptheker’s practice of rendering James invisible. It is highly improbable that Aptheker did not know either of James or of his noteworthy study of the Haitian Revolution, given that the latter was related to the slave revolts that Aptheker did study. Aptheker’s neglect of James was not an (...) anomaly, but rather symptomatic of an ideology that rationalized extreme oppression. (shrink)

Since 2002 we have been testing and refining a methodology for ontology development that is now being used by multiple groups of researchers in different life science domains. Gary Merrill, in a recent paper in this journal, describes some of the reasons why this methodology has been found attractive by researchers in the biological and biomedical sciences. At the same time he assails the methodology on philosophical grounds, focusing specifically on our recommendation that ontologies developed for scientific purposes should be (...) constructed in such a way that their terms are seen as referring to what we call universals or types in reality. As we show, Merrill’s critique is of little relevance to the success of our realist project, since it not only reveals no actual errors in our work but also criticizes views on universals that we do not in fact hold. However, it nonetheless provides us with a valuable opportunity to clarify the realist methodology, and to show how some of its principles are being applied, especially within the framework of the OBO (Open Biomedical Ontologies) Foundry initiative. (shrink)

The electronic and muonic hydrogen energy levels are calculated very accurately [1] in Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) by coupling the Dirac Equation four vector (c ,mc2) current covariantly with the external electromagnetic (EM) field four vector in QED’s Interactive Representation (IR). The c -Non Exclusion Principle(c -NEP) states that, if one accepts c as the electron/muon velocity operator because of the very accurate hydrogen energy levels calculated, the one must also accept the resulting electron/muon internal spatial and time coordinate operators (ISaTCO) (...) derived directly from c without any assumptions. This paper does not change any of the accurate QED calculations of hydrogen’s energy levels, given the simplistic model of the proton used in these calculations [1]. The Proton Radius Puzzle [2, 3] may indicate that new physics is necessary beyond the Standard Model (SM), and this paper describes the bizarre, and very different, situation when the electron and muon are located “inside” the spatially extended proton with their Centers of Charge (CoCs) orbiting the proton at the speed of light in S energy states. -/- The electron/muon center of charge (CoC) is a structureless point that vibrates rapidly in its inseparable, non-random vacuum whose geometry and time structure are defined by the electron/muon ISaTCO discrete geometry. The electron/muon self mass becomes finite in a natural way due to the ISaTCOs cutting off high virtual photon energies in the photon propagator. The Dirac-Maxwell-Wilson (DMW) Equations are derived from the ISaTCO for the EM fields of an electron/muon, and the electron/muon “look” like point particles in far field scattering experiments in the same way the electric field from a sphere with evenly distributed charge “e” “looks” like a point with the same charge in the far field (Gauss Law). The electron’s/muon’s three fluctuating CoC internal spatial coordinate operators have eight possible eigenvalues [4, 5, 6] that fall on a spherical shell centered on the electron’s CoM with radius in the rest frame. The electron/muon internal time operator is discrete, describes the rapid virtual electron/positron pair production and annihilation. The ISaTCO together create a current that produce spin and magnetic moment operators, and the electron and muon no longer have “intrinsic” properties since the ISaTCO kinematics define spin and magnetic moment properties. (shrink)

C. I. Lewis (I883-I964) was the first major figure in history and philosophy of logic—-a field that has come to be recognized as a separate specialty after years of work by Ivor Grattan-Guinness and others (Dawson 2003, 257).Lewis was among the earliest to accept the challenges offered by this field; he was the first who had the philosophical and mathematical talent, the philosophical, logical, and historical background, and the patience and dedication to objectivity needed to excel. He was blessed with (...) many fortunate circumstances, not least of which was entering the field when mathematical logic, after only six decades of toil, had just reaped one of its most important harvests with publication of the monumental Principia Mathematica. It was a time of joyful optimism which demanded an historical account and a sober philosophical critique. Lewis was one of the first to apply to mathematical logic the Aristotelian dictum that we do not understand a living institution until we see it growing from its birth. (shrink)

A critical review of Robert C. Roberts' "Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology", Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003.

The revival of analytic metaphysics in the latter half of the twentieth century is typically understood as a consequence of the critiques of logical positivism, Quine’s naturalization of ontology, Kripke’s Naming and Necessity, clarifications of modal notions in logic, and the theoretical exploitation of possible worlds. However, this explanation overlooks the work of metaphysicians at the height of positivism and linguisticism that affected metaphysics of the late twentieth century. Donald C. Williams is one such philosopher. In this paper I explain (...) how Williams’s fundamental ontology and philosophy of time influenced in part the early formation of David Lewis’s metaphysics. Thus, Williams played an important role in the revival of analytic metaphysics. (shrink)

Review of THEO C. MEYERING, Historical Roots of Cognitive Science : The Rise of a Cognitive Theory of Perception from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century. Boston: Kluwer, xix + 250 pp. $69.00. Examines the author's interpretation of Aristotelian theories of perceptual cognition, early modern theories, and Helmholtz's theory.

This book is written so as to be ‘accessible to philosophers without a mathematical background’. The reviewer can assure the reader that this aim is achieved, even if only by focusing throughout on just one example of an arithmetical truth, namely ‘7+5=12’. This example’s familiarity will be reassuring; but its loneliness in this regard will not. Quantified propositions — even propositions of Goldbach type — are below the author’s radar.The author offers ‘a new kind of arithmetical epistemology’, one which ‘respects (...) certain important intuitions’ 1 : apriorism, realism, and empiricism. The book contains some clarification of these ‘isms’, and some thoughtful critiques of major positions regarding them, as espoused by such representative figures as Boghossian, Bealer, Peacocke, Field, Bostock, Maddy, Locke, Kant, C.I. Lewis, Ayer, Quine, Fodor, and McDowell. The philosophical reader will find some interest and value in these wider-ranging discussions. Our concern in this review, however, is to examine closely the original positive proposal on offer.Arithmetical truths, the author maintains, are conceptual truths. Knowing truths like 7+5=12 involves no ‘epistemic reliance on any empirical evidence’; but that, she says, is not to claim ‘epistemic independence of the senses altogether’. She wants to show that "experience grounds our concepts … and then mere conceptual examination enables us to learn arithmetical truths ." Concepts that are ‘appropriately sensitive’ to ‘the nature of [an independent] reality’ she calls grounded. Because of the role of grounded concepts, ‘arithmetical truths explain our arithmetical beliefs in the right sort of way for those beliefs to count as knowledge’ .In the context of her concentration on the special nature of arithmetical knowledge, the author offers what could strike some bystanders as an unnecessarily over-ambitious account of knowledge tout court. Knowledge, for the author, is "true belief which … ". (shrink)

In the middle of last century metaphysics was widely criticized, ridiculed, and committed to the flames. During this period a handful of philosophers, against several anti-metaphysical trends, defended metaphysics and articulated novel metaphysical doctrines. Donald C. Williams was one of these philosophers. But while his contributions to metaphysics are well known his defence of metaphysics is not and yet it played a key part in the development and revival of metaphysics. In this paper I present his defence of metaphysics in (...) its historical context. I also show how his defence is relevant in response to recent attacks on metaphysics. (shrink)

Twenty years ago I put a sign on the door to my office —and it’s still there— with the sentence of Peirce that I have used in my title: "The life of science is in the desire to learn" (CP 1.235, c.1902). I learned this quote from the late professor of logic at MIT, George Boolos. Like him, I put it on my door to invite students to come in to inquire, to ask questions, since their questions are not just (...) the life of science, but also the sparks that inflame my passion for teaching. Those —professors and students— who desire to learn are the real agents, the main characters, of philosophical development. Philosophy should not be understood and taught as the transmission of old solutions to outdated problems, but as a way of life devoted to learning the truth wherever we might find it. My exposition will be divided into four sections: 1) A brief presentation of Peirce, focusing on his work as a professional scientist and a scientific philosopher; 2) Peirce considered as an educational philosopher; 3) Some practical suggestions I have drawn from Peirce's ideas and from my experience teaching philosophy today; and finally, 4) A brief conclusion. (shrink)

C.D. Broad’s Reflections stands out as one of the few serious examinations of Moral Sense Theory in twentieth century analytic philosophy. It also constitutes an excellent discussion of the interconnections that allegedly exist between questions concerning what Broad calls the ‘logical analysis’ of moral judgments and questions about their epistemology. In this paper I make three points concerning the interconnectedness of the analytical and epistemological elements of versions of Moral Sense Theory. First, I make a general point about Broad’s association (...) between the Naïve Realist Moral Sense Theory (an epistemological view) and Objectivist Moral Sense Theory (a ‘logical analysis’). Second, I raise doubts about one of Broad’s arguments that Trans-Subjectivist Moral Sense Theory (logical analysis) can account for the apparent synthetic necessity of general moral propositions (epistemological). Third, I briefly discuss a view about logical analysis that should be of interest to contemporary Moral Sense Theorists – Neo-Sentimentalism – and respond to an argument whose conclusion is that this analysis is incompatible with a particular kind of epistemological view. (shrink)

In this book, law professors Sherry F. Colb and Michael C. Dorf argue that: -/- many non-human animals, at least vertebrates, are morally considerable and prima facie wrong to harm because they are sentient, i.e., conscious and capable of experiencing pains and pleasures; most aborted human fetuses are not sentient -- their brains and nervous systems are not yet developed enough for sentience -- and so the motivating moral concern for animals doesn't apply to most abortions[2]; later abortions affecting sentient (...) fetuses, while rare, raise serious moral concerns, but these abortions -- like all abortions -- invariably involve the interests and rights of the pregnant woman, which can make these abortions morally permissible. For a book claiming to explore the "connections" between debates about the two issues, just the summary from the book flap -- basically, what's above -- makes it appear that there really isn't much connection between the topics, at least at the core ethical level. Animals are sentient, early fetuses are not, and so the moral arguments about the two issues don't overlap or share premises. While the authors hope to use insights from one issue to shed light on the other, I find that differences in the issues limit these insights. (shrink)

The collaboration of Language and Computing nv (L&C) and the Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Science (IFOMIS) is guided by the hypothesis that quality constraints on ontologies for software ap-plication purposes closely parallel the constraints salient to the design of sound philosophical theories. The extent of this parallel has been poorly appreciated in the informatics community, and it turns out that importing the benefits of phi-losophical insight and methodology into application domains yields a variety of improvements. L&C’s LinKBase® (...) is one of the world’s largest medical domain ontologies. Its current primary use pertains to natural language processing ap-plications, but it also supports intelligent navigation through a range of struc-tured medical and bioinformatics information resources, such as SNOMED-CT, Swiss-Prot, and the Gene Ontology (GO). In this report we discuss how and why philosophical methods improve both the internal coherence of LinKBase®, and its capacity to serve as a translation hub, improving the interoperability of the ontologies through which it navigates. (shrink)

George M. Searle (1839-1918) and Charles S. Peirce worked together in the Coast Survey and the Harvard Observatory during the decade of 1860: both scientists were assistants of Joseph Winlock, the director of the Observatory. When in 1868 George, a convert to Catholicism, left to enter the Paulist Fathers, he was replaced by his brother Arthur Searle. George was ordained as a priest in 1871, was a lecturer of Mathematics and Astronomy at the Catholic University of America, and became the (...) fourth superior general of his congregation from 1904 to 1909. Among the books he wrote for non-Catholic audiences was Plain Facts for Fair Minds (1895). On the 8th of August of 1895, Peirce found that book in a bookstore and the following day wrote a letter to George Searle developing his strong reservations about the question of the infallibility of the Pope. This letter (L 397) is almost unknown amongst Peirce's scholars. -/- After describing these historical circumstances as a framework, the aim of my paper is to describe Peirce's arguments against papal infallibility presented by George Searle in his book, and the contrast between the genuine scientific attitude and the putative metaphysical notion of absolute truth that is —according to Peirce— behind Searle's defense of infallibility. In this sense, Peirce's fallibilism will be explained with some detail, giving an account also of his practical infallibilism: "The assertion that every assertion but this is fallible, is the only one that is absolutely infallible. But though nothing else is absolutely infallible, many propositions are practically infallible; such as the dicta of conscience" (Minute Logic, CP 2.75, c. 1902). -/- Finally, having in mind the present interest in Peirce's religious ideas it will be suggested that some of Peirce's ideas on infallibility are nearer to contemporary understanding of that issue than Searle's defense. "I would with all my heart join the ancient church of Rome if I could. But your book," —Peirce writes to Searle— "is an awful warning against doing so." -/- . (shrink)

A philosophical exchange broadly inspired by the characters of Berkeley’s Three Dialogues. Hylas is the realist philosopher: the view he stands up for reflects a robust metaphysic that is reassuringly close to common sense, grounded on the twofold persuasion that the world comes structured into entities of various kinds and at various levels and that it is the task of philosophy, if not of science generally, to “bring to light” that structure. Philonous, by contrast, is the anti-realist philosopher (though not (...) necessarily an idealist): his metaphysic is stark, arid, dishearteningly bone-dry, and stems from the conviction that a great deal of the structure that we are used to attribute to the world out there lies, on closer inspection, in our head, in our “organizing practices”, in the complex system of concepts and categories that unrerlie our representation of experience and our need to represent it that way. (shrink)

This is an excellent translation of Aristotle's De Anima or On the Soul, part of C.D.C. Reeve's impressive ongoing project of translating Aristotle's works for the New Hackett Aristotle. Reeve's translation is careful and accurate, committed to faithfully rendering Aristotle into English while making him as readable as possible. This edition features excellent notes that will greatly assist readers (especially in their inclusion of related passages that illuminate the sections they annotate) and an introduction that situates the work within Aristotle's (...) scientific method and his overall view of reality. (shrink)

A. Klimczuk, Book review: R. Sackmann, W. Bartl, B. Jonda, K. Kopycka, C. Rademacher, Coping with Demographic Change: A Comparative View on Education and Local Government in Germany and Poland, Cham, Heidelberg, Springer 2015, "Pol-int.org" 2017, https://www.pol-int.org/en/publications/coping-demographic-change-comparative-view-education-and#r59 41.

A finished sketch for a light-and-shadow projection device by the Paduan mechanical artisan Johannes de Fontana (c.1395–1455), in his manuscript book of drawings now known as Liber Bellicorum Instrumentorum, depicts a machine for communicating ideas or information through spectacle. The manuscript is fairly well known, and this sketch is just one of many interesting images worthy of study in its 70 leaves. A couple dozen manuscripts of the mechanical arts from this period survive, the best-studied of which fall into the (...) “Sienese school” and the “German school.” Fontana falls outside these, for he had far less influence than the Sienese. His work also is too early, it seems, to count in narratives directed toward the flowering of technological illustration in the sixteenth century. Of his images of subjects other than hydraulic and military machines only one deep study has been made, concerning two of the automata, although the present sketch has lately attracted a glance or two. Historians of technology pay scant attention to the first half of the fifteenth century, five decades that seem merely to repeat medieval knowledge and have the disadvantage to their prestige of falling “before Leonardo.” Whether one views Fontana as an engineer or as a science fiction illustrator, a great deal in the manuscript has not been given its due. The brief normative account in the literature so far on Fontana focuses on politics and warfare. My account in the case of his castellus image in this paper emphasizes issues of imagery, communication, subjectivity, moral feeling, spiritual life, and personhood. This account runs along two lines. For the first, I will suggest some untried ideas for approaching this image. In part this is in pursuit of what Jonathan Sawday calls the imaginative history of machines and mechanisms, though more largely it concerns contributing to a broad-range history of communication and persuasion. If we look at the image from our standpoint in aworld accustomed to the reproduction of images, we readily see in it an early step toward our present control of the display and diffusion of images. Fontana’s castle of shadows(castellus umbrarum), based on a worldwide transfer of technical knowledge about imagery in antiquity (and even in pre-history), presents some of the continuing questions driving thereproduction of imagery and the dispersal of information. As a practical matter, a sense ofproximity to Fontana and his time, as opposed to a sense of untranslatable distance, helps to broaden the historiography. My second line of thought is to oppose my account of Fontana’s’s castellus to an interpretation, and to the thinking behind it, that has started to appear on the borders of disciplinary history. This other interpretation reflects an increasingly influential approach to the history of technology and cultural theory that employs a growing and powerful line of philosophical thought. In 2003 Philippe Codognet, a philosopher of technology, published an essay in which he described Fontana’s castle of shadows as a specimen of the pre-historyof virtual reality devices. His reference of the castle of shadows is a bit casual, perhaps accidental in feeling; but it has begun to stimulate interest in Fontana’s striking idea and hasgiven it a bit of renown. Codognet’s view (along with his reproduction of the image) has been picked up by thinkers who are concerned with post-humanistic ideas derived from philosophical work in which the distinction between human persons and objects is deflated in such a way that both persons and objects are correctly characterized by attributes commonly divided into subjective and objective. What’s more, they are characterized by attributes that, under this view, are incorrectly distinguished from one another as the human, the organic, and the inorganic. The ontology supporting this approach denies the privileged epistemological relationship of humans to the world. This school of thought is object-oriented ontology, also known in a more radical form as speculative realism. Its potential influence on historiography is great, and part of it is and will be valuable. Its current actual influence is centered on medieval cultural studies and on the history of technology. (shrink)

Hans C. Ohanian 1 claims to “defeat” the conventionalist thesis of clock synchronization using an argument based on dynamics. My aim here is to show that his argument does not succeed.

A review of Jerry Root's book C.S. Lewis and a Problem of Evil.

This is the review of the book by W.K.C. Guthrie, Filozofowie greccy od Talesa do Arystotelesa.

This is a review of: Newton C.A. da Costa, Logiques Classiques et Non Classiques. Essai sur les Fondements de la Logique. Translated from the Portuguese by Jean-Yves Béziau (with two appendices by the translator) Culture Scientifique, Masson, Paris, 1997, 276p. ISBN 2-225-85247-2.

Luca Corchia, Jürgen Habermas. A bibliography: works and studies (1952-2013). With an Introduction by Stefan Müller-Doohm, Pisa, Arnus University Books, 2013, pp. 606.

C’est un véritable Discours de la Méthode qu’Aristote nous livre avec son traité de la démonstration intitulé Seconds Analytiques. Avec lui, l’auteur parvient au sommet de l’art logique dont il est le véritable inventeur.

A note summarizing a workshop dedicated to the discussion of Dennett's book Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (1995). It includes a reflection on the basic tenets of Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection.

Lilly was one of the greatest scientists and pioneers on the limits of human possibility but after his death a collective amnesia has descended and he is now almost forgotten. His Wiki is good but inevitably incomplete so here are a few missing details and viewpoints. Lilly was a generation (or more) ahead of his time. He is almost single-handedly responsible for the great interest in dolphins (which led to the Marine Mammal Protection Act in the USA and helped to (...) found the animal rights movement). In 1958 he noted that the brains of elephants and cetaceans were larger than ours, that we should not abuse them and that it was one our most important projects to communicate with them. He invented sensory isolation tanks (at NIMH in 1954) and used them extensively with and without powerful psychoactive drugs at a time when it was thought that either the brain would shut down or one would go insane if external stimuli were eliminated. He created methods for implanting electrodes in mammal brains and was planning to do it to himself. He was one of the first to make serious use of computers in bioscience research and created the hardware and software to make the first attempts to communicate with dolphins. He self experimented with dangerous physiological investigations in high altitude medicine for the military during WW2, took LSD with dolphins and movie stars, submitted himself to the rigors of various forms of yoga and of Arica training, and taught classes at Esalen. He was a computer pioneer who forsaw the rapid advances in A.I. and it's inevitable clash with humans. He was the first one to investigate the bizarre psychedelic ketamine (" vitamin K "), and his results (published in the two last chapters of his book `The Scientist`) are still the best data on the dose/effect relation of any psychedelic on one person. It cured his lifelong daily migraine headaches (see http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/UFOs/Gorightly.htm). And all this happened before most of us were born! He had courage, honesty and integrity that is rare anywhere and almost nonexistent in science. His goal was to find the ultimate truth about everything and he went about as far as anyone ever has. He had little patience with the stupid and hypocritical games one has to play to fit into monkey society. Of course the reaction of the establishment was predictable. He left the NIMH and was never given any government or academic support for the last 35 years of his life. His paper and comments at a conference on sensory deprivation were removed from the published version. He was not invited to government sponsored symposia on dolphins (he had refused to help develop them as weapons), though he clearly knew more about them than anyone in the world. He liked to live and work on the edge and few could keep up with him, as his books make clear. If you have read some of his other books it will be much easier going. He was a pioneer in consciousness research and pushed the boundaries of our understanding of who we are and what we might become. Among other things he catalogs the various states reached by drugs, meditation, and isolation, tries to determine their significance, and suggests how to use them. I very briefly review and comment on his life and work. -/- Those interested in all my writings in their most recent versions may download from this site my e-book ‘Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization Michael Starks (2016)- Articles and Reviews 2006-2016’ by Michael Starks First Ed. 662p (2016). -/- All of my papers and books have now been published in revised versions both in ebooks and in printed books. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0711R5LGX -/- . (shrink)

Abstract: The field of life extension is full of ideas but they are unstructured. Here we suggest a comprehensive strategy for reaching personal immortality based on the idea of multilevel defense, where the next life-preserving plan is implemented if the previous one fails, but all plans need to be prepared simultaneously in advance. The first plan, plan A, is the surviving until advanced AI creation via fighting aging and other causes of death and extending one’s life. Plan B is cryonics, (...) which starts if plan A fails, and assumes cryopreservation of the brain until technical capabilities to return it to life appear. Plan C is digital immortality in the sense of collecting data about the person now so future AI will be able to recreate a model of a person. Plan D is the hope based on some unlikely scenarios of infinite survival, like so-called “quantum immortality”. All these plans have personal and social perspective. The personal aspect means efforts of the increasing chances of personal survival via taking care about one’s own health, signing cryocontract or collecting digital immortality data. The social aspect means the participation in collective work towards creation and increase of the availability of life extension technologies, which includes funding scientific research, promotion of life extension value and direct performing of research and implementation, as well as preventing global catastrophic risk. All plans converge at the end, as their result is the indefinite survival as an uploaded mind inside an ecosystem, created by a superintelligent AI. (shrink)