The social exchange theory of reasoning, which is championed by Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, falls under the general rubric “evolutionary psychology” and asserts that human reasoning is governed by content-dependent, domain-specific, evolutionarily-derived algorithms. According to Cosmides and Tooby, the presumptive existence of what they call “cheater-detection” algorithms disconfirms the claim that we reason via general-purpose mechanisms or via inductively acquired principles. We contend that the Cosmides/tooby arguments in favor of domain-specific algorithms or evolutionarily-derived mechanisms fail and that the notion (...) of a social exchange rule, which is central to their theory, is not correctly characterized. As a consequence, whether or not their conclusion is true cannot be established on the basis of the arguments they have presented. (shrink)

This essay is composed of five stories written by practicing physicians about their patients. Each clinical story describes a challenging ethical condition–potential abuse of medical power, gravely ill and probably over-treated newborns, iatrogenic narcotic addiction, deceived dying people. Rather than singling out one ethical conflict to resolve or adjudicate, the authors attempt, through literary methods, to grasp the singular experiences of their patients and to act according to the deep structures of their patients' lives. Examining these five stories with simple (...) literary tools–attention to narrative frames, time, plot, and desire–reveals the mechanisms through which acts of writing and reading contribute to clinical clarity and ethical actions. (shrink)

Special issue of a quarterly journal publishing papers related to various topics in biological and medical research and practice. This issue specifically discusses...

The authors discuss some of the conceptual issues that must be considered in using and understanding psychiatric classification. DSM-IV is a practical and common sense nosology of psychiatric disorders that is intended to improve communication in clinical practice and in research studies. DSM-IV has no philosophic pretensions but does raise many philosphical questions. This paper describes the development of DSM-IV and the way in which it addresses a number of philosophic issues: nominalism vs. realism, epistemology in science, the mind/body dichotomy, (...) the definition of mental disorders, and dimensional vs. categorical classification. (shrink)

I focus upon Augustine’s experiences through the lens of the phenomenology of the body. More specifically, I focus on five relationships described by Augustine in terms of love, lack, and loss. These include the relationships of Augustine with a dear friend who died; with Monica, his mother; with Adeodatus, his son; with the reader; and with God. Augustine’s relationships were presented within a dialectical relationship with the reader – and since the Confessions is an open prayer, also with God. Complementing (...) work done by John D. Caputo, Jacques Derrida, and Jean-François Lyotard, I show how each relationship can be read as a critique of the metaphysics of presence by explicating them in the context of Merleau-Ponty’s account of the reversibility of the flesh. I frame each of these relations as embodied reversible relations, focusing upon the divergence involved in the experiences. Reversibility is an ontological account of intercorporeity (shared embodiment). Reversibility entails what seems to be a paradox: our bodies are never solely our own; while at the same time we are our bodies. Merleau-Ponty described the reversible existence of our bodies as “the flesh of the world.” Thus, Augustine’s relationships are reframed as a critique of the metaphysics of presence. (shrink)

© 2015.This document a59Summary of the discussions and conclusions following from Dark Matter @ LHC 2014, held at Merton College, Oxford, on September 25-27, 2014. outlines a set of simplified models for dark matter and its interactions with Standard Model particles. It is intended to summarize the main characteristics that these simplified models have when applied to dark matter searches at the LHC, and to provide a number of useful expressions for reference. The list of models includes both s-channel and (...) t-channel scenarios. For s-channel, spin-0 and spin-1 mediations are discussed, and also realizations where the Higgs particle provides a portal between the dark and visible sectors. The guiding principles underpinning the proposed simplified models are spelled out, and some suggestions for implementation are presented. (shrink)

There was a deep continuity in Wollheim’s thought from his book on F. H. Bradley onward. His notion of the concept of art as deeply interiorized was inextricable from his sense of the psychological unity of the mind and the historical continuity of artistic tradition, seen on analogy with an inherited language. His study of pictorial representation pivoted on the innate psychological capacity of ‘seeing-in’, perceiving the represented subject in a surface from which it was seen as distinct but to (...) which it could be related. The expressiveness of depiction he explained through a psychoanalytic concept of projection in which we come to see a piece of the external world as corresponding to an inward state of mind. He reserved the use of the term ‘imagination’ for the artist’s elaboration of ‘seeing-in’. This he exemplified in accounts of painting by Manet, Friedrich, Titian, and Ingres among others. His critical stance has a close affinity with certain essays by Pater. (shrink)

In England, Wales and Scotland, the vast majority of abortions take place in the first trimester of pregnancy. In 2009, for example, 91% of abortions were carried out at under 13 weeks gestation for women resident in England and Wales. 1 Early abortion opens up the opportunity for a woman to have a medical abortion rather than a surgical abortion. Medical abortion is considered to be less invasive and less expensive than surgical abortion, and is increasingly becoming the preferred method. (...) 1 The proportion of medical abortions to surgical abortions has doubled in the last five years with 52% of abortions being medical abortions under 9 weeks gestation in 2009. A medical abortion typically involves taking mifepristone to block the hormones that help a pregnancy to continue, and then later on misoprostol, which makes the womb expel the embryo/fetus, usually within 4–6 h. Current legislation requires that both sets of drugs are administered in an NHS hospital or approved place, but women can go home after taking the second dose of drugs to complete the abortion. There has long been disagreement between the Department of Health and the British Pregnancy Advisory Services about what constitutes ‘any treatment for the termination of pregnancy’ under the Abortion Act 1967, specifically whether a woman taking the second set of drugs is considered to be undergoing the ‘treatment’ and is therefore required to be present in premises permitted under the Act. At the end of 2010, BPAS went to the High Court to challenge the Department of Health's view that the legislation requires women to take both sets of drugs in an approved place. BPAS argued that ‘treatment’ stops at the point of prescription and women should be able to go home, …. (shrink)

Late in 1990, the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at Illinois Institute of Technology (lIT) received a grant of more than $200,000 from the National Science Foundation to try a campus-wide approach to integrating professional ethics into its technical curriculum.! Enough has now been accomplished to draw some tentative conclusions. I am the grant's principal investigator. In this paper, I shall describe what we at lIT did, what we learned, and what others, especially philosophers, can learn (...) from us. We set out to develop an approach that others could profitably adopt. I believe that we succeeded. (shrink)

This volume presents significant developments in the field of Montague Grammar and outlines its past and future contributions to philosophy and linguistics. The contents are as follows: Introduction by Steven Davis and Marianne Mithun Emmon Bach, "Montague Grammar and Classical Transformational Grammar" Barbara H. Partee, "Constraining Transformational Montague Grammar: A Framework and a Fragment" James D. McCawley, "Helpful Hints to the Ordinary Working Montague Grammarian" Terence Parsons, "Type Theory and Ordinary Language" David R. Dowty, "Dative 'Movement' and Thomason's Extensions (...) of Montague Grammar" Muffy E. A. Siegel, "Measure Adjectives in Montague Grammar" Michael Bennett, "Mass Nouns and Mass Terms in Montague Grammar" Jeroen Groenendijk and Martin Stokhof, "Infinitives and Context in Montague Grammar" James Waldo, "A PTQ Semantics for Sortal Incorrectness". (shrink)

Strong evidence shows that exposure and engagement with the natural world not only improve human wellbeing but can also help promote environmentally friendly behaviors. Human-nature relationships are at the heart of global agendas promoted by international organizations including the World Health Organization’s “One Health” and the United Nations “Ocean Decade.” These agendas demand collaborative multisector interdisciplinary efforts at local, national, and global levels. However, while global agendas highlight global goals for a sustainable world, developing science that directly addresses these agendas (...) from design through to delivery and outputs does not come without its challenges. In this article, we present the outcomes of international meetings between researchers, stakeholders, and policymakers from the United Kingdom and Brazil. We propose a model for interdisciplinary work under such global agendas, particularly the interface between One Health and the UN Ocean Decade and identify three priority research areas closely linked to each other: human-nature connection, conservation-human behavior, and implementation strategies. We also discuss a number of recommendations for moving forward. (shrink)

The CUORE-0 experiment searched for neutrinoless double beta decay in130Te using an array of 52 tellurium dioxide crystals, operated as bolometers at a temperature of 10 mK. It took data in the Gran Sasso National Laboratory since March 2013 to March 2015. We present the results of a search for neutrinoless double beta decay in 9.8 kg-years130Te exposure that allowed us to set the most stringent limit to date on this half-life. The performance of the detector in terms of background (...) and energy resolution is also reported. (shrink)

The honour of being the first to teach philosophy in Australia belongs to the Congregationalist minister Barzillai Quaife (1798–1873), in the 1850s, but teaching philosophy did not formally begin until the 1880s, with the establishment of universities (Grave 1984). Two approaches have dominated Western philosophy in Australia: Idealism and materialism. Idealism was prevalent between the 1880s and the 1930s, but dissipated thereafter. It was particularly associated with the work of the first professional philosophers in Australia, such as Henry Laurie (1837–1922), (...) Francis Anderson (1858–1941), William Mitchell (1861–1962) (who rejected the label) and a second generation including W. R. Boyce Gibson (1869–1935). Idealism in Australia often reflected Kantian themes, together with the British, particularly Scottish, revival of interest in Hegel through the work of the ‘Absolute Idealists’ T. H. Green (1836–1882), F. H. Bradley (1846–1924) and Henry Jones (1852–1922), the latter of whom conducted a popular lecture tour of Australia (Boucher 1990). A number of the early New Zealand philosophers, including Duncan MacGregor (1843–1906), William Salmond (1835–1917), and Francis W. Dunlop (1874–1932) were educated in the Idealist tradition and were influential in their communities, but produced relatively little. William Anderson (1889–1955), at Auckland, brother of John at Sydney, was the only New Zealand philosopher that seemed to retain Idealist views. In Australia, materialism gained prominence through the work of John Anderson, who arrived in Australia in 1927, and continues to be influential. John Anderson had been a student of Henry Jones, who can be said to have influenced both strands of Australian philosophical thought. (shrink)

kerekh 1. Maʼamarim mi-masekhtot Berakhot ṿe-Shabat -- kerekh 2. Maʼamarim mi-masekhtot ʻEruvin, Pesaḥim, R.h. ṿe-Yoma -- kerekh 3. Masekhtot Sukah, Betsah, Taʻanit, Megilah, Moʻed ḳaṭan ṿa-Ḥagigah.