Wiggins and Wilbanks (2019) raise a number of interesting concerns vis-à-vis citizen science and research. However, one area of innovation in citizen science that has seen significant advancements...

There is currently no consensus regarding what measures are most valid to demonstrate perceptual processing without awareness. Likewise, whether conscious perception and unconscious processing rely on independent mechanisms or lie on a continuum remains a matter of debate. Here, we addressed these issues by comparing the time courses of subjective reports, objective discrimination performance and response priming during meta-contrast masking, under similar attentional demands. We found these to be strikingly similar, suggesting that conscious perception and unconscious processing cannot be dissociated (...) by their time course. Our results also demonstrate that unconscious processing, indexed by response priming, occurs, and that objective discrimination performance indexes the same conscious processes as subjective visibility reports. Finally, our results underscore the role of attention by showing that how much attention the stimulus receives relative to the mask, rather than whether processing is measured by conscious discrimination or by priming, determines the time course of meta-contrast masking. (shrink)

This article studies kabbalistic interpretation of a ritual of unknown origin: the daily recitation of the manna episode (Exod 16:1–36). This episode foregrounds a major theme in the writings of R. Baḥya ben Asher ibn Halawa (c.1255–1340) and many other medieval kabbalists: the cyclical nature of sustaining existence. Baḥya’s interpretation builds on two primary sources: R. Jacob ben Sheshet Gerondi’s commentary on Ps 145 in his kabbalistic polemic Meshiv Devarim Nekhoḥim, and a hermeneutic tradition derived from Hasidic-Ashkenazi biblical exegesis. The (...) article also examines roughly analogous works that illuminate Baḥya’s hermeneutical outlook. (shrink)

Since its 1980s coining by Richard Falk, the ‘Grotian Moment’ concept has garnered popularity in international law discourse, denoting a rapid, paradigm-shifting development in international law. This concept builds upon a prevalent recollection of two past events as such paradigm-shifts. The first is, obviously, the ‘original’ Grotian Moment, anointing Grotius as the Father of International Law, mainly for publishing, in 1625, his ground-breaking treatise, De Jure Belli ac Pacis, which is said to had brought about a momentous paradigm-shift that gave (...) rise to modern (statist and secular), or even the first-ever-effective, international law. The second event is the post-ww2 Nuremberg international trial. Presumably, from its mid-seventeenth-century birth to Nuremberg, international law was starkly statist, and so individuals had generally not been its subjects. This, among other things, meant that international criminal law (icl) was not acceptable. Nuremberg is, therefore, celebrated as the first-ever international criminal tribunal, as icl’s birthplace and even more generally as the turning-point in international law’s attitude towards the individual. Simply put, Nuremberg is considered the prototype of a modern Grotian Moment. However, this paper shows that neither 1625 nor 1945 were truly Grotian Moments (their significance notwithstanding) and present’s likely causes for those myths. The paper further reveals that these myths, as well as the current embrace of the ‘Grotian Moment’ concept, are all manifestations of a larger, understudied phenomenon: that internationalists, evermore obsessed with perceiving themselves as cutting-edge, too often satisfy that fix by erasing the past. (shrink)

The recent emergence of machine-manipulated media raises an important societal question: How can we know whether a video that we watch is real or fake? In two online studies with 15,016 participants, we present authentic videos and deepfakes and ask participants to identify which is which. We compare the performance of ordinary human observers with the leading computer vision deepfake detection model and find them similarly accurate, while making different kinds of mistakes. Together, participants with access to the model’s prediction (...) are more accurate than either alone, but inaccurate model predictions often decrease participants’ accuracy. To probe the relative strengths and weaknesses of humans and machines as detectors of deepfakes, we examine human and machine performance across video-level features, and we evaluate the impact of preregistered randomized interventions on deepfake detection. We find that manipulations designed to disrupt visual processing of faces hinder human participants’ performance while mostly not affecting the model’s performance, suggesting a role for specialized cognitive capacities in explaining human deepfake detection performance. -/- . (shrink)

Polycomb group proteins are evolutionary conserved chromatin‐modifying complexes, essential for the regulation of developmental and cell‐identity genes. Polycomb‐mediated transcriptional regulation is provided by two multi‐protein complexes known as Polycomb repressive complex 1 (PRC1) and 2 (PRC2). Recent studies positioned PRC1 as a foremost executer of Polycomb‐mediated transcriptional control. Mammalian PRC1 complexes can form multiple sub‐complexes that vary in their core and accessory subunit composition, leading to fascinating and diverse transcriptional regulatory mechanisms employed by PRC1 complexes. These mechanisms include PRC1‐catalytic activity (...) toward monoubiquitination of histone H2AK119, a well‐established hallmark of PRC1 complexes, whose importance has been long debated. In this review, the central roles that PRC1‐catalytic activity plays in transcriptional repression are emphasized and the recent evidence supporting a role for PRC1 complexes in gene activation is discussed. (shrink)

This article examines the attitude toward animals in the Pentateuch and ancient Near Eastern legal codes. Employing a comparative approach, it analyzes criminal and tort law in relation to animals and their carers—stealing and finding animals used in factory farms, the responsibility of watchmen and renters, and that of the legal “owners” of animals who cause damage. Demonstrating how animals form part of the biblical ethical system, in which ethical demands become binding statutes, it looks at why this process only (...) occurred in the Hebrew Bible and not in other ancient Near Eastern cultures. (shrink)

Fundamentismus und Skeptizismus-Anarchismus sind zwei entgegengesetzte Positionen in der traditionellen Erkenntnistheorie und in der modernen Wissenschaftstheorie. Zwischen ihnen gibt es einen dritten Standpunkt, den Evolutionismus. Beispiele sind zwei neuere Arbeiten von Putnam und Stegmüller . Im Gegensatz zum logisch-statischen Fundamentismus berücksichtigt der Evolutionismus auch dynamische und naturalistische Ansätze. Stegmüller folgend entlehnen wir in der vorliegenden Untersuchung aus der Sprachphilosophie pragmatische Gesichtspunkte, um die logische Syntax und Semantik, die Werkzeuge des Fundamentismus, zu ersetzen. Wir zeigen die Kraft der Pragmatik bei der (...) Behandlung von Problemen wie Erkenntniswachstum, Begriffswechsel, Theorien- und Bedeutungsdynamik, wissenschaftliche Entdeckung und besonders beim Problem der Inkommensurabilität. Unser nicht-fundamentistischer Vorschlag ist ein heuristisches Modell, das auf der modernen genetischen Theorie basiert. (shrink)

This article explores the association between animals and ethics in the teachings of Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague, famously known as the Maharal of Prague. The article is divided into three parts. The first will present the Maharal and the nature of his writings; the second will present how the Maharal viewed the essence of animals and their place in the act of creation; and the third part will examine the Maharal’s ethical approach toward animals. I will deal with the (...) Maharal’s philosophy as it is reflected in his extensive writing. (shrink)

The paper defends the thesis that institutional virtue is properly modeled as a ‘‘consensual’’ property, along the lines of the Lehrer–Wagner model of consensus (LWC). In a first step, I argue that institutional virtue is not exhausted by duty-fulfilling, since institutions, contrary to natural individuals, are designed to fulfill duties. To avoid the charge of vacuity, virtue, if attributed to institutions, must be able to motivate supererogatory action. In a second step, I argue against dis- continuity of institutional virtue with (...) individual virtue. Two main arguments for discontinuity of collective properties display serious shortcomings when applied to virtues of institutions. Given that motivation for supererogatory action is neither inferred from statutory duties nor accommodates a right of reprobation, modeling institutional virtue on collective rationality or explaining it in terms of joint com-mitment both prove problematic. In a third step, I argue that LWC has the explanatory potential to account for institutional virtue. Due to its main features,iteration and evaluation, it provides a non-trivial analysis of continuity and thereby satisfies basic constraints on the notion of genuine institutional virtue. (shrink)

The contributions gathered in this volume present the state of the art in key areas of current social ontology. They focus on the role of collective intentional states in creating social facts, and on the nature of intentional properties of groups that allow characterizing them as responsible agents, or perhaps even as persons. Many of the essays are inspired by contemporary action theory, emotion theory, and theories of collective intentionality. Another group of essays revisits early phenomenological approaches to social ontology (...) and accounts of sociality that draw on the Hegelian idea of recognition. This volume is organized into three parts. First, the volume discusses themes highlighted in John Searle's work and addresses questions concerning the relation between intentions and the deontic powers of institutions, the role of disagreement, and the nature of collective intentionality. Next, the book focuses on joint and collective emotions and mutual recognition, and then goes on to explore the scope and limits of group agency, or group personhood, especially the capacity for responsible agency. The variety of philosophical traditions mirrored in this collection provides readers with a rich and multifaceted survey of present research in social ontology. It will help readers deepen their understanding of three interrelated and core topics in social ontology: the constitution and structure of institutions, the role of shared evaluative attitudes, and the nature and role of group agents. (shrink)

The present article focuses on the case of the 2012 hunger-strike of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. We analyze the ethical dilemma involved in the way the Israeli medical community reacted to these hunger-strikes and the question of force feeding within the context of the fundamental dual-loyalty structure inherent in the Israeli Prison Services—system. We argue that the liberal perspective that focuses the discussion on the dilemma between the principle of individual autonomy and the sanctity of life tends to be (...) oblivious to the asymmetrical relation of power that characterizes the prison system and to the socio-political context in which hunger-strikes take place. Emphasizing hunger-strikes as political acts implies that health practitioners’ conducts cannot be analyzed only through the prism of clinical medical ethics. It requires a public health ethics’ approach, an approach that understands health in the context of the complex relationship between society, state, organizations, communities and individuals. The authors are both academics and volunteers in Physicians for Human Rights—Israel thus our analysis is based both on sociological and public health ethics principles and on the continuous work and advocacy for the right to health of prisoners. (shrink)

Marx himself would have agreed with such a practical approach to the criticism of his method..... He was led to this position, I believe, by his conviction that a scientific background was urgently needed by the practical politician.

Let T be a simple L-theory and let \ be a reduct of T to a sublanguage \ of L. For variables x, we call an \-invariant set \\) in \ a universal transducer if for every formula \\in L^-\) and every a, $$\begin{aligned} \phi ^-\ L^-\text{-forks } \text{ over }\ \emptyset \ \text{ iff } \Gamma \wedge \phi ^-\ L\text{-forks } \text{ over }\ \emptyset. \end{aligned}$$We show that there is a greatest universal transducer \ and it is type-definable. In (...) particular, the forking topology on \\) refines the forking topology on \\) for all y. Moreover, we describe the set of universal transducers in terms of certain topology on the Stone space and show that \ is the unique universal transducer that is \-type-definable with parameters. If \ is a theory with the wnfcp and T is the theory of its lovely pairs of models we show that \\) and give a more precise description of the set of universal transducers for the special case where \ has the nfcp. (shrink)

Kant argues in the Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment that the first stage in resolving the problem of teleology is conceiving it correctly. He explains that the conflict between mechanism and teleology, properly conceived, is an antinomy of the power of judgment in its reflective use regarding regulative maxims, and not an antinomy of the power of judgment in its determining use regarding constitutive principles. The matter in hand does not concern objective propositions regarding the possibility of objects (...) or actual features of certain objects, namely, organisms. It is rather a methodological issue as to the appropriate way to explain the generation, development, and function of organisms. Taken in this manner as subjective maxims guiding the explanation and inquiry of organisms, the principles of mechanism and teleology need not necessarily be seen as contradictorily opposed but instead can be combined in the study of organisms. This, however, is not enough to complete the analysis of the antinomy of the teleological power of judgment. In order to show that there is an antinomy in this case, Kant has to establish that both seemingly conflicting maxims are necessary and natural to the human mind. He does it by grounding them in the ‘special character’ or peculiarity (Eigentümlichkeit) of the human understanding. However, it is not entirely clear just what exactly this peculiarity of the human understanding is. Paul Guyer argues that Kant suggests two different accounts of the peculiarity of the human intellect. According to one account, this peculiarity consists in the fact that our understanding forms general concepts and according to another, in its propensity to proceed from the parts to the whole. I will argue in this paper that Kant puts forward a single account, in which the combination of these two features demonstrate the peculiarity of the human understanding manifested in the encounter with organisms. This account explains the necessity of the regulative maxims of mechanism and teleology, and thus completes Kant’s analysis of the antinomy of the teleological power of judgment. (shrink)

We show that in a simple theory T in which the τf-topologies are closed under projections every type analyzable in a supersimple τf-open set has ordinal SU-rank. In particular, if in addition T is unidimensional, the existence of a supersimple unbounded τf-open set implies T is supersimple. We also introduce the notion of a standard τ-metric and show that for simple theories its completeness is equivalent to the compactness of the τ-topology.

The binding group theorem for stable theories is partially extended to the simple context. Some results concerning internality are proved. We also introduce a ‘small’ normal subgroup G0+ of the automorphism group and show that if p is Q-internal then it has a finite exponent and G/G0+ is interpretable.

Die Studie untersucht die systematischen Beziehungen der zentralen Begriffe in Bernard Bolzanos Erkenntnistheorie, die einen logisch-semantischen Realismus mit einer kausalistischen Metaphysik des Geistes verknüpft. Bolzano situiert grundlegende epistemische Aktivitäten wie Vorstellen, Urteilen und Ableiten im Spannungsfeld von logischen Relationen und dem Kausalnexus mentaler Episoden. Die Studie erläutert die Bedeutung der prominenten Begriffe 'Kraft' und 'Wahrscheinlichkeit' im Hinblick auf die erkenntnistheoretischen Belange von Wissen und Rechtfertigung. Der Begriff der Kraft begründet eine kausalistische Metaphysik von Geist und Welt und damit die Bedingungen (...) faktischer Erkenntnisverläufe. Der Begriff der Wahrscheinlichkeit bezeichnet Begründungsrelationen zwischen objektiven Propositionen, die für die rationale Berechtigung von Überzeugungen bestimmend sind. Zusammen konstituieren Faktivität und Normativität von Erkenntnisansprüchen die epistemische Wahrscheinlichkeit der "Zuversicht", die Urteilen einerseits assertive Kraft und andererseits die Berechtigung verleiht, sie als Erkenntnis anzunehmen. (shrink)

The aim of the present paper is to evaluate the notion of collective guilt feeling both in the light of research in affectivity and in collective intentionality. The paper is divided into an introduction and three main sections. Section 1) highlights relevant features of guilt‐family emotions such as the relation between feeling guilt and objective guilt, the relation between feeling guilt and its content, and the relation between feeling guilt and the ‘self’. Moreover, the distinction between feeling guilt and feeling (...) regret is given due attention. Section 2) examines Margaret Gilbert's arguments in favor of a collectivist view of collective guilt feeling , according to which groups do genuinely feel guilt. Against the collectivist position I argue for an individualist ‘membership account’ of collective guilt feeling in terms of individual members' we‐feeling of guilt. The membership account of collective guilt feeling is vindicated on grounds of a naturalist and non‐judgmentalist understanding of emotions, as well as on the logic of personal pronouns. It combines individualism regarding the subject of the feeling with collectivism regarding the irreducibility of we‐feelings and provides, as I further argue, the required moral force attributed to collective guilt feeling. The concern of section 3) is the question of the appropriate emotional response to collective wrongdoing. I argue against the view that group members are categorically ‘committed to feel guilt as a body’ for wrongdoings committed by the group. Given that individual members often do not participate in their groups' wrongdoings, it seems unjust to impose a requirement for feeling guilt upon them. I suggest that in a general account of the appropriate assessment of collective wrongdoing, feeling regret is the better candidate than feeling guilt for the role of the minimally required emotional response.For us collectively to feel guilt over our action A is for us to be jointly committed to feeling guilt as a body over our action A. [. . .] The parties [. . .] constitute, as far as possible, a single subject of guilt feelings .[A] collective cannot respond affectively [. . .], only its constitutive members can. The lack of an affective counter‐response is troubling, because the efficacy of responses of accountability partially depends upon affect. The response of shame, guilt, and regret help to register the significance of the harm. (shrink)

Medicine has undergone substantial changes in the way medical dilemmas are being dealt with. Here we explore the attitude of Israeli physicians to two debatable dilemmas: disclosing the full truth to patients...

Face recognition is a computationally challenging classification task. Deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) are brain‐inspired algorithms that have recently reached human‐level performance in face and object recognition. However, it is not clear to what extent DCNNs generate a human‐like representation of face identity. We have recently revealed a subset of facial features that are used by humans for face recognition. This enables us now to ask whether DCNNs rely on the same facial information and whether this human‐like representation depends on (...) a system that is optimized for face identification. In the current study, we examined the representation of DCNNs of faces that differ in features that are critical or non‐critical for human face recognition. Our findings show that DCNNs optimized for face identification are tuned to the same facial features used by humans for face recognition. Sensitivity to these features was highly correlated with performance of the DCNN on a benchmark face recognition task. Moreover, sensitivity to these features and a view‐invariant face representation emerged at higher layers of a DCNN optimized for face recognition but not for object recognition. This finding parallels the division to a face and an object system in high‐level visual cortex. Taken together, these findings validate human perceptual models of face recognition, enable us to use DCNNs to test predictions about human face and object recognition as well as contribute to the interpretability of DCNNs. (shrink)

Summary Pluralism and monism are the two current views concerning scientific research and language understanding. Between them there is a third, intermediate, view. We take a procedural methodology of science as exemplified in the work of L. Tondl, and procedural linguistics , as exemplified in the work of B. Harrison, to be representative of this third possibility. Procedures are cognitive, linguistic, and physical processes which, through their hierarchical interconnections can generate fruitful mechanisms . These mechanisms are sensitive to context and (...) operate in heuristic and algorithmic ways. Their similar logical structure points towards a profound unified basis for scientific and linguistic activities, thus providing an interesting bridge between what is achieved by a little child talking to his parents, and a creative scientist struggling to interpret the results of his experiments. (shrink)

We extend the dichotomy between 1-basedness and supersimplicity proved in Shami :309–332, 2011). The generalization we get is to arbitrary language, with no restrictions on the topology [we do not demand type-definabilty of the open set in the definition of essential 1-basedness from Shami :309–332, 2011)]. We conclude that every hypersimple unidimensional theory that is not s-essentially 1-based by means of the forking topology is supersimple. We also obtain a strong version of the above dichotomy in the case where the (...) language is countable. (shrink)

We generalize Shelah's analysis of cardinality quantifiers for a superstable theory from Chapter V of Classification Theory and the Number of Nonisomorphic Models. We start with a set of bounds for the cardinality of each formula in some general invariant family of formulas in a superstable theory (in Classification Theory, a uniform family of formulas is considered) and find a set of derived bounds for all formulas. The set of derived bounds is sharp: up to a technical restriction, every model (...) that satisfies the original bounds has a sufficiently saturated elementary extension that satisfies the original bounds and such that for each formula the set of its realizations in the extension has arbitrarily large cardinality below the corresponding derived bound of the formula. (shrink)

Let T be simple, work in Ceq over a boundedly closed set. Let p ∈ S(θ) be internal in a quasi-stably-embedded type-definable set Q (e.g., Q is definable or stably-embedded) and suppose (p, Q) is ACL-embedded in Q (see definitions below). Then Aut(p/Q) with its action on pC is type-definable in Ceq over θ. In particular, if p ∈ S(θ) is internal in a stably-embedded type-definable set Q, and pC υ Q is stably-embedded, then Aut(p/Q) is type-definable with its action (...) on pC. (shrink)

The paper discusses Bernard Bolzano’s epistemological approach to believing and knowing with regard to the epistemic requirements of an axiomatic model of science. It relates Bolzano’s notions of believing, knowing and evaluation to notions of infallibility, immediacy and foundational truth. If axiomatic systems require their foundational truths to be infallibly known, this knowledge involves both evaluation of the infallibility of the asserted truth and evaluation of its being foundational. The twofold attempt to examine one’s assertions and to do so by (...) searching for the objective grounds of the truths asserted lies at the heart of Bolzano’s notion of knowledge. However, the explanatory task of searching for grounds requires methods that cannot warrant infallibility. Hence, its constitutive role in a conception of knowledge seems to imply the fallibility of such knowledge. I argue that the explanatory task contained in Bolzanian knowing involves a high degree of epistemic virtues, and that it is only through some salient virtue that the credit of infallibility can distinguish Bolzanian knowing from a high degree of Bolzanian believing. (shrink)

The non‐forking‐instances topology (NFI topology) is a topology on the Stone space of a theory T that depends on a reduct of T. This topology has been used in [6] to describe the set of universal transducers for (invariants sets that translate forking‐open sets in to forking‐open sets in T). In this paper we show that in contrast to the stable case, the NFI topology need not be invariant over parameters in but a weak version of this holds for any (...) simple T. We also note that for the lovely pair expansions, of theories with the weak non‐finite cover property (wnfcp), the topology is invariant over in. (shrink)

We show that if p is a real type which is almost internal in a formula φ in a simple theory, then there is a type p' interalgebraic with a finite tuple of realizations of p, which is generated over φ. Moreover, the group of elementary permutations of p' over all realizations of φ is type-definable.

How can adverse experiences in early life, such as maltreatment, exert such powerful negative effects on health decades later? The answer may lie in changes to DNA. New research suggests that exposure to stress can accelerate the erosion of DNA segments called telomeres. Shorter telomere length correlates with chronological age and also disease morbidity and mortality. Thus, telomere erosion is a potential mechanism linking childhood stress to health problems later in life. However, an array of mechanistic, methodological, and basic biological (...) questions must be addressed in order to translate telomere discoveries into clinical applications for monitoring health and predicting disease risk. This paper covers the current state of the science and lays out new research directions. (shrink)