On Exceeding Determination and the Ideal of Reason: Immanuel Kant, William Desmond, and the Noumenological Principle examines the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant, as it bears on theological principles. Focusing on the foundational ideas (of self, world, and God) that constitute Kant's metaphysical system, Shaw argues that these ideal projections of the rational structures of the thinking subject only conceal and obfuscate the more robust sense of the real that exists behind all phenomenal appearances. This book aims to critically (...) assess the theological content presented in the philosophy of Kant whilst reconstructing and developing some of Kant's more obscure points on the epistemological limitations of pure reason and the borders of knowledge itself. Shaw draws into dialogue with the writings of the contemporary philosopher William Desmond to demonstrate some of the problems of Kantian thought when it comes to the deeper mysteries of being. Desmondian philosophy proves to be a powerful influence over much of this work, as Shaw advances upon the delicate nexus where philosophy and theology convene. As a bold addition to this work, Shaw lays the groundwork for a new discourse in theology and the philosophy of religion: "Noumenology". Noumenology, which is Shaw's response to the deficiencies in methods concerning many of the modern approaches to phenomenology, is a call for the recalibration of the starting point for eidetic inquiry through the proposal of a non-discursive approach to the sensible, emotional, and intellectual - or perhaps, the all together spiritual. To accomplish this, Shaw reaches back to Kant for a heterodox approach to the language and content surrounding the noumenonal to set forth his theological interpretation of the "Noumenological Principle". (shrink)

In this article we summarise some previously described proposals for ethical governance of autonomous vehicles, critique them, and offer an alternative solution. Rather than programming cars to react to crash situations in the same way as humans, having humans program pre-set responses for a wide range of different potential scenarios, or applying particular ethical theories, we suggest that decisions should be made jointly between humans and cars. Given that humans lack the requisite processing capacity, and computers lack the necessary ethical (...) capacity, the medical paradigm of advance care planning can be retooled for this new context. Advance car-crash planning provides a way to combine humans’ ethical preferences with the advanced data processing capacities of computers to enable shared decision making in collision situations. (shrink)

I demonstrate that locking on, a key notion in Jerry Fodor's most recent theory of content, supplemented informational atomism (SIA), is cashed out in terms of asymmetric dependence, the central notion in his earlier theory of content. I use this result to argue that SIA is incompatible with the language of thought hypothesis because the constraints on the causal relations into which symbols can enter imposed by the theory of content preclude the causal relations needed between symbols for them to (...) serve as the elements of the medium of thought. (shrink)

Grapheme-color synesthetes experience color, not physically present, when viewing symbols. Synesthetes cannot remember learning these associations. Must synesthetic percepts be formed during a sensitive period? Can they form later and be consistent? What determines their nature? We tested grapheme-color synesthete, MC2, before, during and after she studied Hindi abroad. We investigated whether novel graphemes elicited synesthetic percepts, changed with familiarity, and/or benefited from phonemic information. MC2 reported color percepts to novel Devanagari and Hebrew graphemes. MC2 monitored these percepts over 6 (...) months in a Hindi-speaking environment. MC2 and synesthete DN, reported synesthetic percepts for Armenian graphemes, or Cyrillic graphemes + phonemes over time. Synesthetes, not controls, reported color percepts for novel graphemes that gained consistency over time. Phonemic information did not enhance consistency. Thus, synesthetes can form and consolidate percepts to novel graphemes as adults. These percepts may depend on pre-existing grapheme-color relationships but they can flexibly shift with familiarity. (shrink)

Since 1991 the Franciscan Francis of Marchia, master of theology at the University of Paris (fl. 1320), has begun receiving his due attention as an exciting and innovative thinker. This volume examines his doctrines in cosmology, physics, metaphysics, ethics, and politics.

What ontology does realism about the quantum state suggest? The main extant view in contemporary philosophy of physics is wave-function realism . We elaborate the sense in which wave-function realism does provide an ontological picture, and defend it from certain objections that have been raised against it. However, there are good reasons to be dissatisfied with wave-function realism, as we go on to elaborate. This motivates the development of an opposing picture: what we call spacetime state realism , a view (...) which takes the states associated to spacetime regions as fundamental. This approach enjoys a number of beneficial features, although, unlike wave-function realism, it involves non-separability at the level of fundamental ontology. We investigate the pros and cons of this non-separability, arguing that it is a quite acceptable feature, even one which proves fruitful in the context of relativistic covariance. A companion paper discusses the prospects for combining a spacetime-based ontology with separability, along lines suggested by Deutsch and Hayden. (shrink)

Machine learning algorithms may radically improve our ability to diagnose and treat disease. For moral, legal, and scientific reasons, it is essential that doctors and patients be able to understand and explain the predictions of these models. Scalable, customisable, and ethical solutions can be achieved by working together with relevant stakeholders, including patients, data scientists, and policy makers.

Building on the recent scholarship of Bonnie Kent, Christian Trottmann, and especially L.M. de Rijk, this volume gathers together studies by other specialists on Odonis, covering his ideas in economics, logic, metaphysics, ethics, natural ...

Deliberative and participatory approaches to democracy seek to directly include citizens in decision-making and agenda-setting processes. These methods date back to the very foundations of democracy in Athens, where regular citizens shared the burden of governance and deliberated every major issue. However, thinkers at the time rightly believed that these methods could not function beyond the scale of the city-state, or polis. Representative democracy as an innovation improved on the scalability of collective decision making, but in doing so, sacrificed the (...) extent to which regular citizens could participate in deliberation. Modern technology, including advances in computational power, machine learning algorithms, and data visualization techniques, presents a unique opportunity to scale out deliberative processes. Here we describe Polis, an open source web application capable of collecting and synthesizing feedback from people in a scalable and distributed fashion. Polis has shown itself capable of building shared understanding, disincentivizing counterproductive behavior, and cultivating points of consensus. It has done this in the context of journalistic and academic research, and directly as part of decision-making bodies at local and national levels, directly affecting legislation. These results demonstrate that deliberative processes can be scaled up beyond the constraints of in-person gatherings and small groups. (shrink)

Nielsen Busch and Mjaaland (2023) argue that controlled donation after circulatory death does not violate the dead donor rule because the dead donor rule “merely requires that procurement of organs...

Deutsch and Hayden have proposed an alternative formulation of quantum mechanics which is completely local. We argue that their proposal must be understood as having a form of ‘gauge freedom’ according to which mathematically distinct states are physically equivalent. Once this gauge freedom is taken into account, their formulation is no longer local.

In the remainder of this article, we will disarm an important motivation for epistemic contextualism and interest-relative invariantism. We will accomplish this by presenting a stringent test of whether there is a stakes effect on ordinary knowledge ascription. Having shown that, even on a stringent way of testing, stakes fail to impact ordinary knowledge ascription, we will conclude that we should take another look at classical invariantism. Here is how we will proceed. Section 1 lays out some limitations of previous (...) research on stakes. Section 2 presents our study and concludes that there is little evidence for a substantial stakes effect. Section 3 responds to objections. The conclusion clears the way for classical invariantism. (shrink)

Several bioethical topics received a great deal of news coverage here in Scotland in 2009. Three important issues with transatlantic connections are the swine flu outbreak, which was handled very differently in Scotland, England and America; the US debate over healthcare reform, which drew the British NHS into the controversy; and the release to Libya of the Lockerbie bomber, which at first glance might not seem particularly bioethical, but which actually hinged on the very public discussion of the prisoner’s medical (...) records. On a national level, there have been attempts in both Scotland and England to change the law on assisted suicide, where success looks more likely than ever. This paper will discuss each of these issues, and hopefully raise awareness of how these issues were dealt with in the UK and its component countries. (shrink)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to inform or alert readers to the extensive use and ready availability of genetic information that poses varying degrees of social and legal danger. The eugenics movement of the 1920s and the general acceptance of genetic essentialism provide context for considering contemporary examples of the problem. Design/methodology/approach This paper takes an argumentative approach, supporting proposals with ideas from historical and current research literature. Findings The limits of data protection, extensive use of direct-to-consumer genetic (...) testing and use of genetic information in white nationalist circles portend a resurgence of eugenic beliefs from a century ago. Social implications Research-based recommendations may help to avoid extreme consequences by encouraging people to make informed decisions about the use of genetic information. Originality/value The paper counterposes contemporary understanding of genetic testing and data accessibility with the much older ideology of eugenics, leading to concerns about how white nationalists might further their aims with 21st century technology. (shrink)

Doctors and dentists have traditionally used antibiotic prophylaxis in certain patient groups in order to prevent infective endocarditis (IE). New guidelines, however, suggest that the risk to patients from using antibiotics is higher than the risk from IE. This paper analyses the relative risks of prescribing and not prescribing antibiotic prophylaxis against the background of Pascal’s Wager, the infamous assertion that it is better to believe in God regardless of evidence, because of the prospective benefits should He exist. Many doctors (...) seem to believe the parallel proposition that it is better to prescribe antibiotics, regardless of evidence, because of the prospective benefit conferred upon the patient. This has been called the “no lose philosophy” in medicine: better safe than sorry, even if the evidence inconveniently suggests that following this mantra is potentially more likely to result in sorry than safe. It transpires that, just as Pascal’s Wager fails to convince because of a lack of evidence to support it and the costs incurred by trying to believe, so the “belts and braces” approach of prescribing antibiotic prophylaxis is unjustifiable given the actual evidence of potential risk and benefit to the patient. Ultimately, there is no no-lose if your clinical decisions, like Pascal’s Wager, are based on faith rather than evidence. (shrink)

Ideally, guidelines reflect an accepted position with respect to matters of concern, ranging from clinical practices to researcher behaviour. Upon close reading, authorship guidelines reserve authorship attribution to individuals fully or almost fully embedded in particular studies, including design or execution as well as significant involvement in the writing process. These requirements prescribe an organisation of scientific work in which this embedding is specifically enabled. Drawing from interviews with nutrition scientists at universities and in the food industry, we demonstrate that (...) the organisation of research labour can deviate significantly from such prescriptions. The organisation of labour, regardless of its content, then, has consequences for who qualifies as an author. The fact that fewer food industry employees qualify is actively used by the food industry to manage the credibility and ownership of their knowledge claims as allonymous science: the attribution of science assisted by authorship guidelines blind to all but one organisational frame. (shrink)

In this short article, we articulate a position that organ recovery from uncontrolled DCD — primarily patients who have suffered a cardiac arrest — is unlikely to result in a significant number of organs, and this small gain must be balanced against significant risk of unduly influencing resuscitation provider decision-making, and jeopardizing public trust in the propriety of organ donation and transplantation.

“I think there’s a big strong belief in [...] the community … and maybe it’s in the world at large that somehow the doctors are more concerned about harvesting the organs than what’s best for the patient.”1 In the past 45 years, organ and tissue recovery and transplantation have moved from the occasional and experimental to a standard of care for end-stage organ failure; receiving an organ transplant is for many the only opportunity for increased quantity and/or quality of life. (...) The increasing prevalence of diseases such as viral hepatitis, diabetes, and hypertension has significantly increased the incidence of end-organ failure. Additionally, surgical advances have permitted less stringent qualification criteria, so that people of advanced age or patients who may be in a physiologically fragile state are now eligible to be organ recipients. These changes have created a significant demand for organs. (shrink)

Background Structured training in research integrity, research ethics and responsible conduct of research is one strategy to reduce research misconduct and strengthen reliability of and trust in scientific evidence. However, how researchers develop their sense of integrity is not fully understood. We examined the factors and circumstances that shape researchers’ understanding of research integrity. Methods This study draws insights from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 33 researchers in the life sciences and medicine, representing three seniority levels across five research universities in (...) Switzerland. Results The results of this study indicate that early education, moral values inculcated by the family and participation in team sports were the earliest influences on notions of honesty, integrity and fairness among researchers. Researchers’ personality traits, including degree of ambition and internal moral compass, were perceived as critical in determining the importance they attributed to conducting research with high ethical standards. Positive and negative experiences in early research life also had a significant impact on their views regarding research integrity. Two thirds of the study participants had not received any formal training in research integrity. Their awareness of training opportunities at their institutions was also limited. Conclusion Age-appropriate development of honesty and integrity starts as early as primary education. Research integrity training should be offered from the bachelors level and continue throughout the entire professional life of researchers. Although these courses may not imbue researchers with integrity itself, they are essential to improving the research culture, reinforcing integrity norms, and discouraging researchers who lack personal integrity from engaging in research misconduct. (shrink)

Does the Ship of Theseus present a genuine puzzle about persistence due to conflicting intuitions based on “continuity of form” and “continuity of matter” pulling in opposite directions? Philosophers are divided. Some claim that it presents a genuine puzzle but disagree over whether there is a solution. Others claim that there is no puzzle at all since the case has an obvious solution. To assess these proposals, we conducted a cross-cultural study involving nearly 3,000 people across twenty-two countries, speaking eighteen (...) different languages. Our results speak against the proposal that there is no puzzle at all and against the proposal that there is a puzzle but one that has no solution. Our results suggest that there are two criteria—“continuity of form” and “continuity of matter”— that constitute our concept of persistence and these two criteria receive different weightings in settling matters concerning persistence. (shrink)

This paper is an essay based on many years of reviewing journal submissions and discussions with business ethics scholars on a range of themes regarding methods. To some extent, it contains condensed thoughts from two experienced scholars in the field, which we hope will be useful, especially to emerging scholars who, to some extent, may still be wrestling with some of the issues raised in the paper. The validity and reliability of research methods in business ethics research is discussed in (...) terms of legitimate methods to employ in the discipline, the epistemic challenges in the discipline, the debate between qualitative and quantitative methods, and some considered comments on ‘researching well’ in this discipline. Within each theme, we attempt to convey our distilled thoughts in the hope that methods employed in future studies will avoid some of the failures we have observed in the past. (shrink)

What is philosophy of science? Numerous manuals, anthologies or essays provide carefully reconstructed vantage points on the discipline that have been gained through expert and piecemeal historical analyses. In this paper, we address the question from a complementary perspective: we target the content of one major journal of the field—Philosophy of Science—and apply unsupervised text-mining methods to its complete corpus, from its start in 1934 until 2015. By running topic-modeling algorithms over the full-text corpus, we identified 126 key research topics (...) that span across 82 years. We also tracked their evolution and fluctuating significance over time in the journal articles. Our results concur with and document known and lesser-known episodes of the philosophy of science, including the rise and fall of logic and language-related topics, the relative stability of a metaphysical and ontological questioning (space and time, causation, natural kinds, realism), the significance of epistemological issues about the nature of scientific knowledge as well as the rise of a recent philosophy of biology and other trends. These analyses exemplify how computational text-mining methods can be used to provide an empirical large-scale and data-driven perspective on the history of philosophy of science that is complementary to other current historical approaches. (shrink)

In temporal binding, the temporal interval between one event and another, occurring some time later, is subjectively compressed. We discuss two ways in which temporal binding has been conceptualized. In studies showing temporal binding between a voluntary action and its causal consequences, such binding is typically interpreted as providing a measure of an implicit or pre-reflective “sense of agency”. However, temporal binding has also been observed in contexts not involving voluntary action, but only the passive observation of a cause-effect sequence. (...) In those contexts, it has been interpreted as a top-down effect on perception reflecting a belief in causality. These two views need not be in conflict with one another, if one thinks of them as concerning two separate mechanisms through which temporal binding can occur. In this paper, we explore an alternative possibility: that there is a unitary way of explaining temporal binding both within and outside the context of voluntary action as a top-down effect on perception reflecting a belief in causality. Any such explanation needs to account for ways in which agency, and factors connected with agency, have been shown to affect the strength of temporal binding. We show that principles of causal inference and causal selection already familiar from the literature on causal learning have the potential to explain why the strength of people’s causal beliefs can be affected by the extent to which they are themselves actively involved in bringing about events, thus in turn affecting binding. (shrink)

Is behavioral integration a necessary feature of belief in folk psychology? Our data from over 5,000 people across 26 samples, spanning 22 countries suggests that it is not. Given the surprising cross-cultural robustness of our findings, we argue that the types of evidence for the ascription of a belief are, at least in some circumstances, lexicographically ordered: assertions are first taken into account, and when an agent sincerely asserts that p, nonlinguistic behavioral evidence is disregarded. In light of this, we (...) take ourselves to have discovered a universal principle governing the ascription of beliefs in folk psychology. (shrink)

Research on the implementation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has revealed the critical role of CSR departments vis-à-vis functional departments. While both CSR and functional departments influence CSR implementation, the question of how they work together remains underexamined. We address this question by mobilizing and merging two complementary yet separate perspectives on CSR implementation: “coordination” and “enactment.” Building on a comparative case study involving seven large Swiss financial institutions that have established CSR departments and implemented CSR to varying extents, we (...) inductively derive six courses of actions conducing to CSR implementation, involving both coordination and enactment. We distinguish between four courses of actions in the CSR departments ( centralizing, coalescing, orchestrating, and consulting) and two courses of actions in the functional departments ( decentralizing and tailoring). As our data suggest that coordination and enactment work in tandem, we capture these insights in a model of CSR implementation as coordinated enactment. Our research contributes to the literature by explaining how CSR departments and functional departments enact and simultaneously coordinate CSR at a particular implementation stage, thus illuminating how and why the variance in CSR implementation occurs. (shrink)

Though only established as a discipline since the 1970s, philosophy of biology has already triggered investigations about its own history The Oxford handbook of philosophy of biology, Oxford University Press, New York, pp 11–33, 2008). When it comes to assessing the road since travelled—the research questions that have been pursued—manuals and ontologies also offer specific viewpoints, highlighting dedicated domains of inquiry and select work. In this article, we propose to approach the history of the philosophy of biology with a complementary (...) data-driven perspective that makes use of statistical algorithms applied to the complete full-text corpus of one major journal of the field—Biology and Philosophy—from its launch in 1986 up until 2017. By running text-mining and topic-modeling algorithms, we identified 67 key research topics that span across these 32 years. We also investigated the evolution of these topics over time and their fluctuating significance in the journal articles. Our results concur with known episodes or traits of the discipline—for instance, the significance of evolution-related topics or the decrease of articles with a marked historical dimension—but also highlight a diversity of topics that is much richer than what is usually acknowledged. (shrink)

Researchers often refer to “research integrity”, “scientific integrity”, “research misconduct”, “scientific misconduct” and “research ethics”. However, they may use some of these terms interchangeably despite conceptual distinctions. The aim of this paper is to clarify what is signified by several key terms related to research integrity, and to suggest clearer conceptual delineation between them. To accomplish this task, it provides a conceptual analysis based upon definitions and general usage of these phrases and categorization of integrity-breaching behaviours in literature and guidelines, (...) including clarification of the different domains and agents involved. In the first part of the analysis, following some initial clarifications, I explore the distinction between internal and external rules of integrity. In the second part, I explore the distinction between integrity and lack of misconduct, before suggesting a recategorisation of different types of integrity breach. I conclude that greater clarity is needed in the debate on research integrity. Distinguishing between scientific and research integrity, reassessing the relative gravity of different misbehaviours in light of this distinction, and recognising all intentional breaches of integrity as misconduct may help to improve guidelines and education. (shrink)

Informed consent is at the core of the clinical relationship. With the introduction of machine learning in healthcare, the role of informed consent is challenged. This paper addresses the issue of whether patients must be informed about medical ML applications and asked for consent. It aims to expose the discrepancy between ethical and practical considerations, while arguing that this polarization is a false dichotomy: in reality, ethics is applied to specific contexts and situations. Bridging this gap and considering the whole (...) picture is essential for advancing the debate. In the light of the possible future developments of the situation and the technologies, as well as the benefits that informed consent for ML can bring to shared decision-making, the present analysis concludes that it is necessary to prepare the ground for a possible future requirement of informed consent for medical ML. (shrink)

Though only established as a discipline since the 1970s, philosophy of biology has already triggered investigations about its own history The Oxford handbook of philosophy of biology, Oxford University Press, New York, pp 11–33, 2008). When it comes to assessing the road since travelled—the research questions that have been pursued—manuals and ontologies also offer specific viewpoints, highlighting dedicated domains of inquiry and select work. In this article, we propose to approach the history of the philosophy of biology with a complementary (...) data-driven perspective that makes use of statistical algorithms applied to the complete full-text corpus of one major journal of the field—Biology and Philosophy—from its launch in 1986 up until 2017. By running text-mining and topic-modeling algorithms, we identified 67 key research topics that span across these 32 years. We also investigated the evolution of these topics over time and their fluctuating significance in the journal articles. Our results concur with known episodes or traits of the discipline—for instance, the significance of evolution-related topics or the decrease of articles with a marked historical dimension—but also highlight a diversity of topics that is much richer than what is usually acknowledged. (shrink)

As a discipline of its own, the philosophy of science can be traced back to the founding of its academic journals, some of which go back to the first half of the twentieth century. While the discipline has been the object of many historical studies, notably focusing on specific schools or major figures of the field, little work has focused on the journals themselves. Here, we investigate contemporary philosophy of science by means of computational text-mining approaches: we apply topic-modeling algorithms (...) to eight major philosophy of science journals, from the 1930s up until 2017. Based on the full-text content of some 15,897 articles, we identified 25 research themes and 8 thematic clusters that show how the research agenda of the philosophy of science has changed in its content over the course of the last eight decades, up to the philosophy of science we now know. We also show how each one of the journals contributed in its own way to this thematic evolution. (shrink)

Inwiefern ist Metaphysik heutzutage noch relevant? Gibt es einen Sinn, in dem Metaphysik fur die Philosophie unverzichtbar ist? Was ist gute Metaphysik, und worin unterscheidet sie sich von schlechter Metaphysik? Was sind Chancen und Probleme genuin metaphysischen Denkens? Die Beitrage des Sammelbandes widmen sich diesen Fragen aus historischer und systematischer Perspektive.

This article reviews recent work aimed at developing a new framework, based on signal detection theory, for understanding the relationship between explicit (e.g., recognition) and implicit (e.g., priming) memory. Within this framework, different assumptions about sources of memorial evidence can be framed. Application to experimental results provides robust evidence for a single-system model in preference to multiple-systems models. This evidence comes from several sources including studies of the effects of amnesia and ageing on explicit and implicit memory. The framework allows (...) a range of concepts in current memory research, such as familiarity, recollection, fluency, and source memory, to be linked to implicit memory. More generally, this work emphasizes the value of modern computational modelling techniques in the study of learning and memory. (shrink)

Reorienting the Political examines the reception of two controversial German philosophers, Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss, in the Chinese-speaking world. This volume explores the powerful resonance of both thinkers in Chinese political thought from a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspective.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the attitudes and reactions of researchers towards an authorship claim made by a researcher in a position of authority who has not made any scientific contribution to a manuscript or helped to write it. This paper draws on semi-structured interviews conducted with 33 researchers at three seniority levels working in biomedicine and the life sciences in Switzerland. This manuscript focuses on the analysis of participants’ responses when presented with a vignette describing an (...) authorship assignment dilemma within a research group. The analysis indicates that researchers use a variety of explanations and arguments to justify inclusion of what guidelines would describe as honorary or guest authorship. Fuzzy parameters such as “substantial contribution” lead to varied interpretation and consequently convenient application of authorship guidelines in practice. Factors such as the culture of the research group, the values and practice shaped by the research leaders, the hierarchy and relative positions of power within research institutions, and the importance given to publications as the currency for academic success and growth tend to have a strong influence on authorship practice. Unjustified authorship assignment practices can be reduced to some extent by creating empowering research cultures where each researcher irrespective of his/her career stage feels empowered to confidently raise concerns without fearing adverse impact on their professional lives. However, individual researchers and research institutions currently have limited influence on established methods for evaluating academic success, which is primarily based on the number of high impact publications. (shrink)