Philosophical Explorations, Volume 17, Issue 2, Page 172-187, June 2014.

The late 16th century Indian philosopher Vijñānabhikṣu is most well known today for his commentaries on Sāṃkhya and Yoga texts. However, the majority of his extant corpus belongs to the tradition of Bhedābheda (Difference and Non-Difference) Vedānta. This article elucidates three Vedāntic arguments from Vijñānabhikṣu’s voluminous commentary on the Brahma Sūtra, entitled Vijñānāmṛtabhāṣya (Commentary on the Nectar of Knowledge). The first section of the article explores the meaning of bhedābheda, showing that in Vijñānabhikṣu’s understanding, “difference and non-difference” does not entail (...) a denial of the principle of contradiction. The second shows how the relation between the individual soul (jīva) and Brahman can be understood as a relation of part and whole. The third section discusses Brahman as cause of the world, and Vijñānabhikṣu’s particular formulation of Brahman as “locus cause” (adhiṣṭhānakāraṇa). Understanding these arguments enables us to appreciate how Vijñānabhikṣu’s Difference and Non-Difference Vedānta is a credible alternative to the Advaita Vedānta schools prevalent in northern India in the late medieval period, and how in his later works Vijñānabhikṣu built upon this Difference and Non-Difference metaphysical framework to argue for the unity of Vedānta, Yoga, and Sāṃ-khya philosophies. (shrink)

It has become customary to conceptualize the living cell as an intricate piece of machinery, different to a man-made machine only in terms of its superior complexity. This familiar understanding grounds the conviction that a cell's organization can be explained reductionistically, as well as the idea that its molecular pathways can be construed as deterministic circuits. The machine conception of the cell owes a great deal of its success to the methods traditionally used in molecular biology. However, the recent introduction (...) of novel experimental techniques capable of tracking individual molecules within cells in real time is leading to the rapid accumulation of data that are inconsistent with an engineering view of the cell. This paper examines four major domains of current research in which the challenges to the machine conception of the cell are particularly pronounced: cellular architecture, protein complexes, intracellular transport, and cellular behaviour. It argues that a new theoretical understanding of the cell is emerging from the study of these phenomena which emphasizes the dynamic, self-organizing nature of its constitution, the fluidity and plasticity of its components, and the stochasticity and non-linearity of its underlying processes. (shrink)

In this enlightening book, Sam Harris argues that free will is an illusion but that this truth should not undermine morality or diminish the importance of social and political freedom; indeed, this truth can and should change the way we think about some of the most important questions in life.

Think of a number, any number, or properties like fragility and humanity. These and other abstract entities are radically different from concrete entities like electrons and elbows. While concrete entities are located in space and time, have causes and effects, and are known through empirical means, abstract entities like meanings and possibilities are remarkably different. They seem to be immutable and imperceptible and to exist "outside" of space and time. This book provides a comprehensive critical assessment of the problems raised (...) by abstract entities and the debates about existence, truth, and knowledge that surround them. It sets out the key issues that inform the metaphysical disagreement between platonists who accept abstract entities and nominalists who deny abstract entities exist. Beginning with the essentials of the platonist–nominalist debate, it explores the key arguments and issues informing the contemporary debate over abstract reality: arguments for platonism and their connections to semantics, science, and metaphysical explanation the abstract–concrete distinction and views about the nature of abstract reality epistemological puzzles surrounding our knowledge of mathematical entities and other abstract entities. arguments for nominalism premised upon concerns about paradox, parsimony, infinite regresses, underdetermination, and causal isolation nominalist options that seek to dispense with abstract entities. Including chapter summaries, annotated further reading, and a glossary, _Entities_ is essential reading for anyone seeking a clear and authoritative introduction to the problems raised by abstract entities. (shrink)

Examines the women's movement, discusses feminist theories, and considers the writings of Locke and Marx concerning the separation of family and state.

Although the field of surgical ethics focuses primarily on informed consent, surgical decision‐making, and research ethics, some surgeons have started to consider ethical questions regarding justice and solidarity with poor and minoritized populations. To date, those calling for social justice in surgical care have emphasized increased diversity within the ranks of the surgical profession. This article, in contrast, foregrounds the agency of those most affected by injustice by bringing to bear an ethic of accompaniment. The ethic of accompaniment is born (...) from a theological tradition that has motivated work to improve health outcomes in those at the margins through its emphasis on listening, solidarity against systemic drivers of disease, and proximity to individuals and communities. Through a review of surgical ethics and exploration of a central patient case, we argue for applying an ethic of accompaniment to the care of surgical patients and their communities. (shrink)

This chapter argues that scientific and philosophical progress in our understanding of the living world requires that we abandon a metaphysics of things in favour of one centred on processes. We identify three main empirical motivations for adopting a process ontology in biology: metabolic turnover, life cycles, and ecological interdependence. We show how taking a processual stance in the philosophy of biology enables us to ground existing critiques of essentialism, reductionism, and mechanicism, all of which have traditionally been associated with (...) substance ontology. We illustrate the consequences of embracing an ontology of processes in biology by considering some of its implications for physiology, genetics, evolution, and medicine. And we attempt to locate the subsequent chapters of the book in relation to the position we defend. (shrink)

The first part of the book traces the role of interpretation in everyday perceptual experiences. The second half explores the question: What makes an interpretation true? The book concludes by showing what observations on language are prompted by the herm.

This book offers a reassessment of the political philosophy of the British Idealists, a group of once influential and now neglected nineteenth-century Hegelian philosophers, whose work has been much misunderstood. Peter Nicholson focuses on F. H. Bradley's idea of morality and moral philosophy; T. H. Green's theory of the Common Good, of the social nature of rights, of freedom, and of state interference; and Bernard Bosanquet's notorious theory of the General Will. By examining the arguments offered by the Idealists (...) and by their critics the author is able to penetrate the deep layers of hostile comment laid down by several generations of later writers and to show that these ideas, once properly understood, are not only defensible but interesting and important. (shrink)

Predictive processing accounts of neural function view the brain as a kind of prediction machine that forms models of its environment in order to anticipate the upcoming stream of sensory stimulation. These models are then continuously updated in light of incoming error signals. Predictive processing has offered a powerful new perspective on cognition, action, and perception. In this chapter we apply the insights from predictive processing to the study of emotions. The upshot is a picture of emotion as inseparable from (...) perception and cognition, and a key feature of the embodied mind. (shrink)

Some postcolonial theorists argue that the idea of a single system of belief known as "Hinduism" is a creation of nineteenth-century British imperialists. Andrew J. Nicholson introduces another perspective: although a unified Hindu identity is not as ancient as some Hindus claim, it has its roots in innovations within South Asian philosophy from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. During this time, thinkers treated the philosophies of Vedanta, Samkhya, and Yoga, along with the worshippers of Visnu, Siva, and Sakti, as (...) belonging to a single system of belief and practice. Instead of seeing such groups as separate and contradictory, they re-envisioned them as separate rivers leading to the ocean of Brahman, the ultimate reality. Drawing on the writings of philosophers from late medieval and early modern traditions, including Vijnanabhiksu, Madhava, and Madhusudana Sarasvati, Nicholson shows how influential thinkers portrayed Vedanta philosophy as the ultimate unifier of diverse belief systems. This project paved the way for the work of later Hindu reformers, such as Vivekananda, Radhakrishnan, and Gandhi, whose teachings promoted the notion that all world religions belong to a single spiritual unity. In his study, Nicholson also critiques the way in which Eurocentric concepts—like monism and dualism, idealism and realism, theism and atheism, and orthodoxy and heterodoxy—have come to dominate modern discourses on Indian philosophy. (shrink)

In 1926, Haldane published an essay titled 'On Being the Right Size' in which he argued that the structure, function, and behavior of an organism are strongly conditioned by the physical forces that exert the greatest impact at the scale at which it exists. This chapter puts Haldane’s insight to work in the context of contemporary cell and molecular biology. Owing to their minuscule size, cells and molecules are subject to very different forces than macroscopic organisms. In a sense, macroscopic (...) and microscopic entities inhabit different “worlds”: the former is ruled by gravity and inertia, whereas the latter is governed by Brownian motion. One implication is that we should be extremely skeptical of models and analogies that seek to explain properties of microscopic entities by appealing to properties of macroscopic ones. Unfortunately, this is precisely what the appeal to engineering metaphors in molecular biology attempts to do. Molecular biologists routinely resort to such metaphors because they are familiar and intuitively intelligible. But if our machines were the size of molecules it would be impossible for them to function the way they do. It follows that we should avoid distorting biological reality by construing it in engineering terms. In this chapter I examine four key metaphors in molecular biology – “genetic program,” “cellular circuitry,” “molecular machine,” and “molecular motor” – and I argue that their deficiencies derive from their neglect of scale. I also try to explain why many biologists today appear to have forgotten the importance of scale that Haldane drew attention to in his essay. I suggest that the reason has to do with the influence of Schrödinger’s argument in 'What is Life?' regarding the stability of the gene. (shrink)

Sam Gillespie's The Mathematics of Novelty presents a new account of Alain Badiou and Gilles Deleuze, identifying conceptual impasses in their philosophical ...

James Overman: Joyce reading Nietzsche -- Ecce auctor: self-creation in A portrait of the artist as a young man -- Aufhebung baby: auto-genesis and alterity in Ulysses -- Joyce's multifarious styles in Ulysses -- Also sprach Molly Bloom -- The gay science of Finnegans wake.

The capacity to provide satisfactory nursing care is being increasingly compromised by current trajectories of healthcare funding and governance. The purpose of this paper is to examine how well Marxist theories of the state and its relationship with capital can explain these trajectories in this period of ever‐increasing austerity. Following a brief history of the current crisis, it examines empirically the effects of the crisis, and of the current trajectory of capitalism in general, upon the funding and organization of the (...) UK and US healthcare systems. The deleterious effect of growing income inequalities to the health of the population is also addressed. Marx's writings on the state and its relation to the capitalist class were fragmentary and historically and geographically specific. From them, we can extract three theoretical variants: the instrumentalist theory of the state, where the state has no autonomy from capital; the abdication theory, whereby capital abstains from direct political power and relies on the state to serve its interests; and the class‐balance theory, whereby the struggle between two opposed classes allows the state to assert itself. Discussion of modern Marxist interpretations includes Poulantzas's abdication theory and Miliband's instrumentalist theory. It is concluded that, despite the pluralism of electoral democracies, the bourgeoisie do have an overweening influence upon the state. The bourgeoisie's ownership of the means of production provides the foundation for its influence because the state is obliged to rely on it to manage the supply of goods and services and the creation of wealth. That power is further reinforced by the infiltration of the bourgeoisie into the organs of state. The level of influence has accelerated rapidly over recent decades. One of the consequences of this has been that healthcare systems have become rich pickings for the evermore confident bourgeoisie. (shrink)

This article explores the substitution and complementary effects between political and social strategies on firm performance in the context of an emerging market (EM). Using in‐depth, historical case‐study approach, the article investigates how companies integrate political and social resources in this market. Corporate performance includes traditional measures, such as accounting performance and nonfinancial measures like the ease of doing business. The study finds that social strategies are stronger enablers of firm long‐term performance than political strategies. The latter have a short‐term (...) impact on performance, but their success over time is limited. The main drawback of reliance on political resources in EMs is the lack of political stability, fragmented polity, and weak political coalitions. We identify rather limited evidence of firms using these two strategies as complements. Thus, we suggest that firms should employ both these strategies in the EM. (shrink)

In considering the patient's right to a certain quality of dying, this essay outlines how the legal and ethical justifications for passive euthanasia depend on the doctrine of acts and omissions. It is suggested that this doctrine is untenable and that alternative justifications are needed. The development of the modern mechanistic approach to death is traced, showing that a possible basis for an humane way of death lies in a reacceptance of a metaphysical concept of life.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are becoming increasingly significant areas of research for scholars in science and technology studies (STS) and media studies. In March 2020, Waymo, Google/Alphabet’s autonomous vehicle project, introduced the ‘Open Dataset Virtual Challenge’, an annual competition leveraging their Waymo Open Dataset. This freely accessible dataset comprises annotated autonomous vehicle data from their own Waymo vehicles. Yearly, Waymo has continued to host iterations of this challenge, inviting teams of computer scientists to tackle evolving machine learning (...) and vision problems using Google's data and tools. This article analyses these challenges, situating them within the context of the ‘Grand Challenges’ of artificial intelligence (AI), which aimed to foster accountable and commercially viable advancements in the late 1980s. Through two exploratory workshops, we adopted a ‘technographic’ approach to examine the pivotal role of challenges in the development and political economy of AI. Serving as an organising principle for the AI innovation ecosystem, the challenge connects companies and external collaborators, driving advancements in specific machine vision domains. By exploring six key themes—interface methods, incrementalism, metrics, AI vernacular, applied domains, and competitive advantages—the article illustrates the role of these challenges in shaping AI research and development. By unpacking the dynamic interaction between data, computation, and labour, these challenges serve as catalysts propelling advancements towards self-driving technologies. The study reveals how challenges have historically and presently shaped the evolving landscape of self-driving and AI technologies. (shrink)

The emphasis on evidence based medicine (EBM) has placed increased focus on finding timely answers to clinical questions in presence of patients. Using a combination of natural language processing for the generation of clinical excerpts and information theoretic distance based clustering, we evaluated multiple approaches for the efficient presentation of context-sensitive EBM excerpts.

We develop a new version of the causal theory of spacetime. Whereas traditional versions of the theory seek to identify spatiotemporal relations with causal relations, the version we develop takes causal relations to be the grounds for spatiotemporal relations. Causation is thus distinct from, and more basic than, spacetime. We argue that this non-identity theory, suitably developed, avoids the challenges facing the traditional identity theory.

"Graeme Nicholson addresses the fundamental topic of ontology, perhaps the fundamental topic posed to philosophy and the human mind: what is being?, i.e., what is it to exist or to be? He initially shows that we humans must be understood to be "existers" and "disclosers"--terms that render Heidegger's concept Dasein. Heidegger's philosophy provides the basic viewpoint, but Professor Nicholson offers an interpretation of Heidegger that seeks to set deconstructionist and pragmatist readings to one side. Since, according to Heidegger, (...) being is fundamentally a union of presence and absence, this study shows that metaphysical theories have always offered positive illustrations or interpretations of being." "Illustrations of Being then goes on to scrutinize the four most fundamental determinations of being that Western thought has adumbrated: being as substance, especially in Greek ontology; being as reality, especially in the period from Descartes to Kant, and therefore in nineteenth- and twentieth-century science; the logic of being, in which Nicholson undertakes an ontological critique of mathematical logic; and being as the transformation of form--the key idea that runs from Christian patristics, through Hegel and Marx, to modern dialectics." "Graeme Nicholson's new study is marked by its receptiveness to metaphysics in the traditional sense, and contains a critique of the deconstructionist effort to pass beyond metaphysics. It will be of interest to professional philosophers and to theologians, as well as to graduate students and to members of the general public interested in philosophical arguments about the nature of being."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

Bestselling author Sam Harris dismantles the most common justification for religious faith-that a moral system cannot be based on science.

Formal models of appearance and reality have proved fruitful for investigating structural properties of perceptual knowledge. This paper applies the same approach to epistemic justification. Our central goal is to give a simple account of The Preface, in which justified belief fails to agglomerate. Following recent work by a number of authors, we understand knowledge in terms of normality. An agent knows p iff p is true throughout all relevant normal worlds. To model The Preface, we appeal to the normality (...) of error. Sometimes, it is more normal for reality and appearance to diverge than to match. We show that this simple idea has dramatic consequences for the theory of knowledge and justification. Among other things, we argue that a proper treatment of The Preface requires a departure from the internalist idea that epistemic justification supervenes on the appearances and the widespread idea that one knows most when free from error. (shrink)

Sam Harris dismantles the most common justification for religious faith--that a moral system cannot be based on science.

This book explores the extent to which children engage with morality within their everyday lives.

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Volume 104, Issue 1, Page 19-49, January 2022.

Introduction : time, film, and the ethical vision of Emmanuel Levinas. American transcendence : Levinas and a short history of an American idea in film -- Frank Capra and James Stewart : time, transcendence, and the other -- The changing face of American redemption : Henry Fonda, Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman, and Denzel Washington -- Sex, art, and Oedipus : The unbearable lightness of being -- Fellini and La dolce vita : documentary, decadence, and desire -- Antonioni and L'avventura : (...) transcendence, the body, and the feminine. (shrink)

According to the KK-principle, knowledge iterates freely. It has been argued, notably in Greco, that accounts of knowledge which involve essential appeal to normality are particularly conducive to defence of the KK-principle. The present article evaluates the prospects for employing normality in this role. First, it is argued that the defence of the KK-principle depends upon an implausible assumption about the logical principles governing iterated normality claims. Once this assumption is dropped, counter-instances to the principle can be expected to arise. (...) Second, it is argued that even if the assumption is maintained, there are other logical properties of normality which can be expected to lead to failures of KK. Such failures are noteworthy, since they do not depend on either a margins-for-error principle or safety condition of the kinds Williamson appeals to in motivating rejection KK. “Introduction: KK and Being in a Position to Know” Section formulates two versions of the KK-Principle; “Inexact Knowledge and Margins for Error” Section presents a version of Williamson’s margins-for-error argument against it; “Knowledge and Normality” and “Iterated Normality” Sections discuss the defence of the KK-Principle due to Greco and show that it is dependent upon the implausible assumption that the logic of normality ascriptions is at least as strong as K4; finally, “Knowledge in Abnormal Conditions” and “Higher-Order Ignorance Inside the Margins” Sections argue that a weakened version of Greco’s constraint on knowledge is plausible and demonstrate that this weakened constraint will, given uncontentious assumptions, systematically generate counter-instances to the KK-principle of a novel kind. (shrink)

In non‐literal uses of language, the content an utterance communicates differs from its literal truth conditions. Loose talk is one example of non‐literal language use (amongst many others). For example, what a loose utterance of (1) communicates differs from what it literally expresses: (1) Lena arrived at 9 o'clock. Loose talk is interesting (or so I will argue). It has certain distinctive features which raise important questions about the connection between literal and non‐literal language use. This paper aims to (i.) (...) introduce a range of novel data demonstrating certain overlooked features of loose talk, and (ii.) develop a new theory of the phenomenon which accounts for these data. In particular, this theory is motivated by the need to explain minimal pairs such as (2)-(3): (2) Lena arrived at 9 o'clock, but she did not arrive at 9 o'clock exactly. (3) ?? Lena did not arrive at 9 o'clock exactly, but she arrived at 9 o'clock. (2) and (3) agree in their truth conditions. Yet they differ in felicity. As such, they constitute a problem for any account which hopes to predict the acceptability of the loose use of a sentence from its truth conditions and the context of utterance alone. Instead, it will be argued, to explain loose talk phenomena we must posit an additional layer of meaning outstripping truth conditions. This layer of meaning is shown to exhibit a range of properties, all of which point to its being semantically encoded. Thus, if correct, the theory provides a new example of how semantic meaning must extend beyond literal, truth‐conditional content. (shrink)

Inquiry aims at knowledge. Your inquiry into a question succeeds just in case you come to know the answer. However, combined with a common picture on which misleading evidence can lead knowledge to be lost, this view threatens to recommend a novel form of dogmatism. At least in some cases, individuals who know the answer to a question appear required to avoid evidence bearing on it. In this paper, we’ll aim to do two things. First, we’ll present an argument for (...) this novel form of dogmatism and show that it presents a substantive challenge. Second, we’ll consider a way those who take knowledge to be the aim of inquiry can mount a response. In the course of doing so, we’ll try to get clearer on the normative connections between inquiry, knowledge and evidence gathering. (shrink)

This paper develops an account of pluralities based on the following simple claim: some things are nothing over and above the individual things they comprise. For some, this may seem like a mysterious statement, perhaps even meaningless; for others, like a truism, trivial and inferentially inert. I show that neither reaction is correct: the claim is both tractable and has important consequences for a number of debates in philosophy.

Suppositional theories of conditionals take apparent similarities between supposition and conditionals as a starting point, appealing to features of the former to provide an account of the latter. This paper develops a novel form of suppositional theory, one which characterizes the relationship at the level of semantics rather than at the level of speech acts. In the course of doing so, it considers a range of novel data which shed additional light on how conditionals and supposition interact.

The term “gender” has played a key role in feminist theory and politics since the late 1960s. Debates over its meaning reflect major turning points within the women's movement of the past thirty years.

On a now orthodox view, humans and many other animals possess a “number sense,” or approximate number system, that represents number. Recently, this orthodox view has been subject to numerous critiques that question whether the ANS genuinely represents number. We distinguish three lines of critique – the arguments from congruency, confounds, and imprecision – and show that none succeed. We then provide positive reasons to think that the ANS genuinely represents numbers, and not just non-numerical confounds or exotic substitutes for (...) number, such as “numerosities” or “quanticals,” as critics propose. In so doing, we raise a neglected question: numbers of what kind? Proponents of the orthodox view have been remarkably coy on this issue. But this is unsatisfactory since the predictions of the orthodox view, including the situations in which the ANS is expected to succeed or fail, turn on the kind of number being represented. In response, we propose that the ANS represents not only natural numbers, but also non-natural rational numbers. It does not represent irrational numbers, however, and thereby fails to represent the real numbers more generally. This distances our proposal from existing conjectures, refines our understanding of the ANS, and paves the way for future research. (shrink)

OBJECTIVES: To compare the practices of local research ethics committees and the time they take to obtain ethical approval for a multi-centre study. DESIGN: A retrospective analysis of outcome of applications for a multi-centre study to local research ethics committees. SETTING: Thirty-six local research ethics committees covering 38 district health authorities in England. MAIN MEASURES: Response of chairmen and women, the time required to obtain approval, and questions asked in application forms. RESULTS: We received replies from all 36 chairmen contacted: (...) four (11%) granted their approval, and 32 (89%) required our proposal to be considered by their local research ethics committee. Three committees asked us to attend their meetings. The application was approved by all 36 local research ethics committees but the time to obtain ethical approval varied between six to 208 days. One third of the committees did not approve the project within three months, and three took longer than six months. There was considerable variation in the issues raised by local research ethics committees and none conformed exactly to the Royal College of Physicians' guidelines. CONCLUSION: Obtaining ethical approval for a multi-centre study is time-consuming. There is much diversity in the practice of local research ethics committees. Our data support the recommendation for a central or regional review body of multi-centre studies which will be acceptable to all local research ethics committees. (shrink)

Some critics argue that the types of psychiatric diagnosis found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and International Classification of Disease are superfluous and should be abandoned. These are known as categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses. To receive a categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnosis an individual need only exhibit some, rather than all, of the symptoms on the diagnostic criteria. Consequently, categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses only associate an individual with a range of symptoms rather than specify which symptoms they (...) have. Drawing on Giere’s account of scientific models, I portray categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses as abstract models that guide the building of less abstract models. These models can specify which symptoms a particular individual has. Additionally, categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses can guide investigation of symptoms towards difficult to spot symptoms, guide investigation towards changing symptoms, and guide investigation towards how symptoms manifest. These important roles mean categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses should not be abandoned. (shrink)