Individuation and organization in complex living multi-level ecosystem occurs as dynamical processes from early ontogeny. The notion of living “holon” displaying dynamic self-assertion and integration is used here to explain the ecosystems dynamic processes. The update of the living holon state according to the continuous change of the dynamic system allows for its viability. This is interpreted as adaptation, selection and organization by the human that observes the system a posteriori from its level. Our model concerns the complex dynamics of (...) the adaptive immune system, integrating holon-lymphocytes that collectively preserve the identity and integrity of the organism. Each lymphocyte individualizes as a dynamic holon-lymphocyte, with somatic gene individuation leading to an individual, singular antigen immunoreceptor type, promoting the self-assertion. In turn, the “Immunoception” allows for perception of the environmental antigenic context, thus integration of the holon in its environment. The self-assertion/integration of holon-lymphocyte starts from fetal stages and is influenced by mother Lamarckian acquired historicity transmissions, a requisite for the integrity of the holobiont-organism. We propose a dynamic model of the perception by holon-lymphocyte, and at the supra-clonal level of the immune system functions that sustain the identity and integrity of the holon-holobiont organism. (shrink)

John Rawls is regarded as the most important political philosopher of the twentieth century. His seminal work, _A Theory of Justice_, transformed the study of political philosophy and shaped the political thought of a generation. _Rawls on Justice_ demystifies this difficult text by introducing and assessing: Rawls’ life and the background to his philosophy The key concepts of _A Theory of Justice_, including the ‘orginal position’, the ‘veil of ignorance’, and the two principles of justice Rawls’ continuing importance to contemporary (...) philosophy and influence on political thought Ideal for those coming to Rawls for the first time, _Rawls on Justice_ is an invaluable guide for students of philosophy, political thought, economics and law. (shrink)

The academic journal publishing model is deeply unethical: today, a few major, for-profit conglomerates control more than 50 of all articles in the natural sciences and social sciences, driving subscription and open-access publishing fees above levels that can be sustainably maintained by publicly funded universities, libraries, and research institutions worldwide. About a third of the costs paid for publishing papers is profit for these dominant publishers' shareholders, and about half of them covers costs to keep the system running, including lobbying, (...) marketing fees, and paywalls. The paywalls in turn restrict access of scientific outputs, preventing them from being freely shared with the public and other researchers. Thus, money that the public is told goes into science is actually being funneled away from it, or used to limit access to it. Alternatives to this model exist and have increased in popularity in recent years, including diamond open-access journals and community-driven recommendation models. These are free of charge for authors and minimize costs for institutions and agencies, while making peer-reviewed scientific results publicly accessible. However, for-profit publishing agents have made change difficult, by co-opting open-access schemes and creating journal-driven incentives that prevent an effective collective transition away from profiteering. Here, we give a brief overview of the current state of the academic publishing system, including its most important systemic problems. We then describe alternative systems. We explain the reasons why the move toward them can be perceived as costly to individual researchers, and we demystify common roadblocks to change. Finally, in view of the above, we provide a set of guidelines and recommendations that academics at all levels can implement, in order to enable a more rapid and effective transition toward ethical publishing. (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

L’article établit un contraste entre deux conceptions de la justice distributive (toutes deux libérales et égalitariennes), en vertu de leur attitude respective à l’égard des choix et de la responsabilité. Un premier type de théories établit la distribution des ressources en fonction de la distinction entre choix des agents et circonstances dans lesquelles ces choix s’opèrent : quiconque est responsable en vertu de ses choix de son manque de ressource est considéré avoir renoncé au droit à une compensation. Or cette (...) théorie part d’une conception erronée de la notion de responsabilité. Les considérations légitimes de réciprocité qui la sous-tendent doivent être envisagées dans le contexte d’une doctrine reposant également sur la notion de responsabilité, mais qui part d’une division des responsabilités entre institutions et individus. Cette seconde conception est développée dans le contexte de la distinction établie par Thomas Scanlon entre responsabilité attributive et responsabilité substantielle. Nous demandons ensuite si les principes de justice fondamentaux dont les institutions sont responsables devraient accorder la priorité à l’égalité équitable des chances et concluons en analysant les effets de la remarque de Rawls selon laquelle l’égalité des chances ne peut être réalisée sans abolir la famille. (shrink)

In this paper I will offer a comprehensive defense of the safety account of knowledge against counterexamples that have been recently put forward. In Sect. 2, I will discuss different versions of safety, arguing that a specific variant of method-relativized safety is the most plausible. I will then use this specific version of safety to respond to counterexamples in the recent literature. In Sect. 3, I will address alleged examples of safe beliefs that still constitute Gettier cases. In Sect. 4, (...) I will discuss alleged examples of unsafe knowledge. In Sect. 5, I will address alleged cases of safe belief that do not constitute knowledge for non-Gettier reasons. My overall goal is to show that there are no successful counterexamples to robust anti-luck epistemology and to highlight some major presuppositions of my reply. (shrink)

This book is a fiftieth anniversary republication of Thomas Nagel's "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?", a classic in the philosophy of mind. Through its argument for the irreducible subjectivity of consciousness, it played an essential role in making the study of consciousness a central part of philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience. It also spurred the now flourishing scientific attention to the consciousness of non-human creatures: mammals, birds, fish, mollusks, and insects. The book also includes a second essay (...) offering Nagel's more recent thoughts on the most promising positive response to the mind-body problem, as posed in the original essay. (shrink)

Separability is roughly the principle that, in comparing the value of two outcomes, one can ignore any people whose existence and welfare are unaffected. Separability is both antecedently plausible, at least as a principle of beneficence, and surprisingly powerful; it is the key to some of the best positive arguments in population ethics. This chapter surveys the motivations for and consequences of separability. In particular, it presents an ‘additivity theorem’ which explains how separability leads to total utilitarianism and closely related (...) axiological views. It then examines systematically how this family of views can avoid the Repugnant Conclusion by incorporating lexicality, a critical level, or a neutral range. (shrink)

v. 1. Editorial introduction -- v. 2. The English and Latin texts (i) -- v. 3. The English and Latin texts (ii).

Human adults are thought to possess two dissociable systems to represent numbers: an approximate quantity system akin to a mental number line, and a verbal system capable of representing numbers exactly. Here, we study the interface between these two systems using an estimation task. Observers were asked to estimate the approximate numerosity of dot arrays. We show that, in the absence of calibration, estimates are largely inaccurate: responses increase monotonically with numerosity, but underestimate the actual numerosity. However, insertion of a (...) few inducer trials, in which participants are explicitly (and sometimes misleadingly) told that a given display contains 30 dots, is sufficient to calibrate their estimates on the whole range of stimuli. Based on these empirical results, we develop a model of the mapping between the numerical symbols and the representations of numerosity on the number line. (shrink)

Death.--The absurd.--Moral luck.--Sexual perversion.--War and massacre.--Ruthlessness in public life.--The policy of preference.--Equality.--The fragmentation of value.--Ethics without biology.--Brain bisection and the unity of consciousness.--What is it like to be a bat?--Panpsychism.--Subjective and objective.

Issues of reliability are claiming center-stage in the epistemology of machine learning. This paper unifies different branches in the literature and points to promising research directions, whilst also providing an accessible introduction to key concepts in statistics and machine learning – as far as they are concerned with reliability.

Reprint of the ed. published by Viking Press, New York.

Thomas Reid, the Scottish natural and moral philosopher, was one of the founding members of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society and a significant figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. Reid believed that common sense should form the foundation of all philosophical inquiry. He criticised the sceptical philosophy propagated by his fellow Scot David Hume and the Anglo-Irish bishop George Berkeley, who asserted that the external world did not exist outside the human mind. Reid was also critical of the theory of ideas (...) propagated by Locke and Descartes, arguing that it was incompatible with physical and experiential facts. For Reid, our senses demonstrate that the external world must exist, and this work is organised in chapters examining each of the senses in turn. The book, based on his lectures, was first published in 1764 when Reid was a regent professor at King's College, Aberdeen, and was reissued in 1818. (shrink)

Humans possess two nonverbal systems capable of representing numbers, both limited in their representational power: the first one represents numbers in an approximate fashion, and the second one conveys information about small numbers only. Conception of exact large numbers has therefore been thought to arise from the manipulation of exact numerical symbols. Here, we focus on two fundamental properties of the exact numbers as prerequisites to the concept of EXACT NUMBERS : the fact that all numbers can be generated by (...) a successor function and the fact that equality between numbers can be defined in an exact fashion. We discuss some recent findings assessing how speakers of Munduruc (an Amazonian language), and young Western children (3-4 years old) understand these fundamental properties of numbers. (shrink)

This paper explores anthropomorphism in human-animal interactions from the theoretical perspectives of pragmatism and anthropology of communication. Its aim is to challenge the conception of anthropomorphism as the attribution/inference of human properties to a nonhuman animal, i.e. as a special case of the theory of mind, and to articulate and make plausible an alternative conception of anthropomorphism as a situated direct perception of human properties by someone who is engaged in a given situation, and let themselves be affected by the (...) animal. The paper offers an original perspective for in depth ethnographic and empirical studies of anthropomorphism-in-situation. Such studies could bring new insights in the study of how ordinary people make sense of animal’s behaviors in real-life situations. (shrink)

The application of machine-learning technologies to medical practice promises to enhance the capabilities of healthcare professionals in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment, of medical conditions. However, there is growing concern that algorithmic bias may perpetuate or exacerbate existing health inequalities. Hence, it matters that we make precise the different respects in which algorithmic bias can arise in medicine, and also make clear the normative relevance of these different kinds of algorithmic bias for broader questions about justice and fairness in healthcare. (...) In this paper, we provide the building blocks for an account of algorithmic bias and its normative relevance in medicine. (shrink)

Meu intuito é tecer algumas considerações sobre a descoberta e relação de Voltaire com o newtonianismo, e a partir daí refletir de maneira mais geral sobre as possibilidades da aproximação entre filosofia e ciência.

This study is focused on an original conception of freedom essentially derived from the Stoics and St Paul: freedom as a use of the world. How Fénelon, when he quotes Paul’s phrase « those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them », associate it with the doctrine of pure love? His desire to interpret the Pauline idea in a mystical perspective threatens the possibility of answering it.

Geometry defines entities that can be physically realized in space, and our knowledge of abstract geometry may therefore stem from our representations of the physical world. Here, we focus on Euclidean geometry, the geometry historically regarded as “natural”. We examine whether humans possess representations describing visual forms in the same way as Euclidean geometry – i.e., in terms of their shape and size. One hundred and twelve participants from the U.S. (age 3–34 years), and 25 participants from the Amazon (age (...) 5–67 years) were asked to locate geometric deviants in panels of 6 forms of variable orientation. Participants of all ages and from both cultures detected deviant forms defined in terms of shape or size, while only U.S. adults drew distinctions between mirror images (i.e. forms differing in “sense”). Moreover, irrelevant variations of sense did not disrupt the detection of a shape or size deviant, while irrelevant variations of shape or size did. At all ages and in both cultures, participants thus retained the same properties as Euclidean geometry in their analysis of visual forms, even in the absence of formal instruction in geometry. These findings show that representations of planar visual forms provide core intuitions on which humans’ knowledge in Euclidean geometry could possibly be grounded. (shrink)

This paper aims to study the perception of color (representations, synesthesia, denominations, uses and classification) in specific writings such as recipe treatises written from 1520 to 1689. These treatises deal with the manufacture and stages of color in various objects (remedies, blushes and mainly gems). They reveals that color is not only an apparent surface but also a sensitive substance, in particular white and red colors. Although color is a principle of unity for diverse materials, it sometimes becomes contradictory when (...) it is associated with variable signified and signifiers, so that color also offers a play on naming: meaning is sometimes clear, sometimes obscure, and in any case mobile (azure, vermilion). The contemporary reader does not perceive color in the same way as the Renaissance craftsman. Finally, as a principle of classification, it shows an imbalance and hierarchy of colors which, while providing structure to recipes: it gives mainly a place of choice to red and its shades. (shrink)

The impassioned democratic voice of the Age of Revolution, Paine possessed a gift for stating complex ideas in concise language. This accessible collection of highlights from the social and political philosopher's best-known works includes lengthy selections from Common Sense , The American Crisis , The Rights of Man , and The Age of Reason.

Since Hilary Putnam offered multiple realization as an empirical hypothesis in the 1960s, philosophical consensus has turned against the idea that mental processes are identifiable with brain processes, and multiple realization has become the keystone of the 'antireductive consensus' across philosophy of science. Thomas W. Polger and Lawrence A. Shapiro offer the first book-length investigation of multiple realization, which serves as a starting point to a series of philosophically sophisticated and empirically informed arguments that cast doubt on the generality (...) of multiple realization in the cognitive sciences. They argue that mind-brain identities have played an important role in the growth and achievements of the cognitive sciences, and suggest that there is little prospect for multiple realization in an empirically-based theory of mind. This leads Polger and Shapiro to offer an alternative framework for understanding explanations in the cognitive sciences, as well as in chemistry, biology, and other non-basic sciences. (shrink)

Based on hierarchical classification and logistic regression of early US and French COVID-19 clinical trials we show that despite the registration of a large number of trials, only a minority had characteristics usually associated with providing robust and relevant evidence.

This volume is a study of the influence of Timaeus on the development of Western cosmology in three axial periods of European culture: Late Antiquity, Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Geometry, etymologically the “science of measuring the Earth”, is a mathematical formalization of space. Just as formal concepts of number may be rooted in an evolutionary ancient system for perceiving numerical quantity, the fathers of geometry may have been inspired by their perception of space. Is the spatial content of formal Euclidean geometry universally present in the way humans perceive space, or is Euclidean geometry a mental construction, specific to those who have received appropriate instruction? The spatial content of the (...) formal theories of geometry may depart from spatial perception for two reasons: first, because in geometry, only some of the features of spatial figures are theoretically relevant; and second, because some geometric concepts go beyond any possible perceptual experience. Focusing in turn on these two aspects of geometry, we will present several lines of research on US adults and children from the age of three years, and participants from an Amazonian culture, the Mundurucu. Almost all the aspects of geometry tested proved to be shared between these two cultures. Nevertheless, some aspects involve a process of mental construction where explicit instruction seem to play a role in the US, but that can still take place in the absence of instruction in geometry. (shrink)

Thomas Reid is now recognized as one of the towering figures of the Enlightenment. Best known for his published writings on epistemology and moral theory, he was also an accomplished mathematician and natural philosopher, as an earlier volume of his manuscripts edited by Paul Wood for the Edinburgh Reid Edition, Thomas Reid on the Animate Creation, has shown. The Correspondence of Thomas Reid collects all of the known letters to and from Reid in a fully annotated form. (...) Letters already published by Sir William Hamilton and others have been reedited, and roughly half of the letters included appear in print for the first time. Writing in 1802, Reid's disciple and biographer Dugald Stewart doubted that Reid's correspondence &"would be generally interesting.&" This collection proves otherwise, for the letters illuminate virtually every aspect of Reid's life and career and, in some instances, provide us with invaluable evidence about activities otherwise undocumented in his manuscripts or published works. Through his correspondence we can trace Reid's relations with contemporaries such as David Hume and his colleagues at both King's College, Aberdeen, and the University of Glasgow, as well as his engagement with the most controversial philosophical, scientific, and political issues of his day. If anything, the letters assembled here serve as the starting point for understanding Reid and his place in the Enlightenment. (shrink)

L’article étudie comment l’humain peut être défini dans les rapports créés dans l’imaginaire entre le corps et l’alimentation. En s’appuyant sur des traités de médecine et de cuisine du Moyen Âge au xviie siècle, des essais d’humanistes et les travaux d’anthropologues, d’historiens et de sociologues contemporains, on découvre comment l’acte même de manger permet de définir et construire les frontières du corps humain et un imaginaire de l’alimentation : la nomination de l’aliment et la charge sémantique des métaphores empruntés à (...) l’alimentation définissent une éthique de l’humain et sa vision du corps humain et animal. Une approche médicale complète cette étude linguistique et montre que le fonctionnement des limites extérieures et internes du corps humain se modèle sur la représentation de l’aliment et de ses effets paradoxaux, bénéfiques et pathologiques. Enfin, le corps social du mangeur est délimité par la distance qui le sépare de l’aliment et le lieu assigné à l’animal destiné à être mangé. (shrink)

This paper gives a first theoretical formulation to a religious phenomenon which has not received much attention in philosophical discourse so far despite appearing in different highly heterogeneous religions. Vicarious religious ordinance refers to cases in which a living or deceased fully mature human being is knowingly or unknowingly assigned a religious affiliation without their consent or the consent of their dependents. I shall first offer three real-world examples of vicarious religious ordinance from Mormonism, Islam, and Shintoism and then raise (...) some normative concerns. I suggest (i) that vicarious religious ordinance does not fit neatly into current debates about religious epistemology, especially the recent debate on religious disagreement. I argue (ii) that normative questions as to why vicarious religious ordinance elicits indignation in its ‘victims’ is not easily explained through adducing similar examples. This paper aims to motivate further coordinated research on this topic. (shrink)