bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Fracture mechanics model of a fault termination zone
Authors: RABINOVITCH A. , FRIEDMAN M. , BAHAT D.
Published: March 2011

A fault termination zone from Middle Eocene chalks near Beer Sheva, Israel, is analysed via a fracture mechanical technique. The zone consists of the end of the primary fault, three secondary faults and joints associated with these structures. We demonstrate that the shape of the first secondary fault can be obtained from theoretical fracture mechanical calculations. This shape also enables us to obtain the set of conditions which induced the observed structures. The technique reveals the relative importance of the different variables that appear in the theory. The most significant parameters in determining the shape of the first secondary fault are the vertical dimension of the primary fault, the ratio of the two horizontal differential stresses and the initiation angle of the secondary fault. Results indicate that the fault termination zone was created under an almost pure shear load. The true lateral displacement of the primary fault is unknown; hence, exact calculation of the stresses leading to the secondary fault is hardly possible. However, an estimation, based on a partial conversion of this displacement to an uplift, yieldsσ1andσ3values at initiation of between 3.8 and 7.6 MPa and 3.65 and 7.3 MPa, respectively.
A geographically scaled analysis of adaptation to climate change with spatial models using agricultural systems in Africa
Authors: SEO S. N.
Published: March 2011

The present paper provides a geographically scaled analysis of adaptation to climate change using adoption of agricultural systems observed across Africa. Usingc. 9000 farm surveys, spatial logit models were applied to explain observed agricultural system choices by climate variables after accounting for soils, geography and other household characteristics. The results reveal that strong neighbourhood effects exist and a spatial re-sampling and bootstrapping approach can remove them. The crops-only system is adopted most frequently in the lowland humid forest, lowland sub-humid, mid-elevation sub-humid Agro-Ecological Zones (AEZs) and in the highlands in the east and in southern Africa. Integrated farming is favoured in the lowland dry savannah, moist savannah and semi-arid zones in West Africa and eastern coastal zones. A livestock-only system is favoured most in the mid/high-elevation moist savannahs located in southern Africa. Under a hot and dry Canadian Climate Centre (CCC) scenario, the crops-only system should move out from the currently favoured regions of humid zones in the lowlands towards the mid-/high elevations. It declines by more than 5% in the lowland savannahs. Integrated farming should increase across all the AEZs by as much as 5%, but less so in the deserts or in the humid forest zones in the mid-/high elevations. A livestock-only system should increase by 2–5% in the lowland semi-arid, dry savannah and moist savannah zones in the lowlands. Adaptation measures should be carefully scaled, up or down, considering geographic and ecological differentials as well as household characteristics, as proposed in the present study.
Maturity, reproductive cycle and fecundity of the spiny dogfish Squalus acanthias (Chondrichthyes: Squalidae) off the Languedocian coast (southern France, northern Mediterranean)
Authors: Capapé C. , Reynaud C.
Published: March 2011

The spiny dogfish Squalus acanthias is widely distributed in Atlanto-Mediterranean regions, being captured off the Languedocian coast (southern France, northern Mediterranean), despite a decline of landings. The male and female sexually matured between 635–700 mm and 860–880 mm total length (TL), respectively. The largest male and female were 800 mm and 1110 mm TL, respectively and weighed 2220 g and 8900 g, respectively. There was a significant relationship for total mass versus TL, and liver mass versus TL between males and females. The diameter of the largest yolky oocytes ranged between 43 and 47 mm (mean 45.08 ± 0.98), while the mass ranged between 29.5 and 37.4 g (mean 31.79 ± 2.20). Near- term embryos ranged from 245 to 271 mm TL (mean: 258.85 ± 7.28) and weighed from 47.5 to 55.9 g (mean 53.35 ± 2.26). Ovarian fecundity ranged from 6 to 15 (mean = 10.38 ± 2.66). Uterine fecundity or litter size ranged from 4 to 12 (mean = 8.15 ± 2.07). Both fecundities showed a positive relationship with TL of females. A chemical balance of development based on mean dry masses of yolky oocytes and near-term embryos was 0.87 and suggested that S. acanthias is a pure lecithotrophic species. Hepatosomatic index (HSI) and gonadosomatic index (GSI) significantly increased with size in both males and females. HSI reached the highest values in both sub-adult and adult specimens, reflecting the role of the liver in the gonadal production as well as in buoyancy, while in the GSI the highest values were observed in pregnant females. Vitellogenesis proceeds in parallel with embryonic development. Near-term females were captured in different months of the year while a short period of resting could not be excluded between parturition and the beginning of a new pregnancy, so it appears difficult to delineate the length of gestation. However, a reproductive cycle with a wide range from 18 to 24 months remains a suitable hypothesis.
Defining Evil Away: Arendt's Forgiveness
Authors: Rosenthal Abigail L.
Published: March 2011

Arendt claims that evil is banal and its perpetrators merely shallow. Deliberate evil she takes to be extremely rare. However, nonrare examples of deliberate evil, whose aim is to spoil one's story, abound in everyday life. Arendt also makes forgiveness personal, not requiring repentance. This prompts a consideration of certain personal relations among philosophers. Heidegger's relation to Husserl shows a betrayal of teacher by student. His seductive and philosophic power over Arendt, a betrayal of student by teacher, should not be dismissed in terms of reductive Freudian notions. Faced with a real feminine predicament, Arendt made the wrong choices: in her exoneration of Heidegger, her report on the Eichmann trial, and her exculpatory doctrine of evil.
Narrative skill in boys with fragile X syndrome with and without autism spectrum disorder
Authors: ESTIGARRIBIA BRUNO , MARTIN GARY E. , ROBERTS JOANNE E. , SPENCER AMY , GUCWA AGNIESZKA , SIDERIS JOHN
Published: March 2011

We examined recalled narratives of boys with fragile X syndrome with autism spectrum disorder (FXS-ASD;N= 28) and without ASD (FXS-O;N= 29), and compared them to those of boys with Down syndrome (N= 33) and typically developing (TD) boys (N= 39). Narratives were scored for mentions of macrostructural story grammar elements (introduction, relationship, initiating events, internal response, attempts/actions, and ending). We found that narrative recall is predicted by short-term memory and nonverbal mental age levels in almost all groups (except TD), but not by expressive syntax or caregiver education. After adjusting for these covariates, there were no differences between the three groups with intellectual disability. The FXS-ASD group, however, had significantly poorer performance than the TD group on the overall story grammar score, and both the FXS-O and FXS-ASD groups had lower attempts/actions scores than the TD group. We conclude that some form of narrative impairment may be associated with FXS, that this impairment may be shared by other forms of intellectual disability, and that the presence of ASD has a significantly detrimental effect on narrative recall.
A tutorial for analyzing human reaction times: How to filter data, manage missing values, and choose a statistical model
Authors: LACHAUD CHRISTIAN MICHEL , RENAUD OLIVIER
Published: March 2011

This tutorial for the statistical processing of reaction times collected through a repeated-measure design is addressed to researchers in psychology. It aims at making explicit some important methodological issues, at orienting researchers to the existing solutions, and at providing them some evaluation tools for choosing the most robust and precise way to analyze their data. The methodological issues we tackle concern data filtering, missing values management, and statistical modeling (F1, F2, F1 + F2, quasi-F, mixed-effects models with hierarchical, or with crossed factors). For each issue, references and remedy suggestions are given. In addition, modeling techniques are compared on real data and a benchmark is given for estimating the precision and robustness of each technique.
TESTING FOR A SHIFT IN TREND AT AN UNKNOWN DATE: A FIXED-BANALYSIS OF HETEROSKEDASTICITY AUTOCORRELATION ROBUST OLS-BASED TESTS
Authors: Sayginsoy Özgen , Vogelsang Timothy J.
Published: March 2011

This paper analyzes tests for a shift in the trend function of a time series at an unknown date based on ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates of the trend function. Inference about the trend parameters depends on the serial correlation structure of the data through the long-run variance (zero frequency spectral density) of the errors. Asymptotically pivotal tests can be obtained by the use of serial correlation robust standard errors that require an estimate of the long-run variance. The focus is on the class of nonparametric kernel estimators of the long-run variance. Tests based on these estimators present two problems for practitioners. The first is the choice of kernel and bandwidth. The second is the well-known overrejection problem caused by strong serial correlation (or a possible unit root) in the errors.We provide solutions to both problems by using the fixed-basymptotic framework of Kiefer and Vogelsang (2005,Econometric Theory, 21, 1130–1164) in conjunction with the scaling factor approach of Vogelsang (1998,Econometrica65, 123–148). Our results provide practitioners with a family of OLS-based trend function structural change tests that are size robust to the presence of strong serial correlation or a unit root. Specific recommendations are provided for the tuning parameters (kernel and bandwidth) in a way that maximizes asymptotic integrated power.
SADDLEPOINT AND ESTIMATED SADDLEPOINT APPROXIMATIONS FOR OPTIMAL UNIT ROOT TESTS
Authors: Marsh Patrick
Published: March 2011

This paper provides a (saddlepoint) tail probability approximation for the distribution of an optimal unit root test. Under restrictive assumptions, Gaussianity, and known covariance structure, the order of error of the approximation is given. More generally, when innovations are a linear process in martingale differences, the estimated saddlepoint is proved to yield valid asymptotic inference. Numerical evidence, considered over a range of models, demonstrates some finite-sample superiority over approximations for a directly comparable test based on simulation of its limiting stochastic representation.
Environmental drivers of Ross River virus in southeastern Tasmania, Australia: towards strengthening public health interventions
Authors: WERNER A. K. , GOATER S. , CARVER S. , ROBERTSON G. , ALLEN G. R. , WEINSTEIN P.
Published: March 2011

In Australia, Ross River virus (RRV) is predominantly identified and managed through passive health surveillance. Here, the proactive use of environmental datasets to improve community-scale public health interventions in southeastern Tasmania is explored. Known environmental drivers (temperature, rainfall, tide) of the RRV vector Aedes camptorhynchus are analysed against cumulative case records for five adjacent local government areas (LGAs) from 1993 to 2009. Allowing for a 0- to 3-month lag period, temperature was the most significant driver of RRV cases at 1-month lag, contributing to a 23·2% increase in cases above the long-term case average. The potential for RRV to become an emerging public health issue in Tasmania due to projected climate changes is discussed. Moreover, practical outputs from this research are proposed including the development of an early warning system for local councils to implement preventative measures, such as public outreach and mosquito spray programmes.
Variation and change in English resultative constructions
Authors: Mondorf Britta
Published: March 2011

The system of English resultative constructions is in a state of flux characterized by variation between two of its most prominent competitors,way-constructions as inShe worked herwayto the topand reflexive structures as inShe worked herselfto the top.Although this competition has occasionally been addressed in the literature (cf. Jackendoff, 1990:213; Kirchner, 1951:158; Salkoff, 1988:54ff.), the present findings reveal that the long-standing rivalry between these structures has resulted in an increased use of theway-construction at the expense of reflexive structures. In addition, the coexistence ofway-constructions with semantically overlapping reflexive structures eventually culminated in a reorganization of the system of English resultatives involving a diversification of the functions performed by each variant resulting in a semantically motivated division of labour. Theway-construction turns out to be particularly successful in conveying concrete meanings, whereas reflexive structures can still to some extent stand their ground with abstract uses. The present paper relates the proliferation of theway-construction to grammaticalization theory.
Foreword: special issue on coalgebraic logic
Authors: DOBERKAT ERNST-ERICH , KURZ ALEXANDER
Published: March 2011

The Coalgebraic Logic seminar took place between the 6th and 9th of December 2009 at the Leibniz Forschungszentrum Schloss Dagstuhl. The event was very well received, with more than 35 scientists from Europe, the United States, Canada and China attending, and with more than thirty presentations during the three days. Given the unforeseen enthusiasm of the meeting's reception, we thought that it would be a good idea for us to put together a special journal issue dedicated to this topic. We were also encouraged by the positive response we received from Guiseppe Longo, who indicated his interest in a special issue for Mathematical Structures in Computer Science, and here we are.
Modular algorithms for heterogeneous modal logics via multi-sorted coalgebra
Authors: SCHRÖDER LUTZ , PATTINSON DIRK
Published: March 2011

State-based systems and modal logics for reasoning about them often heterogeneously combine a number of features such as non-determinism and probabilities. In this paper, we show that the combination of features can be reflected algorithmically, and we develop modular decision procedures for heterogeneous modal logics. The modularity is achieved by formalising the underlying state-based systems as multi-sorted coalgebras and associating both a logical and algorithmic description with a number of basic building blocks. Our main result is that logics arising as combinations of these building blocks can be decided in polynomial space provided this is also the case for the components. By instantiating the general framework to concrete cases, we obtain PSpace decision procedures for a wide variety of structurally different logics, describing, for example, Segala systems and games with uncertain information.
Bays, Beaches, and Bioethical Barkings
Authors: SOLBAKK JAN HELGE
Published: March 2011

From my flat on the eighth floor, I enjoy the panoramic view of the bay and beaches of Montevideo. Except for days of rain and stormy weather—which happen often in these months of winter—the beach is frequented by dogs and their masters and mistresses. I have a passion for dogs, and every morning and afternoon I take short breaks to watch from my window the playfulness of my four-feeted soulmates. They differ in race, color, and size, but from a bird’s-eye view, these differences are negligible, as are the differences in their behavior: they all stop to sniff and deposit their “biological fingerprints” at exactly the same places, they leap and jump around, they move back and forward in different directions, always close to water—a few of them even risk brief visits into the water—and always ahead of their guardians, though not too far away from them. Only occasionally do I observe barking confrontations. Often, however, I see them joined in ceremonial acts aimed at repeatedly outshining each other with regard to “depositional” pace and outreach.
Confronting Rationality
Authors: GREEN RONALD M.
Published: March 2011

From the first initiatives in preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and gene therapy through the advent of stem cell research to the development of mammalian cloning, the past two decades have witnessed remarkable advances in “reprogenetic” medicine: the union of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) with genetic control. This period has also been marked by intense debates within the bioethical literature and in national policy forums about the appropriate uses of these emerging human capabilities. We can now, in a limited way, select for genetic traits, and the power to modify the genome or introduce new gene sequences is not far off. How should these new powers be used?
Genetic Enhancement in Sports: The Role of Reason and Private Rationalities in the Public Arena
Authors: CAMPORESI SILVIA , MAUGERI PAOLO
Published: March 2011

Reviews of philosophical books run the risk of being either excessively and unconstructively critical or superficially praiseworthy. To avoid both these risks, we test the approach outlined by Häyry in his book Rationality and the Genetic Challenge: Making People Better? by applying it to an eighth genetic challenge, namely, a variation of the genetic enhancement challenge discussed by Häyry as it applies to sports. We assess whether genetic enhancement in sports should be conceived as an eighth wonder or an eighth cardinal sin that stems from the interaction between genetics and society, question whether Häyry’s nonconfrontational approach is really useful for dealing with these issues, and discuss how his method can be improved.
Reasons, Rationalities, and Procreative Beneficence: Need Häyry Stand Politely By While Savulescu and Herissone-Kelly Disagree?
Authors: HERISSONE-KELLY PETER
Published: March 2011

The claim that the answers we give to many of the central questions in genethics will depend crucially upon the particular rationality we adopt in addressing them is central to Matti Häyry’s thorough and admirably fair-minded book, Rationality and the Genetic Challenge. That claim implies, of course, that there exists a plurality of rationalities, or discrete styles of reasoning, that can be deployed when considering concrete moral problems. This, indeed, is Häyry’s position. Although he believes that there are certain features definitive of any type of thinking that can accurately be labeled rational, he maintains that nothing about that set of features compels us to conclude that there is a single rationality. What is more, and significantly for the way in which Häyry’s book develops, there is no Archimedean point from which we are licensed to pronounce one flavor of rational deliberation to be intrinsically superior to any other or to be justified to the exclusion of all others. To this belief that “there are many divergent rationalities, all of which can be simultaneously valid,” we can perhaps give the name “the Doctrine of the Plurality of Rationalities” or, for short, “DPR.”
Introduction: Access to Life-Saving Medicines and Intellectual Property Rights
Authors: SCHROEDER DORIS
Published: March 2011

As the authors of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Gap Task Force have noted, access to medicines is a vital component of realizing the human right to health. Without reliable access to drugs, the highest attainable standard of health cannot be achieved.
Does the Pharmaceutical Sector Have a Coresponsibility for the Human Right to Health?
Authors: SCHROEDER DORIS
Published: March 2011

The highest attainable standard of health is a fundamental human right, which has been part of international law since 1948. States and their institutions are the primary duty bearers responsible for ensuring that human rights are respected, protected, and fulfilled. However, more recently it has been argued that pharmaceutical companies have a coresponsibility to fulfill the human right to health. Most prominently, this coresponsibility has been expressed in the United Nations (UN) Millennium Goal 8 Target 4. “In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries.”
Epilogue: New Drugs for Neglected Diseases
Authors: POGGE THOMAS , HOLLIS AIDAN
Published: March 2011

In a widely cited 2003 article, DiMasi, Hansen, and Grabowski estimated the cost of pharmaceutical research and development to be $1.1 billion (year 2000 U.S. dollars) per new medicine coming onto the market in 2001. They also estimate that this cost is going up at a real (inflation-adjusted) rate of 7.4% annually. According to these estimates, the innovation cost per new medicine today is about $2.1 billion (year 2000 U.S. dollars) or $2.65 billion (year 2010 U.S. dollars).
Education and Training of Australian Disaster Medical Assistance Team Members: Results of a National Survey
Authors: Aitken Peter , Leggat Peter A. , Robertson Andrew G. , Harley Hazel , Speare Richard , Leclercq Muriel G.
Published: March 2011

Introduction:Calls for disaster medical assistance teams (DMATs) are likely to continue in response to international disasters.

Objective:As part of a national survey, the present study was designed to evaluate the education and training of Australian DMATs.

Methods:Data were collected via an anonymous, mailed survey distributed via State and Territory representatives on the Australian Health Protection Committee, who identified team members associated with Australian DMAT deployments from the 2004 Southeast Asia tsunami disaster.

Results:The response rate for this survey was 50% (59/118). Most of the personnel had deployed to the tsunami-affected areas. The DMAT members were quite experienced, with 53% of personnel in the 45–55-year age group (31/59). Seventy-six percent of the respondents were male (44/58). While most respondents had not participated in any specific training or educational program, any kind of relevant training was regarded as important in preparing personnel for deployment. The majority of respondents had experience in disasters, ranging from hypothetical exercises (58%, 34/59) to actual military (41%, 24/49) and non-governmental organization (32%, 19/59) deployments. Only 27% of respondents felt that existing training programs had adequately prepared them for deployment. Thirty-four percent of respondents (20/59) indicated that they had not received cultural awareness training prior to deployment, and 42% (25/59) received no communication equipment training. Most respondents felt that DMAT members needed to be able to handle practical aspects of deployments, such as training as a team (68%, 40/59), use of communications equipment (93%, 55/59), ability to erect tents/shelters (90%, 53/59), and use of water purification equipment (86%, 51/59). Most respondents (85%, 50/59) felt leadership training was essential for DMAT commanders. Most (88%, 52/59) agreed that teams need to be adequately trained prior to deployment, and that a specific DMAT training program should be developed (86%, 51/59).

Conclusions:This study of Australian DMAT members suggests that more emphasis should be placed on the education and training. Prior planning is required to ensure the success of DMAT deployments and training should include practical aspects of deployment. Leadership training was seen as essential for DMAT commanders, as was team-based training. While any kind of relevant training was regarded as important for preparing personnel for deployment, Australian DMAT members, who generally are a highly experienced group of health professionals, have identified the need for specific DMAT training.
Persistence of Mental Health Needs among Children Affected by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans
Authors: Olteanu Alina , Arnberger Ruth , Grant Roy , Davis Caroline , Abramson David , Asola Jaya
Published: March 2011

Background: Hurricane Katrina made landfall in August 2005 and destroyed the infrastructure of New Orleans. Mass evacuation ensued. The immediate and long-lasting impact of these events on the mental health of children have been reported in survey research. This study was done to describe the nature of mental health need of children during the four years after Hurricane Katrina using clinical data from a comprehensive healthcare program. Medical and mental health services were delivered on mobile clinics that traveled to medically underserved communities on a regular schedule beginning immediately after the hurricane. Patients were self-selected residents of New Orleans. Most had incomes below the federal poverty level and were severely affected by the hurricane.

Methods: Paper charts of pediatric mental health patients were reviewed for visits beginning with the establishment of the mental health program from 01 July 2007 through 30 June 2009 (n = 296). Demographics, referral sources, presenting problems, diagnoses, and qualitative data describing Katrina-related traumatic exposures were abstracted. Psychosocial data were abstracted from medical charts. Data were coded and processed for demographic, referral, and diagnostic trends.

Results: Mental health service needs continued unabated throughout this period (two to nearly four years post-event). In 2008, 29% of pediatric primary care patients presented with mental health or developmental/learning problems, including the need for intensive case management. The typical presentation of pediatric mental health patients was a disruptive behavior disorder with an underlying mood or anxiety disorder. Qualitative descriptive data are presented to illustrate the traumatic post-disaster experience of many children. School referrals for mental health evaluation and services were overwhelmingly made for disruptive behavior disorders. Pediatric referrals were more nuanced, reflecting underlying mood and anxiety disorders. Histories indicated that many missed opportunities for earlier identification and intervention.

Conclusions: Mental health and case management needs persisted four years after Hurricane Katrina and showed no signs of abating. Many children who received mental health services had shown signs of psychological distress prior to the hurricane, and no causal inferences are drawn between disaster experience and psychiatric disorders. Post-disaster mental health and case management services should remain available for years post-event. To ensure timely identification and intervention of child mental health needs, pediatricians and school officials may need additional training.
Reply to Lorne Falkenstein
Authors: Langton Rae
Published: March 2011

In Kantian Humility I argue that, for Kant, ignorance of things in themselves is ignorance of the intrinsic properties of substances, and that this is epistemic humility, rather than idealism: some aspects of reality, the intrinsic aspects, are beyond our epistemic grasp.

The interpretation draws upon what Falkenstein takes to be ‘a novel and not implausible understanding of Kant's distinction between things in themselves and appearances’ which views it as a distinction between the intrinsic and the relational. He concedes that Kant frequently puts his distinction in just these terms, that I make ‘a strong textual case for it’, that it is ‘plausible and intriguing’ and that it may even be ‘correct, at least for a certain strand of Kant's thought’. He presumably also allows that this distinction between ‘things as they are in relation to other things and things as they are on their own’ is at base a metaphysical distinction, which makes no mention of how things look to us, appear to us or depend on our minds. I am pleased to find sympathy for this understanding of Kant's distinction in a review whose overall tenor is so critical.
Kant's Indemonstrable Postulate of Right: A Response to Paul Guyer
Authors: Flikschuh Katrin
Published: March 2011

The indispensability of the ‘postulate of practical reason with regard to Right’ to Kant's property argument in theRechtslehreis now widely recognized. However, most commentators continue to focus their attention on the relation between the postulate and the deduction of the concept of intelligible possession. The nature of this relation remains a matter of dispute in part because the precise position of the postulate within chapter one of theRechtslehreremains undecided. Given this, it is perhaps not surprising that the related question has been neglected, as to why Kant should characterize the postulate of Right as a postulate of practical reason. Yet the fact that he does so is of some significance – especially if one recalls the definition in theCritique of Practical Reasonof postulates of practical reason as practically necessary but theoretically indemonstrable propositions. What is of interest about this definition is not just the fact that it designates postulates as practically necessary and as theoretically indemonstrable at the same time – even more intriguing is the intimated relation between practical necessity and theoretical indemonstrability. Kant does not think the postulates' theoretical indemonstrability morally insignificant. To the contrary, their moral significance for us appears to be a function, in part, of their theoretical indemonstrability.
Kant's Account of Respect: A Bridge between Rationality and Anthropology
Authors: Singleton Jane
Published: March 2011

Kant starts theGroundwork of the Metaphysics of Moralsby emphasizing the importance of separating the a priori or rational part of moral philosophy from the a posteriori or empirical aspects. Indeed, he reserves the term moral philosophy for the rational part. He writes ‘ethics … the empirical part might be given the special titlepractical anthropology, the termmoral philosophybeing properly used to refer just to the rational part’. Throughout his writings in both theoretical and practical philosophy the distinction between what is a priori and what is a posteriori is given paramount importance. We need to separate that which has its source a priori from its application to, for example human beings.
Reason, Freedom and Kant: An Exchange
Authors: Hanna Robert , Moore A.W.
Published: March 2011

According to Kant, being purely rational or purely reasonable and being autonomously free are one and the same thing. But how can this be so? How can my innate capacity for pure reason ever motivate me to do anything, whether the right thing or the wrong thing? What I will suggest is that the fundamental connection between reason and freedom, both for Kant and in reality, is preciselyour human biological life and spontaneity of the will, a conjunctive intrinsic structural property of our animal bodies, which essentially constitutes human personhood and rational agency. I say ‘suggest’ because, obviously, no proper argument for such a conclusion could ever be worked out in a short essay. I would nevertheless like to motivate my suggestion by way of a commentary on the second part of Adrian Moore's extremely rich and interesting recent book,Noble in Reason, Infinite in Faculty(henceforth,NIR).
The Key to All Metaphysics: Kant's Letter to Herz, 1772
Authors: Mensch Jennifer
Published: March 2011

Kant's 1772 letter to Markus Herz is celebrated for its marking the ‘Critical turn’ in Kant's thought, a turn that would move Kant away from the speculative metaphysics of the 1750s towards the Critical philosophy of 1781. It is here, seemingly for the first time, that Kant asks the question concerning the relationship between concepts and objects, telling his former pupil that the answer to this question ‘constitutes the key to the whole secret of hitherto still obscure metaphysics.’ For anyone interested in the development of Kant's thought this makes for exciting news since it is the posing of this question that marks Kant's first step towards the Critique and it is the answer to this question that will come to identify the ‘objective portion’ of the Transcendental Deduction, a text that already begins with a rehearsal of points raised in Kant's letter. But while the letter to Herz is clearly itself a key to what Kant sees as the ‘whole secret of hitherto still obscure metaphysics’, the question concerning concepts and objects itself poses interpretive problems that need to be addressed. Above all, one needs to ask how Kant arrived at such a question.
Kant on the Diabolical Will: a Neglected Alternative?
Authors: Caswell Matthew
Published: March 2011

To his harshest critics, Kant's philosophy can seem an unending series of neglected alternatives. Time and again, Kant argues for his position by elimination, ruling out each possible alternative, until his own is the only one left standing. Of course, this strategy amounts to a demonstration of the Kantian position if and only if the field of possible alternatives really is – as Kant always assumes – exhaustive. But readers often suspect that Kant has stacked the deck, that his dogmatic adherence to a particular set of presuppositions, or perhaps simply his lack of philosophical imagination, has unjustifiably restricted the possibilities under consideration, thereby rendering the alleged argument by elimination nothing but an elaborate exercise in question begging.
The Grammatical Background of Kant's General Logic
Authors: Mosser Kurt
Published: March 2011

In theCritique of Pure Reason, Kant conceives of general logic as a set of universal and necessary rules for the possibility of thought, or as a set of minimal necessary conditions for ascribing rationality to an agent (exemplified by the principle of non-contradiction). Such a conception, of course, contrasts with contemporary notions of formal, mathematical or symbolic logic. Yet, in so far as Kant seeks to identify those conditions that must hold for the possibility of thought in general, such conditions must holda fortiorifor any specific model of thought, including axiomatic treatments of logic and standard natural deduction models of first-order predicate logic. Kant's general logic seeks to isolate those conditions by thinking through – or better, reflecting on – those conditions that themselves make thought possible.
Kant on Anthropology and Alienology: The Opacity of Human Motivation and its Anthropological Implications
Authors: Cohen Alix
Published: March 2011

According to Kant, the opacity of human motivation takes two distinct forms – a psychological form: man ‘can never, even by the most strenuous self-examination, get entirely behind [his] covert incentives’ – and a social form: ‘everyone in our race finds it advisable to be on his guard, and not to reveal himself completely’. In other words, first, men's ‘interior’ (i.e. their intentions, motives, thoughts, etc.) cannot be entirely revealed to themselves and, second, they tend not to reveal their ‘interior’ to others. A number of Kant scholars have acknowledged the importance of the first form of opacity in Kant's thought and have attempted to draw out from it implications for moral deliberation and ethics in general. The aim of this paper is to examine the second, social form of opacity and draw out its anthropological implications, an issue that has been overlooked in the literature. To do so, I focus on Kant's contrast between men and beings that I would like to call ‘sincere aliens’. These sincere aliens are beings who have the opposite features of man's opacity, namely beings who cannot but reveal their ‘interior’ both to others and to themselves.
Kant on the Transcendental Deduction of Space and Time: an Essay on the Philosophical Resources of the Transcendental Aesthetic
Authors: Merritt Melissa McBay
Published: March 2011

Commentary on Kant'sCritique of Pure Reasonhas focused intensively on the transcendental deduction of the categories – the pivotal chapter of the book that governs our understanding of much that precedes it and just about all that follows it. One simple way to understand the systematic function of the Transcendental Deduction is to appreciate that it provides an account of how the ‘two stems of human knowledge’ (A15/B29) – sensibility and understanding – must relate to one another in the production of knowledge. On Kant's view, these capacities are distinguished by their radically different modes of representation: intuition and concept. Although sensibility and understanding are fundamentally distinct – they ‘cannot exchange their functions’ – they must nevertheless cooperate in the production of knowledge: ‘Only through their unification can cognition arise’ (A51/B75–6). The task of the Deduction is to show how the categories – concepts that stem from the ‘nature of the understanding’ alone – apply necessarily to objects that can only be given in experience, and representedasgiven through sensible intuition.
Appearances and the Problem of Affection in Kant
Authors: Hall Bryan
Published: March 2011

Hans Vaihinger, in the late nineteenth century, posed a now famous trilemma for Immanuel Kant's theory of affection: (1) If things-in-themselves are the affecting objects, then one must apply the categories beyond the conditions of their application (space and time). (2) If one holds that appearances are the affecting objects, then one must hold that these appearances which are the effects of affection are themselves the causes of affection. (3) If one holds that things-in-themselves affect the noumenal self in parallel with appearances affecting the empirical self, then that which is a representation for the noumenal self must serve as a causally efficacious thing-in-itself for the empirical self's production of an empirical representation of the very same object (so-called ‘double affection’).
The Form of Evil
Authors: Samet Irit
Published: March 2011

Upon arriving in Auschwitz Primo Levi discovered that rational discourse, in which actions are done for reasons, was left lying on the carriage floor together with his human dignity. By responding ‘Here one doesn't ask why’, the camp guard succinctly conveys the insight that evil defies reason. This paper examines two studies of evil that are predicated on that idea: Kant's and Augustine's. It argues that their theories share an underlying formation wherein evil remains incomprehensible, except in negative terms as an absence of the reasonable. This deep similarity in the structure of the concept of evil is exceptionally striking if we bear in mind the radical difference in the scope of its application: whereas for Augustine ‘evil’ is a general metaphysical concept that concerns everything that goes wrong in creation, for Kant it is limited to agents and what they do. My argument is that the privative structure which underlies their understanding of evil stems from a shared belief in the central role of rationality in ethical discourse, and in an absolute dependence of moral responsibility on free will.
Global Human Rights, Peace and Cultural Difference: Huntington and the Political Philosophy of International Relations
Authors: Kersting Wolfgang
Published: March 2011

In 1989, the age of power political realism ended. The conditions were set to replace the prevailing Hobbesian model of peace by deterrence with the considerably more challenging Kantian model of peace by right. If, however, Huntington's paradigm of fighting civilizations were right, we would have to forget Kant and remember Hobbes. Sober rationality, healthy distrust, striving for power accumulation and all the other instruments from the realist's toolbox of political prudence are very well suited to facilitate political self-assertion in an age of violently clashing cultures. However, this helplessness is not well grounded. Considering that from the very beginning liberalism is a theory of religious and ethical pluralism and well-experienced in dealing with problems of multiculturalism, it is at least possible to argue for a weak liberal universalism which provides normative foundations for a global order of peacefully living together. Of course, conceptual and moral modesty is crucial. If the human rights doctrine wants to defend its universal claim in the face of cultural diversity (which is defined as culturally different interpretations of a good, true and perfect human life), it has to restrict itself to the conditions of esse: the pre-cultural and sheer natural conditions of human being and human coexistence. However, the formulation of the conditions of bene esse (which enable human flourishing, let persons thrive and furnish human living with sense and significance) has to be left to culture and its authorities and belief systems which buttress a cultural constitution of meaning, both theologically and metaphysically. Traditional natural rights theory knew that both have to go together, and that the esse-enabling duties necessarily enjoy priority. No cultural conception of thriving life and existential significance can be accepted which contradicts the fundamental imperatives and conditions of pure human existence and coexistence.
From ‘Perpetual Peace’ to ‘The Law of Peoples’: Kant, Habermas and Rawls on International Relations
Authors: Mertens Thomas
Published: March 2011

It is hardly surprising that the two greatest Kantian philosophers of the twentieth century's second half would, at some point of time, reflect and comment on one of the most famous writings of the Königsberg sage, namely onPerpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch. Of course, in recent decades, and especially around the celebration of the 200th anniversary of its publication, many commentary articles and books have been published on Kant's little essay, but it makes a difference when Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls make an effort to get to an appropriate understanding of Kant's text in the present-day world. Here I will describe some of the main features of their understanding of Kant's peace proposal. I will first briefly recall the main scheme of Kant's essay, anticipating the writings of Habermas and Rawls by employing their new vocabularies and schemes in describing Kant's position. The main purpose of my outline of Kant's essay is to investigate how much of Kant's proposal has remained alive in Habermas and Rawls.
Civility and Hospitality: Justice and Social Grace in Trying Times
Authors: Holtman Sarah
Published: March 2011

‘[S]o act externally that the free use of your choice can coexist with the freedom of everyone in accordance with a universal law’ (MM 6: 231). This is Immanuel Kant's first principle of justice, stated in the imperative form appropriate for human beings, beings who can comply with it but who might not do so. For Kant it is a principle that applies not only to relations among citizens within a state, but to those among states themselves and among citizens of varying nationality. As Kant'sRechtslehremakes clear, the universal law of justice, as he terms it, lies at the foundation of a set of standards that together form his theory of justice. Subsidiary standards follow from this most fundamental one by argument and together form a system, or metaphysics, of related principles. The system is hierarchical, that is, we can argue from the universal law of justice to increasingly concrete standards that help us apply it to various questions and in varying contexts.
Kant's Dynamic Theory of Character
Authors: Coble Kelly
Published: March 2011

Kant's moral theory has received trenchant criticism for its rigorism. Rigorism generally denotes an overemphasis on rules in moral theory, and a consequent neglect of the roles of emotional receptivity and perception in moral judgement. Critics of Kant's ethics have invoked the term rigorism with reference to any one of three overlapping features of Kant's moral theory. Usually rigorism designates the 'rigid and insensitive uniformities of conduct' that result from the mechanical application of rules. Occasionally it refers to the excessively strict moral standard implied by Kant's conception of the good will. But some critics object to rigorism in just the sense in which Kant himself understood and embraced it: as referring to moral theories that admit only two types of moral character, namely good and evil ones. The complaint, which Kant was fully aware of, is that this bipolar view of character is woefully inadequate to our experience of the gradations of virtue and vice.
Kant and Metaphor in Contemporary Aesthetics
Authors: Cazeaux Clive
Published: March 2011

Trying to assess Kant's impact on contemporary aesthetics is by no means a straightforward task, for the simple reason that the subject is saturated with his influence. In all aspects of the theory and practice of art, it is possible to observe concepts and attitudes at work which are either a reflection of, or a response to, Kant's thinking. This might seem a rather overblown claim and a difficult one to substantiate but, without going into too much detail at this point, one has only to consider that the central tenets of both modernism and postmodernism can be traced back to Kant's Critical thought. There is the modernist's interest in the conditions of possibility of representation – as evidenced, for example, by the push towards abstraction in the visual arts and the attempt to paint not the world but the process of painting itself – and, responding to this, the postmodernist's concern that these conditions of possibility should not become universal absolutes.
Three Accounts of Respect for Persons in Kant's Ethics
Authors: Klimchuk Dennis
Published: March 2011

The idea that respect for persons comprises the core of morality has long been associated with Kant and the ethics of theGroundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. In particular, the second formulation of the categorical imperative (CI), the Formula of Humanity as an End-in-itself (FHE) – ‘So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means’ (G, 429) – is often glossed as enjoining us to respect persons as such. On what I think may fairly be called the received view, the injunction to respect persons as such is thus, for Kant, co-extensive with morality itself.
Kant's Empiricism in his Refutation of Idealism
Authors: Bardon Adrian
Published: March 2011

In the preface to the second edition of his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant laments that

it still remains a scandal to philosophy and to human reason in general that the existence of things outside us … must be accepted onfaith, and if anyone thinks good to doubt their existence, we are unable to counter his doubts by any satisfactory proof. (B xl n.)

The two editions of theCritiqueeach contain a celebrated refutation of epistemological scepticisms like those of Descartes and Hume. The first edition refutation has been widely decried as relying on an objectionable sort of idealism. The refutation of the second edition, though rather more difficult to interpret than the first, has usually been read as a mere reworking of the first.
Kant on the Self as Model of Experience
Authors: Laywine Alison
Published: March 2011

Kant's correspondence includes a short letter from a well-wisher named Bertram. The content of the letter is as harmless as it is uninteresting: Bertram invites Kant to visit his brother's estate. ‘Do come,’ he says, ‘because the weather is so beautiful and such travel so beneficial’ (10: 182). The interest of the letter is entirely exhausted by the date: 20 May 1775. For Kant used the letter to scribble down ideas, some suggestive of themes later to emerge in the first Critique. Similarity of handwriting and train of thought suggests that these scribbles are part of a whole bundle of papers collectively known as the Duisburg Nachlaβ (R4674-4684 in volume 17 of the Academy Edition). It was supposedly Kant's practice to use letters as scrap paper shortly after receiving them. If this is true, we can date the Bertram scribbles - and, in all likelihood, the bundle as a whole - to some time in 1775. That would make the Duisburg Nachlaβ one of the few pieces of philosophical writing in Kant's own hand to come down to us from the 1770s, and the only extended piece in his hand from the middle of the decade. It offers a rare glimpse of Kant at work on immediate ancestors of central ideas in the first Critique and might therefore be expected to shed light on an important chapter in Kant's philosophical development.