bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Paradise Restored?
Authors: Giaquinto M
Published: November 2023

How worrying is the fact that a finitary proof of the consistency of set theory is not a serious possibility? Zermelo’s axiomatization of set theory made explicit positive principles of set existence while avoiding the essential ingredient of all the class paradoxes, the Comprehension Principle. But at the time that Zermelo first published his axioms (1908), no one could present a unifying picture of a universe of sets for which the axioms could be seen to be true, and so the axiom system was viewed as an ad hoc weakening of the inconsistent theory. Hence consistency of the axioms was a pressing concern, as Zermelo himself noted. But in 1930, the year when Godel made his underivability discoveries, Zermelo published a paper that did present a unifying pic ture,1 and when eventually it was recognized that his axioms were a partial articulation of this picture, confidence in the axioms rose sharply.2 The next section presents the core of Zermelo’s picture.
Outlook
Authors: Giaquinto M
Published: November 2023

The central concern of this book is the epistemic status of non-finitary mathematics. Epistemology is not the only concern in foundational studies, though it has been dominant. The nature and intrinsic organization of mathematics has also been a major concern. Later developments in mathematics show that set theory is not the only basis for this kind of inquiry. Of course, those who think that true mathematics must be constructed will reject not only classical set theory but also the nineteenth-century mathematics out of which it grew. In this regard the development of constructive analysis can be regarded as partial fulfilment of an alternative foundational programme.I am not able to evaluate the success and significance of this programme, and perhaps it is too early anyway. For those who accept classical mathematics, category theory has been offered as an alternative to set theory for its catholic reach. Mathematics is definitely not just logic, not just higher-order logic, not just set theory. The old picture of a single fundamental theory to which all else must be reduced has faded. If pure mathematics is the study of abstract structures, set theory is just one framework among others for thinking about that subject matter, and it may not be the best. Universes of sets are themselves structures, and these may be instances of something more general, as is suggested by topos theory. In addition, topos theory sheds new light on the intrinsic organization of mathematics, revealing a surprising unity between apparently disparate fields, topology and algebraic geometry on the one hand, and logic and set theory on the other.
Logic and Language
Authors: Kenny Anthony
Published: November 2023

In his account of his childhood in his Confessions Augustine describes the learning of language. One passage of his account has become famous: When they (my elders) named some object, and accordingly moved towards something, I saw this and I grasped that the thing was called by the sound they uttered when they meant to point it out. Their intention was shewn by their bodily movements, as it were the natural language of all peoples: the expression of the face, the play of the eyes, the movement of other parts of the body, and the tone of voice which expresses our state of mind in seeking, having, rejecting or avoiding something. Thus, as I heard words repeatedly used in their proper places in various sentences, I gradually learnt to understand what objects they signiWed, and after I had trained my mouth to form these signs, I used them to express my own desires.
Knowledge
Authors: Kenny Anthony
Published: November 2023

During the time prior to his conversion to Christianity, Augustine, under the inXuence of Cicero, took an interest in the sceptical arguments of the New Academy. The Wrst of the philosophical treatises that he wrote at Cassiciacum was Contra Academicos, in which he defended the possibility of attaining knowledge of various kinds. We know logical truths, such as the principle of excluded middle, namely, that either p or not p (CA 3. 10. 23). We also know truths about immediate appearance. The sceptic cannot refute a person who says ‘I know this thing seems white, this sound is delightful, this smell is pleasant, this tastes sweet, that feels cold’ (CA 3. 11. 26). Such claims cannot be erroneous.
The Rise of Modern Philosophy
Authors: Kenny Anthony
Published: November 2023

Sir Anthony Kenny's engaging new history of Western philosophy now advances into the modern era. The Rise of Modern Philosophy is the fascinating story of the emergence, from the early sixteenth to the early nineteenth century, of great ideas and intellectual systems that shaped modern thought. Kenny introduces us to some of the world's most original and influential thinkers, and shows us the way to an understanding of their famous works. The thinkers we meet include René Descartes, traditionally seen as the founder of modern philosophy; the great British philosophers Hobbes, Locke, and Hume; and the towering figure of Immanuel Kant, who perhaps more than any other made philosophy what it is today. In the first three chapters Kenny tells the story chronologically: his lively accessible narrative brings the philosophers to life and fills in the historical and intellectual background to their work. It is ideal as the first thing to read for someone new to the history of modern philosophy. In the seven chapters that follow Kenny looks closely at each of the main areas of philosophical exploration in this period: knowledge and understanding; the nature of the physical universe; metaphysics (the most fundamental questions there are about existence); mind and soul; the nature and content of morality; political philosophy; and God. A selection of intriguing and beautiful illustrations offer a vivid evocation of the human and social side of philosophy. Anyone who is interested in how our understanding of ourselves and our world developed will find this a book a pleasure to read.
Descartes to Berkeley
Authors: Kenny Anthony
Published: November 2023

The seventeenth century, unlike the sixteenth century, was fertile in the production of philosophers of genius. The man who is often considered the father of modern philosophy is Rene´ Descartes. He was born in 1596, about the time when Shakespeare was writing Hamlet, in a village in Touraine which is now called after him La-Haye-Descartes. A sickly child, he was exempted at school from morning exercises and acquired a lifelong habit of meditating in bed. From his eleventh to his nineteenth year he studied classics and philosophy at the Jesuit college of La Fle`che. He remained a Catholic throughout his life, but chose to spend most of his adult life in Protestant Holland.
Bentham to Nietzsche
Authors: Kenny Anthony
Published: November 2023

Britain escaped the violent constitutional upheavals that affected most of Europe during the last years of the eighteenth, and the early years of the nineteenth, century. But in 1789, the year of the French Revolution, a book was published in England that was to have a revolutionary effect on moral and political thinking long after the death of Napoleon. This was Jeremy Bentham’s An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, which became the founding charter of the school of thought known as utilitarianism.
Peirce to Strawson
Authors: Kenny Anthony
Published: November 2023

The thinkers whom we have considered so far in these volumes have all come from Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East. The American continent, nowadays home to many of the world’s most influential philosophers, was almost barren of philosophy until the latter part of the nineteenth century. In the eighteenth century acute contributions to different areas of philosophy were made by the Calvinist theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703–58) and the Enlightenment polymath Benjamin Franklin (1706–90). Early in the nineteenth century the essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82).
A Defence Of Dogmatism In The Interpretation Of Plato
Authors: Beversluis John
Published: November 2023

Traditional and contemporary Anglo-American Platonic scholarship relies heavily on two assumptions. The first is that the Platonic dialogues contain Plato’s philosophical views. The second is that his views discernibly changed as he moved from his early, ‘Socratic’ period to his middle period. These hermeneutical positions have acquired the unattractive labels ‘dogmatism’ and ‘developmentalism’. The term ‘dogmatism’ is particularly unhappy. The idea is not that Plato held views dogmatically but that he held views (δ6γµατα) which he advanced in the dialogues. Developmentalism is a comparatively recent phenomenon. It originated in the early nineteenth century with K. F. Hermann, the first to identify a ‘Socratic’ period in the Platonic corpus and to interpret the dialogues that followed as charting Plato’s philosophical evolution.
Teaching in clinical settings
Authors: Lake Fiona
Published: November 2023

Learning in the simulation setting offers the opportunity to closely plan educational encounters, provides a safe environment, can ensure trainees receive detailed feedback and provides repetition allowing consolidating of skills. Trainees learn from making mistakes, and in the simulation setting, such mistakes when combined with reflection are powerful learning opportunities. However, the point of the learning is to take it back to the real life setting and apply the skills and knowledge to patient care. Clinicians, be they doctors, nurses or clinical educators, usually find themselves teaching in both simulated settings and in the clinical setting, in the latter often both teaching and supervising students and trainees while caring for patients(1). Unless some thought is put into how skills are taken from simulated to clinical settings, there is some evidence that learning is not transferred(2). Learning in the clinical setting is often chaotic; patients need care, other tasks need to be completed, the clinical team consist of different people with different needs. In the clinical setting mistakes need to be anticipated and minimized but when they do occur, a supportive no-blame environment where trainees can reflect on their practice is important. Often in this clinical environment, teaching and learning need to be done ‘on the run’.
Trees of Genes in Populations
Authors: Felsenstein Joseph
Published: November 2023

Molecular evolution represents phylogenies as branching diagrams composed of thin lines. At the tip we often find one molecular sequence, sometimes described as ‘the yeast sequence’ or ‘the mouse sequence’. It is as if we were viewing the evolutionary tree from a great distance, so that each branch appears thin. If each of these thin lines truly contained only one copy of this gene’s sequence, we would have a species that consisted only of a single individual, and a haploid one at that. But the lines are not lineages of single copies. Coming closer to them, we find that in reality the lines are thick—they are whole species, consisting of multiple populations, each of many individuals.
Case studies in RNA virus evolution and emergence
Authors: Holmes Edward C
Published: November 2023

The aim of this penultimate chapter is to put the previous, somewhat general, discussions of RNA virus evolution into the context of real, at-the-coalface, biology, by describing how a small number of viruses evolve in nature. Each case study will consider an RNA virus with a very different biology, epidemiology, and relationship with its host species. I have also selfishly chosen those viruses to which my own research has taken me. Because of space limitations, and the familiarity of some of these viruses, I cannot cover every aspect of their evolution and emergence, and I will bypass most of their basic biology. Rather, I have focused on those areas that best serve to illustrate the major points covered in this book. When reading this chapter it is also important to keep in mind that our success in unravelling the evolutionary history of RNA viruses has resulted from a happy marriage of increased amounts of gene and genome sequence data with new methods of phylogenetic analysis (for example, Drummond et al. 2006).
Resuscitation decisions
Authors: Nicholls Anthony
Published: November 2023

Although patients undergoing elective surgery should automatically receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in the event of cardiac arrest, there are patients in hospital for whom resuscitation would be futile and inappropriate. All hospitals should have policies in place about withholding CPR from these patients, so called ‘do not resuscitate’ or DNR orders. Doubts about the appropriateness of CPR may arise when a patient has major life-threatening complications, when a patient is extremely elderly or frail, when malignancy is the cause of admission, or when the underlying quality of life is poor. CPR in these circumstances may be wrong for the patient, offensive to relatives, and upsetting to medical and nursing staff. An explicit decision about CPR must be made in these patients and recorded in the notes. Relatives should be reassured that in the event of cardiac arrest the patient will be left undisturbed and in dignity.
Postoperative care after major surgery
Authors: Munn Julia , Wilson lain
Published: November 2023

The principles involved with looking after patients who have under­ gone major surgery are the same whether the patient is on the ward, ICU, or HDU. Major surgery in patients with chronic medical illnesses carries a high mortality. Some of this is unavoidable, but detection and correction of physiological abnormalities can reduce mortality and shorten length of hospital stay. If hypotension or hypoxia is untreated for several hours, complications such as myocardial infarction, renal failure, or even cardiac arrest may occur. Recognition of physiological deterioration requires frequent review of the patient. Once adverse signs are recognized, a downward trend may be often reversed by simple measures undertaken on a general ward. Other patients will need transfer to an HDU/ICU.
Nutritional support
Authors: Woodward Will
Published: November 2023

Many surgical patients are undernourished and at risk of developing overt nutritional deficiency. Undernutrition is associated with increases in the risk of postoperative infection, the length of hospital stay and mortality. Patients at particular risk are those who are: already undernourished on admission to hospital (elderly, unsupported, poor, self-caring, chronically infected, alcoholic, anorexic, nauseated, or vomiting owing to disease process, e.g. upper GI cancer) presenting acutely with sepsis (e.g. emergency surgery for bowel perforation, urological sepsis) with major trauma with burns. Appropriate nutritional support can reduce mortality in severe illness, increase the rate of recovery and reduce complications.
Palliative care
Authors: Gilbert Jim
Published: November 2023

Palliative care is often needed on surgical wards for those with progressive advanced cancer and limited prognosis. Competent palliative care can be practised outside a hospice, and is based on four basic principles: Symptom control: Quality of life depends on good symptom control, both physical and psychological. Communication: Open and sensitive communication should extend to patients, informal carers, and professional colleagues. Autonomy: Respect the patient’s autonomy and choice (e.g. over place of care, treatment options). Support for relatives and friends: Care must take account of not only the patient with terminal disease but also those who will be bereaved. Specialist palliative care by a multi-professional team is required by those with more complex or persistent problems.
Bone and joint disorders
Authors: Marshall Paul
Published: November 2023

The rheumatic diseases affect the bones, joints, and connective tissue. Skeletal abnormalities may themselves complicate the management of anaesthesia in particular with relation to the airway. Deformities may make the use of regional anaesthesia including spinals and epidurals difficult or impossible. Some disorders are associated with relevant systemic features including anaemia. Use of NSAIDs and steroids is common and side effects are potentially serious. Some causes of bone and joint disorders have particular relevance for surgical care. Rheumatoid arthritis: Symmetrical deforming arthropathy with systemic features. See below. Other connective tissue disorders: These include systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), progressive systemic sclerosis (PSS), and other rare conditions. Autoimmune multisystem disorders with a chronic course are commonly treated with steroids.
Recognizing and managing seriously ill surgical patients
Authors: Wilson lain , Nicholls Anthony
Published: November 2023

If seriously ill patients are recognized and treated early in the course of their condition, they have an improved chance of survival, less chance of requiring intensive care, and a reduced risk of cardiac arrest. Serious illness may be caused by any process that results in severe physiological derangement. If untreated, progression to organ system failure and death is common. Patients who are severely ill may complain (but are often too ill to do so), may display abnormal signs, or have deranged physiological values and laboratory data. By responding to these at an early phase, deterioration may be stopped. The principles of management of this group of patients includes: recognition of the patient initial treatment liaison with senior colleagues and other specialities including intensive care overall management plan.
Cardiorespiratory arrest
Authors: Wilson lain , Nicholls Anthony
Published: November 2023

Cardiac arrest occurs when a patient suddenly loses consciousness with no cardiac output. Immediate access to defibrillation and basic life support give the patient the best chance of survival. Cardiac arrest may occur with VF, pulseless VT, asystole, or electromechanical dissociation (also known as pulseless electrical activity- PEA). A variety of clinical conditions may lead to cardiac arrest. Some of these should be detected before cardiac arrest occurs. Cardiac arrest may occur unexpectedly in AMI, major PE, or with severe underlying heart disease. Otherwise cardiac arrest on a surgical ward will often be preceded by warning signs such as hypotension, tachycardia, chest pain, dyspnoea, fever, restlessness, or confusion. Hypoxaemia, hypovolaemia, and sepsis may progress to cardiac arrest unless rapidly diagnosed and corrected.
Haemoptysis
Authors: Nicholls Anthony , Wilson lain
Published: November 2023

Postoperative haemoptysis is rare, but alarming and important. It may be the only clue to PE when this presents as minor pulmonary infarction. This is the major diagnosis to exclude. True haemoptysis is bleeding from below the larynx. After endotracheal intubation apparent haemoptysis may arise from oral, nasal, or pharyngeal bleeding. Exclude haematemesis. Stomach contents are acid. PE: Pulmonary infarction may present with expectoration of frank blood clots or blood-stained sputum. Dyspnoea may be relatively mild unless a major PE supervenes. Is the patient at high risk of PE? Get CXR, ECG, and blood gases. Haemoptysis with hypoxia and a clear CXR is highly suggestive of a PE and should be treated as such (p. 288). Pulmonary oedema: Haemoptysis here is typically pink frothy sputum, but may be frank blood from a ruptured pulmonary vein.
Electrolyte imbalance
Authors: Nicholls Anthony
Published: November 2023

Hyponatraemia is both common and potentially fatal. The resultant fall in plasma osmolality causes water to move into cells. This can cause cerebral oedema, and is responsible for the neurologic symptoms seen. If the serum Na+ is <120 mmol/1 the patient is likely to have a reduced level of consciousness and/or confusion, and be at risk of seizures. Modest hyponatraemia (> 125 mmol/1) may indicate an underlying disorder needing attention, but in itself is unlikely to be clinically important as it is well tolerated. Preoperative hyponatraemia may be either acute or chronic, and this affects both the urgency for and type of therapy. Ideally significant hyponatraemia detected preoperatively should be diagnosed and corrected before surgery and anaesthesia. Acute postoperative hyponatraemia is much more likely to cause cerebral symptoms and may prove fatal. The rate of change of serum Na+ is of more importance than the actual level.
Postoperative diarrhoea
Authors: Nicholls Anthony , Wilson lain
Published: November 2023

Diarrhoea is common on all hospital wards and often arises as a post­ operative problem. It consumes many hours of nursing time, puts patients at risk of fluid and electrolyte loss, and predisposes to pressure sores. Diarrhoea is technically the passage of> 300 ml stool daily. Patients may refer to diarrhoea when they simply have frequent stools. It is the volume and consistency of a diarrhoeal stool that matters. Common in the elderly. Usually caused by a combination of opioids, dietary change, and immobility. May present with copious incontinence of mucoid stools. Diagnosed by rectal examination (occasionally aided by a plain abdominal radiograph). May simply be due to overenthusiastic prescription of laxatives to pre-empt opioid-induced constipation. May be a side-effect of some antacids.
Preamble
Authors: Coady C A J
Published: November 2023

It may be helpful to set the scene for the detailed discussion that follows by presenting some examples of major political decisions that appear to have a moral dimension but for which problems have acutely arisen about the relevance of that dimension or the practicality of considering it.

First, there is the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a coalition led (and dominated) by the United States. The most salient public justifications for this were indeed couched in terms that have a moral overtone. Iraq was said to have had weapons of mass destruction that might be used aggressively against its neighbours and the invasion was necessary to prevent this.
Concerning Ideals
Authors: Coady C A J
Published: November 2023

Ideals have had something of a bad press amongst intellectuals in the last third of the twentieth century. Often enough, they have been denounced as dangerous and delusional, especially though not exclusively by the realist thinkers we discussed earlier. On the other hand, many theorists ignore them altogether, partly, perhaps, because of the belief that they have been shown to be dangerous and delusional and hence require no more attention, but also because the emphasis of philosophical inquiry has been concentrated elsewhere.
Politics and Lying
Authors: Coady C A J
Published: November 2023

Dishonesty has always been perceived in our culture, and in all cultures but the most bizarre, as a significant human vice. Moreover, the specific form of dishonesty known as lying has generally been scorned, and the habitual liar treated with contempt. Hence, the accusation of lying is a potent tool in politics, as Tony Blair and George Bush have been discovering to their cost, because exposure of their deceptive conduct over Iraq, frequently characterized as lying, seemed part of the cause of their electoral unpopularity.
Inflecting Irish Nouns: Plural Types
Authors: Carnie Andrew
Published: November 2023

In the next few sections, we will examine how the plural of Irish nouns is formed. As previously mentioned, although some striking correspondences exist, there is no one-to-one mapping between the declension class and the way the noun forms the plural case forms in Irish. Because of this, I have separated out plurals from the declensions. Plurals are all indicated with a w (for ‘ ‘weak ‘ ‘), which differ among the case forms, or s (for ‘ ‘strong ‘ ‘), which are identical in all the cases aside from differences in articles and mutations. As a reminder, the determiners (articles) for the plural are as follows, where the diacritic marking the mutation isn ‘t normally written.
10,000 Irish Nouns
Authors: Carnie Andrew
Published: November 2023

This chapter contains a list of 10,000 Irish nouns and their declension type and plural class. The numbers in this chapter refer to the declension types and plural formations described in chapters 2 and 3. Forms in bold are also in the 1,200-list in chapter 5.
Where’s Phi? Agreement as a Postsyntactic Operation
Authors: Bobaljik Jonathan David
Published: November 2023

One striking aspect of the study of φ-features (person, number, gender) is their propensity to enter into agreement dependencies, morphologically signaled on elements in the clause distant from their source. Russian (1) illustrates: morphemes expressing the features of the NP meaning "girl(surface on the finite verbs and on coreferential pronouns.)
Palatine Politics: Cavendish, Mansﬁeld, and Hobbes
Authors: Malcolm Noel
Published: November 2023

Throughout the 1620s, English public opinion was constantly concerned, and occasionally obsessed, with the issue of the Palatinate. Anyone with access to printed or written news, or with contacts in Parliament and at Court, would have followed the ups and downs— mostly downs— of the Elector Palatine’s fortunes and would have held some opinions about the ineffectual attempts of James I and Charles I to help him. This must be all the more true of Thomas Hobbes, since he was closely attached to a prominent political figure, Lord Cavendish, whose sympathies with the Palatine cause were especially strong.
Descartes on Anti-individualism
Authors: Burge Tyler
Published: November 2023

In’Cartesian Error and the Objectivity of Perception’1, I made what I now regard as an important mistake in the interpretation of Descartes. I construed him as an individualist about thoughts. In this paper I would like to explain why this construal is at best doubtful. I would also like to use the occasion to explore Descartes’s views of mental substances and mental attributes, and about reference to the physical world.
Speech, Song, and the Transparency of Medium: On Operatic Metaphysics
Authors: Kivy Peter
Published: November 2023

When Desdemona sings the “Willow Song” in Verdi’s Otello, she sings a song in the world of that work, her world, just as I sing a song in the real world, my world, when I sing “Melancholy Baby” in the shower. But when Desdemona converses with Iago, she also sings, whereas when I converse with my plumber about why my shower won’t work, I do not sing: I speak.
Infertility
Authors: Davies Melanie , Webber Lisa , Overton Caroline
Published: November 2023

Infertility is a significant health issue and one that has received increasing media attention in the UK and elsewhere in recent years. For affected couples, it is the cause of substantial distress and feelings of isolation that can lead to associated anxiety and depression. This is compounded by a perceived lack of support from health services as well as a lack of available information regarding its management. This book provides current information and practical advice on the underlying causes, diagnosis and management of infertility in a clear and concise style that is accessible to patients. The book covers all aspects of infertility from investigation, treatment, successful pregnancy and coping with childlessness. The text is written in a plain-spoken style that is easy to read and absorb, with liberal use of bullet points, diagrams, graphs, photographs, tables and other illustrations. Case studies and patient perspectives are included throughout the text to bring key concepts to life.
Overview of fertility and the biological clock
Authors: Davies Melanie , Webber Lisa , Overton Caroline
Published: November 2023

You are not alone if you are having difficulty getting pregnant. It is estimated that one in seven couples have difficulty getting pregnant. Worldwide, 80 million couples have some difficulty in getting pregnant. Many couples prefer to keep this fact private, and so it is not until you start talking about your problems that you discover that some of your friends and family may be or have been in a similar situation.
Getting pregnant: a background to hormones and how the body works
Authors: Davies Melanie , Webber Lisa , Overton Caroline
Published: November 2023

Hormones are chemicals produced by the body. They are produced by one part of the body and circulate in the bloodstream sending messages to other parts of the body. Several hormones are involved in the production of the egg and sperm.
Ovarian hyperstimulation
Authors: Davies Melanie , Webber Lisa , Overton Caroline
Published: November 2023

Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (also called OHSS) is an illness that can occur in women receiving fertility drug treatment. The ovaries become enlarged and tender. Fluid can build up in the abdomen and sometimes around the lungs. This may require hospital admission and treatment until the symptoms settle down. The condition may last a few days or a few weeks. Although many women going through IVF have mild symptoms, severe OHSS is not common. About one or two in 100 women may need hospital admission. OHSS is more likely to occur in women who become pregnant.
Fertility and the older woman
Authors: Davies Melanie , Webber Lisa , Overton Caroline
Published: November 2023

Women’s fertility is very dependent on age. Girls are born with all the eggs for their lifetime already present in the ovaries. In fact, the number of eggs is greatest before birth at over a million, and there is a steady loss of eggs even before the onset of monthly periods in the teens. During adult life, several eggs start to develop each month, but usually only one egg matures and is released at ovulation and the others die. Egg numbers are estimated at around 25 000 at age 37. The process of egg loss becomes faster in the late thirties and forties, and less than 1000 eggs are left by the age of 50.
Introduction
Authors: Shafer-Landau Russ
Published: November 2023

Oxford Studies in Metaethics is devoted to providing an annual selection of some of the most exciting new work in the foundations of ethics. I am pleased that this aim has been so successfully met in this second volume of the series The entries begin with an essay by T. M. Scanlon, in which he offers his latest thoughts on a central metaethical topic: the relationship between wrongness and practical reasons. Scanlon ‘s work has been very influential in this area. Here he offers a reappraisal of that work, situated in a context that seeks to account for the shift from motivational concerns to those centrally to do with practical reason, within the literature devoted to metaethics.
Moral Obligation and Accountability
Authors: Darwall Stephen
Published: November 2023

Philosophers typically characterize morality ‘s distinctive normativity in terms of the categorical character and overriding weight or absolute priority of the reasons for acting that a moral obligation purports, at least, to provide. Attempts within the Kantian tradition to vindicate moral obligation in these terms generally proceed from the practical standpoint; they argue that an agent is committed by constraints of rational deliberative thought to treating the moral law as supremely authoritative. These attempts are almost universally judged to fail, however, except by their most enthusiastic proponents.
Normativity
Authors: Thomson Judith Jarvis
Published: November 2023

What are commonly called normative judgments fall, intuitively, into two classes. First, there are what I will call evaluatives: these include judgments to the effect that a certain state of affairs would be good or bad for Smith, or for England, judgments to the effect that a certain experience was delightful or dreadful, judgments to the effect that a certain carving knife is a well-made or defective carving knife, and so on. The evaluatives also include comparatives, such as that this is or would be a better so and so than that. Second, there are what I will call directives: these include judgments to the effect that something or someone ought or ought not do this or that— as, for example, that Jones ought to be kind to his little brother.
The longer term
Authors: Daisley Audrey , Tams Rachel , Kischka Udo
Published: November 2023

As you will have seen throughout this book, it is very difficult to make an accurate prediction of recovery and progress after a head injury. The effects of head injury on the family can be lifelong, requiring the family to make considerable adjustments to many aspects of their lives. Every head injury is unique and each individual and their family will have a different experience, taking different pathways through the head injury journey. As you have seen from earlier chapters, spontaneous changes to the brain occur in the months and even first years after injury. This period of recovery continues for much longer than initially thought, but does slow down over time and usually leaves some longer-term difficulties. While a negative outcome is not inevitable, if your relative does have persisting problems in the areas described (particularly in behaviour and thinking) it can be very hard to get back to normal family and work life. In many instances it is not possible to resume life as it was before, or fully resume previous roles and interests. The individual with the injury and the family are then faced with adjusting to changes in lifestyle, family roles, ways of being together, financial circumstances, and a future that may seem uncertain. As outlined earlier, this process of adjustment takes time and differs for everyone. There are key practical issues faced by families in the longer-term.
Inflectional paradigms have bases too: Arguments from Yiddish
Authors: Albright Adam
Published: November 2023

It is well known that the phonological form of a word can depend on its morphological structure. In serial approaches, this follows naturally from the fact that words have derivational histories: morphologically complex words undergo successive levels of phonological derivation as they are constructed, making them eligible for different phonological processes along the way. A crucial distinction is typically made, however, between derivational and inflectional morphology. Whereas derived forms usually have clear “bases of affixation”, inflected forms are usually not obviously constructed from one another. For this reason, they are generally not held to have the same formal influence on one another.
Guilty Robots, Happy Dogs
Authors: McFarland David
Published: November 2023

When we interact with animals, we intuitively read thoughts and feelings into their expressions and actions - it is easy to suppose that they have minds like ours. And as technology grows more sophisticated, we might soon find ourselves interpreting the behaviour of robots too in human terms. It is natural for us to humanize other beings in this way, but is it philosophically or scientifically justifiable? How different might the minds of animals or machines be to ours? As David McFarland asks here, could robots ever feel guilty, and is it correct to suppose your dog can truly be happy? Can we ever know what non-human minds might be like, or will the answer be forever out of our reach? These are central and important questions in the philosophy of mind, and this book is an accessible exploration of the differing philosophical positions that can be taken on the issue. McFarland looks not only at philosophy, but also examines new evidence from the science of animal behaviour plus the latest developments in robotics and artificial intelligence, to show how many different - and sometimes surprising - conclusions we can draw about the nature of 'alien minds'.
Mindless Machines
Authors: McFarland David
Published: November 2023

In this chapter we look at the behaviour of some simple robots, from both a scientific and a philosophical viewpoint. Although such robots, unlike our traffic-police-robot, are very simple machines they can exhibit quite complex behaviour. The interpretation of such behaviour depends very much on the viewpoint of the observer. From a scientific viewpoint, if the design of the robot is well understood its behaviour will be no surprise. From the viewpoint of naïve observers, however, the behaviour may seem baffling, mysterious, and much more complicated than it really is.
The Material Mind
Authors: McFarland David
Published: November 2023

We have seen that animals and robots can, on occasion, produce behaviour that makes us sit up and wonder whether these aliens really do have minds, maybe like ours, maybe different from ours. These phenomena, especially those involving apparent intentionality and subjectivity, require explanation at a scientific level, and at a philosophical level. The question is, what kind of explanation are we looking for? At this point, you (the reader) need to decide where you stand on certain issues. Historically, a distinction has been made between material substances of the physical world and spiritual or mental substances of the non-material world. Monism claims that reality is made up of only one kind of substance, whereas pluralism claims that reality is made up of more than one kind of substance. The most famous form of pluralism is dualism, the doctrine that mind and matter are two distinct things, and that the one cannot be accounted for in terms of the other. Dualism gives rise to the question of how the mind is attached to the body, often called the mind–body problem.
The development of plato’s theory of ideas and the ‘Socratic question’
Authors: Fronterotta Francesco
Published: November 2023

W. J. Prior’s ‘Socrates Metaphysician’ undermines almost three decades of quasi unanimity in the English-speaking world on a certain interpretation of Plato’s theory of Ideas with regard to the relationship between Plato and Socrates, and to the suggestion that this relationship evolved in various specific stages, corresponding to as many chronologically distinct groups of Platonic dialogues. This reading, set out in its standard English-language version by Gregory Vlastos, actually excludes any reference to the metaphysical theory of Ideas from the early dialogues that were supposedly entirely devoted to the ethical search for virtue and its definition (as the historical Socrates would have exercised it), and confines the introduction of Ideas to the middle and late dialogues, the only ones to be truly Platonic in their content.
Note on the Concept of Information in Perception
Authors: Hatfield Gary
Published: November 2023

The notion of information was widely invoked in psychology during the 1960s and 1970s, and it is now firmly entrenched in discussions of perception and cognition in psychology, cognitive science, and philosophy. Descriptions of perception point to information in the light reflected from objects, information transduced by receptors, information processed by perceptual systems, and information contained in perceptual representations and stored and retrieved from memory. Although the word ‘‘information’’ is common to all these discussions, the notion of information has undergone development, and more than one concept is now in play. Thus, some sorting out is needed in order to make clear which notions of information I favor, which not, and why.
Objectivity And Subjectivity Revisited Color As A Psychobiological Property
Authors: Hatfield Gary
Published: November 2023

Philosophical theories of color divide into three. There are the so-called objectivists, who argue that color is a mind-independent property of objects. There are the subjectivists, who argue that color is not a property of objects, but an internal state of the perceiver or the subjective content of a perceiver’s experience. And there are the relationalists, who argue that color, considered as a property of objects, is a relational property; it is a property that surfaces and light sources have of causing experiences with various phenomenal characters in perceivers.
Introduction
Authors: Leng Mary
Published: November 2023

Though posed by a neurophysiologist, McCulloch’s question succinctly expresses the central epistemological problem of the philosophy of mathematics. Indeed, broadened slightly, the question ‘What is mathematics, that humans may know it, and what is a human, that humans may know mathematics?’ brings us straight to the main difficulty facing contemporary philosophical accounts of mathematical knowledge. There are, of course, many potential ‘problems’ of mathematical knowledge, and there is room for many fruitful approaches to these problems from a variety of perspectives and a variety of disciplines.
Conceptual structure and the lexicon
Authors: Culicover Peter W
Published: November 2023

The primary function of human language is to express meaning. A speaker of a language who intends to express a meaning knows how to make sounds that will convey this meaning to another speaker of that language through the particular form of the utterance. Syntax is the system that mediates the correspondence between form and meaning. Syntacticians study what this mapping consists of for particular languages, and what it may consist of in principle.
Who gets inflammatory bowel disease and why?
Authors: Langmead Louise , Irving Peter
Published: November 2023

One of the commonest questions we get asked by people who have recently been diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is ‘Why did I get it? ‘. However, IBD does not have a single cause. We know that there are three important components to the development of IBD. First, people who develop IBD have to have inherited the right genes. However, having these genes is not enough by itself to cause IBD. To develop the condition, people with IBD also need to encounter a trigger, or perhaps several triggers, called environmental factors (see box on p 15). Exactly what these triggers are is poorly understood and they may vary from person to person. Finally, we also know that the bacteria in our intestines play a part in causing inflammation in the bowel wall and the development of IBD.
Language, Change, and Response
Authors: Machan Tim William
Published: November 2023

On 4 July 2000, I received a telephone call from a local radio station that had gotten my name from my American university’s Experts Directory, where I was listed as a resource for the history and structure of the English language. Was it true, the woman inquired, that I was a specialist in English linguistics, and would I consent to a radio interview about the English used in the blockbuster movie The Patriot, starring Mel Gibson and then just-released? What about English in The Patriot, I asked, to which she replied: ‘The Americans don’t have British accents, and we want to know whether that’s accurate or not.’ I was to be live on the air in fifteen minutes, and despite this, and despite the fact that I hadn’t seen this film about the American War of Independence (though I since have) and had never really considered the issue, I quickly agreed to participate. What makes an accent an accent, I thought—a collection of features that a speaker uses or the perception of a listener? How determinative of a dialect is an accent? How and why do we make abstractions like a British accent from the demonstrable varieties of speech at any one time, thereby suggesting that all people from Britain (or America) speak alike? For that matter, to what extent would speakers on either side of the Atlantic at the time of the film’s setting want to sound alike or unalike? How can we reconcile the various conflicting eighteenth-century comments on the consistent, regionally non-specific quality of American speech, on its inferiority to British speech, on its similarity to the language as spoken in the south and east of England, and on its status as the future of the language? There were simply too many intriguing issues to let this interview pass by, and specialists in English linguistics, after all, get precious few opportunities for radio exposure.
Aiming at Truth Over Time: Reply to Arntzenius and Swanson
Authors: Gibbard Allan
Published: November 2023

I want to thank both Frank Arntzenius and Eric Swanson for their fine, illuminating commentaries. Both propose that my analysis of belief should be made dynamic. In my paper I considered only a simplest possible case, the static case with a single uncertain proposition and its negation. I might have gone on to consider a more complex thinker, prone to change degrees of credence as new evidence comes in. I agree with Arntzenius and Swanson that the dynamic case needs investigating. I think, however, that for the dynamic case, most of the lessons I drew reappear in new forms.
3 [L] Truth Conditions: Reality and Modus Ponens
Authors: Lycan William G
Published: November 2023

It is fair to say that the past thirty-five years of exciting research in the semantics and pragmatics of conditionals began with Adams (1965), Stalnaker ( I 968), and Lewis (1973). Those three works set the philosophical agenda that still occupies us, an agenda that has provided a highly unified vision and afforded some gratifying progress on a notoriously difficult duster of problems despite the philosophers ‘ inattention to syntax.

Perhaps embarrassing my claim of unification, the corpus consisting of those three essays offers not one but two paradigms for the semantic evaluation of conditionals. Adams offered an epistemic assertibility semantics for indicative conditionals, according to which a
Lexical Anomalies in the Introduction to the Posterior Analytics, Part 1
Authors: Gifford Mark
Published: November 2023

The opening chapter to the Posterior Analytics is troublesome, far more so than scholars have realized; so troublesome is it, in fact, that close inspection will reveal a text which unquestionably underwent considerable alteration early on in the course of its transmission. So numerous and severe are the problems confronting us in Posterior Analytics I. I-particularly in its central section, 71817-30, which boasts, among other things, the only explicit attempt in the corpus to solve the notorious ‘paradox of enquiry’ from Plato’s Meno-that the text which has reached us simply cannot have come from Aristotle without having suffered significant editorial modification at some point early in its career. On its first announcement, this novel and radical contention is bound to induce a most assured state of disbelief; and unfortunately, that initial condition in the reader is one that can only be ameliorated but not completely relieved within the limits of the present undertaking. Nevertheless, no matter what sort of immediate reaction it may provoke, the claim that for the past two millennia students of Aristotle have unwittingly been reading a badly tainted version of the introduction to the Posterior Analytics represents a conclusion we shall eventually be driven to acknowledge by the cumulative force of the many disturbing philosophical and linguistic aberrations to be found in the received text.
Did epicurus discover the free will problem?
Authors: Bobzien Susanne
Published: November 2023

In 1967 Epicurus was credited with the discovery of the problem of free will and determinism.1 Among the contestants were Aristotle and the early Stoics. Epicurus emerged victorious, because—so the argument went—Aristotle did not yet have the problem, and the Stoics inherited it from Epicurus. In the same year David Furley published his essay Aristotle and Epicurus on Voluntary Action’, in which he argued that Epicurus’ problem was not the free will problem.2 In the thirty-odd years since then, a lot has been published about Epicurus on freedom and determinism.
Normativity and Judgement
Authors: Papineau David
Published: November 2023

It is widely assumed that the normativity of conceptual judgement poses problems for naturalism. Thus John McDowell urges that ‘The structure of the space of reasons stubbornly resists being appropriated within a naturalism that conceives nature as the realm of law’ (1994 73). Similar sentiments have been expressed by many other writers, for example Robert Brandom (1994: p. xiii) and Paul Boghossian (1989: 548).