bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Reconsidering Bohr’s reply to EPR
Authors: Clifton Rob
Published: November 2023

The past few decades have seen tremendous growth in our under­ standing of interpretations of quantum mechanics. For example, a number of ‘no­go’ results have been obtained which show that some or other interpretation violates constraints that we would expect any plausible interpretation of quantum mechanics to satisfy. Thus, although there is no immediate hope of convergence of opinion on interpretive issues, we certainly have an increased understanding of the technical and conceptual issues at stake. Perhaps, then, we can make use of this increased technical awareness to shed some new light on the great old episodes in the conceptual development of quantum mechanics.
Mental Representation, Naturalism, and Teleosemantics
Authors: Godfrey-Smith Peter
Published: November 2023

The ‘teleosemantic’ program is part of the attempt to give a naturalistic explanation of the semantic properties of mental representations. The aim is to show how the internal states of a wholly physical agent could, as a matter of objective fact, represent the world beyond them. The most popular approach to solving this problem has been to use concepts of physical correlation with some kinship to those employed in information theory (Dretske 1981, 1988; Fodor 1987, 1990). Teleosemantics, which tries to solve the problem using a concept of biological function, arrived in the mid-1980s with ground-breaking works by Millikan (1984) and Papineau (1984, 1987).
After The Ascent: Plato On Becoming Like God
Authors: Armstrong John M
Published: November 2023

SEVERAL Platonic dialogues indicate that humans should strive to become like god. Until recent work by Julia Annas and David Sedley, this had gone largely unnoticed in contemporary Plato scholarship. 1 In this article I explore the idea further by arguing that Plato’s later conception of god made a difference to how he conceived of becoming like god. In particular, I argue that Plato’s identification of god with vovsor intelligence in the Timaeus, Philebus, and Laws influences his conception of assimilation to god. Rather than fleeing from the sensible world, becoming like this god commits one to improving it. In the Laws especially fo1lowing god requires an effort to unify the city under intelligent 1aw and to educate the citizens
The Meaning Of Aristotelian Magnanimity
Authors: Pakaluk Michael
Published: November 2023

What Aristotle understands by megalopsuchia-usually rendered ‘magnanimity’-has, I believe, been largely misconstrued by the commentators; 1 I therefore wish to put forward what I regard as the correct view, through proposing a revisionist reading of the relevant passage in the Nicomachean Ethics (4. 3).
Egoism And Eudaimonia-M aximiz Tion In The Nicomachean Ethics
Authors: Wielenberg Erik J
Published: November 2023

Is Aristotle an egoist? One of the most extended and insightful discussions of this admittedly vague question occurs in the second chapter of Richard Kraut’s important book Aristotle on the Human Good.1 Kraut argues that Aristotle is not an egoist. I shall argue that Aristotle holds the following principle:
Antiphons, Sophist And Athenian
Authors: Woodruff Paul
Published: November 2023

One year has seen the arrival of two major books on Antiphon. Michael Gagarin’s monograph2 is a general interpretative study of the corpus in its intellectual and historical context, distilled from his long study of Athenian law and oratory. Gerard J. Pendrick’s book is a detailed commentary on testimonia and fragments of the Sophist, based on many years of massive scholarship, together with carefully edited texts and good readable translations from Greek and (in the case of one fragment) Arabic. Pendrick’s magisterial commentary reviews the history of scholarship on each fragment and testimonium with admirable precision and thoroughness; Gagarin’s study is a triumph of synthesis, bringing together seemingly disparate texts to show how they could be the work of one mind. Because the two books take different lines on Antiphon, they are not alternative but complementary studies. We need them both.
Lewisian Themes: The Philosophy of David K. Lewis Introduction
Authors: Jackson Frank , Priest Graham
Published: November 2023

On October 14th, 2001, there occurred the sad and untimely death of David Kellogg Lewis. His death deprived the philosophical community of one of the outstanding philosophers of the 20th century. As many obituaries remarked, Lewis has an undeniable place in the history of analytical philosophy. His work defines much of the current agenda in metaphysics, philosophical logic, and the philosophy of mind and language. Although stationed at Princeton for most of his working life, Lewis had a close relationship with Australasia, and particularly Australia. He had a special fondness for the ‘Australian’ way of doing philosophy, dating from when he attended a graduate class at Harvard given by Jack Smart in 1963. From 1971 Lewis visited Australia nearly every year. Usually based in Melbourne, he travelled widely, and was well known in every Philosophy department in Australia and New Zealand. He attended almost every annual meeting of the Australasian Association of Philosophy, where he presented what were destined to be agenda-setting papers, and was assiduous in attending papers given by others and in contributing to discussion. He also played an important role in the social life of AAP conferences. He enjoyed socialising and talking philosophy in the bar in the evenings, and liked to join in-and sometimes lead-the singing of Australian bush songs. It seemed absolutely right to honour David’s memory by devoting an issue of the Australasian Association of Philosophy’s journal to his work. The present volume consists of the papers for that issue of the Australasian Journal of Philosophy(Vol. 82, March 2004) together with four additional papers and an expanded introduction.
Worldly Indeterminacy: A Rough Guide
Authors: Rosen Gideon , Smith Nicholas J J
Published: November 2023

This paper defends the idea that there might be vagueness or indeterminacy in the world itself-as opposed to merely in our representations of the world-against the charges of incoherence and unintelligibility. First we consider the idea that the world might contain vague propertiesand relations; we show that this idea is already implied by certain well-understood views concerning the semantics of vague predicates (most notably the fuzzy view). Next we consider the idea that the world might contain vague objects; we argue that an object is indeterminate in a certain respect (colour, size, etc.) just in case it is a borderline case of a maximally specific colour (size, etc.) property. Finally we consider the idea that the world as a wholemight be indeterminate; we argue that the world is indeterminate just in case it lacks a determinate division into determinate objects. There is a widespread suspicion that indeterminacy and vagueness can only be features of claims or representations, and hence that it makes no more sense to ask whether the world is indeterminate than it does to ask whether the world rhymes or whether it’s written in English. On this view, it is not a genuine possibility that the world itself-as opposed to our representations of it-might be unsettled or inchoate in some way: the world must be a fully determinate array of facts or things. >Our aim in this paper is to make clear sense of the idea that the world itself might be vague or indeterminate in some respect. We shall not be arguing that the world isindeterminate. We shall not even be arguing that worldly indeterminacy is a genuine metaphysical possibility. Our aim is the more basic one of showing that contrary to the widespread suspicion just mentioned, the idea cannot be ruled out on grounds of incoherence or unintelligibility.
What‘s Wrong with McKinsey-Style Reasoning?
Authors: Pryor James
Published: November 2023

It‘s widely accepted nowadays that some of our thoughts are externalist. What does that mean? I understand a thought‘s content to be those of its representational aspects that one experiences as representational and are essential to its being that thought. And we can understand a thought to be externalist when subjects who are internally the same can differ with respect to whether they ‘re thinking the thought‘s content.1
Socrates Metaphysician
Authors: Prior William J
Published: November 2023

In 1991 Gregory Vlastos published Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher.The thesis of this book was the claim that we can find in the early dialogues of Plato, when certain embarrassing passages have been excised, reinterpreted, or relegated to a ‘transitional’ period, the philosophy of the historical Socrates. Vlastos argued that there were two portraits of Socrates in Plato’s works, which he labelled ‘SocratesE’ and ‘SocratesM’, for the Socrates of the early and middle dialogues, respectively. These two Socrateses held antithetical views.
Prisoners And Puppeteers In The Cave
Authors: Wilberding James
Published: November 2023

Perhaps some justification is required for the appearance of yet another essay on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. The question around which the majority of discussions of the Cave revolves is that of its parallelism to the Line. This question can be understood as having two parts: do both the Cave and the Line have four parts or stages, and if so, is there one-to-one correspondence between the parts of the Line and the stages of the Cave? At present, the orthodox interpretation answers each of these questions affirmatively.
Platonism In Aristotle’S Ethics
Authors: Gerson Lloyd P
Published: November 2023

Modern interpretations of Aristotle’s ethical theory labour unduly under the influence of Werner Jaeger’s hypothesis regarding Aristotle’s development. According to this hypothesis, Aristotle’s philosophical career can be plotted along an axis whose termini are Platonism and anti-Platonism. Jaeger argued that without such a hypothesis no coherent account of Aristotle’s philosophy could be extracted. Specifically, a number of Aristotelian works appear to defend or proclaim positions that might fairly be termed ‘Platonic’, whereas a number of others appear to oppose these same positions. So, on Jaeger’s hypothesis, Aristotle, when he entered Plato’s Academy at the age of 17, became a true Platonic disciple, but at some later date turned away from Platonism to found his own school and to assume his own distinctive, anti-Platonic philosophical stance. Regarding philosophical methodology, psychology, metaphysics, and ethics, Aristotle came to reject Plato’s otherworldly constructions in favour of an orientation more in line with what we think of today as ‘scientific’.
Alexander Of Aphrodisias On Mixture And Growth
Authors: Kupreeva Inna
Published: November 2023

Ancient discussions of mixture and growth have to do with a broad range of philosophical issues, such as the nature of life, the boundary between living and not living, and the physical mechanisms operating in animate structures. Approaches to the solutions of these problems developed in antiquity seem to be earning more and more appreciation in the context of today’s metaphysical discussions. Following the revival of interest in Aristotle’s psychology welcomed by modern philosophers of mind as an alternative to both the excesses of Cartesian dualism and the deficiencies of numerous reductionist theories, there has been a new rise of interest in Aristotle’s theory of natural substance, in its full rigging, including such dusty items as the concept of mixture, which has been recently rediscovered by philosophers as a promising model for an ontological description of the type of unity present in a multi-layered, hierarchical composite structure.
Manuscripts of the Hippiatrica
Authors: Mccabe Anne
Published: November 2023

The texts of the Hippiatrica exist in twenty-two manuscripts, some of which contain more than one copy of the text, so that there are twenty-five copies altogether. These manuscripts range in date from the tenth century to the sixteenth; they represent a variety of levels of production, and contain five principal recensions of the compilation. The practical nature of the Hippiatrica may have contributed to the preservation of the text, but also contributed to its mutation in transmission: as is the case with other technical literature, the compilation was added to, subtracted from, adapted, and rearranged in accordance with the tastes and needs of its editors and users, with the result that nearly every one of the early manuscripts contains a substantially different version of the text.
Theomnestus
Authors: Mccabe Anne
Published: November 2023

Theomnestus appears to have been a keen horseman, with a solid grounding in medical theory as well as experience of veterinary practice. He is the only author in the Hippiatrica to include in his treatise instructions for grooming and breaking in addition to veterinary treatments.1 He is also the only author who speaks of his own horses; he does so with affection. Theomnestus ‘ work belongs to the tradition of the texts that we have already examined: his description of the points of the horse, of grooming, and breaking alludes to the words of Xenophon and Simon; it also presents close parallels to the agricultural firiters, which suggests that one of these, probably Cassius Dionysius, was an intermediary.
Reason, Imagination, and Mechanism in Descartes’s Theory of Perception
Authors: Vinci Thomas
Published: November 2023

there is the painfully obvious question of how the human ability to home in on a distant object relates, on the one hand, to distance perception as Descartes interprets it, and, on the other, to the ability of animals to do the same thing. Without making an issue about consciousness, it’s hard to deny that in some sense my dog knows where the ball fell as well as I do: after all, he runs directly to it, just as I do. Now according to Descartes subhuman animals have no reasoning ability at all. It would seem to follow that, on Cartesian theory, either I do not rely for such physical acts on distance and position perceptions as Descartes explains them, or that the explanation of my dog’s ability is totally disanalogous to the explanation of mine. Both positions are, it seems to me, extremely implausible.
Putting Aristotle’S Physics In Its Place:A Discussion Of Benjamin Morison, On Location
Authors: Mendell Henry
Published: November 2023

It is wondrous that in the last twenty years at least five books have been substantially devoted to the five Bekker pages that constitute Aristotle’s account of place.2 Morison’s book is, in fact, the first in English exclusively devoted to the topic. Of the topics covered by Physics 4, void is historically more important, while the discussion of time is more obscure and difficult. The discussion of place or location in Morison’s title, has, on the other hand, a simple structure arguing for a superficially simple thesis. Certainly, almost any student of Aristotle can rattle off his definition, ‘the limit of the surrounding body’ or something equivalent. Most can understand Aristotle’s motivation; many can even make sense of it. Part of its attraction lies in our interest in Aristotle’s method. The discussion of place not only includes one of his rare reflections on his method of surveying puzzles or aporiai, but is itself a fine example of the method.3 It is also important for understanding his theory of natural place4 in all its obscurity and, to a lesser extent, his kinematics.
Moore’s Paradox, Evans’s Principle, and Iterated Beliefs
Authors: Williams John N
Published: November 2023

I went to the pictures last Tuesday but I don’t believe that I did would be ‘absurd’. Moore calls it a ‘paradox’ that this absurdity persists despite the fact that what I say about myself might be true. For you may consistently suppose that I went to the pictures last Tuesday but fail to believe that I did. Moreover, if you contradict my assertion then your words, ‘If you went to the pictures last Tuesday then you believe that you did’ need not be true.
Matter and Meaning in the Work of Art: Joseph Kosuth’s One and Three Chairs
Authors: Wilde Carolyn
Published: November 2023

My interest in Joseph Kosuth’s assemblage, One and Three Chairs of 1965 (see Illustration 5), is in the way in which it requires us to consider how meaning is embodied within the work of art. In his discussion of Conceptual Art the art historian Hans Belting said that this work, “proposed a thesis that could have been voiced at any time, even a century earlier. But the proposition could not have been exhibited as art until the mid-1960s.” This statement is interesting but problematic. The idea that any work of art ‘proposes a thesis’ or ‘presents a proposition’ is problematic. For it seems to imply that we can expect some determinate meaning from a work of art.
Introduction
Authors: MacBride Fraser
Published: November 2023

The papers in this volume constellate about fundamental philosophical issues concerning modality and identity: How are we to understand the concepts of metaphysical necessity and possibility? Is chance a basic ingredient of reality? How are we to make sense of claims about personal identity? Do numbers require distinctive identity criteria? Does the capacity to identify an object presuppose an ability to bring it under a sortal concept? In order to provide a guide to the reader I will provide a brief overview of the content of the papers collected here and some of the interrelations that obtain between them.
Modal Infallibilism and Basic Truth
Authors: Sturgeon Scott
Published: November 2023

This paper concerns intelligibility and possibility. It argues no linking principle of the form (L) Int(ø) ø is valid. The notion of intelligibility will vary throughout the discussion. Details will be given as needed. The notion of possibility will remain constant. Let me explain it now.
Doubt, Deference, and Deliberation: Understanding and Using the Division of Cognitive Labor
Authors: Keil Frank
Published: November 2023

In ‘The ‘‘Meaning of Meaning’’ ‘ Hilary Putnam (1975) famously sug- gested, as part of a more general defense of an externalist account of semantic content, that our referential practices are upheld by a ‘division of linguistic labor’. A speaker who lacks the individual capacity to identify a term’s referent may nonetheless use the term successfully, so long as she belongs to a linguistic community where some (group of) expert(s) have that capacity. Over the past thirty years, there has been a lively discussion about the implications of such a theory for questions about wide vs. narrow content, internalism vs. externalism about mean- ing, and the like. In the spirit of labor-division, I will leave discussion of these matters to others (see e.g. Burge 1979; Fodor 1998; Prinz 2002), focusing instead on a question that has received relatively little atten- tion in either the philosophical or the psychological literature, namely how laypeople understand the nature and character of the division of cognitive labor.
Introduction
Authors: Leiter Brian , Sinhababu Neil
Published: November 2023

Moral philosophy has long situated its problems, positions, and arguments with respect to the views of the important historical figure in the field. Aristotle, Kant, Hume, and Mill, among others, have loomed large in ethics over the last century, so much so that those contemporaries influenced by them often self-identify as Kantians or Humeans, or as working out ‘Aristotelian’ or ‘Millian’ views as a way of defending answers to contemporary questions in moral philosophy.
Egypt: From Egyptian to Pan-Arab Nationalism
Authors: Suleiman Yasir
Published: November 2023

The language–national identity link is a recurrent theme in nationalism studies. However, both this link and its constituent members (language and nation) are a matter of construction, what I have elsewhere called a discursive project (Suleiman 2006), that is amenable to formulation and counter-formulation. It is, therefore, not surprising that for much of the twentieth century the link between language and national identity in Egypt has been the subject of debate which sought to argue either for an Egypt-bound form of identity, revolving around the territory of Egypt (Egyptian nationalism), or for forms of supra-Egyptian nationalism that sought to define this identity extraterritorially by reference to dominant religion (Islam), some vague notion of a Western versus Eastern culture, or language (Gershoni and Jankowski 1995). This chapter deals with the two most important formulations of national identity in Egypt: Egyptian nationalism and Pan-Arab nationalism.
Mali: In Defence of Cultural and Linguistic Pluralism
Authors: Skattum Ingse
Published: November 2023

Mali is a landlocked country bounded by seven states: Senegal in the west, Mauritania and Algeria in the north, Niger and Burkina Faso in the east, the Ivory Coast and Guinea in the south. It is one of Africa’s largest countries and is divided into three climatic zones: the Sahara desert in the north, the semi-desert Sahel in the centre, and the Sudanese savannah in the south. Most of the approximately 13 million inhabitants live in the south and along the two main rivers, the Niger (which is Africa’s third largest) and the Senegal. Gold and cotton are main exports, Mali being Africa’s second largest cotton producer after Egypt. It is, however, one of the poorest countries in the world, coming 174th of 177 countries in the Human Development Indicator (HDI) of the United Nations Development Programme, which takes into account standard of living, life expectancy, and literacy. Statistics show that the fertility rate is high (nearly 7 children per woman), infant mortality amongst the world’s highest (11.3 per cent), while life expectancy is only 48.5 years and nearly 50 per cent of the population is under 15 years of age. The literacy rate is 19 per cent and school enrolment 26 per cent. Around 90 per cent of the population is Muslim, 9 per cent are animists, and 1 per cent Christian. Animism influences both Muslim and Christian practices, and religious tolerance is the rule. The capital Bamako, in the southern part of the country, has approximately 1 million inhabitants. Other important cities are Segu, Sikasso, Koutiala, Kayes, Mopti, Djenne, Timbuktu, and Gao. The country was colonized by France between 1880 and 1895 and named French Sudan in 1892. It was proclaimed an independent republic on 22 September 1960, when it took the name of the prestigious medieval Mali Empire. Since 1960, there have been three Malian republics: the first under Modibo Keita (1960–68), the second under General Moussa Traoré (1968–1991) and the third under democratically elected presidents Alpha Oumar Konaré (1992– 2002) and Amadou Toumani Touré (2002– ).
The Horn of Africa: Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somalia
Authors: Appleyard David , Orwin Martin
Published: November 2023

The Horn of Africa is here understood as comprising four countries: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Of these the largest both in terms of landmass and population is Ethiopia, followed by Somalia, Eritrea, and Djibouti in that order. Ethiopia also has the highest overall density of population of the four countries. Whilst all four countries have in part shared histories and some common cultural patterns and influences, owing in large part to their geographical contiguity, the dominant factor that has been central to history and culture alike across the region is the ancient and at times conflicting presence of two world religions, Christianity in the case of highland Ethiopia and Eritrea, and Islam elsewhere. Ethiopia and Eritrea, which historically formed a single entity, have been Christian since the fourth century and the Ethiopian kingdom constituted an expansive political and cultural nucleus in the Ethiopian highlands from even before that time. Islam already entered the Horn from its earliest days in the seventh and eighth centuries AD, and the growth of Islamic states in the southern and eastern parts of the region from the thirteenth century onwards inevitably led to conflict with the Christian kingdom. Islam today is dominant in the east of the Horn and along the Red Sea littoral, in Djibouti and Somalia, and with around 50 per cent of the population of Eritrea. Historically religion rather than language seems to have been the main criterion of identity and adherence to a political entity or state, at least judging from written histories, both chronicles and hagiographies.
On The Use Of Stoicheion In The Sense Of ‘Element’
Authors: Crowley Timothy J
Published: November 2023

Aristotle says that Empedocles is the first to name fire, air, water, and earth as the four kinds of stoicheia, or ‘elements’ (Metaph.  A 4, 985a32; cf. 984a8). But it is well known that Empedocles does not call fire, air, water, and earth stoicheia; rather, he calls them the ‘roots of all things’ (31 B 6 DK). The use of the term stoicheion in the sense of ‘element’ or ‘principle of nature’ is usually believed to be a later innovation. How much later is a matter of some dispute. In a fragment preserved by Simplicius, Aristotle’s pupil Eudemus of Rhodes seems to identify Plato as the first to call the ‘elementary principles of natural and generated things’ stoicheia. Diels, in his study of the development of the term ‘element’ in Graeco-Roman philosophy, reviews the evidence for Eudemus’ claim and concludes that before Plato nobody had used the term stoicheion with reference to ‘the physical principles’. Some commentators, however, have challenged this conclusion. A common view is that the atomists were the first to use the term for the principles of things; Diels himself acknowledges this possibility, and it is repeated by Burnet. But Burnet also thinks it
How to Argue about Practical Reason
Authors: Wallace R Jay
Published: November 2023

What are the comparative roles of reason and the passions in explaining human motivation and behavior? Accounts of practical reason divide on this central question, with proponents of different views falling into rationalist and Human camps. By ‘rationalist’ accounts of practical reason, I mean accounts which make the characteristically Kantian claim that pure reason can be practical in its issue. To reject this view is to take the Human position that reasoning or ratiocination is not by itself capable of giving rise to a motivation to act. This alternative position is most famously expressed in Hume’s polemical assertion that ‘reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions’ in influencing the will or moving us to act.¹
The Essential Davidson
Authors: Lepore Ernie , Ludwig Kirk
Published: November 2023

The Essential Davidson compiles the most celebrated papers of one of the twentieth century’s greatest philosophers. It distils Donald Davidson’s seminal contributions to our understanding of ourselves, from three decades of essays, into one thematically organized collection. A new, specially written introduction by Ernie Lepore and Kirk Ludwig, two of the world’s leading authorities on his work, offers a guide through the ideas and arguments, shows how they interconnect, and reveals the systematic coherence of Davidson’s worldview. Davidson’s philosophical program is organized around two connected projects. The first is that of understanding the nature of human agency. The second is that of understanding the nature and function of language, and its relation to the world. Accordingly, the first part of the book presents Davidson’s investigation of reasons, causes, and intentions, which revolutionized the philosophy of action. This leads to his notable doctrine of anomalous monism, the view that all mental events are physical events, but that the mental cannot be reduced to the physical. The second part of the book presents the famous essays in which Davidson set out his highly original and influential philosophy of language, which founds the theory of meaning on the theory of truth. These fifteen classic essays will be invaluable for anyone interested in the study of mind and language. Fascinating though they are individually, it is only when drawn together that there emerges a compelling picture of man as a rational linguistic animal whose thoughts, though not reducible to the material, are part of the fabric of the world, and whose knowledge of his own mind, the minds of others, and the world around him is as fundamental to his nature as the power of thought and speech itself.
How is Weakness of the Will Possible?
Authors: Lepore Ernie , Ludwig Kirk
Published: November 2023

An agent’s will is weak if he acts, and acts intentionally, counter to his own best judgement; in such cases we sometimes say he lacks the willpower to do what he knows, or at any rate believes, would, everything considered, be better. It will be convenient to call actions of this kind incontinent actions, or to say that in doing them the agent acts incontinently. In using this terminology I depart from tradition, at least in making the class of incontinent actions larger than usual. But it is the larger class I want to discuss, and I believe it includes all of the actions some philosophers have called incontinent, and some of the actions many philosophers have called incontinent.
Radical Interpretation
Authors: Lepore Ernie , Ludwig Kirk
Published: November 2023

Kurt utters the words ‘Es regnet’ and under the right conditions we know that he has said that it is raining. Having identified his utterance as intentional and linguistic, we are able to go on to interpret his words: we can say what his words, on that occasion, meant. What could we know that would enable us to do this? How could we come to know it? The first of these questions is not the same as the question what we know that enables us to interpret the words of others. For there may easily be something we could know and don’t, knowledge of which would suffice for interpretation, while on the other hand it is not altogether obvious that there is anything we actually know which plays an essential role in interpretation.
Informed Consent and the Expansion of Newborn Screening
Authors: Consent Informed , Screening1 the Expansion of Newborn
Published: November 2023

The moral acceptability and justifiability of a medical procedure seems partly dependent on whether informed consent has been attained. In many situations it is clear why this is so. There is near consensus that patients should have a say in whether to undergo surgery, particularly if there are alternatives available and when there are clear advantages and disadvantages to the different options. It is generally conceded that patients should be in a position to weigh what is important to them. Furthermore, informed consent is undisputedly an effective way to prevent abuse and exploitation of patients, for example in the context of medical research.
Misunderstanding Metaethics: Korsgaard’s Rejection of Realism
Authors: Hussain Nadeem J Z , Shah Nishi
Published: November 2023

Contemporary Kantianism in ethics is often thought of not just as a position within normative ethics but also as an alternative to moral realism. We argue that it is in fact not at all clear how contemporary Kantianism can distinguish itself from moral realism. There are of course many Kantian positions. For reasons of space we have chosen to focus here on the position of one of the most prominent, contemporary Kantians, Christine Korsgaard. Officially our discussion is restricted to her version of Kantianism, though we suspect that the lessons learnt here apply elsewhere.

In our experience, it immediately strikes some as implausible that Korsgaard is actually engaged in metaethics. We grant that there are strains in Korsgaard that suggest an attempt to, so to speak, go ‘‘beyond’’ metaethics. We take up such a reading of Korsgaard elsewhere (Hussain and Shah, 2005b). Here we simply accept at face value the way in which she repeatedly introduces the Kantian view as an alternative to realism. Crucially, she emphasizes that the realism of concern to her is, as she puts it, ‘‘substantive moral realism’’— that is, a view with specific metaphysical, epistemological, and semantic commitments.
“Corpus Linguistics” or “Computer-aided Armchair Linguistics”
Authors: Fillmore Charles J
Published: November 2023

Armchair linguistics does not have a good name in some linguistics circles. A caricature of the armchair linguist is something like this. He sits in a deep soft comfortable armchair, with his eyes closed and his hands clasped behind his head. Once in a while, he opens his eyes, sits up abruptly shouting, “Wow, what a neat fact!”, grabs his pencil, and writes something down. Then he paces around for a few hours in the excitement of having come still closer to knowing what language is really like. (There isn’t anybody exactly like this, but there are some approximations.) Corpus linguistics does not have a good name in some linguistics circles. A caricature of the corpus linguist is something like this. He has all the primary facts that he needs, in the form of a corpus of approximately one zillion running words, and he sees his job as that of deriving secondary facts from his primary facts. At the moment he is busy determining the relative frequencies of the eleven parts of speech as the first word of a sentence versus as the second word of a sentence. (There isn’t anybody exactly like this, but there are some approximations.) These two don’t speak to each other very often, but when they do, the corpus linguist says to the armchair linguist, “Why should I think that what you tell me is true?”, and the armchair linguist says to the corpus linguist, “Why should I think that what you tell me is interesting?” This paper is a report of an armchair linguist who refuses to give up his old ways but who finds profit in being a consumer of some of the resources that corpus linguists have created.
Modality and Other Intensional Categories
Authors: Portner Paul
Published: November 2023

In previous chapters, we’ve taken the strategy of trying to isolate modality from other semantic categories. The purpose of this strategy is to look carefully at the nature of modality in order that we can develop a precise, explanatory theory of it. However, in reality modal semantics is intertwined with many other topics, and in the following sections we will investigate several:

5.1 Temporal semantics, including tense and aspect

5.2 Conditionals

5.3 Mood and evidentiality

The first topic we’ll study in some depth. The second we will examine in a more cursory way, because the literature on conditionals is so vast that another entire volume would be needed. The third will be treated in an even more superficial way, because an entire volume on it is due to appear (Portner, forthcoming).
What ‘s Taxonomy Got to Do with It? ‘Species Integrity ‘, Human Rights, and Science Policy
Authors: Juengst Eric T
Published: November 2023

For the last 25 years, human gene transfer research has been bounded by two simple lines: the line between using gene transfer techniques to cure disease or improve the human design, on one hand, and the line between applying gene transfer techniques to somatic cells or germ-line cells, on the other.The dominant view, received as wisdom in both formal sciences policies and in the rhetoric of scientists, has been that enhancement applications of gene transfer would be too morally problematic, and germ-line applications would be too risky to prospective offspring, at least until the practice of safe and effective somatic cell therapy could be perfected.
Enhancements Are a Moral Obligation
Authors: Harris John
Published: November 2023

If it wasn ‘t good for you it wouldn ‘t be enhancement. In terms of human functioning an enhancement is by definition an improvement on what went before. Not necessarily, as we shall see, an improvement on normal species functioning or species typical functioning, nor are enhancements justifled, as many seem to believe, primarily in terms of their contribution to equal opportunities. There is a continuum between harms and benefits such that the reasons we have to avoid harming others or creating others who will be born in a harmed state are continuous with the reasons we have for conferring benefits on others if we can.
Playing God
Authors: Coady C A J
Published: November 2023

The accusation of ‘ ‘playing God ‘ ‘ is one commonly levelled against proposals to use science and technology to make dramatic changes in the way we live and cope with the many ills, boons, misadventures, and adventures of living today. It is also used in many other contexts to reject a proposed course of action, including, as we shall see later, in the world of sport. I want to scrutinize this charge of playing God to see what it means and what, if anything, it amounts to as a moral criticism. I will not therefore be concerned so much with whether particular proposals fall prey to this accusation, but with what sort of objection those who present it are making.
The Human Prejudice and the Moral Status of Enhanced Beings: What Do We Owe the Gods?
Authors: Savulescu Julian
Published: November 2023

‘ ‘improved posthumans would inevitably come to view the naturals ‘ ‘ as inferior, as a subspecies of humans suitable for exploitation, slavery, or even extermination. Ultimately, it is this prospect of what can be termed ‘ ‘genetic genocide ‘ ‘ that makes cloning combined with genetic engineering a potential weapon of mass destruction, and the biologist who would attempt it a potential bioterrorist.
Flowering plants (Magnoliophyta)
Authors: Magallón Susana
Published: November 2023

Flowering plants (Magnoliophyta, angiosperms) are among the most successful organisms in the history of life. Not only do they encompass an exceptionally vast morphological and phylogenetic diversity, but also they are the major determinants of ecological function and biotic composition in modern terrestrial ecosystems (Fig. 1). Angiosperms constitute a monophyletic group very well supported by molecular data and by a large number of unique traits. These traits include, for example, apical meristems with a two-layered tunica-corpus construction, circular bordered pits lacking margo and torus, and paracytic stomata. Angiosperms share numerous unique reproductive attributes, including the aggregation of pollenand ovule-producing organs into structurally and functionally integrated units, that is, Powers, a bithecal and tetrasporangiate anther, a carpel enclosing the ovules, two integuments surrounding each ovule, a double fertilization process that results in embryo and endosperm, and several whole genome duplications. Concerted eBorts among the international botanical community have led to the recognition of the major clades within angiosperms and to an understanding of their relationships at all phylogenetic levels. Although a few families and genera remain to be phylogenetically placed, and particular regions of the angiosperm tree have for a long-time deAed resolution, a solid understanding of the phylogenetic a1nity of the majority of living angiosperms and of relationships among clades has been achieved. 7is phylogenetic knowledge has been translated into a classification that rePects current understanding of angiosperm evolutionary relationships (1). In this classification, major clades within the angiosperms are treated as orders, and informally named supraordinal clades are also recognized (1, 2).
Cephalopod mollusks (Cephalopoda)
Authors: Lindgrenb Annie , Allcock A Louise
Published: November 2023

The class Cephalopoda is a monophyletic group which can be divided into two subclasses; Nautiloidea and Coleoidea. Nautiloidea contains the nautiluses (Nautilus and Allonautilus), whereas Coleoidea contains the octopuses (Fig. 1), squids, and cuttleAshes. Coleoid cephalopods diBer from nautiloids most notably through the reduction (or complete loss) and internalization of the shell. DeAning features of Coleoidea include a muscular mantle used for locomotion and respiration, the modiAcation of the foot into appendages around the mouth, a closed circulatory system, and complex eyes with lenses, although many of these features have been lost or reduced in various taxa. The widely cited annotated classification of the recent Cephalopoda (1) listed over 700 valid species in 139 genera and 47 families. Here we review the evolutionary relationships and divergence times of the members of the class Cephalopoda. Several alternative classifications have been proposed for relationships within Cephalopoda (2). Herein we follow the classification of Young et al. (3) that generally does not include ranks above the family level; however, we make certain assumptions about rank based on nomenclature and position.
Beetles (Coleoptera)
Authors: McKenna Duane D , Farrell Brian D
Published: November 2023

Beetles (Order Coleoptera) comprise the largest order of animals. With an impact magniAed by their ubiquity, the ecological importance of beetles lies chiePy in the numerous roles they play with plants and fungi, by facilitating reproduction and decomposition, and by directly consuming plant and fungal tissues—and other consumers. Indeed, beetles are part of the food web in nearly every non-marine habitat. Approximately 350,000 living species have been named. Some estimates of the total number of living beetle species are in the millions. Adult beetles can be distinguished from other insects by a suite of features that suit them to a cryptic lifestyle, perhaps most notably, forewings hardened to form elytra. Elytra protect the hindwings and body from mechanical damage, predators, parasites, pathogens, excessive water loss, and other factors thought to constrain habitat use and longevity in other insects (Fig. 1; ref. 1).
Jawless fishes (Cyclostomata)
Authors: Kurakua Shigehiro , Otaa Kinya G , Kuratani Shigeru
Published: November 2023

Cyclostomata consists of two extant orders, Myxiniformes and Petromyzoniformes (1). Myxiniformes contains a single family, Myxinidae that includes 44 species in six genera (2) (hagAshes; Fig. 1). Petromyzoniformes also consists of a single family, Petromyzonidae that includes 41 species in six genera (3) (lampreys, Fig. 1). Historically, hagAshes and lampreys have been classiAed as cyclostomes (“round mouth”) because both have a jawless mouth armed with retractable horny teeth (4). However, some morphological traits in hagAshes (e.g., lack of vertebrae, heart innervation, and eye lens) have been taken to suggest that lampreys are more closely related to jawed vertebrates (gnathostomes) than to hagAshes (5). To settle this controversy, molecular phylogenetic studies have been conducted since the early 1990s using ribosomal DNA genes (6, 7), mitochondrial genes (8–11), and protein-coding genes of the nuclear genomes (12–16). Here we review the phylogenetic relationships and the divergence time of the two families of Cyclostomata.
Swifts, treeswifts, and hummingbirds (Apodiformes)
Authors: Browna Joseph W , Mindella,B David P
Published: November 2023

The neoavian Order Apodiformes is classiAed into three reciprocally monophyletic families (1): Apodidae (swiJs, 100 species; cosmopolitan), Hemiprocnidae (treeswiJs, four species; Asia and Australasia), and the speciose Trochilidae (hummingbirds, 347 species; North and South America). theorder is characterized by small birds with strong Pight muscles which are used in energetic Pight, and have, as the name suggests, diminutive feet with limited function (Fig. 1). Although all apodiforms are insectivorous, hummingbirds are predominantly nectivorous (supplementing their diets with insect prey), and consequently constitute a major pollination vector for many neotropical plants (2). Here, the relationships and divergence times of the families of Apodiformes are reviewed. In the Superorder Neoaves, where the monophyletic status of most traditional multifamily orders has been questioned, Apodiformes has been a refreshing bastion of taxonomic stability. Despite striking superAcial morphological, ecological, and behavioral similarities between the acrobatic swiJs and swallows (Family Hirundinidae, Order Passeriformes), and between the nectivorous hummingbirds and sunbirds (Family Nectariniidae, Order Passeriformes), the monophyletic status of Apodiformes has been well supported in all of the major avian classifications since before Fürbringer (3). A comprehensive historical review of taxonomic treatments is available (4). Recent morphological (5, 6), genetic.
The morphology of nominalizations and the syntax of vP*
Authors: Bierwisch Manfred
Published: November 2023

In a ‘pervasive syntax’ approach to morphologically complex forms, like that of Distributed Morphology (DM in the following), the analysis and structures proposed for a form must also be contained within the analysis of any structure derived from that form. That is, in the same way that the structural analysis for Mary left is contained within the structural analysis for John said that Mary left, the structure for marginalize must be contained within the structure for marginalization.
Different types of muscular dystrophy
Authors: Emery Alan E H
Published: November 2023

There are many different types of muscular dystrophy depending on distribution of predominantly affected muscle groups (Fig. 4.1), severity and prognosis, modes of inheritance, and genetic defects.

It is possible on the basis of the distribution of predominant muscle wasting and weakness, along with certain other features, such as age at onset, to define at least eight major types of muscular dystrophy. Myotonic dystrophy is unique in so many ways that it should perhaps not really be considered a muscular dystrophy; it has been included here for completeness.
Quine ‘s Lecture on Nominalism from the Perspective of a Nominalist
Authors: Chihara Charles
Published: November 2023

Quine begins his lecture on nominalism by stating that he is going to defend the position that, in the long-standing philosophical debate between nominalists and realists (or Platonists), there is something real and meaningful at issue. This dispute is seen to arise from the fact that the nominalist maintains, whereas the realist denies, that the only things that exist are ‘ ‘particulars ‘ ‘. Quine addresses in his lecture a central problem regarding this debate: is there a reasonably clear and precise question being debated by the opposing philosophers, or is it hopelessly vague? As Quine sees it, the Logical Positivist ‘s position that the question being debated is simply meaningless amounts to ‘ ‘burying one ‘s head in the sand ‘ ‘ (p. 9).
Socratic Irony as Pretence
Authors: Ferrari G R F
Published: November 2023

There is a very obvious feature of Socratic irony that has never the less not received the discussion it merits, despite the fact that Socratic irony has been much discussed in recent years by specialists in ancient philosophy. The likely reason that its significance has been missed is that specialists in ancient philosophy are not in the habit of approaching irony as it is approached by contemporary linguists, psychologists, and philosophers of language—or if they are, have not at any rate applied the results of their study to their own field. So they have not paused to consider how the irony that Socrates employs in Plato’s aporetic dialogues should best be analysed when treated as what it appears within the fiction to be: everyday language. Instead their tendency has been to turn immediately to what Socrates’ irony can tell us, at the deepest level, about Socrates as a philosopher. The linguistic technicians, for their part, are not in the habit of including Socratic irony within their range of targets for analysis, preferring to direct their attention to less exotic-seeming data.