Portraits in painting and photography

In this paper, we offer an analysis of ‘group intentions.’ On our proposal, group intentions should be understood as a state of equilibrium among the beliefs of the members of a group. Although the discussion in this paper is non-technical, the equilibrium concept is drawn from the formal theory of interactive epistemology due to Robert Aumann. The goal of this paper is to provide an analysis of group intentions that is informed by important work in economics and formal epistemology.     

The Meaning and the Ends of Teaching Religion

This paper explores the relationship between assessment and ethical value. It starts by reflecting on the traditional assessment convention that distinguishes strongly between process (the ways in which a student constructs a piece of work) and conclusion. The paper then examines three case studies from Holocaust studies, feminist theology, and Providence. The argument of the paper is that these three case studies illustrate that imparting certain values is part of the teaching process, and therefore it should not be excluded from assessment.     

Intelligence and finance

This paper explore the effect of intelligence on financial development using data from 180 nations, over the period 2000–2012. The results provide strong support for the claim that intelligence is positively associated with the supply of finance to economy. This paper establishes that, moving from country with the mean IQ score (84.1) to the highest national IQ score (107.1) is associated with 3.6 fold increase in the size of banking sector. The positive effect of intelligence remains intact when we control for other antecedents of financial development.     

Human Foibles and Psychoanalytic Technique: Freud,Ferenczi, and Gizella Palos

This paper explores relations between human conundrums and psychoanalytic technique and theory through the relationship between Freud and Ferenczi. Rather than vilify (or lionize) either figure, the paper seeks to see into their struggles and conflicts, and to draw from correspondence and writings a portrait of a relationship. The paper describes not two dusty figures drawn from the closet of history but rather two live, flawed, and struggling human beings whose rational ideas about what they were doing could never keep step with their emotions. There is therefore much to be learned from their relationship: about transference and countertransference, about boundaries and friendship, about rivalry and despair, and about shame.     

Supersubstantivalism and vague location

One well-known objection to supersubstantivalism is that it is inconsistent with the contingency of location. This paper presents a new objection to supersubstantivalism: it is inconsistent with the vagueness of location. Though contingency and vagueness are formally similar, there are important philosophical differences between the two. As a result, the objection from vague location will be structurally different than the objection from contingent location. The paper explores these differences and then defends the argument that supersubstantivalism is inconsistent with the plausible thesis that it is vague where I am located.

     

Love,Value and Supervenience*

Abstract

People are prone to ascribe value to persons they love. However, the relation between love and value is far from straightforward. This is particularly evident given certain views on the nature of love. Setting out from the idea that what causes us to have an attitude towards an object need not be found in the intentional content of the attitude, this paper depicts love as an attitude that takes non‐fungible persons as intentional objects. Taking this view as a starting point, the paper shows why it is difficult to combine with certain views on value. The main challenge comes from the idea that value judgments are universalizable. This view squares badly with the thought that the people whom we love are irreplaceable. Introducing the idea that properties may have different functions in the intentional content of the attitude, this paper determines what precisely it is about love that makes it hard to combine with universalizability. Moreover, it suggests two ways of meeting this challenge.     

Boltzmann and Epistemology

Synthese - This paper is an attempt to clarify why Ludwig Boltzmann from about 1895 to 1905 seemed to adopt a series of extreme epistemological positions, ranging from phenomenalism to pragmatism,...     

Trust and Trustworthiness

What is it to trust someone? What is it for someone to be trustworthy? These are the two main questions that this paper addresses. There are various situations that can be described as ones of trust, but this paper considers the issue of trust between individuals. In it, I suggest that trust is distinct from reliance or cases where someone asks for something on the expectation that it will be done due to the different attitude taken by the trustor. I argue that the trustor takes Holton’s ‘participant stance’ and this distinguishes trust from reliance. I argue that trustworthiness is different from reliability and that an account of trustworthiness cannot be successful whilst ignoring the point that aligning trustworthiness with reliability removes the virtue from being trustworthy. On the question of what it is distinguishes trustworthiness from reliability, I argue that the distinction is in the opportunity for the trustee to act against the wishes of the trustor and the trustee’s consideration of the value of the trust that has been placed in them by the trustor.     

The justification and selection of scientific theories

This paper is a critique of a project, outlined by Laudan et al. (1986) recently in this journal, for empirically testing philosophical models of change in science by comparing them against the historical record of actual scientific practice. While the basic idea of testing such models of change in the arena of science is itself an appealing one, serious questions can be raised about the suitability of seeking confirmation or disconfirmation for large numbers of specific theses drawn from a massive list of claims abstracted from the writings of a few philosophers of science. The present paper discusses what one might reasonably expect from a model of change in science and then compares some clusters of theses from Laudan et al. with developments in recent theoretical physics. The results suggest that such straightforward testing of theses may be largely inconclusive.The research reported in this paper was partially supported by NSF grants SES-8318884 and SES-8606472. A preliminary version of this paper was read at the Conference on Testing Theories of Scientific Change held at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, October 20–22, 1986.     

Constructing a scientific paper: Howell's prothrombin laboratory notebook and paper

Scientists generally record their laboratory activities and experimental results in notebooks, from which they construct scientific papers. The Johns Hopkins physiologist William Henry Howell kept a laboratory notebook from 1913 to 1914, in which he recorded experiments on the blood clotting factor prothrombin. In 1914 he published a paper using this notebook, to justify his theory of prothrombin activation. Howell's paper is reconstructed, in terms of its narrative and argument elements, from the laboratory activities and experimental results recorded in the notebook. This reconstruction reveals an intimate connection between the two texts and the process by which Howell constructed a scientific paper. The generation of scientific knowledge by Howell is then evaluated, especially in terms of theory formation and justification.     

Doing and refraining from refraining

The main purpose of this paper is to prove that in everystit semantic structure that contains a busy choice sequence, neither does doing imply refraining from refraining from doing, nor does refraining from refraining from doing imply doing.     

Fairness, Respect and the Egalitarian Ethos Revisited

This paper reconsiders some themes and arguments from my earlier paper “Fairness, Respect and the Egalitarian Ethos.” That work is often considered to be part of a cluster of papers attacking “luck egalitarianism” on the grounds that insisting on luck egalitarianism’s standards of fairness undermines relations of mutual respect among citizens. While this is an accurate reading, the earlier paper did not make its motivations clear, and the current paper attempts to explain the reasons that led me to write the earlier paper, assesses the force of its arguments, and locates it in respect to work of Richard Arneson and Elizabeth Anderson. The paper concludes by bringing out what now appears to be the main message of the earlier paper: that the attempt to implement an “ideal” theory of equality can harm the very people that the theory is designed to help.     

Islam and the Environment: theory and practice

The paper discusses some aspects of the industrialisation effects on the natural environment in the Middle East in general. While Islam as a religion has a deep sense of respect and consideration for the natural environment (Izzi Dien, 1990), the current status quo in Muslim countries is not noticeably different to that in the rest of the world. The paper submits that this is because industrial culture has overtaken traditional culture leading to the prevalence of materialistic values over the intrinsic.

The paper maintains that Islam provides a paradigm solution for many forms of environmental degradation, including that of water distribution. The proposal does not preclude other, non‐Islamic, regional states from a fair share of water, nor does it deny that international law is the main arbitrator in resolving disputes. However the paper underlines Islam's role as an important potential ground for settling disputes from which international law may proceed. The examples discussed are only models and the author acknowledges that other cities such as Beirut, Baghdad, Teheran, and Jerusalem also warrant study.     

Militant atheism,pragmatism, and the God-shaped hole

This paper addresses recent examples of militant atheism. It considers the theistic reply that describes atheism as deriving from a “God-shaped hole” in the human soul. The paper will argue that American pragmatism offers a middle path that avoids militant atheism without suffering from this problem. The paper describes this middle path and considers the problem that is seen in Rorty’s recent work: how the pragmatist can remain critical of religious fundamentalism without succumbing to a militant version of atheism. The solution proposed is tolerant acceptance of religion along with melioristic criticism developed within shared norms of inquiry.     

经验医学与腰椎间盘突出症的认知史

众所周知,腰椎间盘突出症是一种脊柱退变性疾病。本病的发现历史只有70多年,但它的存在历史却至少有几千年了。本文从有记载开始的古代文明回顾了腰椎间盘突出症的存在和发现过程,特别强调经验医学在疾病认知过程中的重要作用。本文还重点提出当代保守治疗和手术治疗的进展和原则变化情况。另外,根据最近的临床研究,本文认为,脊柱力学平衡在保守治疗过程中应该引起足够的临床重视。     

Perceptual systems and realism

Constructivism undermines realism by arguing that experience is mediated by concepts, and that there is no direct way to examine those aspects of objects that belong to them independently of our conceptualizations; perception is theory-laden. To defend realism one has to show first that perception relates us directly with the world without any intermediary conceptual framework. The result of this direct link is the nonconceptual content of experience. Second, one has to show that part of the nonconceptual content extracted from the environment correctly represents features of mind independent objects. With regard to the first condition, I have argued elsewhere that a part of visual processing, which I call “perception,” is theory-neutral and nonconceptual. In this paper, facing the second demand, I argue that a part of the nonconceptual content of perception presents properties that are the properties of mind independent objects. I claim first that nonconceptual content is the appropriate level of analysis of the issue of realism since it avoids the main problems besetting various types of analysis of the issue at the level of beliefs about the world. Then I claim that a subset of the nonconceptual content presents features of objects in the environment as they really are. This paper was mostly written when I was a fellow at the Center of Philosophy of Science in the University of Pittsburgh during the Spring Semester of 2005–2006. A draft of this paper was presented both at the Center’s colloquium and at one of the informal discussion meetings of the fellows. I have very much benefited from the discussion that followed the presentation of the paper and so I would like to thank Gabriele de Anna, Carla Fehr, Malcolm Forster, Lilly Gurova, Nikolay Milkov, and Wang Wei. I am especially indebted to the director of the Center Professor John Norton whose astute comments made me think hard about the issues discussed in the paper. Several of my arguments in Sect. 4 are the result of John’s concerns with the earlier draft of the paper. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for helping me clarify several points in the paper. Thanks to them (especially the second one) the paper is considerably better than it would have been without them.     

Solidarity and Community Engagement in Global Health Research

Abstract

Community engagement (CE) is gaining prominence in global health research. A number of ethical goals–spanning the instrumental, intrinsic, and transformative–have been ascribed to CE in global health research. This paper draws attention to an additional transformative value that CE is not typically linked to but that seems very relevant: solidarity. Both are concerned with building relationships and connecting parties that are distant from one another. This paper first argues that furthering solidarity should be recognized as another ethical goal for CE in global health research. It contends that, over time, CE can build the bases of solidaristic relationships—moral imagination, recognition, understanding, empathy—between researchers and community members. Applying concepts from existing accounts of solidarity, the paper develops preliminary ideas about who should be engaged and how to advance solidarity. The proposed approach is compared to current CE practice in global health research. Finally, the paper briefly considers how solidaristic CE could affect how global health research is performed.     

The physicist and philosophy

Journal for General Philosophy of Science - The central thesis of this paper is that physicists have as much to learn from scientifically oriented philosophy as philosophers have to learn from...     

Three Different Approaches to Virtue in Business- Aristotle,Confucius, and Lao Zi

The proposed paper presents an overview on the matter of virtue from different philosophical angles. It concentrates on three different schools of thought coming from the West and the East and their respective concepts of virtue. These schools of thought and the therewith-associated personalities and works discussed in this paper are Aristotelian virtue ethics, Confucianism and Daoism. The paper focuses specifically on the Nicomachean Ethics (NE) by Aristotle, the Analects belonging to Confucianism, and the Dao De Jing coming from Daoism. The paper is divided into three major parts. First, the concept of virtue of each school is outlined. In the second part, the concrete virtues as such according to each school are explained. In the third part, these virtues are then applied in specific business contexts like business practice, corporate culture and leadership, illuminating each school’s characteristic approach. The paper closes with a summary and conclusion. In the conclusion the paper outlines differences as well as similarities between Aristotelian and Confucian virtue ethics. Yet, the author generally takes a critical stance towards comparisons merely for the sake of finding similarities. Particularly between Aristotelian and Confucian virtue ethics there is a significant difference when it comes to the cultural and historical background of these schools, which should not be ignored. Besides, even within Chinese philosophy there are already significant differences when it comes to concepts and practice.