WHAT THE INTERNALIST SHOULD SAY TO THE TORTOISE

Episteme ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Fumerton
Keyword(s):  
Infinite Regress ◽  
Easy Knowledge ◽  
Inferential Justification ◽  
Justified Belief ◽  
Upper Limit ◽  
Short Piece ◽  
Vicious Regress

Carroll's (1895) short piece “What the Tortoise said to Achilles” in many ways anticipates issues that arise in a number of contemporary controversies. One might argue, for example, that initially plausible attempts to deal with the problem of easy knowledge will land one in the unfortunate position of Achilles who followed the Tortoise down a road that leads to vicious infinite regress. Or consider the conditions required for inferential justification. For idealized inferential justification, I have defended (1995, 2004, 2006) the view that to be justified in believing P on the basis of E one needs to be not only justified in believing E, but justified in believing that E makes probable P (where entailment is the upper limit of making probable). And again, critics have argued that such a strong requirement fails to learn the lesson that Achilles should have been taught by the Tortoise. Even more generally, one might well argue that strong access internalists will need to deal with a variation of Carroll's puzzle even for their accounts of non-inferential justification. In this paper I'll examine these controversies with a mind to reaching a conclusion about just exactly how one can accept intellectually demanding conditions on justified belief without encountering vicious regress.

Relations and Infinite Regress in Plato

Dialogue ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 537-542
Author(s):  
Spiro Panagiotou
Keyword(s):  
Infinite Regress ◽  
Vicious Regress ◽  
Theory Of Forms

In a recent paper on “The Theory of Forms, Relations and Infiinite Regress” (Dialogue, Vol. 8 [1969–70], 116 ff.), T. G. Smith claims to have trapped Plato's theory of Forms in a vicious regress. According to Smith, the regress is “the consequence of 1) Plato's view that there are Forms for relations; 2) The view that the exemplifications of Forms are derivative and owe their lesser degree of reality to their relationship to their Form; 3) the consequence that each relation between a set of particulars and their Form must be intelligibly distinct and different from the relation holding between all other sets of particulars and their respective forms [Forms ?]” (p. 121). I have no particular quarrel with (1) and (2), but I cannot agree with (3). In what follows I hope to show that (3) not only cannot be extracted from Plato but it is patently false. In section I I shall outline Smith's argument. I shall then present in section II my case against it. I shall make some general remarks in section III.

Skepticism and Circular Arguments

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 253-270
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Inferential Justification ◽  
Justified Belief

Perhaps the most popular and historically important way of responding to skepticism is by an appeal to non-inferential justification. A problem with this sort of response is that while it may constitute a response to skepticism, it does not constitute a response to the skeptic. At some point, the anti-skeptic must simply fall silent, resigned to the fact that his or her non-inferential justification for the belief challenged by the skeptic is not communicable. I want to point out a possible solution to this problem. I will argue that, in certain circumstances, it is possible to adduce circular arguments which are nevertheless rationally persuasive, and that the anti-skeptic may employ these arguments in lieu of simply falling silent when a non-inferentially justified belief is challenged. The almost universal assumption among philosophers that epistemically circular arguments are rationally useless is mistaken, and this fact can be utilized by the clever anti-skeptic.

Graves'-Basedow disease in pregnancy

2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (03) ◽  
pp. 106-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. L. Andersen ◽  
P. Laurberg
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Birth Defects ◽  
Thyroid Dysfunction ◽  
National Study ◽  
Antithyroid Drugs ◽  
Upper Limit ◽  
Special Concern ◽  
Maternal Thyroid ◽  
Toxic Reactions ◽  
Serum Tsh

SummaryThyroid hormones are essential development factors and maternal thyroid dysfunction may cause pregnancy complications and diseases in the fetus/child. In the present review we discuss new data on the incidence of Graves'-Basedow disease (GBD) in and around pregnancy, and how hyperthyroidism may affect the risk of spontaneous abortion and stillbirth.A special concern in pregnant women is the potential side effects from the use of antithyroid drugs (ATDs). One type of side effects is the allergic/toxic reactions to the drugs, which seem to be similar in and outside pregnancy, and another is that ATDs tend to over treat the fetus when the mother with GBD is made euthyroid. To avoid fetal hypothyroidism, the lowest possible ATD dose should be used to keep maternal thyroid function at the upper limit of normality with low serum TSH. Birth defects after the use of methimazole (MMI) (or its prodrug carbimazole) have been considered to be very rare, and no risk has previously been associated with the use of propylthiouracil (PTU). However, a recent Danish national study found that 1/30 of children exposed to MMI in early pregnancy had birth defects associated with this, and many defects were severe. PTU exposure was associated with defects in 1/40, and these defects were less severe. Proposals are given on how to reduce the risk of ATD associated birth defects.

Quantitative Radioisotope Measurement of Duodenogastric Reflux in Patients with Ulcer or Gastrectomized for Ulcer

1985 ◽  
Vol 24 (03) ◽  
pp. 107-110
Author(s):  
M. Pääkkönen ◽  
S. Aukee ◽  
K. Korhonen ◽  
A. Pääkkönen ◽  
E. Länsimies ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gamma Camera ◽  
Background Activity ◽  
Bile Reflux ◽  
Duodenogastric Reflux ◽  
Upper Limit ◽  
Visual Evidence ◽  
Biochemical Measurement

SummaryIn this work the duodenogastric reflux was quantified as the amount of radioactivity entering the stomach after an i.v. administration of 99mmTc-HIDA in ulcer patients and in patients who had undergone BI gastrectomy. The results were compared with visual evidence of gastric activity in the gamma camera images and biochemical determination of gastric bile reflux. The method is useful in quantifying the reflux if the activity is above the background activity. It allows the determination of an upper limit for the reflux when the reflux is evident visually. Only two or three images are needed for the quantitation. No correlation was found between biochemical measurement of fasting bile reflux in the stomach and radioisotopic quantification.

Vitamin-A-Exzess durch Pferdefleischprodukte mit hohen Leberanteilen

2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (01) ◽  
pp. 31-36
Author(s):  
E. Kienzle ◽  
N. Becker
Keyword(s):  
Vitamin A ◽  
Eine Analyse ◽  
Upper Limit ◽  
Upper Limits

ZusammenfassungIm Rahmen einer Eliminationsdiät wird regelmäßig Pferdefleisch eingesetzt. Aus Gründen der Praktikabilität verwenden Tierbesitzer häufig kommerziell erhältliches Pferdefleisch aus der Dose. Aufgrund eines Berichts von Zervikalspondylosen bei einer auf Futtermittel allergischen Katze erfolgte eine Analyse verschiedener auf Pferdefleisch basierender Produkte hinsichtlich des Vitamin-AGehalts.In 14 Pferdefleischerzeugnissen wurde der Vitamin-A-Gehalt (Retinol) analysiert. Der Gehalt an umsetzbarer Energie wurde mithilfe von Schätzformeln auf Basis der Deklaration berechnet.In Produkten mit deklarierten Anteilen von Leber, Innereien oder tierischen Nebenprodukten konnten zum Teil erhebliche Vitamin-A-Gehalte festgestellt werden. Bei alleiniger Verfütterung eines dieser Produkte (Deckung des durchschnittlichen Energiebedarfs) würde die Vitamin-A-Versorgung nur knapp unter dem Safe Upper Limit der Katze sowie oberhalb des Safe Upper Limits beim Hund liegen.Bei All-Meat-Produkten sollte nicht nur die Deklaration, sondern auch der Inhalt näher betrachtet werden, um einen Hinweis auf eventuell hohe Leberanteile zu erhalten.Aufgrund der Ergebnisse ist eine exzessive Vitamin-A-Aufnahme bei langfristiger Verfütterung von Pferdefleischprodukten mit hohen Leberanteilen nicht auszuschließen.

An International Collaborative Study to Investigate Standardisation of Hirudin Potency

1993 ◽  
Vol 69 (05) ◽  
pp. 430-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Longstaff ◽  
Man-Yu Wong ◽  
Patrick J Gaffney
Keyword(s):  
Specific Activity ◽  
Collaborative Study ◽  
Residual Activity ◽  
Quality Standard ◽  
Upper Limit ◽  
Assay Procedure ◽  
Specific Activities ◽  
International Collaborative ◽  
Range Of Values ◽  
International Collaborative Study

SummaryAn international collaborative study has been carried out to investigate the reproducibility of hirudin assays in 13 laboratories using four recombinant hirudins and one natural, sulphated product. A simple assay procedure was proposed involving the titration of α-thrombin with inhibitor and measurement of residual activity using a chromogenic substrate. A standard α-thrombin preparation was supplied to ensure that this reagent was of uniform quality throughout the study. The method appeared to present no difficulties and laboratories reported similar potencies for the 5 hirudin samples, in line with expected values. This gave 200–222 Thrombin Inhibitory Units/ampoule (TIU/ampoule) of lyophilised hirudin, with geometric coefficient of variation (gcv) values ranging from 10.15–15.97%. This corresponds to specific activities of approximately 14,300–15,900 TIU/mg protein. This is close to the upper limit of previously reported values of specific activity. We conclude that the precision of this determination compared with the wider range of values in the literature (8,000–16,000 thrombin inhibitory units [TIU]/mg) results from the use of good quality standard α-thrombin by all laboratories. This study has important implications for hirudin standardisation.

Editor’s Corner: Critics or Caretakers?

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 38-39
Author(s):  
Philip Tite
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Short Piece ◽  
Short Essay ◽  
Academic Study

A short essay, in responding to an online roundtable (the Religious Studies Project), explores the role of progressive ideology in the academic study of religion, specifically with a focus on debates over Russell McCutcheon's distinction between scholars functioning as cultural critics or caretakers of religious traditions. This short piece is part of the "Editor's Corner" (an occasional section of the Bulletin where the editors offer provocative musings on theoretical challenges facing the discipline).

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