Human Nature and Aspiring the Divine: On Antiquity and Transhumanism

Many transhumanists see their respective movement as being rooted in ancient ethical thought. However, this alleged connection between the contemporary transhumanist doctrine and the ethical theory of antiquity has come under attack. In this paper, we defend this connection by pointing out a key similarity between the two intellectual traditions. Both traditions are committed to the “radical transformation thesis”: ancient ethical theory holds that we should assimilate ourselves to the gods as far as possible, and transhumanists hold that we should enhance ourselves beyond the physical and intellectual parameters of being human so as to become posthuman. By considering the two views in tandem, we develop an account of the assimilation directive that is palatable to contemporary readers and provide a view of posthumanism worth wanting

Against the Grain: How the Delineation of Mechanisms Affects Scientific Practices

Biological explanations are often designed to elucidate the general causal relationships that transcend species boundaries. According to popular recent accounts of explanation in biology, successful causal explanation involves specifying a regular causal mechanism. However, because mechanisms describe types of causal chains and types of phenomena, this account of explanation has a harder time answering questions about why and when individuals and populations vary and/or deviate from typical causal chain of events or display differences in the phenomenon. This account of explanation also has a hard time telling us when a certain explanation should apply—it gives us the explanation, given a certain phenomenon, but does not really tell us how to determine whether we are looking at an instance of that type of phenomenon in the first place. These difficulties with mechanistic accounts of explanation are exacerbated when we consider the relationship between the phenomenon and the mechanism that explains it during the process of discovering or filling in the mechanism. Although explanations on this view are explanations of a given phenomenon, just how this phenomenon is characterized can change as we acquire new evidence about both the phenomenon itself and the mechanism that explains the phenomenon. Thus, although it is certainly extremely useful and important to discover, describe, and explain regularities and generalizations, it is also important to understand why, how, and when these generalizations fail to explain. It is thus important to have an account of how to determine the domain of an explanation—the range of instances over which we can expect an explanation to extend—and how to determine whether or not a particular instance of a phenomenon is of a type of phenomenon for which we have described a type of mechanism. This dissertation thus seeks to take seriously the idea that choices made by researchers can shape the explanation, and explores some of the consequences this idea has on our scientific pursuits. The overall goal of this dissertation is thus to draw attention to a set of issues that arise simply as a consequence of the structure of and method of giving explanations in many areas of biology. My hope is that by drawing attention to these issues and describing the particular ways that they can affect our scientific projects we can have another way of evaluating scientific claims, especially interdisciplinary claims that involve giving multi-level explanatio

on the martial arts status of mixed martial arts: 'There are no rules'

Many traditional martial artists assert that MMA is not a martial art, denying that the ‘martial skill’ of MMA constitutes a ‘martial art’, and citing the sportive and entertainment aspects of MMA competitions as antithetical to the spirit of martial arts, lacking the integrity, discipline, and tradition found in martial arts. Today, these criticisms are even more relevant in light of the fact that the typical MMA fighter no longer practices a single discipline but is versed in a variety of techniques and utilizes a variety of strength and conditioning modalities. In addition, with the development of social media and mainstream media’s acceptance of MMA as a legitimate sport, MMA is now more than ever about entertainment. We argue that MMA is a martial art, but it is not always practiced as one. By drawing upon Socrates’ distinction in Plato’s Gorgias between ‘knacks’ and ‘crafts’, we clarify the difference between ‘martial skills’ and ‘martial arts’. Using this distinction, we examine whether the sportive and entertainment aspects of MMA are, in fact, antithetical to the spirit of martial arts. We argue that the latter is, but the former is not