Michael Rota
Biographic Data
| ID | 3873302 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael Rota |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael |
| FAMILY NAME | Rota |
| SIGNATURE | ROTA M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of St. Thomas - Minnesota |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9568-1117 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 8 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
Friends of God and Slaves of Men
Sialylation as an Important Regulator of Antibody Function
Antibodies play a critical role in linking the adaptive immune response to the innate immune system. In humans, antibodies are categorized into five classes, IgG, IgM, IgA, IgE, and IgD, based on constant region sequence, structure, and tropism. In serum, IgG is the most abundant antibody, comprising 75% of antibodies in circulation, followed by IgA at 15%, IgM at 10%, and IgD and IgE are the least abundant. All human antibody classes are post-tr…
On the Definition of Slavery
A number of non‐equivalent definitions of slavery have been offered by historians, sociologists, bodies of international governance and legal scholars. None is clearly adequate. Here I review extant definitions of slavery found in or suggested by Lovejoy, Patterson, Honoré, Bales, Ingram and the League of Nations 1926 Slavery Convention, and argue that each is subject to counterexample. I then attempt to formulate and defend a more adequate defin…
Moral Psychology and Social Change
The examination of a test case, the popular movement to abolish slavery, demonstrates that the insights of recent psychological research about moral judgment and motivated reasoning can contribute to historians' understanding of why large-scale shifts in cultural values occur. Moral psychology helps to answer the question of why the abolitionist movement arose and flourished when and where it did. Analysis of motivated reasoning and the just-worl…
Pascal's wager
Pascal's wager is an argument in support of religious belief (and religious practice) taking its name from the seventeenth century polymath Blaise Pascal. Unlike more traditional arguments for the existence of God, Pascal's wager is a pragmatic argument, concluding not that God exists but that one should wager for God; that is, one should live as if God exists. After an introduction to the elements of decision theory needed to understand the wage…
Causation
Causation
Aquinas used the term ‘agent’ referring to a created substance or to God. Aquinas's concept of substance explains that substances are set apart from accidents by the fact that substances are subsistent things. Aquinas believed that each substance belong to a particular species and has a complete nature common to any other members of that species that there may be. He also mentioned that there is a distinctive set of causal powers corresponding to…
Evolution, providence, and Gouldian contingency
Stephen Jay Gould and others have argued that what we know about evolution implies that human beings are a ‘cosmic accident’. In this paper I examine an argument for Gould's view and then attempt to show that it fails. Contrary to the claims of Gould, Daniel Dennett, and others, it is a mistake to think that what we have learned from evolutionary biology somehow shows that human beings are mere accidents of natural history. Nor does what we know …
No prominent works on this page.
Evolution, providence, and Gouldian contingency
Stephen Jay Gould and others have argued that what we know about evolution implies that human beings are a ‘cosmic accident’. In this paper I examine an argument for Gould's view and then attempt to show that it fails. Contrary to the claims of Gould, Daniel Dennett, and others, it is a mistake to think that what we have learned from evolutionary biology somehow shows that human beings are mere accidents of natural history. Nor does what we know …
Causation
Causation
Aquinas used the term ‘agent’ referring to a created substance or to God. Aquinas's concept of substance explains that substances are set apart from accidents by the fact that substances are subsistent things. Aquinas believed that each substance belong to a particular species and has a complete nature common to any other members of that species that there may be. He also mentioned that there is a distinctive set of causal powers corresponding to…
Pascal's wager
Pascal's wager is an argument in support of religious belief (and religious practice) taking its name from the seventeenth century polymath Blaise Pascal. Unlike more traditional arguments for the existence of God, Pascal's wager is a pragmatic argument, concluding not that God exists but that one should wager for God; that is, one should live as if God exists. After an introduction to the elements of decision theory needed to understand the wage…
Moral Psychology and Social Change
The examination of a test case, the popular movement to abolish slavery, demonstrates that the insights of recent psychological research about moral judgment and motivated reasoning can contribute to historians' understanding of why large-scale shifts in cultural values occur. Moral psychology helps to answer the question of why the abolitionist movement arose and flourished when and where it did. Analysis of motivated reasoning and the just-worl…
On the Definition of Slavery
A number of non‐equivalent definitions of slavery have been offered by historians, sociologists, bodies of international governance and legal scholars. None is clearly adequate. Here I review extant definitions of slavery found in or suggested by Lovejoy, Patterson, Honoré, Bales, Ingram and the League of Nations 1926 Slavery Convention, and argue that each is subject to counterexample. I then attempt to formulate and defend a more adequate defin…
Sialylation as an Important Regulator of Antibody Function
Antibodies play a critical role in linking the adaptive immune response to the innate immune system. In humans, antibodies are categorized into five classes, IgG, IgM, IgA, IgE, and IgD, based on constant region sequence, structure, and tropism. In serum, IgG is the most abundant antibody, comprising 75% of antibodies in circulation, followed by IgA at 15%, IgM at 10%, and IgD and IgE are the least abundant. All human antibody classes are post-tr…
Friends of God and Slaves of Men
Epistemology (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Law (3 works) · Medieval Philosophy and Theology (3 works) · Causation (2 works) · Colonialism, slavery, and trade (2 works) · Historical Philosophy and Science (2 works) · Medieval and Classical Philosophy (2 works) · Political science (2 works)