Renato Fonseca

To better determine the history of modern birds, we performed a genome-scale phylogenetic analysis of 48 species representing all orders of Neoaves using phylogenomic methods created to handle genome-scale data.We recovered a highly resolved tree that confirms previously controversial sister or close relationships.We identified the first divergence in Neoaves, two groups we named Passerea and Columbea, representing independent lineages of diverse and convergently evolved land and water bird species. Among Passerea, we infer the common ancestor of core landbirds to have been an apex predator and confirm independent gains of vocal learning. Among Columbea, we identify pigeons and flamingoes as belonging to sister clades. Even with whole genomes, some of the earliest branches in Neoaves proved challenging to resolve, which was best explained by massive protein-coding sequence convergence and high levels of incomplete lineage sorting that occurred during a rapid radiation after the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction event about 66 million years ago.

The article examines Kant's notion of conceptual extension in order to determine a conception of predication that could integrate, in a coherent fashion, basic theoretical commitments of general logic as he conceived it and the central tenets of his transcendental logic. After a brief overview of the several characterizations of thatnotion in the Kantian corpus, I distinguish three interpretative models concerning it in the literature. Such models are criticized and their prospects of integrating Kant's commitments in a fully satisfactory way are rejected. Finally, I sketch an alternative account of Kant's notion of conceptual extension, which respects the criteria of adequacy that guided the examination of the former models. It points, on its turn, to a revaluation of Kant's notion of conceptual content.