A great deal of effort has been, and continues to be, devoted to developing consciousness artificially (A small selection of the many authors writing in this area includes: Cotterill (J Conscious Stud 2:290–311, 1995 , 1998 ), Haikonen ( 2003 ), Aleksander and Dunmall (J Conscious Stud 10:7–18, 2003 ), Sloman ( 2004 , 2005 ), Aleksander ( 2005 ), Holland and Knight ( 2006 ), and Chella and Manzotti ( 2007 )), and yet a similar amount of effort has (...) gone in to demonstrating the infeasibility of the whole enterprise (Most notably: Dreyfus ( 1972/1979 , 1992 , 1998 ), Searle ( 1980 ), Harnad (J Conscious Stud 10:67–75, 2003 ), and Sternberg ( 2007 ), but there are a great many others). My concern in this paper is to steer some navigable channel between the two positions, laying out the necessary pre-conditions for consciousness in an artificial system, and concentrating on what needs to hold for the system to perform as a human being or other phenomenally conscious agent in an intersubjectively-demanding social and moral environment. By adopting a thick notion of embodiment—one that is bound up with the concepts of the lived body and autopoiesis (Maturana and Varela 1980 ; Varela et al. 2003 ; and Ziemke 2003 , 2007a , J Conscious Stud 14(7):167–179, 2007b )—I will argue that machine phenomenology is only possible within an embodied distributed system that possesses a richly affective musculature and a nervous system such that it can, through action and repetition, develop its tactile-kinaesthetic memory, individual kinaesthetic melodies pertaining to habitual practices, and an anticipatory enactive kinaesthetic imagination. Without these capacities the system would remain unconscious, unaware of itself embodied within a world. Finally, and following on from Damasio’s ( 1991 , 1994 , 1999 , 2003 ) claims for the necessity of pre-reflective conscious, emotional, bodily responses for the development of an organism’s core and extended consciousness, I will argue that without these capacities any agent would be incapable of developing the sorts of somatic markers or saliency tags that enable affective reactions, and which are indispensable for effective decision-making and subsequent survival. My position, as presented here, remains agnostic about whether or not the creation of artificial consciousness is an attainable goal. (shrink)

The roots of the controversial readings of Spinoza during Soviet times date back to the history of Russian Marxism. Spinoza was a most influential figure whom different Marxist currents and thinkers wanted to have on their side. This article examines the most relevant interpretations. First, it sketches some fundamental traits of Plekhanov’s understanding of Spinoza’s ontology and epistemology, from his critique of German revisionism at the end of the 1890s to his polemics against empiriocriticism and its Russian impact. Spinoza was (...) a particularly relevant and authoritative thinker for the so-called “Machists” as well, and some of their different interpretations are analyzed as representing their critical approach to Marxism. Finally, Lunacharskiiʼs discussion is considered as a peculiar alternative to Plekhanov’s orthodox understanding not only of Spinoza but of Marxism itself. While Plekhanov judged Spinoza’s “theological” language a relic of his epoch, Lunacharskii maintained that it was precisely his “religious” feelings that made Spinoza a forerunner of Marxism. (shrink)

This article argues that certain philosophically devised quality control parameters should guide approaches to interdisciplinary education. We sketch the kind of reflections we think are necessary in order to produce epistemologically responsible curricula. We suggest that the two overarching epistemic dimensions of levels of analysis and basic viewpoints go a long way towards clarifying the structure of interdisciplinary validity claims. Through a discussion of how best to teach basic ideas about numeracy in Mind, Brain, and Education, we discuss what it (...) means for an interdisciplinary curriculum to respect both the minds of students and the complexity of the subject matter. (shrink)

The neurobiology of affection is becoming established as a new sub-discipline that focuses on the study and understanding of human emotional experience. It is a scientific discipline that has emerged from neurosciences, on the basis that we can now only advance towards a global understanding of human emotions and of their alterations by widening the horizons and methods available to study the emotional life. Here, we present the current contrast between the phenomenological and the neuroscientific analysis of emotions. We propose (...) that it is necessary to maintain an interdisciplinary dialogue between these two approaches and we think that this complementation will be especially beneficial for the field of clinical neuroscience and anthropology. (shrink)

Peter Strawson holds that on a proper conception of personhood, the problem of Other Minds does not arise. I suggest that the viability of his proposal depends on a particular account of person perception. I argue that neither the theory theory nor the simulation theory of mindreading constitutes a suitable basis for this account. I then go on to defend Peter Hobson's notion of 'feeling perception' as an intersubjectivist alternative that, if properly developed, delivers a basis for a viable account (...) of person perception. In developing that alternative, I draw on John Campbell's suggestion that self-understanding is constituted, in part, by an understanding of oneself as a cause of many events. (shrink)

If education is to make a difference it is widely acknowledged that we must aim to educate for understanding, but this means being clear about what we mean by understanding. This paper argues for a concept of personal understanding, recognising both the commonality and individuality of each pupil's understandings, and the relationship between understanding and interpretation, analysis and synopsis, and the quest for meaning. In supporting this view, the paper advocates an emergentist notion of person‐hood, and considers the neurophysiological reasons (...) for asserting the individuality of human minds, brains, and the creation of personal meanings. The notion of personal meanings would, however, seem to run counter to the post‐modern denial of the autonomous self, and the tradition in philosophy, most recently stemming from Wittgenstein, that insists that meanings and understandings are essentially social, and not personal—a view also advocated by John White in regard to education. In contrast, this paper argues that meanings and understandings are both social and personal. Once we reinstate the notion of personal minds and personal understandings, alongside the social, we may see more clearly what it means to educate for understanding, and why this might begin to make a difference. (shrink)

This commentary argues that theories of cognitive control risk being incomplete unless they incorporate social/emotional factors. Social factors very likely played a critical role in the evolution of human cognitive control abilities, and emotional states are the primary regulatory mechanisms of cognitive control.

This paper holds an evolutionary approach to musical semantics. Revolving around the nature/nurture dichotomy, it considers the role of the dispositional machinery to respond to sounding stimuli. Conceiving of music as organized sound, it stresses the dynamic tension between music as a collection of vibrational events and their potential of being structured. This structuring, however, is not gratuitous. It depends on levels of processing that rely on evolutionary older levels of reacting to the sounds as well as higher-level functions of (...) the brain, which allow listeners to emancipate themselves from mere acoustic processing of sounds to the level of epistemic interactions with the sounding music. These interactions are partly autonomous and partly constrained, but they all stress the realization of systemic cognition in the context of a living system‘s interactions with the environment. As such, listeners can be conceived as adaptive devices, which can build up new semiotic linkages with the sounding world. (shrink)

Given that psychologists of religion as a scientific community so far have shown little interest in neurobiology, and neurobiology may become important for our field in the not too distant future, an attempt is made to present and discuss neurobiology and its conceivable interactions with psychology of religion. The long-standing debate about the philosophical grounding of the mind-body problem is recalled, as well as the scope of neurobiology and its research methods. Psychology of religion may assist neurobiology by providing research (...) data that could serve as material for constructing testable neurobiological hypotheses, data resulting, for instance, from studying an individual's perception of God and the numinous, the psychological characteristics of meditation, deep prayer, contemplation, etc. Psychology of religion could benefit from neurobiology, for assessing differing theoretical concepts regarding, for instance, religious experiences, and for constructing dynamic models of religious development. Possible roadblocks on the way to connecting psychology of religion and neurobiology are pointed out and literature for further reading is provided. (shrink)

This study applies evolution theory to visual ethics and argues that social comparison theory favored by scholars of eating disorders is actually a Darwinian maladaptation to the media's widespread digital manipulation of women's bodies creating the thin ideal. An evolutionary perspective suggests how the media is enmeshed and why social comparison of the mediated ?mono-body? will continue. This study has three sections: 1) evolution theory and morality; 2) social comparison, biology of the social gaze, and anthropological evidence of Western media's (...) role in the global rise of eating disorders; and 3) rethinking visual ethics to expand Newton's (2001) mass interpersonal relationship. (shrink)

In this transdisciplinary article which stems from philosophical considerations (that depart from phenomenology—after Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger and Rosen—and Hegelian dialectics), we develop a conception based on topological (the Moebius surface and the Klein bottle) and geometrical considerations (based on torsion and non-orientability of manifolds), and multivalued logics which we develop into a unified world conception that surmounts the Cartesian cut and Aristotelian logic. The role of torsion appears in a self-referential construction of space and time, which will be further related to (...) the commutator of the True and False operators of matrix logic, still with a quantum superposed state related to a Moebius surface, and as the physical field at the basis of Spencer-Brown’s primitive distinction in the protologic of the calculus of distinction. In this setting, paradox, self-reference, depth, time and space, higher-order non-dual logic, perception, spin and a time operator, the Klein bottle, hypernumbers due to Musès which include non-trivial square roots of ±1 and in particular non-trivial nilpotents, quantum field operators, the transformation of cognition to spin for two-state quantum systems, are found to be keenly interwoven in a world conception compatible with the philosophical approach taken for basis of this article. The Klein bottle is found not only to be the topological in-formation for self-reference and paradox whose logical counterpart in the calculus of indications are the paradoxical imaginary time waves, but also a classical-quantum transformer (Hadamard’s gate in quantum computation) which is indispensable to be able to obtain a complete multivalued logical system, and still to generate the matrix extension of classical connective Boolean logic. We further find that the multivalued logic that stems from considering the paradoxical equation in the calculus of distinctions, and in particular, the imaginary solutions to this equation, generates the matrix logic which supersedes the classical logic of connectives and which has for particular subtheories fuzzy and quantum logics. Thus, from a primitive distinction in the vacuum plane and the axioms of the calculus of distinction, we can derive by incorporating paradox, the world conception succinctly described above. (shrink)

This paper confronts the modern findings of neuroscience presented in the works of Antonio Damasio with classic and contemporary concepts regarding the phenomenon of self / identity developed on the basis of the social sciences. In my view, both types of consideration involve illegitimate reduction of presented phenomena either by inadequate analysis of social entities, or by underestimating their biological basis.

Drawing on insights from evolutionary psychology and modern neuroscience, this paper highlights propositions about human nature that have far reaching consequences, when applied to leadership. We specifically examine the main factors of human survival and extend them to a model for leadership in the twenty-first century. The discussion concludes with an outlook on the organizational and structural conditions that would allow for better and more balanced leadership.

Emotions are often met with suspicion in political debates about risky technologies, because they are seen as contrary to rational decision making. However, recent emotion research rejects such a dichotomous view of reason and emotion, by seeing emotions as an important source of moral insight. Moral emotions such as compassion and feelings of responsibility and justice can play an important role in judging ethical aspects of technological risks, such as justice, fairness, and autonomy. This article discusses how this idea can (...) be integrated into approaches for political decision making about risk. The article starts with an analysis of the dichotomous view of reason and emotion in risk theory, in approaches to participatory risk assessment as well as in relevant approaches to political philosophy. This article then presents alternative approaches in political philosophy and political theory that do explicitly endorse the importance of emotions. Based on these insights, a procedural approach for policy making is presented, in which emotional responses to technological risks, and the ethical concerns that lie behind them, are taken seriously. This approach allows for morally better political decisions about risky technologies and a better understanding between experts and laypeople. (shrink)

El objetivo del presente trabajo es analizar la dificultad y los límites para comprender el significado ético de las decisiones profesionales. Éstas denotan tensiones dialécticas entre lo que el individuo considera su responsabilidad directa y las condiciones en las cuales se ve obligado a actuar y no puede controlar. En otras palabras, se cree actuar con buenas intenciones y razones legítimas y termina determinado por una cadena de acciones que lo llevan a un colapso del significado moral, tanto de sí (...) mismo y del valor del acto en sí, lo cual se convierte en un argumento para justificar la violencia de sus actos. Proponemos que la ética puede comprender estas tensiones si se toman en cuenta las problemáticas existenciales internas de la persona que decide, como son la angustia y la desesperación en conjunto con las aportaciones de las teorías del comportamiento y la comunicación organizacional. Para ello se analiza el caso de las decisiones del fraude financiero llevado a cabo por Bernard Madoff. (shrink)

This chapter presents emotion as a function of brain-body interaction, as a vital part of a multi-tiered phylogenetic set of neural mechanisms, evoked by both instinctive processes and learned appraisal systems, and argues to establish the primacy of emotion in relation to cognition. Primarily based on Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis, but also incorporating elements of Lazarus' appraisal theory, this paper presents a neuropedagogical model of emotion, the somatic appraisal model of affect (SAMA). SAMA identifies quintessential components, facets, and functions of (...) affect necessary to provide a new domain, namely educational neuroscience, with a basis on which to build a dynamic model of affect serving to critique traditional cognitivist-oriented curricula and instruction, and to inform an alternative: neuropedagogy. (shrink)

The position advanced in this paper is that the bedrock of emotional feelings is contained within the evolved emotional action apparatus of mammalian brains. This dual-aspect monism approach to brain–mind functions, which asserts that emotional feelings may reflect the neurodynamics of brain systems that generate instinctual emotional behaviors, saves us from various conceptual conundrums. In coarse form, primary process affective consciousness seems to be fundamentally an unconditional “gift of nature” rather than an acquired skill, even though those systems facilitate skill (...) acquisition via various felt reinforcements. Affective consciousness, being a comparatively intrinsic function of the brain, shared homologously by all mammalian species, should be the easiest variant of consciousness to study in animals. This is not to deny that some secondary processes cannot be evaluated in animals with sufficiently clever behavioral learning procedures, as with place-preference procedures and the analysis of changes in learned behaviors after one has induced re-valuation of incentives. Rather, the claim is that a direct neuroscientific study of primary process emotional/affective states is best achieved through the study of the intrinsic , albeit experientially refined, emotional action tendencies of other animals. In this view, core emotional feelings may reflect the neurodynamic attractor landscapes of a variety of extended trans-diencephalic, limbic emotional action systems—including SEEKING, FEAR, RAGE, LUST, CARE, PANIC, and PLAY. Through a study of these brain systems, the neural infrastructure of human and animal affective consciousness may be revealed. Emotional feelings are instantiated in large-scale neurodynamics that can be most effectively monitored via the ethological analysis of emotional action tendencies and the accompanying brain neurochemical/electrical changes. The intrinsic coherence of such emotional responses is demonstrated by the fact that they can be provoked by electrical and chemical stimulation of specific brain zones—effects that are affectively laden. For substantive progress in this emerging research arena, animal brain researchers need to discuss affective brain functions more openly. Secondary awareness processes, because of their more conditional, contextually situated nature, are more difficult to understand in any neuroscientific detail. In other words, the information-processing brain functions, critical for cognitive consciousness, are harder to study in other animals than the more homologous emotional/motivational affective state functions of the brain. (shrink)

Most theory in business ethics is still steeped in rationalist and moral-realist assumptions. However, some seminal neuroscientific studies point to the primacy of moral emotions and intuition in shaping moral judgment. In line with previous interpretations, I suggest that a dual-system explanation of emotional-intuitive automaticity and deliberative reasoning is the most appropriate view. However, my interpretation of the evidence also contradicts Greene’s conclusion that nonconsequentialist decision making is primarily sentimentalist or affective at its core, while utilitarianism is largely rational-deliberative. Instead, (...) I propose that current research on the human brain, in conjunction with converging experimental evidence, hints at moral subjectivism and its evolutionary basis as the most persuasive explanation of morality. These anti-realist conjectures have far-reaching implications for a wide range of topics in business ethics, as illustrated with the specific case of corporate social responsibility as a potentially tribal conception of the good. (shrink)

Scholars of religion and science have generated remarkable scholarship in recent years in their explorations of love. Exactly how scholars involved in this budding field believe that love and science should relate and/or be integrated varies greatly. What they share in common is the belief that issues of love are of paramount importance and that the various scientific disciplines—whether natural, social, or religious—must be brought to bear upon how best to understand love. I briefly introduce the emergence of the love‐and‐science (...) research program and note that scholars have not done well defining what they mean by love. I suggest that the present surge in love scholarship will fail to produce the positive results that it otherwise might if love is not defined well. I provide and defend a definition of love adequate for those doing love‐and‐science research: To love is to act intentionally, in sympathetic response to others (including God), to promote well‐being. To explain better what this simple definition entails, I explore its three main phrases. Love is said to have many forms, but agape is the form to which the love‐and‐science literature most commonly refers. I comment briefly on the debates about how to best understand agape, noting sixteen different definitions proposed by major scholars. I identify weaknesses in many of them and then offer what I argue is a more adequate definition of agape as intentional response to promote well‐being when confronted by that which generates ill‐being. In short, agape repays evil with good. While research on love and science requires much more than adequate definitions, I believe that the definitions I proffer can prove useful in furthering the love‐and‐science research program. (shrink)

This article explores the affinities and parallels between Foucault's Nietzschean view of history and models of complexity developed in the physical sciences in the twentieth century. It claims that Foucault's rejection of structuralism and Marxism can be explained as a consequence of his own approach which posits a radical ontology whereby the conception of the totality or whole is reconfigured as an always open, relatively borderless system of infinite interconnections, possibilities and developments. His rejection of Hegelianism, as well as of (...) other enlightenment philosophies, can be understood at one level as a direct response to his rejection of the mechanical atomist, and organicist epistemological world views, based upon a Newtonian conception of a closed universe operating upon the basis of a small number of invariable and universal laws, by which all could be predicted and explained. The idea of a fully determined, closed universe is replaced; and in a way parallel to complexity theories, Foucault's own approach emphasises notions such as self‐organisation and dissipative structures; time as an irreversible, existential dimension; a world of finite resources but with infinite possibilities for articulation, or re‐investment; and characterised by the principles of openness, indeterminism, unpredictability, and uncertainty. The implications of Foucault's type of approach are then explored in relation to identity, creativity, and the uniqueness of the person. The article suggests that within a complexity theory approach many of the old conundrums concerning determinism and creativity, social constructionism and uniqueness, can be overcome. (shrink)

This article explores the affinities and parallels between Foucault's Nietzschean view of history and models of complexity developed in the physical sciences in the twentieth century. It claims that Foucault's rejection of structuralism and Marxism can be explained as a consequence of his own approach which posits a radical ontology whereby the conception of the totality or whole is reconfigured as an always open, relatively borderless system of infinite interconnections, possibilities and developments. His rejection of Hegelianism, as well as of (...) other enlightenment philosophies, can be understood at one level as a direct response to his rejection of the mechanical atomist, and organicist epistemological world views, based upon a Newtonian conception of a closed universe operating upon the basis of a small number of invariable and universal laws, by which all could be predicted and explained. The idea of a fully determined, closed universe is replaced; and in a way parallel to complexity theories, Foucault's own approach emphasises notions such as self‐organisation and dissipative structures; time as an irreversible, existential dimension; a world of finite resources but with infinite possibilities for articulation, or re‐investment; and characterised by the principles of openness, indeterminism, unpredictability, and uncertainty. The implications of Foucault's type of approach are then explored in relation to identity, creativity, and the uniqueness of the person. The article suggests that within a complexity theory approach many of the old conundrums concerning determinism and creativity, social constructionism and uniqueness, can be overcome. (shrink)

One important function of emotions is to guide decision making and behaviors for survival in complex environments. In the context of such reasoning, the somatic marker hypothesis (Damasio, 1994) has argued that bodily states are represented in specific brain regions, such as the insula, and would play critical roles in decision making. However, it still remains unclear what causal roles bodily states would play in decision making, and how the bodily states would change accompanying decision making. Thus, the aim of (...) this article is to reconsider aspects of the brain and bodily states in decision making based on recent findings. Questions for future research are proposed based on such findings. (shrink)

What exactly do we do when we try to make sense of other people e.g. by ascribing mental states like beliefs and desires to them? After a short criticism of Theory-Theory, Interaction Theory and the Narrative Theory of understanding others as well as an extended criticism of the Simulation Theory in Goldman's recent version (2006), we suggest an alternative approach: the Person Model Theory . Person models are the basis for our ability to register and evaluate persons having mental as (...) well as physical properties. We argue that there are two kinds of person models, nonconceptual person schemata and conceptual person images , and both types of models can be developed for individuals as well as for groups. (shrink)

Witnessing in merging biological, social and algorithmic realities is crucial to trust, as modelled in the YUTPA framework. Being witness and bearing witness is fundamental to human interaction. System participation in human communities of practice challenges the notion of witnessing and therefore the ability to build trust. Nevertheless, through trial and error, people in a variety of practices have found ways to establish the presence and develop trust in merging realities. This paper presents the results of 20 in-depth interviews with (...) professionals from a variety of disciplines and nations. The conclusion of cumulative analysis is that systems do not witness themselves, but their output deeply affects the mental maps that human beings make of each other, the world around them and their own self. Essential qualities human beings seek when being involved with other beings are defined by granularity and reciprocity in the design of time (duration of engagement, synchronizing performance, integrating rhythms and moments to signify), place (body sense, material interaction, emotional space and situated agency), relation (shared meaning, engagement, reputation and use) and action (tuning, reciprocity, negotiation and quality of deeds). By designing granular interaction in 4 dimensions, reciprocity in witnessing obtains significance and the basis for establishing trust in a variety of presences emerges while human agency acquires potential. (shrink)

Most discussions of Spinoza and consciousness—and there are not many— conclude either that he does not have an account of consciousness, or that he does have one but that it is at best confused, at worst hopeless. I argue, in fact, that people have been looking in the wrong place for Spinoza's account of consciousness, namely, at his doctrine of "ideas of ideas". Indeed, Spinoza offers the possibility of a fairly sophisticated, naturalistic account of consciousness, one that grounds it in (...) the nature and capacities of the body. Consciousness for Spinoza, I suggest, is a certain complexity in thinking that is the correlate of the complexity of a body, and human consciousness, for Spinoza, is nothing but the correlate in Thought of the extraordinarily high complexity of the human body in Extension. In this respect, Spinoza anticipates the conception of mind that is presently emerging from studies in the so-called ‘embodied mind’ research program. Moreover, this research program, in turn, may hold out hope for a clearer understanding of some of Spinoza's more difficult claims. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

In response to calls for more research on how to prevent or detect fraud (ACAP, Final Report of the Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession, United States Department of the Treasury, Washington, DC, 2008 ; AICPA, SAS No. 99: Consideration of Fraud in a Financial Statement Audit, New York, NY, 2002 ; Carcello et al., Working Paper, University of Tennessee, Bentley University and Kennesaw State University, 2008 ; Wells, Journal of Accountancy, 2004 ), we develop a framework that identifies three (...) psychological pathways to fraud, supported by multiple theories relating to moral intuition and disengagement, rationalization, and the role played by negative affect. The purpose of developing the framework is twofold: (1) to draw attention to important yet under-researched aspects of ethical decision-making, and (2) to increase our understanding of the psychology of committing fraud. Our framework builds on the existing fraud triangle (PCAOB, Consideration of fraud in a financial statement audit. AU Section 316, www.pcaobus.org , 2005 ) which is used by auditors to assess fraud risk. The fraud triangle is composed of three factors that, together, predict the likelihood of fraud within an organization: opportunity, incentive/pressure, and attitude/rationalization. We find that, when faced with the opportunity and incentive/pressure, there are three psychological pathways to fraud nestled within attitude/rationalization: (1) lack of awareness, (2) intuition coupled with rationalization, and (3) reasoning. These distinctions are important for fraud prevention because each of these paths is driven by a different psychological mechanism. This framework is useful in a number of ways. First, it identifies certain insidious situational factors in which individuals commit fraud without recognizing it. Second, it extends our knowledge of rationalization by theorizing that individuals use rationalization to avoid or reduce the negative affect that accompanies performing an unethical behavior. Negative affect is important because individuals wish to avoid it. Third, it identifies several other methods fraudsters use to reduce negative affect, each of which could serve as potential “psychological red flags” and helps predict future fraudulent behavior. Finally, our framework can be used as a theoretical foundation to explore several interventions designed to prevent fraud. (shrink)

We offer a theory regarding the symbolism of the human body in legal discourse. The theory blends legal theory, the neuroscience of empathy, and biosemiotics, a branch of semiotics that combines semiotics with theoretical biology. Our theory posits that this symbolism of the body is not solely a metaphor or semiotic sign of how law is cognitively structured in the mind. We propose that it also signifies neurobiological mechanisms of social emotion in the brain that are involved in the social (...) and moral decision-making and behavior that law generally seeks to govern. Specifically, we hypothesize that the symbol of a collective human body in the language of law signifies neural mechanisms of pain empathy which generate a virtual, neurally simulated, emotional sense of sharing the feelings or pain of others and of thereby being one-in-body with or virtually equal to them. We speculate that this may be the neural basis of what is signified in legal and political theory as the “body politic” or “sense of equality,” because neuroscience and psychiatry further suggest that such pain empathy may provide the natural, emotional motivation to think and act in a rights-based manner. We conclude that misunderstanding of these neural mechanisms of pain empathy and related misinterpretation of this corporeal symbolism for the same may have long resulted in legal discourse that misinterprets the function of “pain” in the law and misinterprets the associated positive law, specifically the law regarding individual, equality-based rights and criminal justice, in particular, punishment theory. (shrink)

Muslim ethics is cautiously engaging developments in neuroscience. In their encounters with developments in neuroscience such as brain death and functional magnetic resonance imaging procedures, Muslim ethicists might be on the cusp of spirited debates. Science and religion perform different kinds of work and ought not to be conflated. Cultural translation is central to negotiating the complex life worlds of religious communities, Muslims included. Cultural translation involves lived encounters with modernity and its byproduct, modern science. Serious ethical debate requires more (...) than just a mere instrumental encounter with science. A robust Muslim approach to neuroethics might require an emulsion of religion and neuroscience, thought and body, and body and soul. Yet one must anticipate that Muslim debates in neuroethics will be inflected with Muslim values, symbols and the discrete faith perspectives of this tradition with meanings that are specific to people who share this worldview and their concerns. (shrink)

In this paper a connection between intentionality, intensionality, language and emotion will be drawn up through a demonstration of an intimate relationship between the intentionality of emotion and intensionality in language. What will be shown is that the intentionality of emotion can ultimately be traced to the intensionality of emotional contexts. For this purpose, emotive predicates will be categorized in terms of their intensional behavior and regularities. They will then be brought forward for an explication of why and how far (...) the intentionality of emotion is unique. The insights derived from the relevant analyses will then be employed for the implications and ramifications that might be thrown upon the fabric of emotion and language within the space of cognition. (shrink)

¿Cómo se nos presenta, fenomenológicamente la realidad humana? Es la que vemos diariamente en nuestra vida personal y social. Estamos hechos de materia, formamos parte del universo evolutivo. Además, está formada en nosotros una vida psíquica: la sensación, un sistema de percepciones, una conciencia integrada, una condición de sujeto psicológico; producimos conocimiento, emociones, motivaciones; pero, sobre todo, tenemos una mente que discurre racionalmente y nos instala en un mundo de emociones humanas; esta razón emocional está en la base de la (...) búsqueda de la verdad del universo, del sentido de la vida y de la responsabilidad moral, en la vida personal y social. Nuestra realidad humana es, pues, una realidad personal. Somos personas. Ahora bien, ¿cómo explica hoy la ciencia, la neurología, el hecho de que nuestra realidad humana posea estas propiedades que nos hacen personas? Esto debería poder explicarse desde el mundo físico-biológico. Ahora bien, en concreto, ¿cómo la ciencia hace posible explicar que la evolución nos haya producido a nosotros en nuestra condición de personas? Es decir, ¿cuál es el soporte físico que hace inteligible la ontología psico-bio-física que produce evolutivamente nuestra experiencia personal fenomenológica? Esta es, en último término, todavía hoy la cuestión fundamental de las ciencias humanas. Lo que la ciencia, a saber, la neurología, debe explicar es obvio: el hecho de que haya emergido la sensibilidad-conciencia, nuestra condición de sujetos psíquicos, el conocimiento y la razón emocional; de tal manera que, una vez emergida la razón emocional, lleve por sí misma a constituir la actividad racional y las emociones propias de la persona humana encaminada a construir el sentido de su vida. Estas son las cuestiones que abordamos en este artículo. (shrink)

This article will provide a unifying perspective on perception and cognition via the route of linguistic representations of emotion. Linguistic representations of emotions provide a fertile ground for explorations into the nature and form of integration of perception and cognition because emotion has facets of both perceptual and cognitive processes. In particular, this article shows that certain types of linguistic representations of emotion allow for the integration of perception and cognition through a series of steps and operations in cognitive systems, (...) whereas certain other linguistic representations of emotion are not so representationally structured as to permit the unity of perception and cognition. It turns out that the types of linguistic representations of emotion that readily permit the desired unity of perception and cognition are exactly those that are linguistically encoded emotive representations of everyday objects, events, and things around us. It is these ordinary objects, events and things that provide the scaffolding for task-dependent or goal-oriented activities of cognitive systems including autonomous systems. In this way, cognitive systems can be saliently tuned to the outer world by being motivated and also subtly governed by emotion-driven representations. This helps not only tie together perceptual and cognitive processes via the interface between language and emotive representations, but also reveal the limits of emotive representations in amalgamating perceptual and cognitive processes in cognitive systems. (shrink)

Emotions play an important part in moral life. Within clinical ethics support (CES), one should take into account the crucial role of emotions in moral cases in clinical practice. In this paper, we present an Aristotelian approach to emotions. We argue that CES can help participants deal with emotions by fostering a joint process of investigation of the role of emotions in a case. This investigation goes beyond empathy with and moral judgment of the emotions of the case presenter. In (...) a moral case deliberation, the participants are invited to place themselves in the position of the case presenter and to investigate their own emotions in the situation. It is about critically assessing the facts in the case that cause the emotion and the related (moral) thoughts that accompany the emotion. It is also about finding the right emotion in a given situation and finding the right balance in dealing with that emotion. These steps in the moral inquiry give rise to group learning. It is a process of becoming open towards the perspectives of others, leading to new insights into what is an appropriate emotion in the specific situation. We show how this approach works in moral case deliberation. A physician presents a situation in which he is faced with a pregnant woman who is about to deliver multiple extremely premature infants at the threshold of viability. The moral deliberation of the case and the emotions therein leads to the participants’ conclusion that “compassion” is a more adequate emotion than “sadness”. The emotion “sadness” is pointed towards the tragedy that is happening to the woman. The emotion “compassion” is pointed towards the woman; it combines consideration and professional responsibility. Through the shift towards compassion, participants experienced more creativity and freedom to deal with the sad situation and to support the woman. The paper ends with an analysis and reflection on the deliberation process. In the conclusion we argue for more attention to emotions in clinical ethics support and offer some directions for doing this in the right way. (shrink)

Interactive social cognition theory and approaches of developmental psychology widely agree that central aspects of emotional and social experience arise in the unfolding of processes of embodied social interaction. Bi-directional dynamical couplings of bodily displays such as facial expressions, gestures, and vocalizations have repeatedly been described in terms of coordination, synchrony, mimesis, or attunement. In this paper, I propose conceptualizing such dynamics rather as processes of affective resonance. Starting from the immediate phenomenal experience of being immersed in interaction, I develop (...) the philosophical notion of affective resonance to refer to a dynamic entanglement of moving and being-moved in relation. The concept of affective resonance makes visible that the interaction dynamic itself creates an affective experience rather than transmitting internal feeling states between pre-existent individuals. This leads to a philosophical framework in which relationality and ontogeny are primary over separate individuals, and in which the naturalistic distinction of a fundamental physical level versus an emerging level of social processes has to be given up. (shrink)

It is one thing to deal with any aspect of Lev Vygotsky’s work from a purely scholarly standpoint. It is something quite different to deal with Vygotsky’s work from both an academic standpoint and also that of someone who is involved in East–West editorial and commercial projects. This article sheds light upon what it meant to work on Vygotsky’s theories for someone who was formally affiliated to West European academia and who also became involved more or less at the same (...) time in various East–West publishing projects related to Vygotsky and his circle. (shrink)

This paper follows a Deweyan suggestion and proposes a structure for emotional activity – pattern of sentiment –as a way to grasp emotional experience in its live occurrence by building upon Dewey’s crucial notion of situation. The first part outlines Dewey’s criticisms of James’s idea of emotion, and verifies the ways in which the recent developments of neuroscience overcome Dewey’s criticisms of James. Given that Dewey’s work is a propitious ground for continuing to renew the discourse about the activities of (...) mind (Mendonça 2003), the second part of the paper outlines a pattern for emotional activity, setting up the first steps for a situational approach of Deweyan inspiration to the nature of emotion. I conclude by pointing out how such a pattern may be a unifying tool for the different emotion theories briefly describing some of the rich directions it provides for future research on philosophy of emotion. (shrink)

In recent years, a proliferation of books about empathy, cooperation and pro-social behaviours (Brooks, 2011a) has significantly influenced the discourse of the life-sciences and reversed consolidated views of nature as a place only for competition and aggression. In this article I describe the recent contribution of three disciplines – moral psychology (Jonathan Haidt), primatology (Frans de Waal) and the neuroscience of morality – to the present transformation of biology and evolution into direct sources of moral phenomena, a process here named (...) the ‘moralization of biology’. I conclude by addressing the ambivalent status of this constellation of authors, for whom today ‘morality comes naturally’: I explore both the attractiveness of their message, and the problematic epistemological assumptions of their research programmes in the light of new discoveries in developmental and molecular biology. (shrink)

Ethical decision making involves complex emotional, cognitive, social, and philosophical challenges. Even if someone wants to be ethical, he or she may not have clearly articulated what that means, or know how to go about making a decision consistent with his or her values. Information technology may be able to help. A decision support system could offer individuals and groups some guidance, assisting them in making a decision that reflects their underlying values. The first step towards a design science of (...) ethical decision support is to develop a theoretical base on which first-generation systems can be built. This paper brings together work in cognitive, social and moral psychology, information systems, and philosophy relevant to ethical decision making. Attributes of a system that would support ethical decision making are described. (shrink)

Spinoza claims we can control any passion by forming a more clear and distinct idea of it. The interpretive consensus is that Spinoza is either wrong or over-stating his view. I argue that Spinoza’s view is plausible and insightful. After breaking down Spinoza’s characterization of the relevant act, I consider four existing interpretations and conclude that each is unsatisfactory. I then consider a further problem for Spinoza: how his definitions of ‘action’ and ‘passion’ make room for passions becoming action. I (...) propose two solutions to this problem, both of which yield a hint regarding what act Spinoza has in mind. Using that hint, I propose that we can appreciate Spinoza’s insight by considering how philosophizing about a feeling can 'kill the mood.' The act of grasping how a passion exemplifies certain general truths, I hold, is a distinctly rational activity that has all the features Spinoza describes. I conclude by showing how this interpretation fits with Spinoza’s larger views on rational knowledge, rational joy, the comprehensibility of passions, and the relation between second- and first-order ideas. (shrink)

Music is at the centre of what it means to be human – it is the sounds of human bodies and minds moving in creative, story-making ways. We argue that music comes from the way in which knowing bodies (Merleau-Ponty) prospectively explore the environment using habitual 'patterns of action' which we have identified as our innate ‘communicative musicality’. To support our argument, we present short case studies of infant interactions using micro analyses of video and audio recordings to show the (...) timings and shapes of intersubjective vocalisations and body movements of adult and child while they improvise shared narratives of meaning. Following a survey of the history of discoveries of infant abilities, we propose that the gestural narrative structures of voice and body seen as infants communicate with loving caregivers are the building blocks of what become particular cultural instances of the art of music, and of dance, theatre and other temporal arts. Children enter into a musical culture where their innate communicative musicality can be encouraged and strengthened through sensitive, respectful, playful, culturally informed teaching in companionship. The central importance of our abilities for music as part of what sustains our well-being is supported by evidence that communicative musicality strengthens emotions of social resilience to aid recovery from mental stress and illness. Drawing on the experience of the first author as a counsellor, we argue that the strength of one person’s communicative musicality can support the vitality of another’s through the application of skilful techniques that encourage an intimate, supportive, therapeutic, spirited companionship. Turning to brain science, we focus on hemispheric differences and the affective neuroscience of Jaak Panksepp. We emphasise that the psychobiological purpose of our innate musicality grows from the integrated rhythms of energy in the brain for prospective, sensation-seeking affective guidance of vitality of movement. We conclude with a Coda that recalls the philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment, which built on the work of Heraclitus and Spinoza. This view places the shared experience of sensations of living – our communicative musicality – as inspiration for rules of logic formulated in symbols of language. (shrink)

Since the dawn of time, humankind's singular ability to make decisions has allowed human beings to face innumerable environmental challenges and complex evolutionary dynamics. Environmental pressures are not so urgent anymore, comparing to our ancestors. Nonetheless, the number of decisions that contemporary humans are called to make is very high. During the last three centuries, the change from normative to descriptive theories, from formal to natural logic, from substantive to limited rationality has allowed us to explain how many of the (...) decisional strategies are coherent with the functioning of the cognitive economy of our species, even if they are limited and fallible. (shrink)