The concept of mental representation has long been considered to be central concept of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. But not everyone agrees. Neo-behaviorists aim to explain the mind without positing any representations. My aim here is not to assess the merits and demerits of neo-behaviorism, but to take their challenge seriously and ask the question: What justifies the attribution of representations to an agent? Both representationalists and neo-behaviorists tend to take it for granted that the real question about (...) representations is whether we should be realist about the theory of representationalism. This paper is an attempt to shift the emphasis from the debate concerning realism about theories to the one concerning realism about entities. My claim is that regardless of whether we are realist about representational theories of the mind, we have compelling reasons to endorse entity realism about mental representations. (shrink)

Despite its short historical moment in the sun, behaviorism has become something akin to a theoria non grata, a position that dare not be explicitly endorsed. The reasons for this are complex, of course, and they include sociological factors which we cannot consider here, but to put it briefly: many have doubted the ambition to establish law-like relationships between mental states and behavior that dispense with any sort of mentalistic or intentional idiom, judging that explanations of intelligent behavior require reference (...) to qualia and/or mental events. Today, when behaviorism is discussed at all, it is usually in a negative manner, either as an attempt to discredit an opponent’s view via a reductio, or by enabling a position to distinguish its identity and positive claims by reference to what it is (allegedly) not. In this paper, however, we argue that the ghost of behaviorism is present in influential, contemporary work in the field of embodied and enactive cognition, and even in aspects of the phenomenological tradition that these theorists draw on. Rather than take this to be a problem for these views as some have, we argue that once the behaviorist dimensions are clarified and distinguished from the straw-man version of the view, it is in fact an asset, one which will help with task of setting forth a scientifically reputable version of enactivism and/or philosophical behaviorism that is nonetheless not brain-centric but behavior-centric. While this is a bit like “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” strategy, as Shaun Gallagher notes (2019), with the shared enemy of behaviorism and enactivism being classical Cartesian views and/or orthodox cognitivism in its various guises, the task of this paper is to render this alliance philosophically plausible. Doi: 10.1007/s11229-019-02432-1. (shrink)

Building on past constructive criticism, the present study provides further methodological development focused on the elimination of bias that may occur during first-person observation. First, various sources of errors that may accompany introspection are distinguished based on previous critical literature. Four main errors are classified, namely attentional, attributional, conceptual, and expressional error. Furthermore, methodological recommendations for the possible elimination of these errors have been determined based on the analysis and focused excerpting of introspective scientific literature. The following groups of methodological (...) recommendations were determined: 1) a better focusing of the subject’s attention to their mental processes, 2) providing suitable stimuli, and 3) the sharing of introspective experience between subjects. Furthermore, the potential of adjustments in introspective research designs for eliminating attentional, attributional, conceptual, and expressional error is discussed. (shrink)

The relationship between fear and courage has been discussed in terms of opposite though mutually involving notions. However, their link has not been inquired extensively. Recently, new light has been shed on the topic thanks to recent empirical evidence within emotion theories that stress the role played by perception and/or cognition in the experience of fear, as well as the role played by the “emotional virtue” of courage in fear regulation. Questions arise whether fear has a fundamentally perceptual structure or (...) is a biologically-grounded natural kind, and whether such an emotion-related virtue as courage is intrinsically or extrinsically related to fear. This paper considers the last problem first, then enlarges the picture to fear modeling, finally drives some conclusions which aim at deepening the relationship between fear and courage. As a result, it emerges that the emotion of fear has a conceptual, emotional, situational and subjective dimension. Assuming fear as a possible emotional center within the subject’s cognitive experience, the virtue of courage appears to balance the excess and lack of fear, and is consequently related to rational thoughts and consistent behavior, laying the foundations for a new Aristotelian-Thomistic account for it. (shrink)

-/- Shitstorms, Hate Speech oder virale Videos, die zum Klicken, Liken, Teilen bewegen: Die vernetzte Gesellschaft ist von Affekten getrieben und bringt selbst ganz neue Affekte hervor. -/- Die Beiträge des Bandes nehmen die medientechnologischen Entwicklungen unserer Zeit in den Blick und untersuchen sie aus der Perspektive einer kritischen Affekt- und Sozialphilosophie. Sie zeigen: Soziale Medien und digitale Plattformen sind nicht nur Räume des Austauschs, sie erschaffen Affektökonomien – und darin liegt auch ihre Macht. Indem sie neue Formen des sozialen (...) Umgangs stiften und bestimmen, wie wir kommunizieren, verschieben sie auch die politische Topographie. -/- Mit einem Beitrag von Antonio Negri. (shrink)

Understanding what motivates employees is essential to the success of organizational objectives. Therefore, properly capturing and explaining the full range of such motivations are important. However, the classical and most popular theories describing employee motives have neglected, if not omitted entirely, the importance of the ethical and spiritual dimensions of motivation. This has led to a model of a person as self-interested, amoral, and non-spiritual. In this paper, we attempt to expose this omission and offer a more complete taxonomy of (...) motivations which include these dimensions. Although more work will need to be done to fully develop the ethical and spiritual dimensions of motivation, the expanded taxonomy will provide the foundations and serve as a guide for such further research. Furthermore, this new categorization of motivations brings out the full dimensions of being human, which promises to lead to improved management practices with regard to employees and foster greater human flourishing in the workplace. (shrink)

Erroneous gambling-related beliefs can be defined as beliefs that imply a failure to recognise how commercial gambling activities are designed to generate a guaranteed loss to players. In t...

Background:Psychological abuse of older people is difficult to recognise; specifically, nursing home residents have been documented to be at higher risk of psychological abuse during daily care, such as during feeding. Healthcare professionals adopt positive and negative verbal prompts to maintain residents’ eating independence; however, negative prompts’ purposes and implications have never been discussed to date.Research aims:To critically analyse negative verbal prompts given during mealtimes as forms of abuse of older individuals and violation of ethical principles.Research design:This is a secondary (...) analysis of three cases of negative prompts that emerged in a large descriptive study based upon focus group methodology and involving 13 nursing homes and 54 healthcare professionals.Participants and research context:This study included 3 out of 13 nursing homes caring for residents with moderate/severe functional dependence in self-feeding mainly due to dementia; in these nursing homes, we conducted three focus groups and 13 healthcare professionals participated.Ethical considerations:This study was conducted in accordance with the Human Subject Research Ethics Committee guidelines after being approved by the Review Board of the Trust.Findings:With the intent of maintaining self-feeding independence, negative verbal prompts have been reported as being used by nursing home teams. By critically analysing these negative prompts, it turned out they could trigger intimidation, depression and anxiety and thus could be considered as forms of abuse; moreover, negative prompts can threaten the ethical principles of autonomy using a paternalist approach, beneficence and non-maleficence as with the intent to act in the best interests of residents they are harmed in their dignity and justice, given that residents who received negative prompts are treated differently from those who received positive prompts.Discussion:Eating should be a pleasant experience with a positive impact on physiological, psychological and social well-being. However, negative prompting can lead to abuse and violation of basic ethical principles, destroying the healthcare professional resident and relative relationships strongly dependent on trust.Conclusion:Negative verbal prompting must be avoided. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe Theory of Event Coding predicts that exposure to affective cues can automatically trigger affectively congruent behaviour due to shared representational codes. An intriguing hypothesis from this theory is that exposure to aversive cues can automatically trigger actions that have previously been learned to result in aversive outcomes. Previous work has indeed found such a compatibility effect on reaction times in forced-choice tasks, but not for action selection in free-choice tasks. Failure to observe this compatibility effect for aversive cues in (...) free choice tasks suggests that control processes aimed at directing behaviour toward positive outcomes may overrule the automatic activation of affectively congruent responses in case of aversive cues. The present study tested whether minimising such control could cause selection of actions that have been learned to result in aversive outcomes. Results showed incidental exposure to aversive cues biased selection of behaviours with learned aver... (shrink)

Using information on students’ past participation in economic experiments, we analyze whether behavior in public goods games is affected by experience and history. We find that: on average, the amount subjects contribute and expect others to contribute decreases with experience; at the individual level, the proportion of unconditional cooperators decreases with experience, while the proportion of selfish people increases. Finally, history influences behavior less than experience. Researchers are urged to control for subjects’ experience and history to improve the external validity (...) and replicability of results. (shrink)

While Quine’s linguistic behaviorism is well-known, his Kant Lectures contain one of his most detailed discussions of behaviorism in psychology and the philosophy of mind. Quine clarifies the nature of his psychological commitments by arguing for a modest view that is against ‘excessively restrictive’ variants of behaviorism while maintaining ‘a good measure of behaviorist discipline…to keep [our mental] terms under control’. In this paper, I use Quine’s Kant Lectures to reconstruct his position. I distinguish three types of behaviorism in psychology (...) and the philosophy of mind: ontological behaviorism, logical behaviorism, and epistemological behaviorism. I then consider Quine’s perspective on each of these views and argue that he does not fully accept any of them. By combining these perspectives we arrive at Quine’s surprisingly subtle view about behaviorism in psychology. (shrink)

in april 1933, two bright young Ph.D.s were elected to the Harvard Society of Fellows: the psychologist B. F. Skinner and the philosopher/logician W. V. Quine. Both men would become among the most influential scholars of their time; Skinner leads the "Top 100 Most Eminent Psychologists of the 20th Century," whereas philosophers have selected Quine as the most important Anglophone philosopher after the Second World War.1 At the height of their fame, Skinner and Quine became "Edgar Pierce twins"; the latter (...) obtaining the endowed chair at Harvard's department of philosophy, the former taking up the position at Harvard's psychology department.2Besides these biographical parallels, there also... (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 40, Issue 1, pp 80 - 103 This study was designed to examine the relationships between social support, perceived stress, religiosity, and flourishing and to test the mediating role of perceived stress in the relationships between social support and religiosity with flourishing. This study also examines the moderating roles of religiosity and gender in the relationship between social support and flourishing among 2301 Malaysian older adults. Structural Equation Modelling showed that older adults with high levels of social (...) support, high levels of intrinsic religious motivation, high levels of extrinsic religious motivation, and low levels of perceived stress were more likely to experience flourishing. Bootstrapping analysis provided evidence of perceived stress as a significant partial mediator in the links between social support, intrinsic religious motivation, and extrinsic religious motivation with flourishing. Multi-group analysis revealed that religiosity and gender acted as significant moderators in the links between social support, perceived stress, and flourishing. (shrink)

Esta enciclopédia abrange, de uma forma introdutória mas desejavelmente rigorosa, uma diversidade de conceitos, temas, problemas, argumentos e teorias localizados numa área relativamente recente de estudos, os quais tem sido habitual qualificar como «estudos lógico-filosóficos». De uma forma apropriadamente genérica, e apesar de o território teórico abrangido ser extenso e de contornos por vezes difusos, podemos dizer que na área se investiga um conjunto de questões fundamentais acerca da natureza da linguagem, da mente, da cognição e do raciocínio humanos, bem (...) como questões acerca das conexões destes com a realidade não mental e extralinguística. A razão daquela qualificação é a seguinte: por um lado, a investigação em questão é qualificada como filosófica em virtude do elevado grau de generalidade e abstracção das questões examinadas (entre outras coisas); por outro, a investigação é qualificada como lógica em virtude de ser uma investigação logicamente disciplinada, no sentido de nela se fazer um uso intenso de conceitos, técnicas e métodos provenientes da disciplina de lógica. O agregado de tópicos que constitui a área de estudos lógico-filosóficos é já visível, pelo menos em parte, no Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus de Ludwig Wittgenstein, uma obra publicada em 1921. E uma boa maneira de ter uma ideia sinóptica do território disciplinar abrangido por esta enciclopédia, ou pelo menos de uma porção substancial dele, é extrair do Tractatus uma lista dos tópicos mais salientes aí discutidos; a lista incluirá certamente tópicos do seguinte género, muitos dos quais se podem encontrar ao longo desta enciclopédia: factos e estados de coisas; objectos; representação; crenças e estados mentais; pensamentos; a proposição; nomes próprios; valores de verdade e bivalência; quantificação; funções de verdade; verdade lógica; identidade; tautologia; o raciocínio matemático; a natureza da inferência; o cepticismo e o solipsismo; a indução; as constantes lógicas; a negação; a forma lógica; as leis da ciência; o número. (shrink)

Social ontology is the study of the nature and properties of the social world. It is concerned with analyzing the various entities in the world that arise from social interaction. -/- A prominent topic in social ontology is the analysis of social groups. Do social groups exist at all? If so, what sorts of entities are they, and how are they created? Is a social group distinct from the collection of people who are its members, and if so, how is (...) it different? What sorts of properties do social groups have? Can they have beliefs or intentions? Can they perform actions? And if so, what does it take for a group to believe, intend, or act? -/- Other entities investigated in social ontology include money, corporations, institutions, property, social classes, races, genders, artifacts, artworks, language, and law. It is difficult to delineate a precise scope for the field (see section 2.1). In general, though, the entities explored in social ontology largely overlap with those that social scientists work on. A good deal of the work in social ontology takes place within the social sciences (see sections 5.1–5.8). -/- Social ontology also addresses more basic questions about the nature of the social world. One set of questions pertains to the constituents, or building blocks, of social things in general. For instance, some theories argue that social entities are built out of the psychological states of individual people, while others argue that they are built out of actions, and yet others that they are built out of practices. Still other theories deny that a distinction can even be made between the social and the non-social. -/- A different set of questions pertains to how social categories are constructed or set up. Are social categories and kinds produced by our attitudes? By our language? Are they produced by causal patterns? And is there just one way social categories are set up, or are there many varieties of social construction? -/- The term ‘social ontology’ has only come into wide currency in recent years, but the nature of the social has been a topic of inquiry since ancient Greece. As a whole, the field can be understood as a branch of metaphysics, the general inquiry into the nature of entities. (shrink)

Presented here is an overview from the standpoints of sociology, history of science, philosophy of science and “pure science” of the lingering question of whether sociology is a form of scientific pursuit. The conclusion is drawn that sociology barely meets any of the rigid criteria traditionally associated with the natural sciences. Sociology is viewed as having a position of theory and argument which is labeled “inconoclastic scepticism.”.

The discipline of psychology has been poorly represented in critical realist texts to date. This is despite Bhaskar’s use of psychoanalytical concepts to underpin his concept of the dialectic. By comparison, other aspects of social science, such as sociology and economics, have a well-established body of critical realist texts. The original approach to psychoanalysis was analogous to the critical realist ontological-axiological chain. It moved from an ontological problem to an axiological solution. Freud’s eagerness to reframe psychoanalysis within a scientistic, objective (...) framework was perhaps due in part to the difficulties that he faced as European Jew in the fin-de-siècle. The application of the critical realist explanatory critique can contribute to our understanding of how and why the fragmentation of Freud’s legacies emerged. Critical realists should avoid the assumption that psychoanalysis is a unitary body of knowledge; as such, they should consider its various legacies separately. (shrink)

This paper points to the lack of scientific images, including moving images, for promoting behavior analysis. Examples of what could be done to rectify this situation are contained in two teaching gambits that address practical and philosophical issues in the analysis of behavior. The first gambit is an elaboration of the shaping game that highlights issues associated with discriminative control and the role of private events in the analysis of behavior. The second gambit uses specially designed graphics, both 2-D and (...) 3-D, to show how an understanding of the behavioral stream underpins every aspect of the analysis of behavior. (shrink)

The concept of an operator is used in a variety of practical and theoretical areas. Operators, as both conceptual and physical entities, are found throughout the world as subsystems in nature, the human mind, and the manmade world. Operators, and what they operate, i.e., their substrates, targets, or operands, have a wide variety of forms, functions, and properties. Operators have explicit philosophical significance. On the one hand, they represent important ontological issues of reality. On the other hand, epistemological operators form (...) the basic mechanism of cognition. At the same time, there is no unified theory of the nature and functions of operators. In this work, we elaborate a detailed analysis of operators, which range from the most abstract formal structures and symbols in mathematics and logic to real entities, human and machine, and are responsible for effecting changes at both the individual and collective human levels. Our goal is to find what is common in physical objects called operators and abstract mathematical structures, with the name operator providing foundations for building a unified but flexible theory of operators. The paper concludes with some reflections on functionalism and other philosophical aspects of the ‘operation’ of operators. (shrink)

This paper critically reviews and discusses the concept of organizational virtuousness as presented in positive organizational scholarship. It identifies Kim S. Cameron, David S. Bright, and Arran Caza as the most influential researchers within this field and portrays commonalities, differences, and inconsistencies among the various notions of organizational virtuousness offered in positive organizational literature throughout the last 15 years. While the commonalities refer to attributes, levels of analyses, outcomes, and methodology, the variances concern the locus of residence, the priority of (...) outcomes, indicators, supporting features and the virtues included in positive organizational virtuousness. The analysis further discusses the strengths and weaknesses of these differences and stresses the challenges which the POS movement needs to face in order to clarify its definition of organizational virtuousness and, maybe, converge on one unified meaning. Finally, these challenges are summarized and linked to future research proposals which offer potential ideas on how to further develop the concept of positive organizational virtuousness. (shrink)

A realist approach to learning is what I propose here. This is based on a non-epistemic dimension whose presence is a necessary assumption for a concept of learning of a life-world as complementary to learning within a life-world. I develop my approach in opposition to Jürgen Habermas' pragmatic approach, which seems to lack of something from a realist point of view.

The intentional stance1 and the contextual stance2 are inextricably interdependent in the production of a comprehensive explanation and means of predicting complex human behaviour. This is illustrated in the context of the expectation of attitudinal-behavioural consistency which has long lain at the heart of both marketing science and social psychology. In practice, cognitively-inclined attitude theory and research leans on the contextual stance in order to formulate the heuristic overlay of mental interpretation in which it primarily presents its predictive and explicative (...) accounts of behaviour. Behaviour analysis has traditionally eschewed this approach, maintaining that it can generate an exclusively extensional account of complex behaviour. It is argued that while the cognitive and behaviour analytic approaches produce equally effective predictions of behaviour, an adequate explanation of human activity requires the addition of the kind of interpretive overlay advocated by Dennett3 in which the relationship between extensional science and intensionalistic interpretation is clarified. The resulting framework of analysis, intentional behaviorism4 provides an inclusive paradigm. (shrink)

Socially oriented preferences in decision making and their relation with work and home environment The aim of this paper was to create a psychometric instrument for the measurement of socially oriented preferences in economic decisions made in professional and private life as well as at scrutinizing the effects of various environmental variables on these preferences. For this purpose, two surveys were carried out on a group of adult working Poles. The idea of the new questionnaire and the results of factor (...) analysis are described herein, along with the other examinations confirming the accuracy of the new instrument. A significant correspondence between eight situational factors: five in professional life and three in private life, and the intensity of socially oriented preferences in economic decisions was confirmed. Both surveys showed that these preferences undergo significant alterations along with each slightest change in situational factors, even ones not directly connected with the decision at hand. Moreover, the studies indicate that the intensity of socially oriented preferences vary with respect to gender and age. Practitioner Points: Team goal setting strategy, work style, responsibility and non-financial rewards intense socially oriented preferences. Financial rewards are irrelevant for socially oriented preferences. (shrink)

A realist approach to learning is what I propose here. This is based on a non-epistemic dimension whose presence is a necessary assumption for a concept of learning of a life-world as complementary to learning within a life-world. I develop my approach in opposition to Jürgen Habermas' pragmatic approach, which seems to lack of something from a realist point of view.

Purpose The role of entrepreneurship as a major engine for innovation, economic growth and job creation has made policymakers argue for infusing entrepreneurship into all levels of education. It is argued that citizens must develop their entrepreneurial skills in order to cope with our increasingly globalized, fast-paced and uncertain world. Making the leap of faith from entrepreneurship into education is however rife with challenges and failures. Most attempts have resulted in isolated initiatives impacting only a small number of interested students (...) on higher levels of education. Common challenges to wider adoption are lack of definitional clarity around what exactly signifies “entrepreneurial” education, impeding organizational structures, lack of resources, assessment difficulties and fear of capitalism. To address these challenges, the purpose of this thesis is to articulate and qualify a tentatively new educational philosophy grounded in entrepreneurship, allowing teachers to use value creation as a stepping stone between entrepreneurship and education when attempting to infuse entrepreneurship into education. Result An educational philosophy grounded in entrepreneurship has been defined in this thesis as letting students learn through creating value for others, giving teachers prescriptive advice on what, how and why issues in education. This is inherently entrepreneurial in its reliance on a widespread view of entrepreneurship as being about new value creation for others and constituted by a set of teachable entrepreneurial methods. The resulting process is rich with interaction between people and triggers a multitude of emotional learning events, allowing for more engaged students and deeper learning of entrepreneurial as well as subject specific knowledge, skills and attitudes. Method The tentatively new educational philosophy proposed here was developed through an abductive five-year action research process of constant iterations between theory and practice. A total of nine empirical studies on all levels of education were drawn from, involving a few hundred primary, secondary, tertiary and continuing education teachers, around 2000 students and around 100 different educational institutions in three European countries. Two main action research cycles were conducted, each spanning 3-4 years in time. Theory from entrepreneurship and education guided the research, as well as theory from fields such as psychology, philosophy, anthropology, economics and methodology. A number of methodological developments were made in the research process, such as a new “proxy” theory of assessing entrepreneurial education, a mobile app based experience sampling informed interview technique and analytical frameworks for key emotional events and entrepreneurial competencies. Novelty This is the first attempt that has been made to propose an educational philosophy grounded in entrepreneurship. Questions explored in order to qualify it included why educational philosophy is important when infusing entrepreneurship into education and what is new with an educational philosophy grounded in entrepreneurship. Compared to existing educational philosophies such as traditional, progressive and experiential education, it can contribute with a purposeful movement between often unconnected and opposing philosophical positions rather than being yet another flag on the philosophical playing field of education. Whether this makes it an entirely new educational philosophy or merely a novel combination of established ones remains to be determined. Limitations Some important challenges and limitations with the proposed educational philosophy have emerged. It could be viewed as too excluding to view entrepreneurial education as being solely about education that includes value creation attempts. Asking students to focus on knowledge that can be useful for others could also be viewed as an overly utilitarian emphasis. The interdisciplinary challenge of bridging the two very different scholarly fields of education and entrepreneurship was also shown to be significant. It remains to be seen whether value creation as a stepping stone will allow scholars and practitioners to keep their feet dry when attempting to infuse entrepreneurship into education. (shrink)

The influences large corporations have on the lives of most citizens is huge. In the developed world the relationships between corporations and citizens is generally close, with top corporate managers making decisions that shape the societies which they share with their fellow citizens. Individuals in Western society may be trained to accept the status quo, which allows business leaders significant influence over the allocation of society’s assets, and thereby over societal developments. Formal education systems often encourage the maintenance of the (...) status quo, whereas they could encourage students to challenge it. This paper argues the need to help business students develop an understanding of critical theory, independent thought and self-improvement. The paper employs a case study approach which focuses on the development of one person, its author. He argues that those responsible for education today must encourage their students to think holistically about the consequences of business behaviour on society. If managers view business life through a scientific lens, focused primarily on the maximisation of financial returns, they will continue to encourage unsustainable behaviour, which damages the ecosystems and the social cohesion in society. Managers must learn to approach their business decisions as whole human beings. This will make it more likely they will manage in a sustainable way, and help them find meaning and happiness in their roles. (shrink)

Attachment theory ( Bowlby, 1969/1982 ) posits the existence of internal working models as a foundational feature of human bonds. Radical embodied approaches instead suggest that cognition requires no computation or representation, favoring a cognition situated in a body in an environmental context with affordances for action ( Chemero, 2009 ; Barrett, 2011 ; Wilson and Golonka, 2013 ; Casasanto and Lupyan, 2015 ). We explore whether embodied approaches to social soothing, interpersonal warmth, separation distress, and support seeking could replace (...) representational constructs such as internal working models with a view of relationship cognition anchored in the resources afforded to the individual by their brain, body, and environment in interaction. We review the neurobiological bases for social attachments and relationships and attempt to delineate how these systems overlap or don’t with more basic physiological systems in ways that support or contradict a radical embodied explanation. We suggest that many effects might be the result of the fact that relationship cognition depends on and emerges out of the action of neural systems that regulate several clearly physically grounded systems. For example, the neuropeptide oxytocin appears to be central to attachment and pair-bond behavior ( Carter and Keverne, 2002 ) and is implicated in social thermoregulation more broadly, being necessary for maintaining a warm body temperature (for a review, see IJzerman et al., 2015b ). Finally, we discuss the most challenging issues around taking a radically embodied perspective on social relationships. We find the most crucial challenge in individual differences in support seeking and responses to social contact, which have long been thought to be a function of representational structures in the mind (e.g., Baldwin, 1995 ). Together we entertain the thought to explain such individual differences without mediating representations or computations, but in the end propose a hybrid model of radical embodiment and internal representations. (shrink)

The past 25 years have seen a rapid growth of knowledge about brain mechanisms involved in visual mental imagery. These advances have largely been made independently of the long history of philosophical – and even psychological – reckoning with imagery and its parent concept ‘imagination’. We suggest that the view from these empirical findings can be widened by an appreciation of imagination’s intellectual history, and we seek to show how that history both created the conditions for – and presents challenges (...) to – the scientific endeavor. We focus on the neuroscientific literature’s most commonly used task – imagining a concrete object – and, after sketching what is known of the neurobiological mechanisms involved, we examine the same basic act of imagining from the perspective of several key positions in the history of philosophy and psychology. We present positions that, firstly, contextualize and inform the neuroscientific account, and secondly, pose conceptual and methodological challenges to the scientific analysis of imagery. We conclude by reflecting on the intellectual history of visualization in the light of contemporary science, and the extent to which such science may resolve long-standing theoretical debates. (shrink)

For an academic, there is no greater reward than having one's scholarship taken seriously. The five distinguished scholars who have contributed to this symposium on The Force of Law have done just that, with varying degrees of agreement and disagreement, praise and criticism. But even critical commentary, and perhaps especially critical commentary, is evidence of serious engagement. More importantly, the commentaries contained here have advanced our understanding of law in valuable ways. I respond to each in this reply, but with (...) full acknowledgment that my responses cannot do justice to the full breadth of their contributions and challenges. My hope is not that I will persuade readers that I am correct and my critics mistaken, but rather that the reader who absorbs both the challenges and my response will come away with a greater understanding of the issues that The Force of Law seeks to place on the agenda of contemporary jurisprudence. (shrink)

J.H. van den Berg was a member of the Utrecht school of phenomenology that flourished in Holland during the 1950s and early 1960s. He was a psychiatrist who had a private practice and he taught at the University of Leiden. Along with other members of the Utrecht school, not all of whom were psychiatrists, he was among the first to apply the insights drawn from existential-phenomenological philosophy to psychology and psychiatry. As with the philosophers, he emphasized that subjectivity was engaged (...) with the world and its activities had to be described. He emphasized that insights into experience as lived, or the phenomenal level, was what was critical for psychologists to understand. (shrink)