IT IS WELL KNOWN THAT LEIBNIZ’S NOTION OF HARMONY plays a crucial role in his philosophical system. Leibniz drew on this concept of harmony in motivating, and explaining, numerous areas of his thought: everything from Leibnizian mathematics and metaphysics to ethics and social philosophy, incorporates the notion of harmony as a central descriptive and explanatory concept. While there has been much discussion of some the applications of harmony in Leibniz’s system– especially the mind-body harmony, and the so-called universal harmony of (...) simple perceiving substances–little attention has been paid to Leibniz’s very concept of harmony. Yet it seems important for understanding Leibniz’s holistic philosophy that we grasp this concept, for he employed the term “harmony” when describing so many features of the created world: there is a harmony between geometry and physics, between efficient and final causation, between nature and grace, to mention just a few. (shrink)

This essay introduces the philosophy of harmony in Classical Confucianism. In the first part of the essay the author summarizes the concept of harmony as it was developed in various Confucian classics. In the second part, the author offers an account of the Confucian program of harmony, ranging from internal harmony in the person, to harmony in the family, the state, the international world, and finally to harmony in the entire universe.

Theories of binding have recently come into the focus of the consciousness debate. In this review, we discuss the potential relevance of temporal binding mechanisms for sensory awareness. Specifically, we suggest that neural synchrony with a precision in the millisecond range may be crucial for conscious processing, and may be involved in arousal, perceptual integration, attentional selection and working memory. Recent evidence from both animal and human studies demonstrates that specific changes in neuronal synchrony occur during all of these processes (...) and that they are distinguished by the emergence of fast oscillations with frequencies in the gamma-range. (shrink)

This study aimed to explore the role of two models of well-being in the prediction of psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic, namely PERMA and mature happiness. According to PERMA, well-being is mainly composed of five elements: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning in life, and achievement. Instead, mature happiness is understood as a positive mental state characterized by inner harmony, calmness, acceptance, contentment, and satisfaction with life. Rooted in existential positive psychology, this harmony-based happiness represents the result of living in (...) balance between positive and negative aspects of one's life. We hypothesized that mature happiness would be a more prominent protective factor during the present pandemic than the PERMA composite. A total of 12,203 participants from 30 countries responded to an online survey including the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21), the PERMA-Profiler, and the Mature Happiness Scale-Revised (MHS-R). Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that PERMA and mature happiness were highly correlated, but nonetheless, they represented two separate factors. After controlling for demographic factors and country-level variables, both PERMA Well-being and MHS-R were negative predictors of psychological distress. Mature happiness was a better predictor of stress, anxiety, and general distress, while PERMA showed a higher prediction of depression. Mature happiness moderated the relation between the perceived noxious effects of the pandemic and all markers of distress (depression, anxiety, stress, and total DASS-21). Instead, PERMA acted as a moderator in the case of depression and stress. These findings indicate that inner harmony, according to the mature happiness theory, is an essential facet of well-being to be taken into consideration. The results of this study can also orient policies aimed to alleviate the negative effects of the pandemic on mental health through the promotion of well-being. (shrink)

As both Chinese philosophy and Indian philosophy have been largely marginalized on the world stage of philosophy in contemporary times, there is a pressing need to bring these voices into the discourse of world philosophy. This essay explores the value of taking into account the Confucian idea of harmony for postcolonial solitary and for a more equitable polycentric global academy. I explicate the concept and the value of harmony as exemplified in Confucian philosophy. I examine reasons of the disappearance of (...) harmony in dominant Western philosophical discourse by comparing various conceptions of harmony in the West. Greek philosophers Heraclitus, Pythagoras, and Plato presented competing conceptions of harmony; whereas Heraclitian processive harmony presupposes opposites, tension and conflict, Pythagorean harmony and Platonic harmony are founded on a pre-determined order. In the contemporary West, from Karl Popper to Martha Nussbaum, harmony has been treated with disdain while it is taken in a Platonic sense. In East Asia, both Confucianism and Daoism take harmony/harmonization as an effective way to accommodate diversity and difference. I will then focus on the Confucian dynamic notion of “harmony with difference” and argue that such a conception is far from naiveté and it has important implications if it is taken seriously in contemporary philosophical discourse. (shrink)

Practices such as mindfulness, introspection, and self-reflection are known to have positive short and long-term effects on health and well-being. However, in today's modern, fast-paced, technological world tempted by distractions these practices are often hard to access and relate to a broader audience. Consequently, technologies have emerged that mediate personal experiences, which is reflected in the high number of available applications designed to elicit positive changes. These technologies elicit positive changes by bringing users' attention to the self—from technologies that show (...) representation of quantified personal data, to technologies that provide experiences that guide the user closer in understanding the self. However, while many designs available today are either built to support or are informed by these aforementioned practices, the question remains: how can we most effectively employ different design elements and interaction strategies to support positive change? Moreover, what types of input and output modalities contribute to eliciting positive states? To address these questions, we present here a state of the art scoping review of immersive interactive technologies that serve in a role of a mediator for positive change in users. We performed a literature search using ACM Digital Library, Web of Science, IEEE Xplore, and Design and Applied Arts Index (beginning of literature—January 1, 2018). We retrieved English-language articles for review, and we searched for published and unpublished studies. Risk of bias was assessed with Downs and Black 26-item QAT scale. We included 34 articles as relevant to the literature, and the analysis of the articles resulted in 38 instances of 33 immersive, interactive experiences relating to positive human functioning. Our contribution is three-fold: First we provide a scoping review of immersive interactive technologies for positive change; Second, we propose both a framework for future designs of positive interactive technologies and design consideration informed by the comparative analysis of the designs; Third, we provide design considerations for immersive, interactive technologies to elicit positive states and support positive change. (shrink)

This paper sympathetically explores Daoism's relevance to environmental philosophy and to the aspiration of people to live in a manner convergent with nature. After discussing the Daoist understanding of nature and the dao (Way), the focus turns to the implications of these notions for our relationship to nature. The popular idea that Daoism encourages a return to a way of life is rejected. Instead, it is shown that the Daoist proposal is one of living more than people generally do in (...) the modern, technological world, and of allowing other beings to do so as well. These themes are clarified in a final section, inspired by some Daoist remarks, devoted to the relationship of human beings with animals. (shrink)

Harmony is a generally agreed-upon idea in international and diplomatic discourse. A common theme in multiple traditions of thought, Platonist and Confucian among others, it underlies today’s significant investments in musical activism, cultural diplomacy, conflict resolution and peace building. Yet despite this wide currency and long history, the idea of harmony seldom receives more than liminal attention in political theory. In the context of Western thought, an essay written in the 1830s by the French philosopher Jean Reynaud offers a striking (...) point of departure: Reynaud defines diplomacy as ‘the science of harmony among states’. This article, drawing from Reynaud’s text as well from the wider history of music, art and political thought, maps a series of conceptual fault lines that touch on the concept’s function in international thought; the inscription of difference, dissonance, conflict and even war within the idea of harmony; the hegemonic and imperial temptations harmony encompasses and legitimizes; and the theoretical sources of harmony in nature and artifice. In effect, the concept of harmony offers less a blueprint than a forum for imagining peace. (shrink)

Harmony is a generally agreed-upon idea in international and diplomatic discourse. A common theme in multiple traditions of thought, Platonist and Confucian among others, it underlies today’s significant investments in musical activism, cultural diplomacy, conflict resolution and peace building. Yet despite this wide currency and long history, the idea of harmony seldom receives more than liminal attention in political theory. In the context of Western thought, an essay written in the 1830s by the French philosopher Jean Reynaud offers a striking (...) point of departure: Reynaud defines diplomacy as ‘the science of harmony among states’. This article, drawing from Reynaud’s text as well from the wider history of music, art and political thought, maps a series of conceptual fault lines that touch on the concept’s function in international thought; the inscription of difference, dissonance, conflict and even war within the idea of harmony; the hegemonic and imperial temptations harmony encompasses and legitimizes; and the theoretical sources of harmony in nature and artifice. In effect, the concept of harmony offers less a blueprint than a forum for imagining peace. (shrink)

: This is a study of the Confucian ideal of harmony and harmonization (he 和). First, through an investigation of the early development of he in ancient China, the meaning of this concept is explored. Second, a philosophical analysis of he and a discussion of the relation between harmony, sameness, and strife are offered. Also offered are reasons why this notion is so important to Confucian philosophy. Finally, on the basis of value pluralism, a case is made for the Confucian (...) approach of he to the politics of today's world culture. (shrink)

A serious crisis is identified in theories of neurocomputation, marked by a persistent disparity between the phenomenological or experiential account of visual perception and the neurophysiological level of description of the visual system. In particular, conventional concepts of neural processing offer no explanation for the holistic global aspects of perception identified by Gestalt theory. The problem is paradigmatic and can be traced to contemporary concepts of the functional role of the neural cell, known as the Neuron Doctrine. In the absence (...) of an alternative neurophysiologically plausible model, I propose a perceptual modeling approach, to model the percept as experienced subjectively, rather than modeling the objective neurophysiological state of the visual system that supposedly subserves that experience. A Gestalt Bubble model is presented to demonstrate how the elusive Gestalt principles of emergence, reification, and invariance can be expressed in a quantitative model of the subjective experience of visual consciousness. That model in turn reveals a unique computational strategy underlying visual processing, which is unlike any algorithm devised by man, and certainly unlike the atomistic feed-forward model of neurocomputation offered by the Neuron Doctrine paradigm. The perceptual modeling approach reveals the primary function of perception as that of generating a fully spatial virtual-reality replica of the external world in an internal representation. The common objections to this picture-in-the-head concept of perceptual representation are shown to be ill founded. Key Words: brain-anchored; Cartesian theatre; consciousness; emergence; extrinsic constraints; filling-in; Gestalt; homunculus; indirect realism; intrinsic constraints; invariance; isomorphism; multistability; objective phenomenology; perceptual modeling; perspective; phenomenology; psychophysical parallelism; psychophysical postulate; qualia; reification; representationalism; structural coherence. (shrink)