This is a description and analysis of the intellectual culture of the eighteenth-century Church of England. Challenging conventional perceptions of the Church as an intellectually moribund institution, the study traces the influence of thinkers such as Locke, Newton, Burke, and Gibbon on theological debate in England during this period.

This essay constitutes an attempt to probe the very idea of a saying/showing distinction of the kind that Wittgenstein advances in the Tractatus—to say what such a distinction consists in, to say what philosophical work it has to do, and to say how we might be justified in drawing such a distinction. Towards the end of the essay the discussion is related to Wittgenstein’s later work. It is argued that we can profitably see this work in such a way that (...) a saying/showing distinction arises there too. In particular, in the final sub-section of the essay, it is suggested that we can see in Wittgenstein’s later work an inducement to say what we are shown. (shrink)

How do artifacts get their functions? It is typically thought that an artifact’s function depends on its maker’s intentions. This chapter argues that this common understanding is fatally flawed. Nor can artifact function be understood in terms of current uses or capacities. Instead, it proposes that we understand artifact function on the etiological model that Ruth Millikan and others have proposed for the biological realm. This model offers a robustly normative conception of function, but it does so naturalistically by employing (...) our best scientific theories, in particular natural selection. To help make this case, it proposes “living artifacts” (organisms designed for human purposes through artificial selection) as a bridge between the artifactual and the biological realms. (shrink)

This essay appeared as a contribution to a special issue of European Journal of Philosophy to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of P. F. Strawson’s The Bounds of Sense. In that book Strawson asks whether we should agree with Kant's claim, in his Critique of Pure Reason, that there can be only one world. What Kant means by this claim is that the four-dimensional realm that we inhabit must constitute the whole of empirical reality. Strawson gives reasons for (...) challenging this claim. This essay raises the question whether, even if Strawson is right, we may nevertheless have reason to believe that there can be only one world on a broader understanding of ‘world’. The aim is as much to clarify the issue as to settle it, although an attempt is made to motivate the view that there can indeed be only one world on this broader understanding. (shrink)

In this essay, we aim to provide an overview of the political and philosophical issues pertaining to asexuality. The first section, “What Is Asexuality?,” offers an account of asexuality. The second section, “Asexuality as a Unique Sexual Orientation,” argues that asexuality should be understood as a unique sexual orientation. The third section, “Asexuality and Oppression,” discusses the various forms of oppression facing asexual persons today. The fourth section, “The Goods of Asexuality,” articulates some goods that asexuality brings to human lives, (...) and we do this with an eye toward conceiving of asexuality as something other than a mere deficit. (shrink)

In this essay I focus on the idea of the univocity of being, championed by Duns Scotus and given prominence more recently by Deleuze. Although I am interested in how this idea can be established, my primary concern is with something more basic: how the idea can even be properly thought. In the course of exploring this issue, which I do partly by borrowing some ideas about logical syntax from Wittgenstein's Tractatus, I try to show how there can be dialogue (...) between analytic philosophers and those of other traditions. (shrink)

There is a current debate about the grammar of intention: do I intend to φ, or that I φ? The equivalent question in Aristotle relates especially to choice. I argue that, in the context of practical reasoning, choice, as also wish, has as its object an act. I then explore the role that this plays within his account of the relation of thought to action. In particular, I discuss the relation of deliberation to the practical syllogism, and the thesis that (...) the conclusion of the second is an action. (shrink)

How, if at all, are we to distinguish between the works that we call ‘art’ and those that we call ‘pornography’? This question gets a grip because from classical Greek vases and the frescoes of Pompeii to Renaissance mythological painting and sculpture to Modernist prints, the European artistic tradition is chock-full of art that looks a lot like pornography. In this paper I propose a way of thinking about the distinction that is grounded in art historical considerations regarding the function (...) of erotic images in 16 th -century Italy. This exploration suggests that the root of the erotic art/pornography distinction was—at least in this context—class: in particular, the need for a special category of unsanctioned illicit images arose at the very time when print culture was beginning to threaten elite privilege. What made an erotic representation exceed the boundaries of acceptability, I suggest, was not its extreme libidinosity but, rather, its widespread availability and, thereby, its threat to one of the mechanisms of sustaining class privilege. (shrink)

It is argued that the use/mention distinction, if it is to be a clear-cut one, cannot have the significance that it is usually thought to have. For that significance attaches to the distinction between employing an expression in order to draw attention to, or to talk about, some aspect of the world, as determined by the expression’s meaning, and employing it in order to draw attention to, or to talk about, the expression itself—and this distinction is not a clear-cut one. (...) In the final section of the essay this argument is extended to cast doubt on a rather glib appeal to the use/mention distinction that is frequently made in the philosophy of language. (shrink)

This essay is concerned with six linguistic moves that we commonly make, each of which is considered in turn. These are: stating rules of representation; representing things categorically; mentioning expressions; saying truly or falsely how things are; saying vaguely how things are; and stating rules of rules of representation. A common-sense view is defended of what is involved in our doing each of these six things against a much more sceptical view emanating from the idea that linguistic behavior is fundamentally (...) messy. Both the fifth move and the sixth move involve vague concepts, and much of the essay is concerned with developing an approach to various problems and puzzles that attach to such concepts, most notably the sorites paradoxes. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to characterize the issue whether tense is real. Roughly, this is the issue whether, given any tensed representation, its tense corresponds in some suitably direct way to some feature of reality. The task is to make this less rough. Eight characterizations of the issue are considered and rejected, before one is endorsed. On this characterization, the unreality of tense is equivalent to the unity of temporal reality. The issue whether tense is real, so characterized, (...) is then related to Kant’s deduction of the categories in his Critique of Pure Reason. It is argued that Kant’s deduction does not provide the argument for the unreality of tense that it may appear to. The conclusion drawn at the end of the essay is that the unreality of tense cannot be argued for—not because tense is real, but because, even if it is unreal, its unreality is basic. (shrink)

In the last two decades, the term “quality-of-life” has become popular in medicine and health care. There are, however, important differences in the meaning and the use of the term. The message of all quality-of-life talk is that medicine and health care are not valuable in themselves. They are valuable to the extent that they contribute to the quality of life of patients. The ultimate aims of medicine and health care are not health or prolongation of life as such, but (...) preservation or improvement of the quality of life. The primary aims of medicine and health care, such as the prolongation of life, can – but need not always – come into conflict with the ultimate ones: medical treatments do not always benefit a patient. In this article I will, first, summarize the results of my explorations of the use and the meaning of the term “quality-of-life.” The use and the meaning of the term turn out to depend on the contexts of medical decisionmaking in which it is used. I will show that there are at least three different concepts of quality-of-life. Second, I will argue that the different concepts of quality-of-life are not unrelated. They point to different components of and/or conditions for happiness. Third, I will analyze the relation between the three concepts of qualityof-life, health and happiness. (shrink)

This essay involves exploration of certain repercussions of Bernard Williams’ view that there is, in Wittgenstein’s later work, a transcendental idealism akin to that found in the Tractatus—sharing with it the feature that it cannot be satisfactorily stated. It is argued that, if Williams is right, then Wittgenstein’s later work precludes a philosophically substantial theory of meaning; for such a theory would force us to try to state the idealism. In a postscript written for the reprint of the essay, reasons (...) are given for thinking that Williams is not right: Wittgenstein’s later work actually helps us to repudiate as ill-conceived all those questions whose answers invite us to embrace any such idealism. But the main thesis of the essay remains intact. Indeed the idea that Wittgenstein’s later work precludes a philosophically substantial theory of meaning is reinforced. (shrink)

This essay is a critical notice of Thomas Nagel’s The Last Word. Though the essay evidences broad sympathy with the spirit of Nagel’s book, its main burden is to query the letter of the book. Nagel’s defence of the view that there are certain beliefs and ways of thinking that are not from any point of view, or that are ‘objective’ in his own terms, is criticized on the grounds that it is too facile. It is also criticized for not (...) being pitted against a critique of beliefs and ways of thinking that are from some point of view, or that are ‘subjective’ in his terms. (shrink)

An interpretation of Kant's first antinomy is defended whereby both its thesis and its antithesis depend on a common basic principle that Kant endorses, namely that there cannot be an ‘infinite contingency’, by which is meant a contingent fact about how an infinite region of space or time is occupied. The greatest problem with this interpretation is that Kant explicitly declines to apply counterparts of the temporal arguments in the antinomy to the world’s future, even though, if the interpretation is (...) correct, such arguments are clearly there to be applied. This problem, it is argued, is surmountable. (shrink)

It is argued that, although there are no ineffable truths, the concept of ineffability nevertheless does have application—to certain states of knowledge. Towards the end of the essay this idea is related to religion: it is argued that the language that results from attempting (unsuccessfully) to put ineffable knowledge into words is very often of a religious kind. An example of this is given at the very end of the essay. This example concerns the Euthyphro question: whether what is right (...) is right because God wills it, or whether God wills it because it is right. (shrink)

This essay is concerned with Graham Bird’s treatment, in The Revolutionary Kant, of Kant’s mathematical antinomies. On Bird’s interpretation, our error in these antinomies is to think that we can settle certain issues about the limits of physical reality by pure reason whereas in fact we cannot settle them at all. On the rival interpretation advocated in this essay, it is not true that we cannot settle these issues. Our error is to presuppose that the concept of the unconditioned has (...) application to physical reality. Once this presupposition has been abandoned, we can retrieve sound arguments from the antinomies, not indeed to demonstrate that the views originally being defended are correct, but to demonstrate that the views originally being attacked are incorrect. The essay concludes with some comments concerning how this disagreement relates to a broader disagreement about the best way to understand Kant. (shrink)

Wrong beliefs, known by some as ‘alternative facts’, have proliferated lately in important areas of human life, including social, political, and public health domains. This can be and has been damaging. This brief article proposes an epistemological category classification of these wrong beliefs, with the following mappings: a) ‘No-Information’ marked by willful blindness produces ‘Empty Beliefs’; b) ‘Mis-Information’ yields ‘Mis(taken) Beliefs’; and c) ‘Dis-Information’ predicated on blatant distortions produces ‘Dis(torted) Beliefs’. This simple classification system, is perhaps epistemologically satisfying, and moreover (...) could have positive policy implications. (shrink)

(2002). Phantasy and Wish: A Proper Function Account for Human A-Rational Primary Process Mediated Mentation. Australasian Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 80, No. 1, pp. 1-16.

This essay is concerned with solipsism, understood as the extreme sceptical view that I have no knowledge except of my subjective state. A less rough formulation of the view is mooted, inspired by a Quinean combination of naturalism and empiricism. An objection to the resultant position is then considered, based on Putnam’s argument that we are not brains in vats. This objection is first outlined, then pitted against a series of counter-objections. Eventually it is endorsed, but only at the price (...) of exposing the formulation of solipsism in question as not, after all, a satisfactory formulation. This leads to further speculation about the status of solipsism itself. Two of the possibilities that are considered are, firstly, that it is incoherent and, secondly, that it is inexpressible. (shrink)

We present counterexamples to the widespread assumption that Moorean sentences cannot be rationally asserted. We then explain why Moorean assertions of the sort we discuss do not incur the irrationality charge. Our argument involves an appeal to the dual-process theory of the mind and a contrast between the conditions for ascribing beliefs to oneself and the conditions for making assertions about independently existing states of affairs. We conclude by contrasting beliefs of the sort we discuss with the structurally similar but (...) rationally impermissible beliefs of certain psychiatric patients. (shrink)

Two of Quine's most familiar doctrines are: that there is a distinction between underdetermination and indeterminacy; and that there is no distinction between analytic and synthetic truths. An argument is given that these two doctrines are incompatible. In terms wholly acceptable to Quine and based on the underdetermination/indeterminacy distinction, an exhaustive and exclusive distinction is drawn between two kinds of true sentences, which, it is argued, corresponds to the traditional analytic/synthetic distinction. An appendix is used to develop one aspect of (...) the underdetermination/indeterminacy distinction, as construed here, and to discuss, in passing, some of Quine’s more general views on truth. (shrink)

This essay is a contribution to a symposium on Barry Stroud’s book The Quest for Reality. It exploits various analogies between tense and colour to defend the idea, about which Stroud is deeply sceptical, that we can successfully undertake what Stroud calls ‘the philosophical quest for reality’—more specifically, to defend the idea that we can do this by arguing that any fact can be represented from no point of view.

Freud proposes that in unconscious processing, logical connections are also (heavily) based upon phonological similarities. Repressed concerns, for example, would also be expressed by way of phonologic ambiguity. In order to investigate a possible unconscious influence of phonological similarity, 31 participants were submitted to a tachistoscopic subliminal priming experiment, with prime and target presented at 1ms. In the experimental condition, the prime and one of the 2 targets were phonological reversed forms of each other, though graphemically dissimilar (e.g., “nice” and (...) “sign”); in the control condition the targets were pseudo-randomly attributed to primes to which they don’t belong. The experimental task was to “blindly” pick the choice most similar to the prime. ERPs were measured with a focus on the N320, which is known to react selectively to phonological mismatch in supraliminal visual word presentations. The N320 amplitude-effects at the electrodes on the midline and at the left of the brain significantly predicted the participants’ net behavioral choices more than half a second later, while their subjective experience is one of arbitrariness. Moreover, the social desirability score (SDS) significantly correlates with both the behavioral and the N320 brain responses of the participants. It is proposed that in participants with low SDS the phonological target induces an expected reduction of N320 and this increases their probability to pick this target. In contrast, high defensive participants have a perplexed brain reaction upon the phonological target, with a negatively peaking N320 as compared to control and this leads them to avoid this target more often. Social desirability, which is understood as reflecting defensiveness, might also manifest itself as a defense against the (energy-consuming) ambiguity of language. The specificity of this study is that all of this is happening totally out of awareness and at the level of very elementary linguistic distinctions. (shrink)

Our approach is based on a tri-partite method of integrating psychodynamic hypotheses, cognitive subliminal processes, and psychophysiological alpha power measures. We present ten social phobic subjects with three individually selected groups of words representing unconscious conflict, conscious symptom experience, and Osgood Semantic negative valence words used as a control word group. The unconscious conflict and conscious symptom words, presented subliminally and supraliminally, act as primes preceding the conscious symptom and control words presented as supraliminal targets. With alpha power as a (...) marker of inhibitory brain activity, we show that unconscious conflict primes, only when presented subliminally, have a unique inhibitory effect on conscious symptom targets. This effect is absent when the unconscious conflict primes are presented supraliminally, or when the target is the control words. Unconscious conflict prime effects were found to correlate with a measure of repressiveness in a similar previous study (Shevrin et al., 1992, 1996). Conscious symptom primes have no inhibitory effect when presented subliminally. Inhibitory effects with conscious symptom primes are present, but only when the primes are supraliminal, and they did not correlate with repressiveness in a previous study (Shevrin et al., 1992, 1996). We conclude that while the inhibition following supraliminal conscious symptom primes is due to conscious threat bias, the inhibition following subliminal unconscious conflict primes provides a neurological blueprint for dynamic repression: it is only activated subliminally by an individual's unconscious conflict and has an inhibitory effect specific only to the conscious symptom. These novel findings constitute neuroscientific evidence for the psychoanalytic concepts of unconscious conflict and repression, while extending neuroscience theory and methods into the realm of personal, psychological meaning. (shrink)

This article offers a novel, conservative account of material constitution, one that incorporates sortal essentialism and features a theory of dominant sortals. It avoids coinciding objects, temporal parts, relativizations of identity, mereological essentialism, anti-essentialism, denials of the reality of the objects of our ordinary ontology, and other departures from the metaphysic implicit in ordinary ways of thinking. Defenses of the account against important objections are found in Burke 1997, 2003, and 2004, as well as in the often neglected six paragraphs (...) that conclude section V of this article. (shrink)

This collection for a course in Social Thought and the Critique of Power includes selections from Sandra Bartkey, Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, Luc Boltanski, Eve Chiapello, Juergin Habermas, Margaret Kohn, Saskia Sassen, Margit Mayer, David Ciavatta, Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, and Jeremy Waldron. Selections include material on the city, neoliberalism, computer-mediated life, precarity, cosmopolitanism, and gender. This packet may still be available as a print-on-demand title at the Ryerson University Bookstore.

This collection of writings on aesthetics includes selections from Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Mikhail Bakhtin, Sigmund Freud, Martin Heidegger, Amy Mullin, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Frederich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling. This collection may still be available as a print-on-demand title at the Ryerson University bookstore.

The visuospatial system integrates inner and outer functional processes, organizing spatial, temporal, and social interactions between the brain, body, and environment. These processes involve sensorimotor networks like the eye–hand circuit, which is especially important to primates, given their reliance on vision and touch as primary sensory modalities and the use of the hands in social and environmental interactions. At the same time, visuospatial cognition is intimately connected with memory, self-awareness, and simulation capacity. In the present article, we review issues associated (...) with investigating visuospatial integration in extinct human groups through the use of anatomical and behavioral data gleaned from the paleontological and archaeological records. In modern humans, paleoneurological analyses have demonstrated noticeable and unique morphological changes in the parietal cortex, a region crucial to visuospatial management. Archaeological data provides information on hand–tool interaction, the spatial behavior of past populations, and their interaction with the environment. Visuospatial integration may represent a critical bridge between extended cognition, self-awareness, and social perception. As such, visuospatial functions are relevant to the hypothesis that human evolution is characterized by changes in brain–body–environment interactions and relations, which enhance integration between internal and external cognitive components through neural plasticity and the development of a specialized embodiment capacity. We therefore advocate the investigation of visuospatial functions in past populations through the paleoneurological study of anatomical elements and archaeological analysis of visuospatial behaviors. (shrink)

In this essay, we suggest practical ways to shift the framing of crisis standards of care toward disability justice. We elaborate on the vision statement provided in the 2010 Institute of Medicine (National Academy of Medicine) “Summary of Guidance for Establishing Crisis Standards of Care for Use in Disaster Situations,” which emphasizes fairness; equitable processes; community and provider engagement, education, and communication; and the rule of law. We argue that interpreting these elements through disability justice entails a commitment to both (...) distributive and recognitive justice. The disability rights movement's demand “Nothing about us, without us” requires substantive inclusion of disabled people in decision‐making related to their interests, including in crisis planning before, during, and after a pandemic like Covid‐19. (shrink)

On the most popular account of material constitution, it is common for a material object to coincide precisely with one or more other material objects, ones that are composed of just the same matter but differ from it in sort. I argue that there is nothing that could ground the alleged difference in sort and that the account must be rejected.

It is hard to see why the head and other brain-containing parts of a person are not themselves persons, or at least thinking, conscious beings. Some theorists have sought to reconcile us to the existence of thinking person-parts. Others have sought to avoid them but have relied on radical theories at odds with the metaphysic implicit in ordinary ways of thinking. This paper offers a novel, conservative solution, one on which the heads and other brain-containing parts of persons do exist (...) but are neither persons, thinkers, nor conscious beings. A much briefer statement of the solution is found in section 5 of Burke 2004. (shrink)

This paper sets out to interpret the phrase ‘the city landscape’. Beginning with landscape aesthetics based on two categories — the picturesque and the sublime — the author attempts todemonstrate that a city can be interpreted in terms of a cultural landscape. This necessitates a re‑interpretation of the category of the sublime, whereby, through references to Edmund Burke, Theodor W. Adorno and Arnold Berleant, the sublime assumes the nature of a category which determines the existential situation of a person in (...) the world. Here, the sublime provides people with an impulse to undertake efforts to fashion their surroundings and forge the essence of the living world. As such, the sublime also becomes a category that promotes social activities aimed at improving the quality of life in a city, such as the activities of ‘urban gardeners’. (shrink)

Dion is a full-bodied man. Theon is that part of him which consists of all of him except his left foot. What becomes of Dion and Theon when Dion’s left foot is amputated? Employing the doctrine of sortal essentialism, I defend a surprising answer last defended by Chrysippus: that Dion survives while the seemingly unscathed Theon perishes. For replies to critics, see my publications of 1997 and (especially) 2003.

This paper examines the role of ?situations? in John Dewey's philosophy of logic. To do this properly it is necessary to contrast Dewey's conception of experience and mentality with views characteristic of modern epistemology. The primary difference is that, rather than treat experience as peripheral and or external to mental functions (reason, etc.), we should treat experience as a field in and as a part of which thinking takes place. Experience in this broad sense subsumes theory and fact, hypothesis and (...) evidence, reason and observation, thought and perception. Logic in this view is a formal study of the generic features of all possible kinds of experience in this broad (thick, deep, wide, multifaceted) sense. The goal of this paper is to explain what Dewey thinks a situation is in the context of this view of experience, and to argue for the fundamental importance of that idea for logic and philosophy in general. (shrink)

Respiration influences various pacemakers and rhythms of the body during inspiration and expiration but the underlying mechanisms are relatively unknown. Understanding this phenomenon is important, as breathing disorders, breath holding, and hyperventilation can lead to significant medical conditions. We discuss the physiological modulation of heart rhythm, blood pressure, sympathetic nerve activity, EEG, and other changes observed during inspiration and expiration. We also correlate the intracellular mitochondrial respiratory metabolic processes with real-time breathing and correlate membrane potential changes with inspiration and expiration. (...) We propose that widespread minor hyperpolarization occurs during inspiration and widespread minor depolarization occurs during expiration. This depolarization is likely a source of respiratory drive. Further knowledge of intracellular and extracellular ionic changes associated with respiration will enhance our understanding of respiration and its role as a modulator of cellular membrane potential. This could expand treatment options for a wide range of health conditions, such as breathing disorders, stress-related disorders, and further our understanding of the Hering–Breuer reflex and respiratory sinus arrhythmia. (shrink)

Dion is a full-bodied man. Theon is that part of him which consists of all of him except his left foot. What becomes of Dion and Theon when Dion’s left foot is amputated? In Burke 1994, employing the doctrine of sortal essentialism, I defended a surprising position last defended by Chrysippus: that Dion survives while the seemingly unscathed Theon perishes. This paper defends that position against objections by Stone, Carter, Olson, and others. Most notably, it offers a novel, conservative solution (...) to the many-thinkers problem, a solution that enables us to accept the existence of brain-containing person-parts while denying that those person-parts are thinking, conscious beings. (shrink)

This chapter describes the potential far‐reaching consequences of contemplative higher education for the fields of science and medicine.

The “staccato run,” in which a runner stops infinitely often while running from one point to another, is a prototypical “superfeat,” that is, a feat involving the completion in a finite time of an infinite sequence of distinct acts. There is no widely accepted demonstration that superfeats are impossible logically, but I argue here, contra Grunbaüm, that they are impossible dynamically. Specifically, I show that the staccato run is excluded by Newton’s three laws of motion, when those laws are supplemented (...) with a defensible philosophical judgment. (shrink)

Results: We analyzed 1,402 surveys and 15 in-depth interviews. Many (32%) CL participants reported greater difficulty refilling medications and a minority (14%) reported greater difficulty accessing HIV care during the pandemic. Most (99%) Opt4Mamas participants reported no difficulty refilling medications or accessing HIV/pregnancy care. Among the CL participants, older women were less likely (aOR = 0.95, 95% CI: 0.92–0.98) and women with more children were more likely (aOR = 1.13, 95% CI: 1.00–1.28) to report difficulty refilling medications. Only 2% of (...) CL participants reported greater difficulty managing FP and most (95%) reported no change in likelihood of using FP or desire to get pregnant. Qualitative analysis revealed three major themes: (1) adverse organizational/economic implications of the pandemic, (2) increased importance of pregnancy prevention during the pandemic, and (3) fear of contracting COVID-19. (shrink)

Understanding the autonomic nervous system and homeostatic changes associated with emotions remains a major challenge for neuroscientists and a fundamental prerequisite to treat anxiety, stress, and emotional disorders. Based on recent publications, the inter-relationship between respiration and emotions and the influence of respiration on autonomic changes, and subsequent widespread membrane potential changes resulting from changes in homeostasis are discussed. We hypothesize that reversing homeostatic alterations with meditation and breathing techniques rather than targeting neurotransmitters with medication may be a superior method (...) to address the whole body changes that occur in stress, anxiety, and depression. Detrimental effects of stress, negative emotions, and sympathetic dominance of the autonomic nervous system have been shown to be counteracted by different forms of meditation, relaxation, and breathing techniques. We propose that these breathing techniques could be used as firstline and supplemental treatments for stress, anxiety, depression, and some emotional disorders. (shrink)

(The downloadable document, posted 07/23/22, incorporates post-publication corrections/refinements, mainly of section II.) The article gives a novel argument to show that there is sense of 'exists' suitable for posing a substantive issue between presentists and eternalists. It then seeks to invigorate a neglected variety of presentism. There are seven doctrines, widely accepted even among presentists, that create problems for presentism. Without distinguishing existence and being, presentists can comfortably reject all seven. Doing so would dispose of the majority of presentism’s problems. (...) Further, it would enable presentists to reduce A-judgments to B-judgments, thereby insulating presentism from doubts about the intelligibility of A-theories. For reasons indicated very briefly, it might also make presentism less difficult to reconcile with special relativity, though the point is not pursued here. (shrink)

Pranayamic breathing, defined as a manipulation of breath movement, has been shown to contribute to a physiologic response characterized by the presence of decreased oxygen consumption, decreased heart rate, and decreased blood pressure, as well as increased theta wave amplitude in EEG recordings, increased parasympathetic activity accompanied by the experience of alertness and reinvigoration. The mechanism of how pranayamic breathing interacts with the nervous system affecting metabolism and autonomic functions remains to be clearly understood. It is our hypothesis that voluntary (...) slow deep breathing functionally resets the autonomic nervous system through stretchinduced inhibitory signals and hyperpolarization currents propagated through both neural and non-neural tissue which synchronizes neural elements in the heart, lungs, limbic system and cortex. During inspiration, stretching of lung tissue produces inhibitory signals by action of slowly adapting stretch receptors (SARs) and hyperpolarization current by action of fibroblasts. Both inhibitory impulses and hyperpolarization current are known to synchronize neural elements leading to the modulation of the nervous system and decreased metabolic activity indicative of the parasympathetic state. In this paper we propose pranayama’s physiologic mechanism through a cellular and systems level perspective,involving both neural and non-neural elements. This theoretical description describes a common physiological mechanism underlying pranayama and elucidate the role of the respiratory and cardiovascular system on modulating the autonomic nervous system. Along with facilitating the design of clinical breathing techniques for the treatment of autonomic nervous system and other disorders, this model will also validate pranayama as a topic requiring more research. (shrink)

The current study is a pilot trial to examine the effects of a nonelective, classroom-based, teacher-implemented, mindfulness meditation intervention on standard clinical measures of mental health and affect in middle school children. A total of 101 healthy sixth-grade students (55 boys, 46 girls) were randomized to either an Asian history course with daily mindfulness meditation practice (intervention group) or an African history course with a matched experiential activity (active control group). Self-reported measures included the Youth Self Report (YSR), a modified (...) Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and the Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Measure –Revised. Both groups decreased significantly on clinical syndrome subscales and affect but did not differ in the extent of their improvements. Meditators were significantly less likely to develop suicidal ideation or thoughts of self-harm than controls. These results suggest that mindfulness training may yield both unique and non-specific benefits that are shared by other novel activities. (shrink)

Suppose that five minutes ago, to our astonishment, a healthy, full-grown duck suddenly popped into existence on the table in front of us. Suppose further that there was no first time at which the duck existed but rather a last time, T, at which it had yet to exist. Then for each time t at which the duck has existed, there is an explanation of why the duck existed at t: there was a time t’ earlier than t but later (...) than T such that the duck existed at t’, and it was only to be expected that a healthy duck would survive the brief period from t’ to t. But would these explanations remove the mystery? Taken collectively, would they explain why the duck has existed since T rather than never having existed at all? Presumably not. But if not, this seems to discredit the style of explanation offered by Hume and Edwards for the infinite regress they hypothesize of causes and effects. (shrink)

There is growing interest in the use of technology to enhance the tracking and quality of clinical information available for patients in disaster settings. This paper describes the design and evaluation of the Wireless Internet Information System for Medical Response in Disasters (WIISARD).