This collection brings together fourteen contributions by authors from around the globe. Each of the contributions engages with questions about how local and global bioethical issues are made to be comparable, in the hope of redressing basic needs and demands for justice. These works demonstrate the significant conceptual contributions that can be made through feminists' attention to debates in a range of interrelated fields, especially as they formulate appropriate responses to developments in medical technology, global economics, population shifts, and poverty.

Context — Children and adults with psychopathic traits and conduct or oppositional defiant disorder demonstrate poor decision making and are impaired in reversal learning. However, the neural basis of this impairment has not previously been investigated. Furthermore, despite high comorbidity of psychopathic traits and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, to our knowledge, no research has attempted to distinguish neural correlates of childhood psychopathic traits and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Objective—To determine the neural regions that underlie the reversal learning impairments in children with psychopathic traits (...) plus conduct or oppositional defiant disorder. Design — Case-control study. Setting — Government clinical research institute. Participants — Forty-two adolescents aged 10 to 17 years: 14 with psychopathic traits and oppositional defiant disorder or conduct disorder, 14 with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder only, and 14 healthy controls. Main Outcome Measure — Blood oxygenation level–dependent signal as measured via functional magnetic resonance imaging during a probabilistic reversal task. Results — Children with psychopathic traits showed abnormal responses within the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (Brodmann area 10) during punished reversal errors compared with children wit hattention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and healthy children (P < .05 corrected for multiple comparisons). Conclusions — To our knowledge, this study provides the first evidence of abnormal ventromedial prefrontal cortex responsiveness in children with psychopathic traits and demonstrates this dysfunction was not attributable to comorbid attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. These findings suggest that reversal learning impairments in patients with developmental psychopathic traits relate to abnormal processing of reinforcement information. (shrink)

In this paper we advance a new solution to Quinn’s puzzle of the self-torturer. The solution falls directly out of an application of the principle of instrumental reasoning to what we call “vague projects”, i.e., projects whose completion does not occur at any particular or definite point or moment. The resulting treatment of the puzzle extends our understanding of instrumental rationality to projects and ends that cannot be accommodated by orthodox theories of rational choice.

Intuitively, it seems that certain basic desires, or urges, are rationally impotent, i.e., that they provide no reasons for action (a famous example is Warren Quinn's story of a man who has a brute urge to turn on every radio he sees). This intuition seems to conflict with the internalist, or Humean subjectivist, claim that our desires give us reasons. But Harry Frankfurt's well-known subjectivist account, with its distinction between first- order and higher-order desires and its concepts of identification (...) and commitment, may be able to accommodate this intuition. Regan Lance Reitsma has argued that to do so, it needs to be supplemented with a concept of "personal ideals", which demand that we give no normative weight to certain inclinations. I argue that Reitsma's account depends on the unexplained assumption that some kinds of desire have special standing, and thus cannot improve on the explanation of the rational impotence of urges already available to Frankfurt. (shrink)

Let me say something, to begin with, about wanting weird stuff. Stuff like saucers of mud. The example, famously, is from Anscombe’s Intention (Anscombe Anscombe 957)) where she is, in effect, defending a version of the old scholastic maxim, Omne appetitum appetitur sub specie boni. If your Latin is rusty like mine, what that says is just that every appetite – for better congruence with modern discussions, let’s say every desire – desires under the aspect of the good, or in (...) the wording made current by Velleman, under the guise of the good (Velleman 992). To desire something is to regard it as good in some way, as having some desirability characteristic. And not just any old thing can be regarded as good in some way, as having some desirability characteristic. Obviously if this is correct, it rules against our giving desires any sort of ground-floor role in our understand-. (shrink)

This paper argues that many so-called digital technologies can be construed as notational technologies, explored through the example of Monegraph, an art and digital asset management platform built on top of the blockchain system originally developed for the cryptocurrency bitcoin. As the paper characterizes it, a notational technology is the performance of syntactic notation within a field of reference, a technologized version of what Nelson Goodman called a “notational system.” Notational technologies produce abstracted entities through positive and reliable, or constitutive, (...) tests of socially acceptable meaning. Accordingly, this account deviates from typical narratives of blockchains, instead demonstrating that blockchain technologies are effective at managing digital assets because they produce abstracted identities through the performance of notation. Since notational technologies rely on configurations of socially acceptable meaning, this paper also provides a philosophical account of how blockchain technologies are socially embedded. (shrink)

This paper raises a slightly uncomfortable question: are some delusional subjects responsible for their delusions? This question is uncomfortable because we typically think that the answer is pretty clearly just ‘no’. However, we also accept that self-deception is paradigmatically intentional behavior for which the self-deceiver is prima facie blameworthy. Thus, if there is overlap between self-deception and delusion, this will put pressure on our initial answer. This paper argues that there is indeed such overlap by offering a novel philosophical account (...) of self-deception. The account offered is independently plausible and avoids the main problems that plague other views. It also yields the result that some delusional subjects are self-deceived. The conclusion is not, however, that those subjects are blameworthy. Rather, a distinction is made between blameworthiness and ‘attributability’. States or actions can be significantly attributable to a subject—in the sense that they are expressions of their wills—without it being the case that the subject is blameworthy, if the subject has an appropriate excuse. Understanding delusions within this framework of responsibility and excuses not only illuminates the ways in which the processes of delusional belief formation and maintenance are continuous with ‘ordinary’ processes of belief formation and maintenance, it also provides a way of understanding the innocence of the delusional subject that does not involve the denial of agency. (shrink)

This paper explains a way of understanding Kant's proof of God's existence in the Critique of Practical Reason that has hitherto gone unnoticed and argues that this interpretation possesses several advantages over its rivals. By first looking at examples where Kant indicates the role that faith plays in moral life and then reconstructing the proof of the second Critique with this in view, I argue that, for Kant, we must adopt a certain conception of the highest good, and so also (...) must choose to believe in the kind of God that can make it possible, because this is essentially a way of actively striving for virtue. One advantage of this interpretation, I argue, is that it is able to make sense of the strong link Kant draws between morality and religion. (shrink)

In this paper, I want to focus not on the problems that I believe may threaten Kant’s account of the highest good, but instead on those that I believe threaten the majority of the interpretive reconstructions attempted by commentators and thus prevent the emergence of a consensus in the near future. My goal is to set forth exactly four problems to which I believe any successful interpretation or reconstruction of Kant’s account of the highest good will have to provide substantive (...) solutions and, in doing so, either break new theoretical ground or at least provide a more comprehensive methodology for sorting through the texts. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to better understand Kant’s conception of philosophy as a “world concept”, which is at the heart of the Architectonic of Pure Reason. This is pursued in two major parts. The first evaluates the textual foundation for reading Kant’s world concept of philosophy as cosmopolitanism and concludes that he most probably never himself equated philosophy as a world concept with any form of cosmopolitanism. The second major part of the paper clarifies this concept of philosophy (...) through the specific role it plays in the argument of the Architectonic. Kant’s unique concept of science is examined and compared with several specific applications of it found elsewhere in Kant’s writings. From this it is concluded that Kant’s intention in the Architectonic was to derive his world concept of philosophy from its logical counterpart, namely the scholastic concept of philosophy, and that its function there is to provide the idea from which the entire structure of Kantian critical metaphysics can be derived. Philosophy as a world concept, it is further argued, is the complete system of critical or Kantian metaphysics in application and the philosopher in this sense is the ideal critical metaphysician who fully realizes its laws through her own understanding and will. (shrink)

This paper traces the philosophical concept of life prior to Kant and uses this to contextualize his account of aesthetic judgment as a form of life. It argues on this basis that, according to Kant, the form that taste claims for itself, as explicated in its four moments, results in a demand being placed on the transcendental philosopher to admit the idea of an ultimate subjective basis of all cognitive activities in human beings, that is, a shared principle and form (...) of cognititive life htat is uniquely human. (shrink)

This chapter traces the origins of Kant's perfectionism, and so of his moral law, to the formal conception of 'nature' that emerges from his reflection on the work of Wolff and Baumgarten. The conceptual preparation for this move turns upon two hinges, both of which trace to Baumgarten's subtle modifications of Wollffian perfectionism, namely, his fuller articulation of a non-consequentialist, internal morality of actions and what I call a 'hyper-Leibnizian' account of the idea and formal structure of nature itself. The (...) fourth section shows how Kant discovers a new account of the a priori origin of this formal structure, which, when combined with his conception of unconditioned or transcendental freedom, allows him to locate an unconditioned, hence genuinely moral law, in freedom's lawlike unconditioned, intetentional imiposition of this same formal strcture, this homologia, on all its actions. In this way, the neo-Stoicism found in the earlier rationalist tradition, which bits us to 'live according to nature,' becomes in Kant the absolute duty to live according to reason's pure, a priori idea of a nature. (shrink)

In addition to considerable debate in the recent evolutionary literature about the limits of the Modern Synthesis of the 1930s and 1940s, there has also been theoretical and empirical interest in a variety of new and not so new concepts such as phenotypic plasticity, genetic assimilation and phenotypic accommodation. Here we consider examples of the arguments and counter- arguments that have shaped this discussion. We suggest that much of the controversy hinges on several misunderstandings, including unwarranted fears of a general (...) attempt at overthrowing the Modern Synthesis paradigm, and some fundamental conceptual confusion about the proper roles of phenotypic plasticity and natural selection within evolutionary theory. (shrink)

Robert Henman’s article, Can brain scanning and imaging techniques contribute to a theory of thinking? came to my attention recently. My own work over the years has included applications of mathematics in the biological sciences, collaboration in experimental work in biochemistry, as well as work in the philosophy of the biological sciences. Henman suggests something that, at present, would be out of the ordinary.

This paper defends the Principle of Sufficient Reason, taking Baumgarten as its guide. The primary aim is not to vindicate the principle, but rather to explore the kinds of resources Baumgarten originally thought sufficient to justify the PSR against its early opponents. The paper also considers Baumgarten’s possible responses to Kant’s pre-Critical objections to the proof of the PSR. The paper finds that Baumgarten possesses reasonable responses to all these objections. While the paper notes that in the absence of a (...) response to Kant’s Critical discussion of the PSR, this result does not vindicate the principle, it shows how this discussion provides a deeper understanding of what, according to Baumgarten, the PSR really assumes and intends, and prepares the way for a more responsible discussion of Kant’s critical objections to Baumgarten’s supposed proof. (shrink)

This chapter challenges previous interpretations of the essay by analyzing the essential features of the method it describes. It argues that, even if Kant fails to present a perfectly clear and defensible account of a method for metaphysics, the manner in which he describes this method and the kind of transformation of metaphysical inquiry that he hopes it will accomplish do not testify to a broadly rationalist approach but, in fact, embody the anti-rationalist spirit of Bacon and Newton. While Kant (...) does indeed believe that metaphysics will one day be able to re-adopt the synthetic method, I argue that this is perfectly consistent with the views of Bacon and Newton as he understood them. In contrast with Friedman’s claim, I also show that experience does play a role in Kant’s conception of data and that this is particularly clear if we take into account other texts of the same period. (shrink)

This chapter re-examines Baumgarten's definition of 'existence' with an eye to evaluating Kant's criticisms of this definition in his pre-Critical writings. It shows that Baumgarten sharply distinguishes existence, as a specific content, from actuality, as the determination with respect to the same content, in a way that has gone unnoticed by pevious commentators. Afer explaining the implications of this disocovery for our understanding of Baumgarten's view of existence in general, it uses this to construct his version of the ontological argument. (...) The chapter highlights the originality of Baumgarten's version of the argument by comparison with Wolff's and argues that Baumgarten's conception of existence allows him to avoid the objections brought forward by Kant in the Only Possible Arugment in Support of a Demonstration of God's Existence. (shrink)

In this chapter, I demonstrate the several fundamental and original aspects of Bamgarten's concpetion of metaphyics that have been overlooked or at least insufficiently investigated. Baumgarten departs from his predecessors, and from many of his contemporaries, by regarding metaphysics as a uniquely human science whose essential purpose is to provide the best instruments for knowing and realising perfection in human life, given that we are subject to essential limitations. This instrumental view of metaphysics leads him to develop seveal Leibnizian ideas (...) regarding perfection and the best possible world into highly articulated metaphysical doctrines that are able to serve as universal guiding principles for all other sciences. In the final part of the chapter, I illustrate three ways in which metaphysics plays this role through an examination of the foundations of Baumgarten's own practical philosophy. (shrink)

How should we respond to the humanity of others? Should we care for others’ well-being? Respect them as autonomous agents? Largely neglected is an answer we can find in the religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism: we should love all. This paper argues that an ideal of love for all can be understood apart from its more typical religious contexts and moreover provides a unified and illuminating account of the the nature and grounds of morality. I defend a novel (...) account of love for all that avoids serious worries about the incoherence or impossibility of loving everyone. Doing so requires countenancing a neglected form of love. Love admits as its object not just individual entities like people and groups; we can also bear a love for the Fs in general---for all the Joneses, all the philosophers, or even all the human beings. I go on to argue that while it is possible for ordinary agents like us to love all, we shouldn't. Instead, we should approximate love for all. The minimal approximation of love for all is, surprisingly, respect; I derive the basic, structural features of deontological ethics (including anti-paternalism and anti-aggregation) from the ideal of loving all. (NB: This paper used to be titled "Ethics in the Shadow of Love" and has been cited as an unpublished manuscript under that title.). (shrink)

Physics tells us that the world that we live in is “really” composed of vast numbers of tiny particles, defined and individuated by their mass, charge, velocity and position. That is all there is, the rest being empty space. In contrast the world that we interact with in our every day lives is composed of rooms with windows, people and cats, and plates filled with milk and cornflakes. It is a world of individual objects and stuffs, most of which can (...) be effortlessly identified and labelled as being of a particular kind. Like an illustration in a child’s reader, we could look around our environment and attach labels to all of the objects and kinds of things around us. (shrink)

Resumo: A crise na União Europeia e os programas de austeridade subsequentes fizeram emergir uma miríade de movimentos sociais, diversos na sua natureza e nos seus propósitos. O que se pretende aferir neste artigo é a relação e a conexão existentes entre o Estado, o poder económico, a sociedade civil e os movimentos sociais neste contexto específico de crise. Procuraremos, nesta breve abordagem, explanar alguns elementos de originalidade intrínsecos aos movimentos sociais hodiernos, patentes na sua forma de participação e organização, (...) assim como aplicar estas questões teóricas relevantes ao contexto português. A parte empírica, dada a escassez de estudos de caso existentes, será apoiada no último inquérito do European Social Survey, de 2012. Analisando um conjunto de perguntas aí explícitas, podemos compreender, de forma indirecta, algumas das dinâmicas que caracterizam estes movimentos. Abstract: The crisis in the European Union and the subsequent austerity programs have unleashed a myriad of social movements, diverse in its nature and purpose. The purpose of this paper is to assess the relationship and connection between the State, economic power, civil society and social movements in this specific context of crisis. We will try, in this brief approach, to explain some elements of originality intrinsic to modern social movements, evident in their form of participation and organization, as well as to apply these theoretical questions relevant to the Portuguese context. The empirical part, given the paucity of existing case studies, will be supported in the last survey of the European Social Survey of 2012. By analyzing a set of questions explicit there, we can, indirectly, understand some of the dynamics that characterize these movements. (shrink)

This special issue introduces the study of financial technologies and finance to the field of philosophy of technology, bringing together two different fields that have not traditionally been in dialogue. The included articles are: Digital Art as ‘Monetised Graphics’: Enforcing Intellectual Property on the Blockchain, by Martin Zeilinger; Fundamentals of Algorithmic Markets: Liquidity, Contingency, and the Incomputability of Exchange, by Laura Lotti; ‘Crises of Modernity’ Discourses and the Rise of Financial Technologies in a Contested Mechanized World, by Marinus Ossewaarde; Two (...) Technical Images: Blockchain and High-Frequency Trading, by Diego Viana; and The Blockchain as a Narrative Technology: Investigating the Social Ontology and Normative Configurations of Cryptocurrencies, by Wessel Reijers and Mark Coeckelbergh. (shrink)

Abstract Platon, Phaidros 249bc A philological check of the grammar of this passage shows its philosophical impact. To be able to understand the many as unity, thanks to the ideas, is the specifity of us human beings.

This study used a partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to estimate curriculum management's direct and indirect effects on university graduate programmes' viability. The study also examined the role of institutional effectiveness in mediating the nexus between the predictor and response variables. This is a correlational study with a factorial research design. The study's participants comprised 149 higher education administrators (23 Faculty Deans and 126 HODs) from two public universities in Nigeria. A structured questionnaire designed by the researchers was (...) used for data collection. The questionnaire was duly validated with an acceptable scale and item content validity indices. The dimensionality of the instrument was determined using exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Convergent validity was based on Average Variance Extracted (AVE), whereas discriminant validity was based on Fornell-Lacker criteria and the Hetero-Trait Mono-Trait (HTMT) ratio. Acceptable composite reliability estimates of internal consistency were reached for the three sub-scales. Following ethical practices, the questionnaire was physically administered to respondents and retrieved afterwards. Smart PLS (version 3.2.9) and SPSS (version 26.0) programs were used for all the statistical analyses. This study uncovered significant direct and indirect effects of curriculum management on the viability of graduate programmes. Institutional effectiveness significantly impacted graduate programmes’ viability while mediating the nexus between curriculum management and graduate programmes’ viability. Curriculum management and institutional effectiveness jointly explained a significant proportion of graduate programmes’ viability variance. The result of this study proved that graduate programmes’ viability depends, to a great extent, on how much curriculum is managed and how effective institutions are with their services. The result of this study can enable institutions seeking to run viable graduate programmes to re-evaluate their curriculum management practices and the effectiveness of their services. (shrink)

Business models for biomedical research prescribe decentralization due to market selection pressures. I argue that decentralized biomedical research does not match four normative philosophical models of the role of values in science. Non-epistemic values affect the internal stages of for-profit biomedical science. Publication planning, effected by Contract Research Organizations, inhibits mechanisms for transformative criticism. The structure of contracted research precludes attribution of responsibility for foreseeable harm resulting from methodological choices. The effectiveness of business strategies leads to overrepresentation of profit values (...) versus the values of the general public. These disconnects in respect to the proper role of values in science results from structural issues ultimately linked to the distinct goals of business versus applied science, and so it seems likely that disconnects will also be found in other dimensions of attempts to combine business and science. The volume and integration in the publishing community of decentralized biomedical research imply that the entire community of biomedical research science cannot match the normative criteria of community-focused models of values in science. Several proposals for changing research funding structure might successfully relieve market pressures that drive decentralization. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s concepts shed light on the phenomenon of schizophrenia in at least three different ways: with a view to empathy, scientific explanation, or philosophical clarification. I consider two different “positive” wittgensteinian accounts―Campbell’s idea that delusions involve a mechanism of which different framework propositions are parts, Sass’ proposal that the schizophrenic patient can be described as a solipsist, and a Rhodes’ and Gipp’s account, where epistemic aspects of schizophrenia are explained as failures in the ordinary background of certainties. I argue that (...) none of them amounts to empathic-phenomenological understanding, but they provide examples of how philosophical concepts can contribute to scientific explanation, and to philosophical clarification respectively. (shrink)

Dieser Aufsatz ist eine kritische und erkundende Diskussion von Plantingas Behauptung, daß bestimmte Aussagen, aus denen evidentermaßen folgt, daß Gott existiert, berechtigterweise basal sein könnten. Im kritischen Abschnitt argumentiere ich dafür, daß es Plantinga nicht gelingt zu zeigen, daß das Kriterium des modernen Fundamentalisten für berechtigte Basalität, dem zufolge solche Aussagen nicht berechtigterweise basal sein können, selbstreferentiell inkohärent oder anderweitig mangelhaft ist. Im erkundenden Abschnitt versuche ich, ein Argument für die Auffassung zu entwickeln, daß solche Aussagen, selbst wenn sie berechtigterweise (...) basal sein könnten, wenn überhaupt, nur selten berechtigterweise basal für intellektuell differenzierte erwachsene Theisten unserer Kultur wären. (shrink)

Recent scholarship in intellectual humility (IH) has attempted to provide deeper understanding of the virtue as personality trait and its impact on an individual's thoughts, beliefs, and actions. A limitations-owning perspective of IH focuses on a proper recognition of the impact of intellectual limitations and a motivation to overcome them, placing it as the mean between intellectual arrogance and intellectual servility. We developed the Limitations-Owning Intellectual Humility Scale to assess this conception of IH with related personality constructs. In Studies 1 (...) (n= 386) and 2 (n = 296), principal factor and confirmatory factor analyses revealed a three-factor model – owning one's intellectual limitations, appropriate discomfort with intellectual limitations, and love of learning. Study 3 (n = 322) demonstrated strong test-retest reliability of the measure over 5 months, while Study 4 (n = 612) revealed limitations-owning IH correlated negatively with dogmatism, closed-mindedness, and hubristic pride and positively with openness, assertiveness, authentic pride. It also predicted openness and closed-mindedness over and above education, social desirability, and other measures of IH. The limitations-owning understanding of IH and scale allow for a more nuanced, spectrum interpretation and measurement of the virtue, which directs future study inside and outside of psychology. (shrink)

Research studies increasingly use genomic sequencing to draw inferences based on comparisons between the genetic data of a set of purportedly related individuals. As use of this method progresses, it will become much more common to discover that the assumed biological relationships between the individuals are mistaken. Consequently, researchers will have to grapple with decisions about whether to return incidental findings of misattributed parentage on a much larger scale than ever before. In this paper we provide an extended argument for (...) the view that the default position for researchers ought to be the non-disclosure of misattributed parentage. (shrink)

Financial literacy is becoming a pivotal skill in navigating the marketplaces within the predominant rising digital branches of trading domains; however, there remains a concerning gap in the purchasing behavior of adolescents, who are its primary users. With this in mind, the main objective of our research is to determine whether there is a relationship between a student's level of financial literacy and their online purchase decision-making. The researchers employed an explanatory mixed approach and purposive sampling to identify respondents from (...) Immaculate Conception College of Balayan, Inc. A 5-point Likert scale survey was utilized to collect data from 66 respondents, followed by semi-structured interviews with 10 selected participants. The results showed a moderately positive correlation between a student's financial literacy and online purchase decisions, as determined by the Pearson correlation coefficient. Thus, the thematic analysis revealed that respondents generally have good financial literacy, emphasizing factors like pricing, online reviews, and product ratings when making digital marketplace decisions. However, there are notable gaps in their understanding of basic financial concepts and their ability to apply them in real-life situations. To effectively enhance students’ financial literacy and online purchasing decisions, a holistic approach is necessary, including targeted interventions, practical applications, and continuous adaptation to evolving consumer behaviors. Educational institutions, policymakers, and stakeholders should work together to create comprehensive programs that provide students with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to negotiate real-world financial situations and make sound judgments in the digital commerce ecosystem. By emphasizing practical learning, key financial concepts, and trustbuilding approaches, educators may empower students to become responsible consumers capable of managing their resources successfully and ethically. (shrink)

We present experimental evidence that an interpretation was accurate. Current wisdom notwithstanding, we could interpret from the text alone because its information is redundant: repetition provides internal checks. Knowing neither dreamer nor their associations we made falsifiable predictions that we tested by subsequently gathering information about the dreamer. Predictions were supported. Results were repeated with seven additional dreams. Each dream was tightly crafted, used humor, drama or hyperbole to penetrate the dreamer’s defenses, and furthered the emergence of personality. Our experiment (...) compliments fMRI and statistics because it studies a whole text as a unique narrative: one iteration identified healing steps during therapy; another confirmed the psychological meaning of a myth. Our experiment might generate a body of objective knowledge about interpretation and make interpretation itself more accurate. In the US 20% live with mental illness. Our experiment supports talk therapy against pressure from the drug and insurance industries. (shrink)

(NOTE: This is a transcript of the class. FOR THE FULL PAPER please click on "Maxson J McDowell" above.) An edited transcript of an experiment performed within a class on dream interpretation. Knowing only the dreamer’s age and gender, we interpreted his dream from its text. Our interpretation included predictions about the dreamer's psychological issues, and about his defenses. It also identified a series of jokes within the dream which would tend to penetrate the dreamer's defenses. When we had finished (...) our 'blind' interpretation, the bringer of the dream gave us more information about the dreamer against which we tested the accuracy of our predictions. A paper on this experiment has been submitted for publication. (shrink)

In an online, participatory class, we interpreted The Dream of the Tabby Cats knowing nothing of the dreamer beyond age and gender, and having none of the dreamer’s associations. Our interpretation included a series of predictions about the dreamer. When it was complete, we asked the bringer of the dream (who had until then been silent and was not visible to us) to give us more information about the dreamer. Later the dreamer herself gave us more information. Of six predictions (...) four were confirmed. The dreamer’s apartment is repeatedly disturbed and, each time, a new cat appears. This record is another iteration of an experiment that will be described more fully in the paper The Dream of the Six-Legged Dog: An Experimental System to Test Meaning, soon to be published. This iteration repeats and confirms the evidence given in that paper. AUDIO RECORD OF CLASS AVAILABLE: link is on first page of the paper you download from this page. (shrink)

(NOTE: This is a transcript of the class. FOR THE FULL PAPER, please click on "Maxson J. McDowell".) A complete transcript of an experiment performed within a class on dream interpretation. Knowing only the dreamers age and gender, we interpreted his dream from its text. Our interpretation included predictions about the dreamer's psychological issues, and about his defenses. It also identified a series of jokes within the dream which would tend to penetrate the dreamer's defenses. When we had finished our (...) 'blind' interpretation, the bringer of the dream gave us more information about the dreamer against which we tested the accuracy of our predictions. A paper on this experiment has been submitted for publication. A link to an AUDIO-RECORDING of this class is given on the first page of this transcript. (shrink)

In an online, participatory class, we interpreted The Dream of the Flaming Sword knowing nothing of the dreamer beyond age and gender, and having none of the dreamer’s associations. Our interpretation included a series of predictions about the dreamer. When it was complete, we asked the bringer of the dream (who had until then been silent and who also gave no visual feedback to our discussion) to give us more information about the dreamer. Eight months later the bringer gave us (...) further information from the dreamer. Our predictions were mostly confirmed. In the dream, the dreamer’s identity is repeatedly questioned. -/- This record is another iteration of an experiment that is described more fully in the paper The Dream of the Six-Legged Dog, soon to be published. This iteration repeats and confirms the evidence given in that paper. -/- AUDIO RECORD OF THE CLASS ABOUT THE FLAMING SWORD: link is on the title page of the paper you can download here. (shrink)

Robustness has long been recognized as an important parameter for evaluating game-theoretic results, but talk of ‘robustness’ generally remains vague. What we offer here is a graphic measure for a particular kind of robustness (‘matrix robustness’), using a three-dimensional display of the universe of 2 × 2 game theory. In such a measure specific games appear as specific volumes (Prisoner’s Dilemma, Stag Hunt, etc.), allowing a graphic image of the extent of particular game-theoretic effects in terms of those games. The (...) measure also allows for an easy comparison between different effects in terms of matrix robustness. Here we use the measure to compare the robustness of Tit for Tat’s well-known success in spatialized games (Axelrod, R. (1984). The evolution of cooperation . New York: Basic Books; Grim, P. et al. (1998). The philosophical computer: Exploratory essays in philosophical computer modeling . Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press) with the robustness of a recent game-theoretic model of the contact hypothesis regarding prejudice reduction (Grim et al. 2005. Public Affairs Quarterly, 19 , 95–125). (shrink)

In an online, participatory class, we interpreted 'The Dream of Geese Nesting in Trees' knowing nothing of the dreamer beyond age and gender, and having none of the dreamer’s associations. Our interpretation included predictions about the dreamer. When it was complete, we asked the bringer of the dream (who had until then been mostly silent and who also gave no visual feedback to our discussion) to give us more information about the dreamer. Our main predictions were confirmed. Goslings are falling (...) on the dreamer’s head. This record is another iteration of an experiment that will be described more fully in the paper, 'The Dream of the Six-Legged Dog: An Experimental System that Tests Meaning,' soon to be published. This iteration repeats and confirms the evidence given in that paper. AUDIO RECORD OF COMPLETE CLASS: link is at top of paper you can download from this page. (shrink)

This paper integrates symbolic thought and experimental research. We hypothesized that symbolic narratives provide homeostasis for the complex adaptive system that is personality. Our interpretation of a dream was based, in part, on this hypothesis. We found that the dream retold the myth of Saturn. When, by direct experiment, we tried to falsify our interpretation, our results supported our interpretation and thereby supported our hypothesis. Previously, evidence for this hypothesis had been only anecdotal. __________________________________________ For an audio-record of entire class: (...) link is given on 1st page of the text you download from this page. (shrink)

In this review, we describe some of the central philosophical issues facing origins-of-life research and provide a targeted history of the developments that have led to the multidisciplinary field of origins-of-life studies. We outline these issues and developments to guide researchers and students from all fields. With respect to philosophy, we provide brief summaries of debates with respect to (1) definitions (or theories) of life, what life is and how research should be conducted in the absence of an accepted theory (...) of life, (2) the distinctions between synthetic, historical, and universal projects in origins-of-life studies, issues with strategies for inferring the origins of life, such as (3) the nature of the first living entities (the “bottom up” approach) and (4) how to infer the nature of the last universal common ancestor (the “top down” approach), and (5) the status of origins of life as a science. Each of these debates influences the others. Although there are clusters of researchers that agree on some answers to these issues, each of these debates is still open. With respect to history, we outline several independent paths that have led to some of the approaches now prevalent in origins-of-life studies. These include one path from early views of life through the scientific revolutions brought about by Linnaeus (von Linn.), Wöhler, Miller, and others. In this approach, new theories, tools, and evidence guide new thoughts about the nature of life and its origin.We also describe another family of paths motivated by a” circularity” approach to life, which is guided by such thinkers as Maturana & Varela, Gánti, Rosen, and others. These views echo ideas developed by Kant and Aristotle, though they do so using modern science in ways that produce exciting avenues of investigation. By exploring the history of these ideas, we can see how many of the issues that currently interest us have been guided by the contexts in which the ideas were developed. The disciplinary backgrounds of each of these scholars has influenced the questions they sought to answer, the experiments they envisioned, and the kinds of data they collected. We conclude by encouraging scientists and scholars in the humanities and social sciences to explore ways in which they can interact to provide a deeper understanding of the conceptual assumptions, structure, and history of origins-of-life research. This may be useful to help frame future research agendas and bring awareness to the multifaceted issues facing this challenging scientific question. (shrink)

Considerable recent research in neurosciences has dealt with the topic of consciousness, even though there is still disagreement about how to identify and classify conscious states. Recent behavioral work on the topic also exists. We survey recent behavioral and neuroscientific literature with the aims of commenting on strengths and weaknesses of the literature and mapping new directions and recommendations for experimental psychologists. We reconcile this literature with a view of human information processing (Cowan, 1988; Cowan et al., 2024) in which (...) a capacity-limited focus of attention is embedded within the activated portion of long-term memory, with dual bottom-up and top-down control of the focus of attention. None of the many extant theories fully captures what we propose as the organization of conscious thought at cognitive and neural levels. It seems clear that information from various cognitive functions, based on signals from various brain areas, is integrated into a conscious whole. In our new proposal, the integration involves funneling information to a hub or focus of attention neurally centered in the parietal lobes and functionally connected to areas representing the currently attended information. This funneling process (bringing information from diverse sensory and frontal sources to contact a small parietal area where attended information is coordinated and combined) may be the converse of global broadcasting, from other proposals (Baars et al., 2021; Baars & Franklin, 2003; Dehaene & Changeux, 2011). The proposed system incorporates many principles from previous research and theorization and strives toward a resolution of the relation between consciousness and attention. Keywords: consciousness, attention, embedded processes model, experimental psychology, neuroscience. (shrink)

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

The thought that empathy plays an important role in moral motivation is almost a platitude of contemporary folk psychology. Parallel themes were mooted in German moral philosophy and aesthetics in the 1700s, and versions of the empathy construct remained prominent in continental accounts of moral motivation through the nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries. This chapter elucidates the Empathic Motivation Hypothesis (EMH) and sets out some of the conceptual and empirical challenges it faces. It distinguishes empathic concern from other dimensions (...) of empathy (e.g., resonance, attunement, distress, and non-empathic concern) and examines the merits of EMH as a developmental thesis, focusing on evidence from psychopathology and attachment theory. (shrink)

O presente trabalho visa apresentar a solução dada por Santo Agostinho ao problema do mal, aliado à aparente contraditoriedade entre a presciência de Deus e a liberdade humana. Para isto, será útil como bibliografia principal do filósofo sua obra De libero arbitrio, um livro em forma de diálogo onde o pensador esclarece suas posições acerca do livre-arbítrio e da presciência divina.