Several recent criticisms of the somatic marker hypothesis (SMH) identify multiple ambiguities in the way it has been formulated by its chief proponents. Here we provide evidence that this hypothesis has also been interpreted in various different ways by the scientific community. Our diagnosis of this problem is that SMH lacks an adequate computational-level account of practical decision making. Such an account is necessary for drawing meaningful links between neurological- and psychological-level data. The paper concludes by providing a (...) simple, five-step model of practical decision making. Recasting SMH in terms of this model generates more precise and empirically tractable computational-level hypotheses about the various ways that somatic markers might influence practical decisions. (shrink)

Background— Although one of the main characteristics of psychopaths is a deficit in emotion, it is unknown whether they show a fundamental impairment in appropriately recognizing their own body sensations during an emotion-inducing task. Method— Skin conductance and heart rate were recorded in 138 males during a social stressor together with subjective reports of body sensations. Psychopathic traits were assessed using the Psychopathy Checklist – Revised (PCL-R) 2nd edition (Hare, 2003). Results— Nonpsychopathic controls who reported higher body sensations showed higher (...) heart rate reactivity, but this verbal-autonomic consistency was not found in psychopathic individuals. This mind-body disconnection is particularly associated with the interpersonal-affective factor of psychopathy. Conclusions— Findings are the first to document this body sensations– autonomic mismatch in psychopaths, and suggest that somatic aphasia the inaccurate identification and recognition of one‘s own somatic states may partly underlie the interpersonal-affective features of psychopaths. (shrink)

In the philosophical literature, self-deception is mainly approached through the analysis of paradoxes. Yet, it is agreed that self-deception is motivated by protection from distress. In this paper, we argue, with the help of findings from cognitive neuroscience and psychology, that self-deception is a type of affective coping. First, we criticize the main solutions to the paradoxes of self-deception. We then present a new approach to self-deception. Self-deception, we argue, involves three appraisals of the distressing evidence: (a) appraisal of the (...) strength of evidence as uncertain, (b) low coping potential and (c) negative anticipation along the lines of Damasio’s somatic marker hypothesis. At the same time, desire impacts the treatment of flattering evidence via dopamine. Our main proposal is that self-deception involves emotional mechanisms provoking a preference for immediate reward despite possible long-term negative repercussions. In the last part, we use this emotional model to revisit the philosophical paradoxes. (shrink)

La hipótesis del marcador somático (SMH) ha sido una de las teorías más influyentes en las neurociencias desde principios de los años 90s en que fue formulada por Antonio Damasio en su libro El error de Descartes (1994). Desde entonces, diversos estudios, a favor y en contra se han escrito, sin un veredicto. En este trabajo se propone una explicación abarcadora de lo que es la hipótesis del marcador somático. En segundo lugar, se hace una valoración sucinta del peso que (...) la amígdala pueda tener en el proceso de toma de decisiones inconscientes. En contraste, se citan algunos resultados que apuntan que la corteza prefrontal ventromedial estaría comprometida con nuestras decisiones racionales. Finalmente, se recuperan algunas críticas de otros investigadores a la hipótesis del marcador somático a partir de resultados mixtos obtenidos en el juego de azar y apuestas de Iowa. Se concluye que la mayor valía de la SMH es haber terminado con la dualidad cerebro-cuerpo, pero que la hipótesis por sí misma, no es suficiente para sostener que el proceso de toma de decisiones se realice principalmente a partir de lo que sentimos. El proceso de toma de decisiones, si bien se vale de respuestas inconscientes somatosensoriales, es un proceso físico-emocional-racional más complejo, que carece aún de suficientes evidencias para ser situado. The somatic marker hypothesis (SMH) has been one of the most influential theories in the neurosciences since the early 1990s, when it was formulated by Antonio Damasio in his book Descartes’ Error (1994). Since then, various studies, for and against, have been written without a verdict. Firstly, this study provides a comprehensive explanation of the SMH. Secondly, it provides a detailed assessment of the relevance of the amygdala in the process of making unconscious decisions. In contrast, we cite some results that suggest that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex would be involved in our rational decisions. Finally, we review some of the criticism of the SMH that was based on the mixed results obtained in the Iowa Gambling Task. We suggest that the main value of the SMH is that it resolves the brain-body duality problem. However, the hypothesis by itself is insufficient to claim that the decision-making process is mainly based on our feelings. Although the decision-making process uses unconscious somatosensory responses, it is a more complex physical-emotional-rational process, which still lacks sufficient evidence to be located. (shrink)

Attempts to engineer a generally intelligent artificial agent have yet to meet with success, largely due to the (intercontext) frame problem. Given that humans are able to solve this problem on a daily basis, one strategy for making progress in AI is to look for disanalogies between humans and computers that might account for the difference. It has become popular to appeal to the emotions as the means by which the frame problem is solved in human agents. The purpose of (...) this paper is to evaluate the tenability of this proposal, with a primary focus on Dylan Evans’ search hypothesis and Antonio Damasio’s somatic marker hypothesis. I will argue that while the emotions plausibly help solve the intracontext frame problem, they do not function to solve or help solve the intercontext frame problem, as they are themselves subject to contextual variability. (shrink)

The paper discusses possible roles of consciousness in a semiotic activity of a cognitive agent. The discussion, we claim, is based on two related approaches to consciousness: on Chalmers’ theory of phenomenal and psychological consciousness and on Damasio’s neural theory, which draws a distinction between core and extended consciousness. Two stages of cognitive-semiotic processing are discussed: the moment of perception of a sign as a meaningful entity and the metasemiotic processes understood as the human capacity to reflect on signs and (...) their usage, analyse and control processes of recognition, interpretation of signs and to detect and correct errors in semiotic activity. In the case of the first stage, it is argued that signs as meaningful entities have a distincly experiential character. The feeling of meaningfulness is a result of phenomenal consciousness, in particular a result of the so-called valuation features of phenomenal experience. I claim that this aspect of cognitive-semiotic activity is possible owing to a special neural mechanism called a semiotic marker. It is argued that semiotic systems have to be able to use signs as signs, i.e. they should display some metacognitive capacities, in particular an ability to analyse semiosis at a metalevel. It is argued that such metasemiosis is dependent on psychological consciousness and is realized at the neural level in the form of extended consciousness. The paper is based on a particular understanding of cognitive semiotics as a discipline involving analyses of cognitive processes as semiotic processes, i.e. processes requiring usage of signs. (shrink)

Intuitively, affect plays an indispensable role in self-deception’s dynamic. Call this view “affectivism.” Investigating affectivism matters, as affectivists argue that this conception favours the non-intentionalist approach to self-deception and offers a unified account of straight and twisted self-deception. However, this line of argument has not been scrutinized in detail, and there are reasons to doubt it. Does affectivism fulfill its promises of non-intentionalism and unity? We argue that it does, as long as affect’s role in self-deception lies in affective filters—that (...) is, in evaluation of information in light of one’s concerns. We develop this conception by taking into consideration the underlying mechanisms governing self-deception, particularly the neurobiological mechanisms of somatic markers and dopamine regulation. Shifting the discussion to this level can fulfill the affectivist aspirations, as this approach clearly favours non-intentionalism and offers a unified account of self-deception. We support this claim by criticizing the main alternative affectivist account—namely, the views that self-deception functions to reduce anxiety or is motivated by anxiety. Describing self-deception’s dynamic does not require intention; affect is sufficient if we use the insights of neuroscience and the psychology of affective bias to examine this issue. In this way, affectivism can fulfill its promises. (shrink)

We argue that A. Damasio’s (1994) Somatic Marker hypothesis can explain why humans don’t generally suffer from the frame problem, arguably the greatest obstacle facing the Computational Theory of Mind. This involves showing how humans with damaged emotional centers are best understood as actually suffering from the frame problem. We are then able to show that, paradoxically, these results provide evidence for the Computational Theory of Mind, and in addition call into question the very distinction between easy and (...) hard problems in the contemporary philosophy of mind. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é o de apresentar algumas posições filosóficas, que dialogam com diferentes áreas do conhecimento, e que nos auxiliam a dar um passo a mais na compreensão da relação entre razão e emoção. Em primeiro lugar, apresentamos a ideia dos marcadores somáticos, de Damasio, que elucida o papel dos afetos no desenvolvimento do pensamento racional. Em segundo lugar, observamos que indivíduos psicopatas apresentam uma capacidade reduzida em diferentes esferas da vida, com evidente diminuição na capacidade de ligar (...) sentimentos negativos a normas morais, o que leva a um comportamento moral inadequado e interfere na capacidade deliberativa. Por fim, apresentamos a teoria de Shaun Nichols acerca da Affective Resonance: normas que possuem respaldo afetivo (principalmente negativo) possuem vantagens de transmissão cultural, em detrimento de normas afetivamente neutras. Estes estudos comprovam a importância dos afetos para o pensamento racional e para a manutenção e propagação de normas e regras morais. A ideia principal aqui defendida é a de que há uma estreita relação entre razão e emoção. Ao elucidar esta relação, podemos aprofundar os estudos sobre a condição humana, em especial a razão e a moral. -/- The aim of this article is to present some of the philosophical positions that dialogue with different areas of knowledge and that help us take a step further in the understanding of the relationship between reason and emotion. First, we present Damasio's idea of somatic-markers, which elucidates the role of affections in the development of rational thought. Second, we observe that these exhibit a reduced capacity in different spheres of life, with a decreased ability to connect negative components to moralnorms, resulting in inappropriate moral behavior and interfering with deliberative capacities. Finally, we present Shaun Nichols' theory on Affective Resonance, the norms that comprise affective support (mainly negative) exhibit cultural transmission advantages to the detriment of affectively neutral norms. These studies prove the importance of affections inrational thinking and in the maintenance and propagation of moral norms and rules. The main idea defended herein is that a close relationship between reason and emotion takes place. By elucidating this relationship, we are able to deepen studies concerning the human condition, especially with regard to reason and morality. (shrink)

Despite the Nazi horrors, in 1953 the new eugenics was founded, when Watson and Crick postulated the double helix of DNA as the basis of chemical heredity. In 1961, scientists have deciphered the genetic code of DNA, laying the groundwork for code manipulation and the potential building of new life forms. After thirty years from the discovery of the DNA structure, the experimenters began to carry out the first clinical studies of human somatic cell therapy. The practice of prenatal (...) genetic tests identifies genes or unwanted genetic markers. Parents can choose to continue pregnancy or give up the fetus. Once the preimplantation genetic diagnosis occurs, potential parents can choose to use in vitro fertilization and then test early embryonic cells to identify embryos with genes they prefer or avoid. Because of concerns about eugenics, genetic counseling is based on a "non-directive" policy to ensure respect for reproductive autonomy. The argument for this counseling service is that we should balance parental autonomy with child's autonomy in the future. Specialists have not yet given a clear answer to the question of whether these practices should be considered eugenic practices, or if they are moral practices. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.28777.95849. (shrink)

An understanding of the factors behind the evolution of multicellularity is one of today’s frontiers in evolutionary biology. This is because multicellular organisms are made of one subset of cells with the capacity to transmit genes to the next generation and another subset responsible for maintaining the functionality of the organism, but incapable of transmitting genes to the next generation. The question arises: why do somatic cells sacrifice their lives for the sake of germline cells? How is germ/soma separation (...) maintained? One conventional answer refers to inclusive fitness theory, according to which somatic cells sacrifice themselves altruistically, because in so doing they enhance the transmission of their genes by virtue of their genetic relatedness to germline cells. In the present article we will argue that this explanation ignores the key role of policing mechanisms in maintaining the germ/soma divide. Based on the pervasiveness of the latter, we argue that the role of altruistic mechanisms in the evolution of multicellularity is limited and that our understanding of this evolution must be enriched through the consideration of coercion mechanisms. (shrink)

Love, S. (2007). Using somatic awareness as a guide for making healthy life choices. Somatics Magazine- Journal Of The Mind/Body Arts and Sciences, Volume XV, Number 2, pages 40-43. (Silver Love is same person as author Martha C. Love).

The deep influence of affectivity on learning is now widely acknowledged (Keefer et al., 2018; Sánchez-Álvarez et al., 2021). For instance, it has been shown that affect influences key learning-relevant processes, such as motivation, perception, behavior, and critical thinking (Izard, 2002; Mayer & Salovey, 1997). Evidence also shows that emotion and mood strongly influence attention, which in turn drives learning and memory (Elbertson et al., 2010; Elias et al., 1997). Intersubjective phenomena, such as the degree of affection and respect between (...) child and teacher, also affect the child’s learning processes, academic outcomes, and brain development (Kusché & Greenberg, 2006; Ryan & Patrick, 2001). However, the relevant literature is not paying attention to increasing evidence showing that affective phenomena are rooted in interoceptive and homeostatic self- and co-regulatory processes within and between people’s living bodies (Barrett, 2017; Carvalho & Damasio, 2021; Craig, 2015, 2018; Fotopoulou et al., 2022; Fotopoulou & Tsakiris, 2017; Seth & Friston, 2016). In this theoretical chapter, we explore this connection and its importance for learning. We argue that affective experience plays a fundamental role in learning, and that affective experience is rooted in the homeostatic self-/co-regulation of living bodies. Therefore, the homeostatic self-/co-regulation of living bodies plays a fundamental role in learning. In other words, there is an intra- and interpersonal somatic dimension of learning that demands explicit consideration in educational contexts. In this way, we aim to contribute to an understanding of learning and education that moves away from an individualistic, brain-centered information-processing conception toward one centered on sentient, interdependent living bodies. (shrink)

Mystical religious experiences typically purport to engage with the transcendent and often claim to involve encounters with spiritual entities or a detachment from the material world. Daoism diverges from this paradigm. This paper examines Daoist mystical experiences of bodily transformations and explores their epistemological implications. Specifically, we defend the justificatory power of Daoist somatic experiences against the disanalogy objection. The disanalogy objection posits that mystical experiences, in contrast to sense perceptions, are not socially verifiable and thereby lack prima facie (...) epistemic value. We argue that some Daoist mystical bodily states, being essentially spatiotemporal, are exempt from this challenge. This leads to a broader understanding of mysticism and offers a partial resolution to the disanalogy objection. (shrink)

This research note challenges the idea that Random Somatic Mutations are entirely random, highlighting their non-equiprobable nature and their influence on evolution, involution, or indeterminacy. It recalls the Neutrosophic Theory of Evolution, extending Darwin’s theory, and emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between different senses of ‘random mutation’ in evolutionary theory.

In this paper, we develop an impure somatic theory of emotion, according to which emotions are constituted by the integration of bodily perceptions with representations of external objects, events, or states of affairs. We put forward our theory by contrasting it with Prinz's pure somatic theory, according to which emotions are entirely constituted by bodily perceptions. After illustrating Prinz's theory and discussing the evidence in its favor, we show that it is beset by serious problems—i.e., it gets the (...) neural correlates of emotion wrong, it isn't able to distinguish emotions from bodily perceptions that aren't emotions, it cannot account for emotions being directed towards particular objects, and it mischaracterizes emotion phenomenology. We argue that our theory accounts for the empirical evidence considered by Prinz and solves the problems faced by his theory. In particular, we maintain that our theory gives a unified and principled account of the relation between emotions and bodily perceptions, the intentionality of emotions, and emotion phenomenology. (shrink)

The case of Andrew Gobea, the first child to receive experimental gene therapy for SCID, and a reflection on the associated ethical implications of gene therapy research.

In this article, I attempt to bring some conceptual clarity to several key terms and foundational claims that make up Levinas's body-based conception of ethics. Additionally, I explore ways that Levinas's arguments about the somatic basis of subjectivity and ethical relatedness receive support from recent empirical research. The paper proceeds in this way: First, I clarify Levinas's use of the terms “sensibility”, “subjectivity”, and “proximity” in Otherwise than Being: or Beyond Essence . Next, I argue for an interpretation of (...) Levinas's thought that I suggest is buttressed by recent experimental work in both developmental psychology and neuroscience. I provide examples of research that I suggest opens up Levinas's phenomenological analysis in new and interesting ways. I also urge the importance of Levinas's phenomenological analysis in contextualizing the ethical significance of these empirical findings. (shrink)

The extent to which normal (nonmalignant) cells of the body can evolve through mutation and selection during the lifetime of the organism has been a major unresolved issue in evolutionary and developmental studies. On the one hand, stable multicellular individuality seems to depend on genetic homogeneity and suppression of evolutionary conflicts at the cellular level. On the other hand, the example of clonal selection of lymphocytes indicates that certain forms of somatic mutation and selection are concordant with the organism-level (...) fitness. Recent DNA sequencing and tissue physiology studies suggest that in addition to adaptive immune cells also neurons, epithelial cells, epidermal cells, hematopoietic stem cells and functional cells in solid bodily organs are subject to evolutionary forces during the lifetime of an organism. Here we refer to these recent studies and suggest that the expanding list of somatically evolving cells modifies idealized views of biological individuals as radically different from collectives. (shrink)

In this article, we address an existing lacuna in the sociology of the senses, by employing sociological phenomenology to illuminate the under-researched sense of temperature, as lived by a social group for whom water temperature is particularly salient: competitive pool swimmers. The research contributes to a developing ‘sensory sociology’ that highlights the importance of the socio-cultural framing of the senses and ‘sensory work’, but where there remains a dearth of sociological exploration into senses extending beyond the ‘classic five’ sensorium. Drawing (...) on data from a three-year ethnographic study of competitive swimmers in the UK, our analysis explores the rich sensuousities of swimming, and highlights the role of temperature as fundamentally affecting the affordances offered by the aquatic environment. The article contributes original theoretical perspectives to the sociology of the senses and of sport in addressing the ways in which social actors in the aquatic environment interact, both intersubjectively and intercorporeally, as thermal beings. (shrink)

This paper explores some ways how perceptual-cognitive accounts of anorexia can benefit from philosophy. The first section focuses on the three dimensions of anorexia most open to a contribution from philosophy: the dimensions of language, perception and cognition. In the second section, I offer a brief overview of what philosophy has to say regarding these dimensions, especially as they relate to two crucial issues: introspection and meaning. I draw from current philosophy of language, especially from the arguments against using internal (...) perception as a model for the way we express our own bodily states. I draw also from current philosophy of interpretation, especially from debates concerning the criteria for handling dialogical misunderstanding. I use these insights to expose some dangers in assuming and working with oversimplified accounts of introspection and meaning. I then suggest refined and updated accounts and examine their applicability and usefulness in the diagnosis and treatment of anorexia. (shrink)

According to the thesis of temporal isomorphism, the experienced order of events in the world and the order in which experiences are processed in the brain are the same. The thesis is encompassed in the brain-time view, a popular view on the literature of the temporal illusions. The view is commonly contrasted with the event-time view, which maintains that the experienced order of events reflects the order in which the events occur in the world. This chapter focuses on the conflict (...) between the two views in the contexts of perceptual asymmetry in visual perception and temporal order judgment tasks. It is argued that both views mean slightly different things in these contexts. Accordingly, it is possible for one to endorse both the brain-time view and the event-time view at the same time. On the broader perspective, the chapter illustrates how time order is employed differently by various perceptual processes, resulting in different characteristics from implicit and explicit time perception. (shrink)

This study firstly addresses three threads in Chris Marker’s work – theology, Marxism, and Surrealism – through a mapping of the work of both Giorgio Agamben and Jacques Derrida onto the varied production of his film and photographic work. Notably, it is late Agamben and late Derrida that is utilized, as both began to exit so-called post-structuralism proper with the theological turn in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It addresses these threads through the means to ends employed and (...) as ends proper (as production of semi-autonomous works that also, paradoxically, index a much larger field of inquiry and theoretical praxis). It is perhaps French “schizophrenia” regarding theological versus political agency that best accounts for the sardonic deployment of irony and humor in Marker’s work in the face of Big History. Such means to ends (plus a subtle anti-intellectualism vis-à-vis fashionable academic trends) tend to underscore the severity and ultimate sincerity of Marker’s overall cultural-political project. -/- Dossier Chris Marker is also a study of a late-modern chiasmus, impersonal-personal agency, as it comes to expression in the works of Marker, as the dynamic interplay of political and subjective agency. As chiasmus, the complementary halves of this often-apocalyptic dynamis (a semi-catastrophic, temporal or historical force-field) also – arguably – secretly agree to meet, through the work of art, in the futural (problematized in contemporary French post-phenomenological and post-post-structuralist theory as “the event).” Consistent with the classical figure of concordia discors, Marker resolves these irreducible warring aspects of life experience in an atemporal and ahistorical moment that inhabits the work of art from its inception. This redemptive aspect in art is also the ultimate gesture of the artwork as autonomous subject and “mask” (or “screen”) for forces that reside beyond the frame of the image or work, as its proverbial Other, or within the frame, as other to that Other. -/- Despite the complications of the as-yet unresolved post-modern condition (its nihilist-relativist bias), and its similar, mostly circular concerns with the image and/or media, Marker’s work is clearly not post-modern. In fact, when tested against immemorial cultural epiphenomena, that work withstands all attempts at categorization and/or art-historical analysis proper. It remains unassimilable to the post-modern cause ... What emerges, upon closer examination, and through rigorous re-contextualization, is the prescient force of Marker’s works toward that futural state buried in art that is also “theological,” versus atheological, and heedlessly anterior to cultural politics per se. -/- In the case of Marker, this age-old or immemorial “thing-in-itself” (the artwork as image of world-chiasmus) finds its foremost or penultimate formation in his very-still photography – the singular images that are also the building blocks for his renowned ciné-essays. Not without irony, this same austere, reductive force of the still image (as form of proscription) also inhabits the more complex, synthetic works (or montages) that he has formulated and presented “dramatically,” here and there, through the often-sketchy apparatuses of his new-media experiments, as of the late 1980s. Ultimately, this world-image as chiasmus was always present within his earliest literary projects, from the 1940s forward – most especially in books and essays, with or without actual images. -/- Marker’s “return” to photography (to exhibiting still photography in galleries), in the late 2000s, is in many ways a return to the singular object of the artist-critic’s desire; the image in/for itself, while that image – endlessly troubled or interrogated for decades – continues to speak “in tongues” anyway, often against, or oblivious to, the voice of the author/artist/narrator. -/- Marker is a High Romantic Christian Marxist. The “Christic” aspect is rightly well-hidden, but emerges when the eschatological versus historical center of his work is exposed (the existential-metaphysical fuse such as also inhabits the works of Caravaggio), and when his early years are examined in light of his later and/or final years. Marker’s semi-personal/semi-impersonal apocalyptic vision is writ large in diverse works that cross decades, figuring a redemptive, world-shattering formation of art as pleroma. (shrink)

In recent work, Williamson has defended a suggestive account of assertion. Williamson claims that the following norm or rule (the knowledge rule) is constitutive of assertion, and individuates it: (KR) One must ((assert p) only if one knows p) Williamson is not directly concerned with the semantics of assertion-markers, although he assumes that his view has implications for such an undertaking; he says: “in natural languages, the default use of declarative sentences is to make assertions” (op. cit., 258). In this (...) paper I will explore Williamson’s view from this perspective, i.e., in the light of issues regarding the semantics of assertion-markers. I will end up propounding a slightly different account, on which, rather than KR, what is constitutive and individuating of assertion is an audience-involving transmission of knowledge rule: (TKR) One must ((assert p) only if one’s audience comes thereby to be in a position to know p) I will argue that TKR, of which KR is an illocutionary consequence (but not the other way around), has all the virtues that Williamson claims for his account and no new defect. (shrink)

Here I show that Sellars’ radicalization of the Kantian distinction between concepts and intuitions is vulnerable to a challenge grounded in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of embodiment. Sellars argues that Kant’s concept of ‘intuition’ is ambiguous between singular demonstrative phrases and sense-impressions. In light of the critique of the Myth of the Given, Sellars argues, in the ‘Myth of Jones’, that sense-impression are theoretical posits. I argue that Merleau-Ponty offers a way of understanding perceptual activity which successfully avoids both the Myth of (...) the Given and the Myth of Jones. I also argue that Merleau-Ponty’s approach provides an alternative to McDowell’s critique of Sellars. Merleau-Ponty shows, first, that perceptual activity can be characterized as having a unity and structure of its own which is importantly different from that of concepts; secondly, that the unity and structure of perception can be revealed phenomenologically rather than as a theoretical posit. (shrink)

The Japanese particle 'to' serves as a quotative marker, either indicating the content of speech or thought, or serving related functions. The particle 'tte' is frequently identified as an informal variant of 'to', serving identical or nearly identical functions. Scholars have suggested the two forms may have different distribution or function, but to date there has been little empirical work to distinguish the forms using broad-based corpus methods. This study of a corpus 129 informal conversations suggests that both particles (...) are used in informal contexts. The particle 'tte' tends to occur with verbs indicating speech, or with no verb; the particle 'to' tends to occur with verbs indicating thought. Discussion also reveals some difficulties inherent in the use of morphological parsers for large-scale corpus study. Over-specifying the morphological contexts in which a form may occur risks only finding instances that support current models of grammar. (shrink)

The Protagoras is the touchstone of Socrates’ moral intellectualist stance. The position in a nutshell stipulates that the proper reevaluation of a desire is enough to neutralize it.[1] The implication of this position is that akrasia or weakness of will is not the result of desire (or fear for that matter) overpowering reason but is due to ignorance. -/- Socrates’ eliminativist position on weakness of will, however, flies in the face of the common-sense experience regarding akratic action and thus Aristotle (...) was at pains to render Socrates’ account of moral incontinence intelligible. The key improvement Aristotle makes to Socrates’s model is to underscore that the conditioning of the akratic’s body plays a critical role in determining the power of one’s appetites and, accordingly, the capacity of one to resist the temptations these appetites present for rational evaluation. As Aristotle puts it, “For the incontinent man is like the people who get drunk quickly and on little wine, i.e., on less than most people.” (1151a 3-4). Aristotle presents what I shall call a somatic paradigm (i.e. the drunkard analogy) in order to tackle the problem of akrasia and it is this somatic solution that marks a significant improvement over Socrates’s intellectualist or informational model or so the tradition tells us. -/- In this paper, I wish to push back on the above Aristotelian explanation. I argue that when one fully examines Socrates’ account of weakness of will that Aristotle’s solution is less effective than is traditionally thought. In fact, Socrates can bring Aristotle’s model into his own; just as Aristotle absorbs what is right about Socrates’s model, namely, that akratic action utilizes reason but to a limited degree, Socrates in Meno (77C-78A) develops his own somatic model of weakness of will that connects to the intellectualist paradigm of the Protagoras. To achieve this rapprochement between the two models, I zero in on the description provided by Socrates of those individuals who desire bad things knowing they are bad as “ill-starred” or “bad spirited” (κακοδαίμων ). The “bad-spirited” is the coward and, in contrast to Aristotle’s drunkard, becomes fearful quickly from little danger. This additional somatic component, when connected to Socrates’s position on akrasia in Protagoras adds a new twist to Socrates’s model in the following way: while no one wishes to be ill-starred such that more harm than good will befall one, one may become so as a result of the bad choices one knowingly makes. -/- -/- [1] “After him came Socrates, who spoke better and further about this subject, but even he was not successful. For he used to make the virtues into sciences, and this is impossible. For the sciences all involve reason, and reason is to be found in the intellectual part of the soul. So that all the virtues, according to him arise in the rational part of the soul. The result is that in making the virtues into sciences he is doing away with the nonrational part of the soul and is thereby doing away with passion and character…” (Aristotle, Magna Moralia 1.1. 1182 a15-26). (shrink)

Suicide among college students is a major public health problem. Research has confirmed that negative focused disposition had a significant effect on suicidal ideation. This study aims to evaluate somatic anxiety, general distress and depression as mediators of the relationship between negative focused disposition and suicidal ideation.

Whereas the Platonic-Christian philosophical tradition in the West favours an ”ascent to theory’ and abstract reasoning, east-Asian philosophies tend to be rooted in somatic, or bodily, practice. In the philosophies of Confucius and Zhuangzi in China, and KÅ«kai and Dōgen in Japan, we can distinguish two different forms of somatic practice: developing physical skills, and what one might call ”realising relationships’. These practices improve our relations with others -- whether the ancestors or our contemporaries, the things with which (...) we surround ourselves or the phenomena of nature -- by reducing egocentrism and increasing humility. Because they transform the practitioner’s experience, the major benefit of philosophies grounded in somatic practice is that they help close the gap between beliefs and behaviour, and between ideas and action. (shrink)

Given both the phenomenological and cognitive similarities between episodic memory and imagination, it’s difficult to say how we can reliably distinguish them at their moment of retrieval. Several memory markers have thus been proposed, which are characteristics that would reliably indicate to the subject that her mental state is an instance of memory. While the question of what exactly constitutes these memory markers is still an issue to be settled, there is also the more general question of whether they can (...) be reliable at all. In the present paper, I have identified two theses about the latter issue (the reliability and unreliability theses) and have argued that the main cause of disagreement between them lies on their different assumptions on how beliefs about our own mental states are formed, i.e. what are the underlying metacognitive mechanisms responsible for self-attribution of mental states. These different views on metacognition were then further investigated with regards to their use of metarepresentations and their general agreement with recent cognitive psychology research. These analyses corroborate the reliability of certain kinds of memory markers in distinguishing between memory and imagination. (shrink)

I argue that a Kantian inspired investigation into animal morality is both a plausible and coherent research program. To show that such an investigation is possible, I argue that philosophers, such as Korsgaard, who argue that reason demarcates nonhuman animals from the domain of moral beings are equivocating in their use of the term ‘rationality’. Kant certainly regards rationality as necessary for moral responsibility from a practical standpoint, but his distinction between the noumenal and phenomenal means that he can only (...) establish it as a marker for morality from a theoretical standpoint. This means that when it comes to evaluating the moral capabilities of others, rationality can be neither necessary nor sufficient for morality, leaving open the possibility of other empirical markers for moral responsibility. I argue that the higher faculties, character, implicit knowledge of universality, and antecedent practical pleasures (which provide a way to distinguish between morally motivated behaviour and other types of socially motivated behaviour) can all serve as empirical markers for morality. There is empirical evidence that at least some animals have conceptual capabilities and therefore the empirical marker of the higher faculties. In addition, there is suggestive evidence that merits further investigation for the other three markers. While this will not provide a definitive answer on whether animals are capable of acting morally, it will provide a Kantian outlook that can be used to evaluate empirical and philosophical work on animal morality. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore various views on which mind-body dualism is true, but the soul is located in the body. I argue that this sort of dualism (which I call 'somatic dualism') once was a not-uncommon view in the philosophy of mind. I also argue that it has the resources to reply to some of the problems thought to affect Cartesian dualism.

Given their salience in many sports and physical cultures, it is surprising that the practices, processes and production of intercorporeality and ‘doing together’ remain under-explored from a sociological perspective. The ongoing achievement of ‘togethering’ can be particularly important for the embodied partnership between a visually impaired (VI) runner and a sighted guide (SG) runner: a specific sporting dyad whose experiences are currently under-researched. To address this lacuna and contribute original insights to sensory sociological studies, here we explore the accomplishment of (...) running-together by VI runners and sighted guides, focusing on the auditory dimension. To illustrate how these runners put the sense of hearing ‘to work’ in achieving finely attuned intercorporeality, often at considerable speed, we draw on qualitative data from a research project on VI running in the UK, involving five VI runners and five SGs. Here, we focus on auditory attunement in two domains identified as highly salient in the running-partners’ intercorporeal experiences: (1) Listening out – auditory attention to non-linguistic sounds; and (2) Tuning in – the importance of attending to team-talk between VI runners and SG runners. (shrink)

Somatic diversification of antigen receptor genes depends on the activity of enzymes whose homologs participate in a mutagenic DNA repair in unicellular species. Indeed, by engaging error-prone polymerases, gap filling molecules and altered mismatch repair pathways, lymphocytes utilize conserved components of genomic stress response systems, which can already be found in bacteria and archaea. These ancient systems of mutagenesis and repair act to increase phenotypic diversity of microbial cell populations and operate to enhance their ability to produce fit variants (...) during stress. Coopted by lymphocytes, the ancient mutagenic processing systems retained their diversification functions instilling the adaptive immune cells with enhanced evolvability and defensive capacity to resist infection and damage. As reviewed here, the ubiquity and conserved character of specialized variation-generating mechanisms from bacteria to lymphocytes highlight the importance of these mechanisms for evolution of life in general. (shrink)

Chris Marker’s portrait of Alexandre Medvedkine in the 1993 film Le tombeau d’Alexandre/The Last Bolshevik is highly instructive of his own relationship to Soviet cinema. Most especially, this difficult or troubled rapport with the antecedents to cinéma vérité in the West (and its protean formal properties, in terms of structure and often satirical-critical commentary) comes forth in the figures he assembles to comment upon Medvedkine’s life work. When Medvedkine’s Scast’e (Le Bonheur/Happiness) (1934) leaked to the West (c.1967), sent like (...) an “SOS” in multiple bottles to various film archives (one by one from deep within the Soviet film world), Marker and SLON received a copy by way of Jacques Ledoux (curator of the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique, in Belgium). The film opened the floodgates of a retrospective survey of Soviet filmmaking repressed and forgotten other than by remote and distant figures (partisans) who somehow survived the Stalinist purges of the 1930s. (shrink)

Cancer research is experiencing ‘paradigm instability’, since there are two rival theories of carcinogenesis which confront themselves, namely the somatic mutation theory and the tissue organization field theory. Despite this theoretical uncertainty, a huge quantity of data is available thanks to the improvement of genome sequencing techniques. Some authors think that the development of new statistical tools will be able to overcome the lack of a shared theoretical perspective on cancer by amalgamating as many data as possible. We think (...) instead that a deeper understanding of cancer can be achieved by means of more theoretical work, rather than by merely accumulating more data. To support our thesis, we introduce the analytic view of theory development, which rests on the concept of plausibility, and make clear in what sense plausibility and probability are distinct concepts. Then, the concept of plausibility is used to point out the ineliminable role played by the epistemic subject in the development of statistical tools and in the process of theory assessment. We then move to address a central issue in cancer research, namely the relevance of computational tools developed by bioinformaticists to detect driver mutations in the debate between the two main rival theories of carcinogenesis. Finally, we briefly extend our considerations on the role that plausibility plays in evidence amalgamation from cancer research to the more general issue of the divergences between frequentists and Bayesians in the philosophy of medicine and statistics. We argue that taking into account plausibility-based considerations can lead to clarify some epistemological shortcomings that afflict both these perspectives. (shrink)

Weather experiences are currently surprisingly under-explored and under-theorised in sociology and sport sociology, despite the importance of weather in both routine, everyday life and in recreational sporting and physical–cultural contexts. To address this lacuna, we examine here the lived experience of weather, including ‘weather work’ and ‘weather learning’, in our specific physical–cultural worlds of distance-running, triathlon and jogging in the United Kingdom. Drawing on a theoretical framework of phenomenological sociology, and the findings from five separate auto/ethnographic projects, we explore the (...) ‘weather-worlds’ and weather work involved in our physical–cultural engagement. In so doing, we address ongoing sport sociological concerns about embodiment and somatic, sensory learning and ways of knowing. We highlight how weather work provides a key example of the phenomenological conceptualisation of the mind–body–world nexus in action, with key findings delineating weather learning across the meteorological seasons that contour our British weather-related training. (shrink)

For the full text of this article see "Download Options PhiPapers Archive and click Download from Archive" at the bottom of this page. First 500 words of article: To my surprise last spring, an article titled “Gut Almighty”, which briefly explained the latest emotion theories on how intuition comes from the gut, was featured in Psychology Today (Flora, 2007) at the same time that my article on gut instinctual somatic responses and healthy life choices was published in Somatics Spring (...) 07 issue (Love, 2007). I wondered if two articles published on the gut in one month might surely be a record, as the gut has not seemed to have so much attention in the media since Gershon’s (1998) book acclaiming it through his neurological research to have a mind of its own. -/- In the months I awaited the publication of my article, I reread Gershon’s (1998) book and it was again delightful to me to read that a scientific investigation actually uncovered evidence that the gut has a separate capacity to generate and record vital responses and functions as what he calls our second brain. Gershon outlines the biological functions of the gut as being its own intelligent brain and having its own vitality that is in communication with, but not dependent upon, the head brain. As I combed through his book and shared emails with my colleague, Robert Sterling, it became quite clear to us that Gershon’s work was supportive of the clinical findings in the work we did as guidance counselors in the 70s. Our work centered around assisting people to assess the meaning of their experiences through an awareness on the empty-full instinctual feeling responses that they identified in the gut region of the body. We found with the people that we counseled that these gut responses were linked to the dynamic struggles of balancing the two needs of the person for acceptance and for feeling in control of one’s own responses (the freedom to respond naturally), and that these two needs were instinctual and necessary to fulfill on a moment to moment basis for continued vitality of the person. Similar to Gershon’s findings, it was also our conclusion that the gut area of the body contains a feeling response center that holds a relationship to the thinking processes of the person, but is a separate response center from the thinking head responses and certainly not dependent upon it. -/- Feeling inspired by Gershon’s (1998) work and the attention recently given to the gut in the literature and media, I decided to write a second article for Somatics that further explains the specific technique of the Somatic Reflection Process (SRP). The intention of this article is to answer the questions about the process that I have been asked in the past year by many friends and colleagues who read my first article last Spring on the findings of Robert Sterling’s and my somatic work as guidance counselors. I am including both the method and a protocol for facilitating the SRP, as well as a brief summary of a recent research study using the SRP protocol presented (Love, 2005). (shrink)

Objective: microRNAs (miRNAs) have important potential as biomarkers in the diagnosis and prognosis of ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury in coronary artery bypass grafting surgery (CABG). This study investigated the relationship between preoperative (preop) and postoperative (post-op) cardiac parameters and miRNA expressions in CABG. -/- Methods: We analyzed a total of 94 individuals (CABG, n= 46 and healthy control, n=48). Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT) was performed to determine plasma miRNA expressions (miR-21, miR-181a, miR-199a, miR-199b, and miR-320a-5p) in triplicates: before surgery, (...) 1 hour after surgery, and 24 hours after surgery. The target genes and pathways of miRNA were determined using bioinformatic analysis. The biomarker potentials of miRNAs were evaluated with receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. -/- Results: All miRNAs were significantly downregulated (p < 0.05). Troponin I, LVEF, CPK, and CK-MB were found to be statistically significant for operation groups (p < 0.05). miRNA expressions and cardiac markers were associated with troponin I and/or CK-MB. In ROC analyses, miR-199a was a good diagnostic marker. CREBRF and ZNF704 genes may be a target for these miRNAs. -/- Conclusions: Downregulation of miR-199a has a regulatory role in ischemia/reperfusion. They may contribute to CABG pathology through these two genes involved in signaling cascades to turn on protein response and ion binding. (shrink)

In somatic medicine, diagnostic terms often refer to the disease processes that are the causes of patients' symptoms. The language used in some clinical textbooks and health information resources suggests that this is also sometimes assumed to be the case with diagnoses in psychiatry. However, this seems to be in tension with the ways in which psychiatric diagnoses are defined in diagnostic manuals, according to which they refer solely to clusters of symptoms. This paper explores how theories of reference (...) in the philosophy of language can help to resolve this tension. After the evaluation of descriptive and causal theories of reference, I put forward a conceptual framework based on two-dimensional semantics that allows the causal analysis of diagnostic terms in psychiatry, while taking seriously their descriptive definitions in diagnostic manuals. While the framework is presented as a solution to a problem regarding the semantics of psychiatric diagnoses, it can also accommodate the analysis of diagnostic terms in other medical disciplines. (shrink)

I introduce the concept pathophobia, to capture the range of morally objectionable forms of treatment to which somatically ill persons are subjected. After distinguishing this concept from sanism and ableism, I argue that the moral wrongs of pathophobia are best analysed using a framework of vice ethics. To that end I describe five clusters of pathophobic vices and failings, illustrating each with examples from three influential illness narratives.

In many languages, the same particles that form quantifier words also serve as connectives, additive and scalar particles, question markers, roots of existential verbs, and so on. Do these have a unified semantics, or do they merely bear a family resemblance? Are they aided by silent operators in their varied roles―if yes, what operators? I dub the particles “quantifier particles” and refer to them generically with capitalized versions of the Japanese morphemes. I argue that both MO and KA can be (...) assigned a stable semantics across their various roles. The specific analysis I offer is motivated by the fact that MO and KA often combine with just one argument; I propose that this is their characteristic behavior. Their role is to impose semantic requirements that are satisfied when the immediately larger context is interpreted as the meet/join of their host’s semantic contribution with something else. They do not perform meet/join themselves. The obligatory vs. optional appearance of the particles depends on whether the meet/join interpretations arise by default in the given constellation. I explicate the proposal using the toolkit of basic Inquisitive Semantics. (shrink)

Statues, monuments, cenotaphs and markers litter the landscape of Plato’s Phaedrus. By drawing together these numerous references and examining the economy of these silent symbols, we can gain an insight into Plato’s project, especially as it relates to questions of narrative, speech and writing. While the examination of the myth of Theuth is familiar to scholars of both Plato and Derrida, what is often overlooked is the way in which writing and speech are represented in the text by monuments, which (...) speak through silence, and more often than not memorialize those who can no longer speak, or whose speech is, like themselves, rendered dead in writing. Like the pharmakon of writing itself, statuary operates within the economy of signs, an economy of reminding, which within the system of metaphysics leads not to the transcendent realm of ideas but ties us to the realm of opinion. However, by examining the role of myth and its relation to statuary in the Phaedrus, a new interpretation emerges, which allows for myth and the silent voices of the dead as a way to initiation. (shrink)

The concept of the cortical column refers to vertical cell bands with similar response properties, which were initially observed by Vernon Mountcastle’s mapping of single cell recordings in the cat somatic cortex. It has subsequently guided over 50 years of neuroscientific research, in which fundamental questions about the modularity of the cortex and basic principles of sensory information processing were empirically investigated. Nevertheless, the status of the column remains controversial today, as skeptical commentators proclaim that the vertical cell bands (...) are a functionally insignificant by-product of ontogenetic development. This paper inquires how the column came to be viewed as an elementary unit of the cortex from Mountcastle’s discovery in 1955 until David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel’s reception of the Nobel Prize in 1981. I first argue that Mountcastle’s vertical electrode recordings served as criteria for applying the column concept to electrophysiological data. In contrast to previous authors, I claim that this move from electrophysiological data to the phenomenon of columnar responses was concept-laden, but not theory-laden. In the second part of the paper, I argue that Mountcastle’s criteria provided Hubel Wiesel with a conceptual outlook, i.e. it allowed them to anticipate columnar patterns in the cat and macaque visual cortex. I argue that in the late 1970s, this outlook only briefly took a form that one could call a ‘theory’ of the cerebral cortex, before new experimental techniques started to diversify column research. I end by showing how this account of early column research fits into a larger project that follows the conceptual development of the column into the present. (shrink)

Over the past two decades, Ginsburg and Jablonka have developed a novel approach to studying the evolutionary origins of consciousness: the Unlimited Associative Learning framework. The central idea is that there is a distinctive type of learning that can serve as a transition marker for the evolutionary transition from non-conscious to conscious life. The goal of this paper is to stimulate discussion of the framework by providing a primer on its key claims and a clear statement of its main (...) empirical predictions. (shrink)

This paper asks when a natural disease kind is truly 'reactive' and when it is merely associated with a corresponding social kind. I begin with a permissive account of real kinds and their structure, distinguishing natural kinds, indifferent kinds and reactive kinds as varieties of real kind characterised by super-explanatory properties. I then situate disease kinds within this framework, arguing that many disease kinds prima facie are both natural and reactive. I proceed to distinguish ‘simple dependence’, ‘secondary dependence’ and ‘essential (...) dependence’ between a natural kind and its classification, and argue that a natural kind is only really reactive, in an important sense, under conditions of essential dependence. On this basis, I offer a principled hypothesis for why psychiatric kinds tend to be more metaphysically unstable than paradigm somatic disease kinds. (shrink)

A widely cited roadblock to bridging ecological psychology and enactivism is that the former identifies with realism and the latter identifies with constructivism, which critics charge is subjectivist. A pragmatic reading, however, suggests non-mental forms of constructivism that simultaneously fit core tenets of enactivism and ecological realism. After advancing a pragmatic version of enactive constructivism that does not obviate realism, I reinforce the position with an empirical illustration: Physarum polycephalum (a slime mold), a communal unicellular organism that leaves slime trails (...) that form chemical barriers that it avoids in foraging explorations. Here, environmental building and sensorimotor engagement are part of the same process with P. polycephalum coordinating around self-created, affordance-bearing geographies, which nonetheless exist independently in ways described by ecological realists. For ecological psychologists, affordances are values, meaning values are external to the perceiver. I argue that agent-enacted values have the same status and thus do not obviate ecological realism or generate subjectivism. The constructivist-realist debate organizes around the emphasis that enactivists and ecological theorists respectively place on the inner constitution of organisms vs. the structure of environments. Building on alimentary themes introduced in the P. polycephalum example and also in Gibson’s work, I go on to consider how environment, brain, visceral systems, and even bacteria within them enter perceptual loops. This highlights almost unfathomable degrees of mutually modulating internal and external synchronization. It also shows instances in which internal conditions alter worldly configurations and invert values, in Gibson’s sense of the term, albeit without implying subjectivism. My aim is to cut across the somatic focus of enactive constructivism and the external environment-oriented emphasis of ecological realism and show that enactivism can enrich ecological accounts of value. (shrink)

This article explores the negative framing of environmental concern in the context of food procurement and consumption, through the lens of the myth of Eden considering the ontological and genealogical aspects of the experienced exile from nature. The article first considers the theoretical context of the negative framing of food ethics. Demonstrating the consequences of the experience of food as abject, the article then goes on to discuss the exile from Eden as an explanatory myth for the perceptual inbetweenness of (...) humankind. The aim of the article is to outline the genealogical markers of the negative framing of food ethics via the discussion of the exile from Eden. In the context of a new materialist understanding of the nature–culture continuum, the article depicts the exile as a perceptual rather than ontological divide that does not reflect a factual human inbetweenness but mirrors the objectification of nature by stripping the flesh of its spirit. Such reenvisioning is thought to be a pivotal aspect for mitigating the affectual abjectivity of food and recapturing the factual entanglement of body–environment to enable affirmative environmental ethics. (shrink)

Imagination plays a rich epistemic role in our cognitive lives. For example, if I want to learn whether my luggage will fit into the overhead compartment on a plane, I might imagine trying to fit it into the overhead compartment and form a justified belief on the basis of this imagining. But what explains the fact that imagination has the power to justify beliefs, and what is the structure of imaginative justification? In this paper, I answer these questions by arguing (...) that imaginings manifest an epistemic status: they are epistemically evaluable as justified or unjustified. This epistemic status grounds their ability to justify beliefs, and they accrue this status in virtue of being based on evidence. Thus, imaginings are best understood as justified justifiers. I argue for this view by way of showing how it offers a satisfying explanation of certain key features of imaginative justification that would otherwise be puzzling. I also argue that imaginings exhibit a number of markers of the basing relation, which further motivates the view that imaginings can be based on evidence. The arguments in this paper have theoretically fruitful implications not only for the epistemology of imagination, but for accounts of reasoning and epistemic normativity more generally. (shrink)

‘Eruv’ is a Hebrew word meaning literally ‘mixture’ or ‘mingling’. An eruv is an urban region demarcated within a larger urban region by means of a boundary made up of telephone wires or similar markers. Through the creation of the eruv, the smaller region is turned symbolically (halachically = according to Jewish law) into a private domain. So long as they remain within the boundaries of the eruv, Orthodox Jews may engage in activities that would otherwise be prohibited on the (...) Sabbath, such as pushing prams or wheelchairs, or carrying walking sticks. There are eruvim in many towns and university campuses throughout the world. There are five eruvim in Chicago, five in Brooklyn, twenty three in Queens and Long Island, and at least three in Manhattan. The US Supreme Court is (like most other major US Federal Government buildings) located within the eruv of Washington DC. In many cases, not all of those living within or near the area of an actual or proposed eruv will themselves be Orthodox Jews, and this has sometimes led to protests against eruv creation. It is such protests which triggered the writing of this essay. (shrink)