In most testimonial transactions between adults, the hearer’s obligation is to accord the speaker a level of credibility that matches the evidence that what she is saying is true. When the speaker...

Brick, Lisa Sexuality education should assist young people to develop their full potential. Its effectiveness depends on its being age and development appropriate, and involving teachers or educators who are well trained and living what they teach.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:HUME, MOTIVATION AND MORALITY Hume remarks, in the Abstract, that his account of the passions in Book II of the Treatise has 'laid the foundation' (A 7 Ì1 for his theory of morals. Pall Ardal has shown how Hume's theory of certain indirect passions (pride, humility, love, hatred) underpins his theory of the evaluation of character. I propose to explore the links between Hume's account of motivation and his (...) treatment of an agent 'ß moral assessment of prospective action. Where Ardal stresses the moral spectator, my focus is on the agent. Hume himself attends primarily to the moral spectator, but the agent's perspective is central in two of his chief arguments concerning morals, that for the thesis that moral distinctions are derived from a moral sense, and that for the artificiality of justice. I shall take it that the argument of Treatise II, iii, 3 ("Of the influencing motives of the will") provides the framework for analysis: acting for moral reasons is like acting for any other reason; citing his moral principles to explain a man's actions is like citing his desire to preserve his health as an explanation of his taking exercise; deliberating about moral matters is like pondering the purchase of a pair of shoes. Of course there are differences; I shall look to them shortly. It is essential, however, to begin with the similarities. To a first approximation, the central doctrine is that the reasons that explain actions are rational causes of those actions. Reasons for actions are constituted by suitably related desires and beliefs; volitions are somehow implicated in intentional actions. Reasons are causes: the desires and beliefs that constitute reasons cause volitions, and thus actions. They are rational causes: there are links of special kinds between the contents of the desires and beliefs that constitute an agent's reasons for what he does, and the content of the volitions implicated in the actions done. Hume is at pains to deny that "reason [here: belief] alone can... be a motive to any action of the will" (T 413). But he insists there are "two principal parts [of human nature], which are requisite in all its actions, the affections and understanding' (T 493). I suggest that by "affections" he here means specifically (if broadly) desires, and so both the "direct passions" of desire and aversion and such "indirect passions" as benevolence, anger, pity, compassion and malice. Hume's official doctrines both of desires and of volitions are unsatisfactory as they stand; he treats each as simple impressions. To be sure, these simple impressions are said always to be accompanied by thoughts of (in Hume's phrase) their objects. Even such complex states, however, can play no satisfactory role in psychological theory. The insights that Hume's official doctrines mishandle can, I suggest, be incorporated into more defensible, and more-or-less Humean, analyses of the internal structure of desire and volition. Having made efforts along these lines elsewhere, however, I shall here concentrate on other features of desire and volition that are germane to Hume's moral psychology. Desires and volitions are alike in two linked respects, among others: neither takes a truth value (and so each differs from belief); each is a conative, not a cognitive, psychological state (and so, again, each differs from belief). Because desires and volitions are not capable of "an agreement or disagreement either to the real relations of ideas, or to real existence and matter of fact" it is "impossible... they can be pronounced either true or false" (T 458). Their general functional role is that of "propense and averse motions of the mind" (T 574). To be sure, there are differences. The principal difference is that of specific functional location: desires are constituents in reasons for acting: volitions are constituents of (or otherwise implicated in) actions done for such reasons. This functional difference is tied to differences of content. To grasp the many relations among belief, desire and volition, when the first two serve as 4 reason for (and so cause of) the third, it is useful to plot their causal relations onto the elements in an Aristotelian practical syllogism. Desires function as causally salient major premises... (shrink)

The idea that ‘Western’ politics had witnessed a post-Second World War ‘end of ideology’ carried great weight among mid-twentieth-century liberal European and US intellectuals. Almost as soon as this idea was broadcast, however, it became the object of intense debate: what represented to some a welcome reprieve from ‘extreme’ and destructive political doctrines, and the conflict between them, struck others as an order of complacency that stifled vigorous political debate and meaningful visions of a better future. It remains exceedingly difficult (...) to locate a clear meaning to the phrase, ‘the end of ideology’. Nonetheless, the most prevalent definition aligned it with a very moderate social-democratic perspective that was anti-Communist and allied with anti-Soviet Cold War policies, dedicated to the promise of the postwar ‘welfare state’, and tinged with a culturally conservative disposition that was suspicious of disruptive protest movements and avant-garde culture. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume's Argument Concerning the Idea of Existence John Bricke In"Hume on the IdeaofExistence"1Phillip Cumminsoffers anintricate and intriguing analysis of Hume's brief argument, at Treatise 1.2.6, concerning the idea ofexistence, an analysis that is, one wants to say, surely right on many of the essentials. He says relatively little, however, about a number of more preliminary matters, matters pertinent to the first of the several components he distinguishes in Hume's (...) argument. I propose to focus on these preliminaries. Doing so will suggest a more direct route to Hume's conclusions than the one Cummins traces. My representation of Hume's argument, just as Cummins', makes the notion of separability central. But my representation ofwhat I call Hume's Basic Premise eliminates the need for the problematic premise m on which Cummins has Hume's argument turn, and so it eliminates any need for the argument components—6A and 6B—that Cummins has Hume offer in m's support.2 Hume argues from some claim or other about perceptions and existence—his Basic Premise—to the rejection of one philosophical theory (Cummins calls it the Distinctness Alternative, or DA) and the endorsement ofanother. The Basic Premise concerns both impressions and ideas. It concerns all impressions and ideas, or at least all those "of which we have any consciousness or memory."3 The universally quantified Basic Premise is also, I suggest, a biconditional, one suited to be used in the proof of the biconditional that is the constructive conclusion to Hume'sargument("Anyidea we please toform is the idea ofa being; and theidea ofabeingis anyidea we please toform" [T 67]). On the reasonable assumption that Hume views his constructive conclusion as a necessarytruththereisalsoreason toassume the Basic Premise is offered as a necessary truth. We may take it, too, that the BasicPremiseis onethatHume andhisopponentareassumedtoshare: the controversy concerns not the Basic Premise but its philosophical elucidation. Given this characterization ofits structure and status, what is the Basic Premise's content? Of course it has to do with impressions and ideas, and with existence, butjust how do they enter in? One source of difficultyhere is thefactthatHume mentions avarietyofpsychological attitudes towards the existence of something or other, and it is not Volume XVII Number 2 161 JOHN BRICKE immediately clear what role, if any, each of the several attitudes is designed to play in his argument. (He writes of something's being "conceiv"d as existent," of "attributing existence," of "assurance of being" [T 66], ofwhat "we believe tobe existent" [T 67].) Another source is the fact that he writes not only ofattitudes towards the existence of something or another but also of the actual existence of those things, whatever they be: "every object, that is presented, must necessarily be existent" (T 67). (In writing this he raises, perhaps, the troublesome spectre ofnecessary existence.) A third source ofdifficulty concerns the impressions and ideas themselves. How are they to be understood? Is it their existence that is in question? How are they implicated in the various attitudes Hume mentions? Decisions on these matters of content must affect the interpretation not only ofthe Basic Premise but also ofthe Derivation Principle4 and the Separability Principle5 that, together with the Basic Premise, constitute the heart of Hume's argument. It will encourage clarity ifwe take Hume's terms "impression" and "idea" narrowly. Ideas, as here understood, are neither concepts nor exercises of concepts; they are impression-like entities of a sort essential, ifHume is right, to the exercise ofconcepts. They,just as the impressions they resemble, may be said to be red or blue, round or square—more abstractly, to be F. To avoid assuming that these reified perceptions play an essential role in Hume's argument, however, let us introduce a more neutral notion, that of having an experience (including having an ideational experience6) with an experiential content. On this usage, one can have an experience as ofan F, or as of an object that is F, the "as of locution being used to introduce the experience's experiential content. Having such an experience does not entail the existence of an object that is F. Nor does having such an experience (whether or... (shrink)

This paper defends two main claims. First, that political philosophy deserves a central place in AI Ethics’ curricula. This is a claim about the content of the AI Ethics class. The second claim is about the form of the AI Ethics class: namely, that considerations originating in political philosophy must inform the way in which AI Ethics is taught. The basic idea animating both claims, is that AI has powerful political implications and that preparing students to navigate these implications requires (...) paying close attention to both the cognitive and practical learning goals of the AI Ethics course. (shrink)

This book is a penetrating study of the theory of mind and morality that Hume developed in his Treatise of Human Nature and other writings. Hume rejects any conception of moral beliefs and moral truths. He understands morality in terms of distinctive desires and other sentiments that arise through the correction of sympathy. Hume's theory presents a powerful challenge to recent cognitivist theories of moral judgement, Bricke argues, and suggests significant limitations to recent conventionalist and contractarian accounts of morality's content.

How are we to grasp the genealogy of the “public intellectual”? When, how, and at whose hands did this term first come into use, framing an ideal of democratic responsibility for those who devote their work life to fostering knowledge and criticism—an image usually raised as a reproach to academic insularity though also sometimes assailed for encouraging an evasion of scholarly rigor? At first blush, the phrase seems redundant: the emergence of “intellectual”simpliciteris usually linked to a particular episode—the Dreyfusards’ defense (...) of the French republic—that already implied a commitment by writers, thinkers, and artists to political or civic action. From that time and place, the term traveled quickly across borders and before long to the United States, occasioning controversies from the start over who represented the “intellectual” as a social type and who did not, what activities or purposes best defined the role, and whether that role deserved respect, derision, or reinvention. To be sure, the social, cultural, and political world of “modern” societies has always featured individuals noted for scholarly, creative, speculative, or critical work that resonates with literate audiences attuned to key issues of the moment—whether such people were known as ministers,philosophes, journalists, poets, men or women of letters, Transcendentalists, or even, in some eighteenth-and nineteenth-century usages, natural philosophers or scientists. Nonetheless, the emergence of the noun “intellectual” from the early twentieth century, and its widening use since the 1920s, spawned a persistent and self-conscious discourse concerning the character, value or virtue of such figures. A skeptic might conclude that the addition of the modifier “public” has perpetuated old, tangled debates about intellectuals as such, without bringing with it much greater clarity. Words nonetheless are signs of historical troubles and social discontents. Excavating the usages of “public intellectual” over time can highlight some of the dilemmas that have confronted writers, critics, citizens, and political actors, past and present. (shrink)

This essay uses process theology, and branch of theology that emphasizes a teleological perspective regarding sin and suffering, to examine the treatment of death and the uncanny in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. The attitude of the mourners of Tim Finnegan from the first chapter of the novel is compared to the attitude of ALP in her closing monologue, with each view corresponding to a different variety of eschatology, futurized (focused on the afterlife) and realized (how knowledge of the end influences (...) lived existence). ALP’s hopeful demeanor illustrates a balance of these two types, and despite Joyce’s denunciation of organized religion, promotes a deeper spiritual existence and self-reflection. (shrink)

The Purāṇas make a major contribution to Brahmanical writing on gifting, primarily because they contain descriptions of numerous specific gifting rites that texts of other genres generally fail to discuss. Although largely unstudied, these Purāṇic gifting rites provide unique evidence of a historically significant, yet hitherto ignored, development in gifting in medieval India, namely, the incorporation of the increasingly popular ethos of bhakti into the much older practice of dāna, wherein gods traditionally played no prominent role. This article will argue (...) that Purāṇic authors strove to incorporate bhakti into dāna via two fairly distinct strategies. The first and apparently more mainstream of these is the straightforward inclusion of rather superficial Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava elements in various gifting rites. The essence of the second strategy is a belief that donors should in some way offer their gifts as a sign of respect—in other words, dedicate their gifts—to certain major Hindu deities, even if in most cases they would actually give their gifts to ordinary human beings. This strategy appears to have been less popular, but to reflect an attempt to more thoroughly integrate bhakti into dāna. (shrink)

This article examines significant, yet apparently unnoticed sociolinguistic aspects of the common Sanskrit particle bhoḥ and its Prakrit equivalent bho, which are frequently used in respectful addresses in our literary sources. Its specific aim is to demonstrate the important connection between bhoḥ and members of the twice- born social classes, especially Brahmins, that pertained during a large period of early South Asian history. The major conclusion it draws is that, at least according to the normative Brahmanical view of this time, (...) both addressing others with the particle bhoḥ and being addressed by others with it marked a person as a member of an elite fraternity that was comprised exclusively of either twice-born men or speakers of Sanskrit. (shrink)

BackgroundDecisions about withdrawal of life support for infants have given rise to legal battles between physicians and parents creating intense media attention. It is unclear how we should evaluate when life is no longer worth living for an infant. Public attitudes towards treatment withdrawal and the role of parents in situations of disagreement have not previously been assessed.MethodsAn online survey was conducted with a sample of the UK public to assess public views about the benefit of life in hypothetical cases (...) similar to real cases heard by the UK courts (eg, Charlie Gard, Alfie Evans). We then evaluated these public views in comparison with existing ethical frameworks for decision-making.ResultsOne hundred and thirty participants completed the survey. The majority (94%) agreed that an infant’s life may have no benefit when well-being falls below a critical level. Decisions to withdraw treatment were positively associated with the importance of use of medical resources, the infant’s ability to have emotional relationships, and mental abilities. Up to 50% of participants in each case believed it was permissible to either continueorwithdraw treatment.ConclusionDespite the controversy, our findings indicate that in the most severe cases, most people agree that life is not worth living for a profoundly disabled infant. Our survey found wide acceptance of at least the permissibility of withdrawal of treatment across a range of cases, though also a reluctance to overrule parents’ decisions. These findings may be useful when constructing guidelines for clinical practice. (shrink)

We see unique opportunities to advance emotional research by studying an overlooked environmental problem. The biodiversity crisis is caused by land use, in particular by reducing and damaging habitats, such as deforestation for cattle grazing. Biodiversity processes are proximate and personally moving, like when a person is causing or experiencing changes to livelihood-providing ecosystems, and we suggest this affect-rich context is useful for studying social and psychological processes. In contrast, much research on far-away populations thinking about climate change effects involves (...) more abstract and distant cognitions. We also suggest biodiversity-related emotions have consequential outcomes for health and behavior, and provide advice for shaping research programs on specific populations and wildlife interactions. (shrink)

This paper substantiates a distinction, built out of Gricean resources, between two kinds of communicative act: showing and telling. Where telling that p proceeds by recruiting an addressee’s capacity to recognize trustworthy informants, showing does not. Instead, showing proceeds by presenting an addressee with a consideration that provides reason to believe that p (other than the reason provided by an informant’s credibility), and so recruits their capacity to respond to those reasons. With this account in place, the paper defends an (...) account of one way in which authors can show their readers that certain moral states of affairs obtain both inside, and outside of, their fictions. It is argued, moreover, that this kind of showing gives addressees access to more than just reasons for moral belief–it also gives them access to the sorts of reasons that enable agents to increase their moral understanding. In virtue of these latter capacities, the showing identified is a way of communicating about morality that is markedly different from the sort of moral testimony that many philosophers have been increasingly interested in of late. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Epistemology of Protest by José MedinaShannon Brick (bio)Review of José Medina, The Epistemology of Protest ( Oxford University Press, 2023)José Medina's previous book, The Epistemology of Resistance (2012), examined epistemic practices as forms of political resistance. His latest book, The Epistemology of Protest, takes up an obviously political action and examines it as a distinctly epistemic phenomenon. He argues that from an epistemic perspective, protest does much (...) more than convey knowledge, and it is more than an action from which new knowledge might emerge. Instead, protest is a group action by which new forms of epistemic and communicative agency are brought into being. It is a kind of group action, moreover, with respect to which all people shoulder obligations—to listen and, sometimes, to join. Medina's account seeks to clarify the relationship between protesting and silencing, while accommodating a plurality of forms of protest. Various aspects of the account shed light on how silencing might be resisted, both from the perspective of the protesters and of members of the non-protesting public who take their obligations to listen seriously.The Epistemology of Protest has two parts. The first, "Protest as a Matrix of Communicative Resistance," (17) establishes in broad strokes the key aspects of Medina's account of protest. This part will be of primary interest to applied philosophers of language, and those interested in the normative questions raised by protest. The second, "Forging Communicative Solidarity and Re-Making the Polis: Changing Ourselves and Changing the World through Protest," (133) takes up in greater detail the four communicative dimensions of protests that are sketched in the first part of the book: the expression of dissent, as well as the testimonial, evaluative, and prescriptive dimensions of protest. Foregrounded throughout these chapters are the political struggles of actual communities, especially the radical (and often uncivil) protests of liberation movements. The rich discussions of these struggles will be of particular interest to social philosophers and those working on applied speech act theory, as well activists and the public more generally. [End Page E-1]The Epistemology of Protest opens by motivating a basic normative claim: all people have a duty to listen to protest and, in certain circumstances, a defeasible prima facie duty to protest. The latter aspect of this claim—that, in certain circumstances, we have a duty to protest—is situated within the context of the broader, imperfect duty to resist injustice (Medina 2023, 28; see also Delmas 2018). However, joining a protest is not just one way of discharging our imperfect duty to resist injustice, but a way of discharging the duty that all citizens ought to exercise whenever conditions of "social uprising against injustice" (22) obtain—when there is a real opportunity for a growing mass movement to achieve social change. Importantly, this is not a duty that has its roots in our political associations, but one that extends beyond the bounds of even the nation state (a position defended in Chapter Two by way of Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous assertion, in his "Letter from Birmingham Jail," that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." (King 1963/1990, 5, as cited in Medina 2023, 72).Central to Medina's argument for this claim is that some especially grave sorts of injustice produce not just material harms but, as per Richard Pildes and Richard Niemi, "expressive harms." (1993, 485). These are harms that occur when people are marked as inferior or subordinate, and that—like all injustices—tend to become socially invisible and inaudible, especially for those whom they benefit. Unless one interrupts the generation of these harms by protesting, one becomes complicit in their production. Hence, our duty of justice cannot be discharged simply by refraining from actively participating in the unjust practices that produce expressive harms.This discussion around expressive harms implies that our protest-duties are much stronger than the basic normative claim suggests. If a failure to protest amounts to complicity, why do we only shoulder a prima facie duty to protest when conditions of social uprising obtain? Siding with Candice Delmas (2018), Medina suggests that we cannot all be expected to devote ourselves entirely to... (shrink)

In The Aesthetic Value of the World, Tom Cochrane sets out to defend Aestheticism—the view that aesthetic value, and only aesthetic value, makes the world worth.

It has long been recognized that the Indian subcontinent is home to two markedly different systems of kinship that broadly correspond to prominent linguistic and geographical divisions in the region: those of the Indo-Āryan North and the Dravidian South. Moreover, scholars have widely agreed that the most distinctive feature of Dravidian kinship is the widespread practice of cross-cousin marriage in its various forms. In the Indo-Āryan North, by contrast, a man is generally forbidden from marrying a woman to whom he (...) is biologically related in any way within a fairly large number of generations. Nevertheless, by the close of the first millennium CE, Brāhmaṇa intellectuals throughout India shared in common both a canon of scriptural sources and a complex tradition of jurisprudence known as Dharmaśāstra. Hence, this raises the question: How did classical Brāhmaṇical jurists of the North and the South deal with the controversial issue of cross-cousin marriage? It is this question that this article aims to address in comprehensive detail. In particular, it will trace the treatment of cross-cousin marriage within Dharmaśāstra from the earliest texts of the tradition up to the two earliest and most prominent juridical defenses of the custom, composed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It will then conclude by drawing attention to a rare case where a particular Dharmaśāstra work can be seen to have influenced the marriage practices in a particular region of South India in the premodern past. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:15 LOCKE, HUME AND THE NATURE OF VOLITIONS 1. The concept of a volition plays a key role in the theories of mind that both Locke and Hume devise. It is central to the views each develops on the nature of action and of explanations of actions, on the character of practical reasoning, on the nature of desire, on the ways in which, most usefully, to categorize the several (...) kinds of mental states and events. Without attending closely to their concepts of volition, one cannot get quite clear about the views of each, and the considerations thought to support those views, on the vexed questions of free action and of responsibility. Whether it be Locke or Hume, then, there is good reason to scrutinize what he says of volitions. Why take them together? The principal reason is that the views of each, when considered closely, throw a quite considerable light on those of the other (or so I hope to show). But there is a philosophical point as well. A theory of volitions more adequate than either proposes must borrow from each. What is amenable to being borrowed, and what ought to be borrowed, are fairly readily seen when the two theories are put face to face. I concentrate on three central issues: the question whether volitions are thoughts; the relationship of volition to practical reasoning; the links between volitions and their effects. Hume's views on these topics are to be found chiefly in the Treatise and the first Enquiry; Locke's, of course, in the Essay. Locke's recently published correspondence with the Dutch theologian Philippus van Limborch is, however, essential reading here, and I have made extensive use of it. 16 2. Locke and Hume agree that volitions are indefinable psychological primitives that must be invoked in an analysis of voluntary action (T 399, EHU 69, E 249). They agree, too, in a number of the things that each says in his efforts to characterize volitions. They differ, however, on a fundamental point, Hume's volitions are 'internal impression[s]' (T 399); Locke's are 'thought[s] of the Mind' (E 235). As internal impressions Humean volitions are feelings akin to, but not 'properly speaking' (T 399) instances of, passions. They are like the 'direct passions' (desire and aversion, grief and joy, hope and fear) in two respects: they are 'immediate effects of pain and pleasure' (T 399); they are 'propense and averse motions of the mind' (T 574), and thus bear a special relation to action. Though they are not thoughts they have causal, thus contingent, links to thoughts, including in particular thoughts whose content specify the so-called 'immediate object of volition' (E 66). As 'distinct impression[s]' (T 625) volitions do not modify the thoughts of their objects in the logically intimate way in which, in Hume's view, the feeling essential to belief 'modiffies] the conception' (T 625) of what is believed. Hume frequently compares volitions to commands (T 623, 629, 632; EHU 48, 64, 65, 67, 68). He also, not surprisingly, denies them truth values: because they are not capable of 'an agreement or disagreement either to the real relations of ideas, or to real existence and matter of fact' it is 'impossible... they can be pronounced either true or false' (T 458; compare T 415). Locke's volitions are thoughts, not feelings; and they have their own contents and objects. '[T]he proper and only object of the will', he writes, 'is some action of ours' (E 258); in forming a volition one 17 'wills to number', say, or 'wills to walk' (C 405). Locke never says as much, but his overall theory is best read as requiring volitions to be thoughts without truth values. He contrasts 'Will' or 'the Power of Volition1 with 'Understanding' or 'the Power of Thinking' (E 128). Since 'Volition' is as much a 'Mode... £f thinking' as is 'Reasoning' or 'Judging' (E 227), however, the contrast is most plausibly taken as one between thoughts that do and thoughts that do not purport to represent the way the world is. Locke's distinction, to be examined below, between volitions and 'last judgements of the understanding' suggests the... (shrink)

One of the most striking facts about Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is the fact that it has been subject to so many mutually contradictory interpretations. It is not, to be sure, unusual that a complex philosophical work be capable of a variety of interpretations. The case of the Dialogues is, however, surely an exceptional one, for the contradictory interpretations concern what is clearly the main subject of the book: the justifiability of world-hypotheses, and specifically the justifiability of the religious (...) world-hypothesis. According to some commentators, Hume's point in the Dialogues is that no world-hypothesis whatever is justifiable, perhaps none is even intelligible. According to others, Hume not only does not deny the possibility of a justified world-hypothesis, but actually proposes some particular hypothesis as the most reasonable one. Those who agree that Hume defends some world-hypothesis, however, differ radically about its content. For some, Hume's preferred hypothesis is that the explanation of order in the universe is a deity immanent in the universe. For others, Hume subscribes to a deity distinct from the universe whose order he explains, and possessing many, at least, of the traditional attributes of God, including wisdom, power, and benevolence. Still others hold that Hume's God, while distinct from the universe, possesses only the natural, not the moral, attributes traditionally assigned to him. Some commentators have even argued that Hume's purpose in the Dialogues is to employ scepticism in defence of religious faith. How, one must ask, is it possible that so many mutually contradictory interpretations have been proposed? How is this striking fact about the Dialogues to be explained? (shrink)

Recent research suggests that spiritual experiences are related to increased physiological activity of the frontal and temporal lobes and decreased activity of the right parietal lobe. The current study determined if similar relationships exist between self-reported spirituality and neuropsychological abilities associated with those cerebral structures for persons with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Participants included 26 adults with TBI referred for neuropsychological assessment. Measures included the Core Index of Spirituality (INSPIRIT); neuropsychological indices of cerebral structures: temporal lobes (Wechsler Memory Scale-III), right (...) parietal lobe (Judgment of Line Orientation), and frontal lobes (Trail Making Test, Controlled Oral Word Association Test). As hypothesized, spirituality was significantly negatively correlated with a measure of right parietal lobe functioning and positively correlated (nonsignificantly) with measures of left temporal lobe functioning. Contrary to hypotheses, correlations between spirituality and measures of frontal lobe functioning were zero or negative (and nonsignificant). The data support a neuropsychological model that proposes that spiritual experiences are related to decreased activity of the right parietal lobe, which may be associated with decreased awareness of the self (transcendence) and increased activity of the left temporal lobe, which may be associated with the experience of specific religious archetypes (religious figures and symbols). (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Necessity Liberty Agency and Responsibility References Further Reading.

This article argues that we ought to reject Gregory Currie’s “Trace Account” of documentary film. According to the Trace Account, a film is a documentary so long the majority of its constitutive images are traces of the film’s subject matter. The argument proceeds by considering how proponents of the Trace Account could respond to Noel Carroll’s charge that their analysis is radically revisionary. I argue that the only responses available are either implausible or show that a fully worked out version (...) of the Trace Account collapses into Carroll’s own, rival definition of documentary. I then consider how advocates of the Trace Account might attempt to rescue the theory by reframing it as an account of a genre or as a theory of evaluation and argue that neither attempt would succeed. Given this, we ought to embrace Carroll’s own account of documentary, according to which a film is documentary if and only if it is a film of presumptive assertion. (shrink)

After acquiring knowledge of the neuroscience of learning, memory, stress and emotions, teachers incorporate more cognitive engagement and student-centered practices into their lessons. However, the role understanding neuroscience plays in teachers own affective and motivational competencies has not yet been investigated. The goal of this study was to investigate how learning neuroscience effected teachers’ self-efficacy, beliefs in their ability to teach effectively, self-responsibility and other components of teacher motivation. A pilot training-of-trainers program was designed and delivered in Liberia combining basic (...) neuroscience with information on social, emotional, behavioral and mental health issues faced by students. Tier I of the professional development was a 2 weeks workshop led by a visiting neuroscientist. A subset of the 24 Tier I secondary science teachers formed a Leadership Team who adapted the content to the Liberian context and subsequently led additional workshops and follow-up sessions for the Tier II secondary science teachers. Science teachers in both tiers completed the affective-motivational scales from the internationally vetted, multiscale Innovative Teaching for Effective Learning Teacher Knowledge Survey from the OECD. Tier II teachers completed the survey in a pre-post-delayed post design. Tier I teachers completed the survey after the workshop with their attitudes at that time and separately with retrospective projections of their pre-workshop attitudes. Ten of the 92 Tier II teachers participated in structured interviews at follow-up. Statistical analysis of survey data demonstrated improved teacher self-efficacy, self-responsibility for student outcomes, and motivation to teach. Qualitatively, teachers expressed more confidence in their ability to motivate students, engage them through active learning, and manage the class through positive rather than negative reinforcement. Teachers’ own self-regulation improved as they made efforts to build supporting relationships with students. Together, these results demonstrated that (i) teacher affective-motivational attitudes can be altered with professional development, (ii) basic neuroscience, as knowledge of how students learn, can improve teacher competency, and (iii) a training-of-trainers model can be effective in a low and middle income country for disseminating neuroscience knowledge, increasing teachers’ knowledge of students’ social and emotional needs, and promoting educational improvement. (shrink)