In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.1 (2002) 61-63 [Access article in PDF] Arguing from Neuroscience in Psychiatry James Phillips PHILIP GERRANS "A One-stage Explanation of the Cotard Delusion" provides an elegant example of the application of neuroscientific findings to known clinical phenomena in psychiatry. Gerrans argues that, in the cases of the Cotard and Capgras delusions, a one-stage explanation is sufficient to account for the clinical phenomena. That is, (...) the neuroanatomic defect and the consequent anomalous experience are sufficient to produce the delusion. According to Gerrans, we do not need to postulate that the delusion will emerge only if the anomalous experience is filtered through a faulty reasoning process (a two-stage explanation). Against the argument of Young and Leafhead (1996) that Cotard and Capgras delusions stem from the same neuroanatomic deficit and differentiate only in being processed differently—thus requiring a two-stage explanation—Gerrans argues that the respective neuroanatomic defects are in fact different, and that, therefore, the two delusional syndromes differ at the first stage and do not require the two-stage explanation suggested by Young and Leafhead.I do not have an opinion as to who is right in this disagreement, and I will devote these remarks to explaining why I do not have an opinion. In developing this explanation I will touch on what I find problematic in many discussions of neuroscience, neurocognitive models, and clinical psychiatry; I will thus use this article to highlight those problems.On the face of it, one would think that the issue raised by Gerrans should admit of a simple resolution. He argues that Capgras and Cotard delusions derive from different neural defects. Young and Leafhead, on the other hand, base their two-stage argument on the argument that the two delusions derive from the same neural defect. So which is it? Neuroscientists should be able to settle the issue and end the dispute. Gerrans remarks "that we need to look more closely at the CN [cognitive neuropsychiatric] explanation of the Capgras delusion." As he describes it, face recognition involves two components, a cognitive and an affective component, with separate neuroanatomic substrates. An individual successfully recognizes the face of a friend or acquaintance when she matches the cognitive recognition (cognitive component) with the affective tone of familiarity (second component). When there is a lesion in the neural substrate of the affective component, she may recognize the face but without the tone of familiarity. In her effort to understand her affective experience of the face as alien rather than as familiar, she may conclude that her friend has been replaced by a double. Thus we have the Capgras delusion.Let us now unpack this explanation. According to Gerrans, researchers have hypothesized [End Page 61] two anatomatically distinct pathways involved in face recognition. He writes: "Initially... these separate neuroanatomic substrates were hypothesized to lie in separate dorsal and ventral processing pathways, but the most persuasive hypothesis is that of Breen et al. that face recognition is performed in the ventral visual processing pathway, whereas covert [affective] recognition effects result from the activation of pathways connecting the ventral pathway and the limbic system. It is damage to these latter pathways that gives rise to the Capgras delusion."In other words, the explanation of Capgras delusions depends on a neurocognitive model, itself based on an unspecified base of neuroanatomic data. When Gerrans writes that "[t]he Capgras delusion arises in cases where, following a neurological accident, the pathways connecting the FRU [Face Recognition Unit] to the limbic system are damaged leaving ventral pathways and hence overt recognition unimpaired...," he means that the Capgras delusion arises in that manner if the proposed model bears any relation to the reality of the living brain and if real Capgras patients have suffered the hypothesized lesion. At this point the reader is struggling with the following questions: (1) What are the hard neuroanatomic data underpinning the neurocognitive model? (2) What is the argument for developing this model (single Face Recognition Unit with independent pathways to cognitive and affective components of face recognition) out of the hard data? (3) What is the evidence... (shrink)

Prevention neuroscience investigates the brain basis of attitude and behavior change. Over the years, an increasingly structurally and functionally resolved “persuasion network” has emerged. However, current studies have only identified a small handful of neural structures that are commonly recruited during persuasive message processing, and the extent to which these (and other) structures are sensitive to numerous individual difference factors remains largely unknown. In this project we apply a multi-dimensional similarity-based individual differences analysis to explore which individual factors—including (...) characteristics of messages and target audiences—drive patterns of brain activity to be more or less similar across individuals encountering the same anti-drug public service announcements (PSAs). We demonstrate that several ensembles of brain regions show response patterns that are driven by a variety of unique factors. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for neural models of persuasion, prevention neuroscience and message tailoring, and methodological implications for future research. (shrink)

With the growth of neuroscience research, new neuroscience and society (NeuroX) fields like neuroethics, neurolaw, neuroarchitecture, neuroeconomics, and many more have emerged. In this article we report on lessons learned about mentoring students in the interdisciplinary space of neuroscience and society. We draw on our experiences with the recently launched Dana Foundation Career Network in Neuroscience & Society. This resource supports educators and practitioners mentoring students aiming to apply neuroscience in diverse fields beyond medicine and (...) biomedical science. Through our programming, we identified three key lessons: (1) students are interested in exploring a wide range of neuroscience and society intersections; (2) outreach to underserved institutions generates avenues for students to join NeuroX conversations; and (3) by offering free access to online NeuroX resources and a network of subject-matter experts, the Career Network joins many partners helping to bridge the gap between neuroscience and society. (shrink)

Although Law is often influenced by values, nowadays a widely held expert opinion is that the application of law is a result or rational reasoning. It is believed that those applying legal rules consider the conflicting arguments from both parties, and come to a decision by rational means. Nevertheless, new discoveries from Neuroscience and Moral Psychology show that many of these moral judgments that inevitably underlie legal judgments occur unconsciously and not rationally. Once such judgments are passed, they are (...) immune to any dissenting rational argument. Through literature review, we discuss in the present paper some derivations of these new findings to Law. For instance, it is advisable that deeper philosophical training is installed in professional qualification for lawyers and magistrates, making these people more open-minded towards reasons against their own moral convictions. Furthermore, it is important to consider limiting the mandate of Hight Courts Ministers, in order to prevent that the moral convictions of these people pervade for too long. (shrink)

Political persuasion can express moral respect. In this article, however, I rely on two psychological assumptions to argue that political persuasion is generally prima facie disrespectful: (1) that we maintain our political beliefs largely for non-epistemic, personal reasons and (2) that our political beliefs are connected to our epistemic esteem. Given those assumptions, a persuader can either ignore the relevant personal reasons, explicitly address them, or implicitly address them. Ignoring those reasons, I argue, constitutes prima facie insensitivity. Explicitly (...) addressing them constitutes a form of prima facie incivility. Finally, implicitly addressing them covertly treats those personal reasons as psychological puppet strings, constituting prima facie objectionable manipulation. This prima facie insensitivity, incivility, and manipulation are each prima facie failures of respect, either for the persuadee’s rationality or for their agency. Political persuasion can sometimes be all-things-considered justified, but these moral hazards can produce reasonable guilt, resentment, and blowback. (shrink)

These papers are based on a Symposium at the COGSCI Conference in 2010. 1. Naturalizing the Mammalian Mind 2. Modularity in Cognitive Psychology and Affective Neuroscience 3. Affective Neuroscience and the Philosophy of Self 4. Affective Neuroscience and Law.

Political persuasion can express moral respect. In this article, however, I rely on two psychological assumptions to argue that political persuasion is prima facie disrespectful: (1) that we maintain our political beliefs largely for non-epistemic, personal reasons and (2) that our political beliefs are connected to our epistemic esteem. Given those assumptions, a persuader can either ignore the relevant personal reasons, explicitly address them, or implicitly address them. Ignoring those reasons, I argue, constitutes prima facie insensitivity. Explicitly addressing (...) them constitutes a form of prima facie incivility. Finally, implicitly addressing them covertly treats those personal reasons as psychological puppet strings, constituting prima facie objectionable manipulation. This prima facie insensitivity, incivility, and manipulation are each prima facie failures of respect, either for the persuadee’s rationality or for their agency. Political persuasion can sometimes be all-things-considered justified, but these moral hazards can produce reasonable guilt, resentment, and blowback. (shrink)

The paper first presents a short survey of ancient and modern logical, rhetorical and argumentative approaches (e.g. Aristotle, Quintilian, Quine, Anscombre and Ducrot) studying the properties of paradoxical utterances. This survey is followed by a tentative definition of paradoxes as seemingly contradictory utterances triggering conversational implicatures in the sense of Grice. A specific group of paradoxes, namely, persuasive paradoxes, is further characterized by the specific implicatures which they trigger: the implicatures of persuasive paradoxes serve the interest of the (political) speaker (...) because they either convey a sharp criticism of the political opponent(s) or praise the political activities of the speaker in a highly effective way.The second part of the paper takes a corpus of about 80 paradoxical utterances from Cicero's speeches to show how they are used 1. for a devastating criticism of Cicero's political enemies, 2. a milder form of criticism in the case of his friends, when their political activities have failed, 3. a praise of successful policies of Cicero and his political friends and 4. a defense of unsuccessful activities started by Cicero and his friends. (shrink)

The aim is to describe which persuasive tool from the triad of Aristotle (Ethos, Pathos and Logos) is most commonly used in editorials to convey visions and ideas in the nursing journals of the last 5 years (2014–2019). A descriptive qualitative study, based on content analysis, was performed in 2020 and summarized according to the COnsolidated criteria for REporting Qualitative research principles. Two hundred and eighty‐five editorials were included in the study, all of which were published in the top‐five nursing (...) journals, specifically, the International Journal of Nursing Studies (5‐years Journal Impact Factor [5‐Y JIF] = 5.022), the Journal of Nursing Scholarship (=3.374), the Journal of Advanced Nursing (=3.010), the Worldviews on Evidence‐Based Nursing (2.990) and the Nursing Outlook (=2.867). Logos was the most widely used tool in 148 editorials (51.9%). Ethos was used in a quarter of them (n = 72, 25.3%) and the Pathos tool was used to a similar extent (n = 65, 22.8%). Logic is the most used tool for persuasion in nursing editorials; however, nurses who would capture the attention of the nursing community by writing an editorial should also consider the profiles of the potential readers, who might be attracted in different ways by logical‐objective, ethical–moral, or emotional discourses. (shrink)

1970년대 들어 윌슨은 진화론을 통해 도덕을 남김없이 설명하겠다고 과감하게 주장한다. 이와 같은 주장이 구체적으로 무엇을 의미하는지의 문제와는 별개로 그의 주장은 수없이 많은 논쟁을 불러일으켰으며, 오늘날에도 새로운 논의들을 계속 재생산해 내고 있다. 이 글은 윌슨의 주장을 크게 (1)도덕에 내재되어 있는 실질적인 동기 파악, (2)도덕 판단이 갖는 진화적 특성에 대한 조명, (3)진화론을 통한 윤리학의 재구성으로 나누어 각각의 논의의 설득력을 검토하고 있다. 필자는 어떤 방식으로 윌슨의 주장을 해석하건 그의 주장이 대체로 설득력이 없다고 주장하고 있는데, (1)은 심리적 이기주의에 대한 비판과 다를 바 없는 비판을 (...) 받을 수밖에 없으며, 다소 사소하다는 측면에서, (2)는 모든 도덕 판단을 진화론으로 충분하게 설명하지 못한다는 측면에서, (3)은 진화에 의해 주어진 도덕 감정이 궁극적인 기준이 되어야 할 이유가 분명치 않으며, 도덕 판단에 이러한 감정만 포함되는 것이 아니기 때문에 메타 윤리학적인 논의에서 특정 입장을 지지하기 힘들다는 측면에서 비판을 가하고 있다. (shrink)

Decades of research have investigated the complex role of source credibility in attitude persuasion. Current theories of persuasion predict that when messages are thoughtfully scrutinized, argument strength will tend to have a greater effect on attitudes than source credibility. Source credibility can affect highly elaborated attitudes, however, when individuals evaluate material that elicits low attitude extremity. A recently proposed model called the guru effect predicts that source credibility can also cause attitudinal change by biasing the interpretation of pragmatically (...) ambiguous material. The present studies integrate models of explanatory pragmatics and persuasion in order to empirically assess these hypotheses. Experiment 1 found that text difficulty and attitude neutrality reflect independent persuasion variables. Experiment 2 found that higher source credibility causes more favorable attitudes toward messages eliciting low attitude extremity. Text difficulty was not found to have a significant effect on attitudes. These results confirm the predictions of prior social cognition research but no do not support the guru effect model. The implications of these studies for pragmatics and persuasion research as well as the value of interdisciplinary research between these fields are discussed. (shrink)

Scientific developments take place in a socio-political context but scientists often ignore the ways their innovations will be both interpreted by the media and used by policy makers. In the rush to neuroscientific discovery important questions are overlooked, such as the ways: (1) the brain, environment and behavior are related; (2) biological changes are mediated by social organization; (3) institutional bias in the application of technical procedures ignores race, class and gender dimensions of society; (4) knowledge is used to the (...) advantage of the powerful; and (5) its applications may reinforce existing structures of power that pose ethical questions about distributive justice. The case of crime, deception and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) shows the complexity, and the political and ethical challenges that confront those who seek to use neuroscience to explain the etiology of crime, and who base policy on its findings. An ethically grounded neuroscience needs to take account of existing structures of power and difference, and to develop a public neuropolitical consciousness that ensures that those subject to risk by the application of science and technology are participants in the decision-making processes involving the implementation of policies that affect them. (shrink)

In Flourish, the positive psychologist Martin Seligman (2011) identifies five commonly recognized factors that are characteristic of human flourishing or wellbeing: (1) “positive emotion,” (2) “relationships,” (3) “engagement,” (4) “achievement,” and (5) “meaning” (p. 24). Although there is no settled set of necessary and sufficient conditions neatly circumscribing the bounds of human flourishing (Seligman, 2011), we would mostly likely consider a person that possessed high levels of these five factors as paradigmatic or prototypical of human flourishing. Accordingly, if we wanted (...) to go about the practical task of actually increasing our level of wellbeing, we ought to do so by focusing on practically increasing the levels of the five factors that are characteristic of wellbeing. If, for instance, an activity such as musical engagement can be shown to positively influence each or all of these five factors, this would be compelling evidence that an activity such as musical engagement can positively contribute to one’s living a flourishing life. I’m of the belief that psychological research can and should be used, not only to identify and diagnose maladaptive psychological states, but identify and promote adaptive psychological states as well. In this article I advance the hypothesis and provide supporting evidence for the claim that musical engagement can positively contribute to one’s living a flourishing life. Since there has not yet been a substantive and up-to-date investigation of the possible role of music in contributing to one’s living a flourishing life, the purpose of this article is to conduct this investigation, thereby bridging the gap and stimulating discussion between the psychology of music and the psychology of wellbeing. (shrink)

We begin with an analysis of the persuasiveness of assertibles and arguments in the texts and fragments of Ancient Stoicism, with a particular focus on those in which Stoic logic is presented as the tool to avoid the persuasiveness of sophisms and the Stoic sage as the one who can efface this persuasiveness by his expertise in dialectics. We then critically assess the contemporary consensus on the interpretation of these texts (notably in Chiaradona, Sedley and Tieleman), according to which Chrysippus (...) is interested in extra-logical forms of discourse. Tieleman further argues that Chrysippus uses persuasive premises for constructive purposes. We reject the thesis concerning Chrysippus' recognition of extra-logical truths, on the basis of the Stoic ideal of the sage, concluding instead that in Stoicism, (1) pithanon refers primarily to false assertibles, arguments and presentations and (2) the Stoic sage cannot be persuaded, but he can persuade his students in order to prepare their souls to receive the Stoic doctrines. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 39.4 (2006) 333-339MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]On Persuasion, Identification, and Dialectical SymmetryKenneth BurkeEdited with introduction by James ZappenNote: This untitled paper was found in two typed copies among the books and papers in Kenneth Burke's personal library in July 2006—one copy folded into a heavily used Loeb edition of Aristotle's Rhetoric, the other in a small file cabinet in the library.1 The two copies are (...) nearly identical carbon copies, probably typed by Burke's wife Libby; the original has not been found.2 The paper includes brief discussions of persuasion, identification, and dialectical symmetry (hence the current title), plus brief critiques of behaviorism and general semantics, with specific reference to Alfred Korzybski's notion of the structural differential. It was probably written in the mid-1940s, after the second edition of Korzybski's Science and Sanity and The Philosophy of Literary Form, both published in 1941; perhaps at roughly the same time as the more extended discussions of behaviorism and Korzybski in A Grammar of Motives, published in 1945; and before the full development of Burke's ideas about persuasion, identification, and dialectical symmetry in A Rhetoric of Motives, published in 1950. The paper might have been prepared for a public lecture or for circulation among Burke's literary friends, as a brief commentary on some of the key concepts in A Rhetoric of Motives, while he was completing A Grammar of Motives or perhaps shortly following its publication. If so, then it might have been written as late as 1947.3This paper suggests that Burke's concept of identification was in part a creative response to current issues in behaviorism and general semantics, formulated in sympathy with George Herbert Mead's observations on identification, communication, and community in Mind, Self, and Society and The Philosophy of the Act and in opposition to Korzybski's general semantics and his structural differential. Moreover, and more important, this paper suggests that the final section of A Rhetoric of Motives, titled simply "Order," is essential to a complete understanding of Burke's ideas about persuasion and identification since only in this last section does Burke show how competing points of view [End Page 333] might be reconciled in an ultimate identification via the dialectical symmetry that he traces through the long history of Platonic thought.4James P. Zappen Department of Language, Literature, and Communication Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute* * *What, in sum, would be the salient traits of Aristotle's Rhetoric?5 And what would be our attitude towards them?His "art" is constructed about his stress upon persuasion as the purpose of rhetoric. Hence he surveys the resources of rhetoric, to the end that one might use the best means available for a given situation. To narrow down the choice of means, he makes a division into kinds of oratory: deliberative (concerned with the expediency of steps still to be taken); forensic (concerned with the justice or injustice of past acts); and demonstrative or epideictic (concerned with praise and blame, primarily involving the present). But to be effective in any of these kinds, one must appeal to the opinions of one's audience—hence the lists of "topics" reviewing such opinions. First he considers the components of happiness, on the grounds that all men aim at happiness, hence this topic figures in all persuasion and dissuasion. For deliberative oratory specifically, he lists the topics naming men's opinions as to the good, the expedient, and their opposites (along with relevant observations on different forms of government). His topics for epideictic, dealing with praise and blame, comprise the things men consider virtuous and vicious. And his list of forensic topics has to do with the motives and effects of just and unjust acts. Also, there are such general topics as the possible and impossible, the more and the less, the likely and the unlikely.Enthymemes (deductions based on opinion) fit well with forensic, he says. Rhetorical induction (example) best suits the deliberative. And to epideictic, amplification (auxesis... (shrink)

This paper develops the view that in arguing informally individuals construct a dual representation in which there is a coupling of arguments and the structure of the qualitative (mental) causal model to which these refer. Invited to consider a future possibility, individuals generate a causal model and mentally simulate the consequences of certain actions. Their arguments refer to the causal paths in the model. Correspondingly, faced with specific arguments about a policy option they generate a model with particular causal paths (...) and mentally simulate the outcomes. The results of Experiment 1 are consistent with this notion. Decisions on the percentage of funds to be allocated to genetically modified (GM) crop research depended on the structure of the arguments elicited in response to imagining a future state of affairs. Specifically, the presence of a dissuasive argument eliminated the impact of any persuasive argument. The non-monotonic properties of everyday informal argument can then be seen as a corollary of change to causal structure in the model. The dual representation view predicts that the impact of a dissuasive argument will depend on the structure of the causal model. Experiment 2 tested and confirmed this prediction by requiring individuals to judge the relative persuasiveness of two cases referring either to a model with two independent causal paths or to a model in which one causal path depended on the other. In contrast to Experiment 1, prior opinion on GM crop research did not affect allocation decisions. An advisory role in contrast to a participant role may encourage a more decontextualised mode of thinking. According to the dual representation view, ease of mental simulation should exert wide-ranging effects on judgements and the rhetoric of arguments should also be important. The paper concludes with a discussion of some of these expectations. (shrink)

Persuasion is an important and yet complex aspect of human intelligence. When undertaken through dialogue, the deployment of good arguments, and therefore counterarguments, clearly has a significant effect on the ability to be successful in persuasion. A key dimension for determining whether an argument is good is the impact that it has on the concerns of the intended audience of the argument ( e.g., the other participant(s) in the dialogue). In this paper, we investigate how we can acquire (...) and represent concerns of a participant, and her preferences over them, and we show how this can be used for selecting good moves in a persuasion dialogue. We provide results from empirical studies showing that: (1) we can gather preferences over types of concern; (2) there is a common understanding of what is meant by concerns; (3) participants tend to make moves according to their preferences; and (4) the persuader can use these preferences to improve the persuasiveness of a dialogue. (shrink)

연구자들이 제대로 주목하지 못한 파르메니데스적 ‘로고스’ 전통은 존재-인식-담론이라는 삼원적 구조로 이루어진다. 그는 전통적 이해가 강조하듯 존재론자일 뿐만 아니라, 수정주의적 이해가 강조하기 시작한 것처럼 인식론자이기도 하며, 동시에 두 기존 이해가 담아내지 못한 담론론자의 면모 또한 갖고 있다. 파르메니데스의 이런 역동적, 통합적 면모를 온전히 포착하는 제3의 이해에 도달하려면, 서시-진리편-의견편이라는 세 담론 부분의 유기적 구성에, 특히 서시와 메타 담론의 의의에 면밀히 주목해야 한다. 엘레아적 담론 전통 내에서 이런 파르메니데스 담론의 진면모를 분명히 파악하고 발전시킨 사람은 통상의 기대대로 2세대 엘레아주의자들이 아니라 오히려 그 반대편 자리에 (...) 흔히 정위되어 온 고르기아스다. 이 글은 파르메니데스적 로고스 전통을 과연 그가 어떻게 혁신하면서 계승하는지 추적한다. 특히 그의 담론을 전통 내부적 반론(안틸로기아)으로 규정한다. 파르메니데스적 전통을 하나의 커다란 지성적 훈련의 장으로 놓고 거기에 일종의 스파링 상대로 자신을 제공하면서 반론을 세워 줌으로써 파르메니데스적 설득을 보완하고 완성한 ‘악마의 대변자’로 자리 매김한다. 『헬레네 찬양』이나『팔라메데스 변명』같은 수사학 연설에서 수행한 그런 반론 과정에서 그는 설득이 진리와 따로 놀 가능성을 실험하고 음미한다. 하지만 그것은 플라톤이 ‘철학적’ 저작 『비존재에 관하여』에만 주목하며 문제 삼은 것처럼 그저 설득력과 그럴법함(에이코스)을 위해 진리를 희생하는 것이 아니었다. 오히려 진리와 앎에 지나치게 기울어 경직된 당대 지성에 균형과 유연성을 제공하기 위해 일부러 반대편에 힘을 실어 주려는 ‘반대를 위한 반대’요 진지한 유희였다. 이런 소피스트적 전통을, 플라톤의 과제가 아니라 우리 시대의 과제, 즉 진지한 유희를 나눌 수 있는 건강한 담론 문화를 만들어가야 한다는 과제를 위해 불러들이고 음미하는 것은 온전히 우리가 감당해야 할 ‘에라노스’(우리 몫의 기여)다. (shrink)

This article is an account of the dynamics of interaction across the social sciences and neurosciences. Against an arid rhetoric of ‘interdisciplinarity’, it calls for a more expansive imaginary of what experiment – as practice and ethos – might offer in this space. Arguing that opportunities for collaboration between social scientists and neuroscientists need to be taken seriously, the article situates itself against existing conceptualizations of these dynamics, grouping them under three rubrics: ‘critique’, ‘ebullience’ and ‘interaction’. Despite their differences, each (...) insists on a distinction between sociocultural and neurobiological knowledge, or does not show how a more entangled field might be realized. The article links this absence to the ‘regime of the inter-’, an ethic of interdisciplinarity that guides interaction between disciplines on the understanding of their pre-existing separateness. The argument of the paper is thus twofold: (1) that, contra the ‘regime of the inter-’, it is no longer practicable to maintain a hygienic separation between sociocultural webs and neurobiological architecture; (2) that the cognitive neuroscientific experiment, as a space of epistemological and ontological excess, offers an opportunity to researchers, from all disciplines, to explore and register this realization. (shrink)

Neuroscience is in a period of explosive growth. To address the implications of the new findings for religion and science, Zyvon in 1996 published fifteen articles in this field. Although the authors'explorations of neuroscience and religion are various, three issues in particular are addressed repeatedly: (1) the nature of human identity, or hallmarks of humanness; (2) the nature and origin of religious consciousness; and (3) our means of discovering or constructing order and integration in the brain/mind, in the (...) environment, and holistically. With these categories as templates, this article correlates the findings of the Zygon neuroscience contributors of 1996. (shrink)

Friendly persuasion, in contrast to deterrent measures like tax audits and penalties on underreported taxes, is a positive and possibly a cost effective method of increasing taxpayer compliance. However, prior studies have failed to show that friendly persuasion has a significant impact on compliance (Blumenthal et al., 2001; McGraw and Scholz, 1991). In our study, in contrast to prior studies, we examine the impact of generating and reading reasons supporting compliance as friendly persuasion on individuals' income reporting (...) behavior as well as control for gender effects. Specifically, we predict an interaction effect between friendly persuasion and gender on compliance behavior. We carried out a 2 (friendly persuasion and control) × 2 (men and women) full factorial experiment, where participants earned $30 by completing two questionnaires. Participants in the friendly persuasion group were required first to generate and second to read a list of reasons why they should comply fully. Afterwards, participants in both groups were asked to report the income they earned and pay tax on the reported income. The results show a significant main effect for gender as well as a significant interaction effect between gender and friendly persuasion on income reported. Women in the friendly persuasion group reported significantly higher income compared to men in that group. Other comparisons were not significant. Policy implications for increasing taxpayers' ethics and compliance are highlighted. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Persuasion and RhetoricThomas M. ConleyPersuasion and Rhetoric. Carlo Michelstaedter. Translated with an introduction and commentary by Russell Scott Valentino, Cinzia Sartini Blum, and David J. Depew : New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Pp. 178. $32.50, hardcover.Readers of this book will not find much in it about the "persuasion" and "rhetoric" they might expect to read about in this journal. Nor will they find in it (...) the Appendici Critiche that appear in the original text, Michelstaedter's thesis entitled I concetti di persuasione e rettorica [sic] in Platone e Aristotele, which he submitted to the Faculty of Letters in Florence in 1910. But the version printed here by the editors (hereafter "VBD," as there is no indication of who did what) will no doubt appeal to those who dislike Plato and Aristotle, have the idea that something better can be found in the Presocratics, and claim allegiance to such philosophers as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and the Heidegger of Being and Time; for this is a book about the problem of attaining a sort of existential "authenticity" and not, in my view, "one of the most trenchant and influential studies in modern rhetoric," as the liner notes claim. To be sure, Persuasione e rettorica has been the subject of decades of contentious scholarship in Italy. But most of that scholarship (and that displayed in the headnotes provided by VBD) concerns the sources of Michelstaedter's ideas and his true debt to the likes of Parmenides and Heraclitus, both of whom figure significantly in his worldview."Persuasione"—and I use the Italian here to avoid confusion—might best be understood to mean a sort of self-possession, being at one with oneself and with the world, or what I called before "authenticity." Michelstaedter himself never makes an effort to define it, for to do that would be to turn it into the sort of abstraction that Michelstaedter opposes. Defining things, as we learn from the Appendici, is the sort of thing philosophers like Aristotle and Hegel do in an act of bad faith or delusion. "Persuasione" is, by contrast, something lived, not understood—or, more precisely, it is a state to which true philosophers (Parmenides and Socrates, for instance) aspire with the full understanding that, like the limit approached asymptotically by an hyperbola (see 48, 109), it can never be attained. That understanding was replaced by the false consciousness represented by the "rettorica" taught by the Sophists and Plato (along with his disciple, Aristotle), and continues to the present day. This account is hinted at in the "Historical Example" allegory of the present text (77–84); but is more fully "documented" in a section of the long Appendix 2, "Note alla triste historia" (107–56 in the 1972 Raschini edition), entitled "La decadenza" (129–35). [End Page 170]"Rettorica," then, is the name Michelstaedter gives to the whole range of ingenious linguistic devices we use to convince ourselves that we are satisfied, fulfilled, secure in our selves and in the world—i.e., "persuaded"—when we are only suffering from a delusion created by language itself. It is rettorica that gives rise to "commonplaces" that masquerade as true understanding, to the impostures of "science" in the name of "objectivity" (see 89–95), to technology and machines, to "education" (110–11, 148–52), and indeed to every manifestation of bourgeois ideology (see the "dialogue" at 104–6, for instance). Rettorica is a kind of hypocrisy, deception, and (self-) flattery; an instrument of "the community of the wicked" (100, 143), a collection of "ornaments of the darkness" (e.g., 137, 139).The problem we face in acknowledging all this is, of course, that the attempt to articulate it has to be done in language; and language, by its very nature in all its semantic and syntactic elements (the point of Appendix 1, Raschini, 103–6), subverts true "persuasione." How can one "speak truth to authenticity," so to speak, when one begins by "giving a name to" its contrary, "rettorica"?"Trenchant," in any event, is hardly the right term to describe Persuasion and Rhetoric. "Mordant" or "plangent" might be closer to the mark. And as for its influence on "modern rhetoric... (shrink)

The growing general interest in understanding how neuroscience can contribute to explanations of our understanding and appreciation of art has been slow to find its way to philosophy of literature. Of course this is not to say that neuroscience has not had any influence on current theories about our engagement, understanding, and appreciation of literary works. Colin Martindale developed a scientific approach to literature in his book The Clockwork Muse (1990). His prototype-preference theory drew heavily on early artificial (...) neural network research. Jenefer Robinson has appealed to results from affective neuroscience in her discussion of our emotional engagement with literary works (see Robinson, 2005). More recently literary critics have tried to extend cognitive literary theory in the direction of neuroscience (Ashton, 2005; Byatt, 2006; Young, 2010). This line of research traces its origin to commentary on a 1995 a paper by Herbert Simon in the Stanford Humanities Review (Franchi and Güzeldere, 1995). So, although there hasn't been much going on that could justifiably be called a neuroscience of literature, discussions of neuroscientific research have woven their way into the fabric of some aspects of philosophy of literature and literary theory. Nonetheless, there has been a great deal of resistance to the creeping insurgence of neuroscience into both fields. I will challenge this skepticism in what follows. In section 1, I will sketch a model for research at the crossroads of philosophy and neuroscience of art and suggest how it can be applied to the philosophy of literature. In Section 2, I will introduce situation models and discuss the role they have been hypothesized play in discourse comprehension and narrative understanding outside of literature. In Section 3, I will explore some ways that situation models can contribute to discussions of narrative understanding, appreciation, and the artistically salient features that differentiate literature as a category of art from non-art literary forms like newspaper columns, magazine articles, or biographies. (shrink)

Gold & Stoljar argue persuasively that there is presently not a good case for the “radical neuron doctrine.” There are strong reasons to believe that this doctrine is false. An analogy between psychology and economics strongly throws the radical neuron doctrine into doubt.

En este breve comentario discuto algunos aspectos de la interpretación de la epistemología de Davidson que sugiere Willian Duica en su reciente libro. Luego de una presentación somera del libro me centro en tres asuntos centrales de la interpretación de Duica. En primer lugar, argumento que su lectura de la crítica de Davidson al dualismo esquema/contenido es muy restrictiva y deja abierta la posibilidad de un realismo directo empirista. En segundo lugar, argumento que en su lectura el propio Duica se (...) compromete inadvertidamente con un empirismo de este tipo y, de este modo, su interpretación entra en tensión con el coherentismo de Davidson. Finalmente, discuto algunos aspectos de la interpretación que hace Duica de la tesis davidsoniana de la triangulación. In this short comment I discuss some aspects of William Duica's interpretation of Davidson's epistemology in a recent book. After a brief review of the book, I focus on three central issues of Duica's interpretation. First, I argue that his reading of Davidson's criticism of the scheme/content dualism is too restrictive and leaves open the possibility of an empiricist direct realism. Second, I argue in his reading Duica inadvertently commits himself to an empiricism of this sort and, as a result, his interpretation is in tension with Davidson's own coherentism. Finally, I discuss some aspects of Duica's interpretation of Davidsonian triangulation. (shrink)

Persuasive technologies can adopt several strategies to change the attitudes and behaviors of their users. In this work I synthesize the lessons learned from three empirical case studies on automated persuasion that have been carried out in the last decade in the contexts of: persuasive news recommendations, social robotics, and e-commerce, respectively. In particular, such studies have assessed, in the technological domain, the effects of nudging techniques relying on well known persuasive argumentation schemas and on framing strategies. In discussing (...) the main findings, I will argue that the obtained persuasive effects are due to the fact that such techniques leverage on cognitive mechanisms that refer to the “system 1” types of automatic processes hypothesized in the context of the dual process theory of reasoning. As a consequence of this state of affairs, any automated persuasive systems (used for ethical purposes: e.g. suggesting good health habits) should be able to re-use these types of system 1 strategies in order to gradually take the users in an argumentation territory where system 2 processes can take place. -/- . (shrink)

This paper aims to reconstruct the politico-philosophical content of the Ancient Wenzi, according to three interrelated questions: How does the text communicate its views to the reader? What are its main ideas? When and where were these ideas first put to writing? Accordingly, after a discussion of preliminaria in section 1, section 2 focuses on the rhetorical devices in the text, section 3 on its key terms, and section 4 on its possible historical context. The goal of this paper is (...) not only to describe the content of the Ancient Wenzi, but also to contextualize it. That is, to explore the debate to which the Ancient Wenzi may have responded. (shrink)

In their review essay (published in this issue), Looren de Jong and Schouten take my 2003 book to task for (among other things) neglecting to keep up with the latest developments in my favorite scientific case study (memory consolidation). They claim that these developments have been guided by psychological theorizing and have replaced neurobiology's traditional 'static' view of consolidation with a 'dynamic' alternative. This shows that my 'essential but entirely heuristic' treatment of higher-level cognitive theorizing is a mistaken view of (...) actual scientific practice. In response I contend that, on the contrary, a closer look at the memory reconsolidation following reactivation experiments and data suggests (1) a less revolutionary judgment about the proposed alternative, and (2) a now-complete reliance on ruthlessly reductive experimental methods from cellular and molecular neuroscience. These conclusions save the heuristic status I propose for higher-level investigations of behavior and brain. I close with a brief comment on their further charge that I 'sell out' philosophy of science to factual developments in science itself. (shrink)

In 2007, ten world-renowned neuroscientists proposed “A Decade of the Mind Initiative.” The contention was that, despite the successes of the Decade of the Brain, “a fundamental understanding of how the brain gives rise to the mind [was] still lacking” (2007, 1321). The primary aims of the decade of the mind were “to build on the progress of the recent Decade of the Brain (1990-99)” by focusing on “four broad but intertwined areas” of research, including: healing and protecting, understanding, enriching, (...) and modeling the mind. These four aims were to be the result of “transdisciplinary and multiagency” research spanning “across disparate fields, such as cognitive science, medicine, neuroscience, psychology, mathematics, engineering, and computer science.” The proposal for a decade of the mind prompted many questions (See Spitzer 2008). In this chapter, I address three of them: (1) How do proponents of this new decade conceive of the mind? (2) Why should a decade be devoted to understanding it? (3) What should this decade look like? (shrink)

BackgroundAn increasing number of studies utilize intracranial electrophysiology in human subjects to advance basic neuroscience knowledge. However, the use of neurosurgical patients as human research subjects raises important ethical considerations, particularly regarding informed consent and undue influence, as well as subjects’ motivations for participation. Yet a thorough empirical examination of these issues in a participant population has been lacking. The present study therefore aimed to empirically investigate ethical concerns regarding informed consent and voluntariness in Parkinson’s disease patients undergoing deep (...) brain stimulator (DBS) placement who participated in an intraoperative neuroscience study.MethodsTwo semi-structured 30-minute interviews were conducted preoperatively and postoperatively via telephone. Interviews assessed participants’ motivations for participation in the parent intraoperative study, recall of information presented during the informed consent process, and participants’ postoperative reflections on the research study.ResultsTwenty-two participants (mean age = 60.9) completed preoperative interviews at a mean of 7.8 days following informed consent and a mean of 5.2 days prior to DBS surgery. Twenty participants completed postoperative interviews at a mean of 5 weeks following surgery. All participants cited altruism or advancing medical science as “very important” or “important” in their decision to participate in the study. Only 22.7% (n = 5) correctly recalled one of the two risks of the study. Correct recall of other aspects of the informed consent was poor (36.4% for study purpose; 50.0% for study protocol; 36.4% for study benefits). All correctly understood that the study would not confer a direct therapeutic benefit to them.ConclusionEven though research coordinators were properly trained and the informed consent was administered according to protocol, participants demonstrated poor retention of study information. While intraoperative studies that aim to advance neuroscience knowledge represent a unique opportunity to gain fundamental scientific knowledge, improved standards for the informed consent process can help facilitate their ethical implementation. (shrink)

An argument that makes use of a generalization activates the prototype for the category used in the generalization. We conducted two experiments that investigated how the activation of the prototype affects the persuasiveness of the argument. The results of the experiments suggest that the features of the prototype overshadow and partly overwrite the actual facts of the case. The case is, to some extent, judged as if it had the features of the prototype instead of the features it actually has. (...) This prototype effect increases the persuasiveness of the argument in situations where the audience finds the judgment more warranted for the prototype than for the actual case, but decreases persuasiveness in situations where the audience finds the judgment less warranted for the prototype than for the actual case. (shrink)

In this response we address additions to as well as criticisms and possible misinterpretations of our proposal for a second-person neuroscience. We map out the most crucial aspects of our approach by (1) acknowledging that second-person engaged interaction is not the only way to understand others, although we claim that it is ontogenetically prior; (2) claiming that spectatorial paradigms need to be complemented in order to enable a full understanding of social interactions; and (3) restating that our theoretical proposal (...) not only questions the mechanism by which a cognitive process comes into being, but asks whether it is at all meaningful to speak of a mechanism and a cognitive process when it is confined to intra-agent space. We address theoretical criticisms of our approach by pointing out that while a second-person social understanding may not be the only mechanism, alternative approaches cannot hold their ground without resorting to second-person concepts, if not in the expression, certainly in the development of social understanding. In this context, we also address issues of agency and intentionality, theoretical alternatives, and clinical implications of our approach. (shrink)

Using a metaphorical reminiscence upon holiday toys - and the hopes, challenges and possibilities they presented - this essay addresses the ways that the heuristics, outcomes and products of neuroscience have effected change in the human condition, predicament, and being. A note of caution is offered to pragmatically assess what can be done with neurotechnology, what can't, and what should and shouldn't - based upon the capacities and limitations of both the science, and our collective ability to handle knowledge, (...) power and the unknown. This is not an appeal to impede brain research. To the contrary, it is a call to engage neuroethics as a discipline and set of practices 1) to allow a deeper, more finely-grained understanding of brains and their functions in ecological dynamics (that we define as morality and ethics), and 2) to intuit how to engage neuroscientific research and its applications in the social sphere (inclusive of medicine, public life and national agenda), to more accurately perceive how neuroscience is changing human society and the human being, and to instantiate more relevant ethics and laws that are in step with advancing epistemological capital and technological capability. (shrink)

The stereotype content model defines warmth and competence as basic dimensions of social judgment, with warmth often dominating perceptions; it also states that many group-related stereotypes are ambivalent, featuring high levels on one dimension and low levels on the other. Persuasion theories feature both direct and indirect source effects. Combining both the approaches, we studied the persuasiveness of ambivalently stereotyped sources. Participants read persuasive arguments attributed to groups stereotyped as either low in competence but high in warmth or vice (...) versa. In Study 1, high competence/low warmth sources were more persuasive than low competence/high warmth sources. In Study 2, this pattern replicated when an accuracy motive had been induced, whereas it reversed when a connectedness motive had been induced. These source effects were direct, that is, independent of message processing. We discuss our findings in terms of the persuasiveness of warmth vs. competence of the source as being dependent on recipient motivation; we also consider theoretical implications and perspectives for future research. (shrink)

This introductory chapter attempts to clarify the philosophical, empirical, and theoretical bases on which a cognitive neuroscience approach to consciousness can be founded. We isolate three major empirical observations that any theory of consciousness should incorporate, namely (1) a considerable amount of processing is possible without consciousness, (2) attention is a prerequisite of consciousness, and (3) consciousness is required for some specific cognitive tasks, including those that require durable information maintenance, novel combinations of operations, or the spontaneous generation of (...) intentional behavior. We then propose a theoretical framework that synthesizes those facts: the hypothesis of a global neuronal workspace. This framework postulates that, at any given time, many modular cerebral networks are active in parallel and process information in an unconscious manner. An information becomes conscious, however, if the neural population that represents it is mobilized by top-down attentional amplification into a brain-scale state of coherent activity that involves many neurons distributed throughout the brain. The long-distance connectivity of these `workspace neurons' can, when they are active for a minimal duration, make the information available to a variety of processes including perceptual categorization, long-term memorization, evaluation, and intentional action. We postulate that this global availability of information through the workspace is what we subjectively experience as a conscious state. A complete theory of consciousness should explain why some cognitive and cerebral representations can be permanently or temporarily inaccessible to consciousness, what is the range of possible conscious contents, how they map onto specific cerebral circuits, and whether a generic neuronal mechanism underlies all of them. We confront the workspace model with those issues and identify novel experimental predictions. Neurophysiological, anatomical, and brain-imaging data strongly argue for a major role of prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate, and the areas that connect to them, in creating the postulated brain-scale workspace. (shrink)

I want to raise three questions for discussion: 1. How are a philosopher’s concerns about the human mind related to a neuroscientist’s concerns? 2. Can neuroscience explain everything that we want to understand about the human mind? 3. Does neuroscience threaten our dignity or humanity (or anything else that we cherish about ourselves)? Let’s take these questions one at a time.

We tested the plausibility of a persuasion model to understand the effects of messages framed in terms of gain, non-loss, loss, and non-gain, and related to the physical, mental and social consequences of doing physical activity at home during the lockdown restrictions. 272 Italian participants responded to a questionnaire on their attitude and intention at Time 1, frequency of past behavior, and self-efficacy related to exercising at home. Then, participants were randomly assigned to four different message conditions: gain messages (...) focused on the positive outcomes associated with doing physical activity at home; non-loss messages focused on the avoided negative outcomes associated with doing physical activity at home; loss messages focused on the negative outcomes associated with not doing physical activity at home; non-gain messages focused on the missed positive outcomes associated with not doing physical activity at home. After reading the messages, participants answered a series of questions regarding their perception of threat and fear, their evaluation of the messages, and their attitude and intention toward exercising at home at Time 2. Using multigroup structural equation modeling, we compared message conditions, and tested whether the effects of the messages on attitude and intention at Time 2 were mediated by message-induced threat, message-induced fear, and message evaluation. Results showed that the perception of the messages as not threatening was the key point to activate a positive evaluation of the recommendation. The highest persuasive effect was observed in the case of the non-loss frame, which did not threaten the receivers, triggered a moderated fear and, in turn, activated a positive evaluation of the recommendation, as well as higher attitude and intention to do home-based physical activity at Time 2. Overall, these results advance our comprehension of the effects of message framing on receivers' attitudes and intentions toward home-based physical activity. (shrink)

In practice, more and more companies are using warmth appeals in their advertisements, but not all warmth appeals can bring the expected results. Grounded in social perception, we propose that consumers’ inferences and behavioral intentions stemming from warmth appeals in advertising are moderated by brand concepts. Specifically, warmth appeal decreases competence inferences and, in turn, behavioral intentions toward the self-enhancement brands. However, it increases warmth inferences and, in turn, behavioral intentions toward self-transcendence brands. We tested our hypotheses through two experimental (...) studies. Experiment 1 demonstrated that for self-enhancement brands, warmth appeals in advertisements decreased brand attitudes and purchase intentions; for self-transcendence brands, warmth appeals in advertisements increased brand attitudes and purchase intentions. Experiment 2 showed further evidence to the proposed effect and tested the mediating effects of warmth perception and competence perception. This research provides significant implications for advertising strategies. (shrink)

The present work is developed within the frame of so-called critical neuroscience. The aim of this article is to explain the transition from a kind of neuroscience understood as a strict scientific discipline, possessing a methodology and a specific praxis, to a kind of neuroscience that has been transformed into a meta-narrative with totalizing claims. In particular, we identify and examine eleven catalysts for such a transition: 1) a lack of communication between scientists and journalists; 2) the (...) abuse of information by the sensational press; 3) the acceptance of specific philosophical approaches by a wide range of scientists; 4) the widespread transmission of two conceptual mistakes: a) an identification between methodological and ontological reductionism and b) the mereological fallacy; 5) the influence of post-Cartesian philosophical thinking in the scientific community; 6) an overwhelming scientific hyper-specialization; 7) the illegitimate transfer of authority from humanities to the sciences; 8) an inbuilt human preference for visual data; 9) economic interests; 10) scientific utopianism; and 11) the new self-help movements and their alliance with neuro-enhancement. Finally, our essay seeks to draw attention to the most damaging consequences for both science and human ways of living. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Proof and Persuasion in the Philosophical Debate about AbortionChris KaposyPhilosophers involved in debating the abortion issue often assume that the arguments they provide can offer decisive resolution.1 Arguments on the prolife side of the debate, for example, usually imply that it is rationally mandatory to view the fetus as having a right to life, or full moral standing.2 Such an account assumes that philosophical argument can compel the (...) reader to see the fetus in a certain way and that dissent risks irrationality.I wish to question this image of the use of philosophical argument in the abortion debate. I focus on the question of fetal moral standing, which is one of the subproblems in the debate. I am especially concerned with prolife arguments for fetal moral standing, since the prolife side must argue for a position that is compulsory. The prochoice side, in contrast, typically holds that people are entitled to believe what they want about the fetus’s moral standing.My position is that philosophical arguments should be understood as tools for persuasion in the abortion debate rather than as a method for discovering decisive proofs about the morality of abortion. I argue that because any one position on the moral standing of fetuses cannot be established decisively, law and policy should favour the prochoice position. In support of these conclusions, I present two common argumentative strategies used to suggest that the prolife view of the fetus is rationally [End Page 139] mandatory, and I illustrate why arguments involving these strategies do not compel us to view the fetus as having full moral standing.Framing the IssueIn order to show that abortion is wrong (in cases in which it is considered wrong), one must first establish that fetuses have full moral standing.3 It is a serious moral wrong to take the life of someone with full moral standing—this is part of what it means to have this status. The possessor of full moral standing is entitled to have his or her life protected. If abortion is wrong, then the fetus must have full moral standing, because without such standing, killing a fetus could be justified by the pregnant woman’s strong interest in ending an unwanted pregnancy. Those arguing against the moral permissibility of abortion must show that it is mandatory (in some way) to view the fetus as having full moral standing. There are a range of positions one could take with regard to the fetus’s status, from viewing the fetus as an incipient organism with no moral standing to seeing the fetus as gaining moral standing as the pregnancy progresses. But if it is mandatory to view the fetus as having full moral standing, all other positions must then be mistaken, incorrect, or somehow unjustified.This paper analyzes why philosophers opposed to abortion think it is mandatory to attribute full moral standing to fetuses. There are two popular argumentative strategies offering different accounts of the source of this obligation. The first strategy suggests that fetal full moral standing derives from morally relevant facts about the fetus. According to this line of argument, we are rationally obligated to view the fetus as having full moral standing because we cannot deny (without courting irrationality) that there are properties, characteristics, or attributes of the fetus that entitle it to this status.The second strategy is to claim that the fetus has full moral standing because this position is most consistent with our intuitions in cases unrelated to abortion. Philosophers taking this approach are fond of analogies comparing fetuses to comatose adults or to people at the end of life, for example. This strategy of appealing to your interlocutor’s sense of consistency I call the “shared-value” strategy.The two strategies map very well onto the distinction some have made between argumentum ad rem and argumentum ad hominem. The philosopher of rhetoric Henry Johnstone Jr. draws this distinction in very clear terms, and others in the history of philosophy make note of the difference [End Page 140] between these two types of arguments as well.4 The appeal to the facts (or argumentum ad rem) seeks to establish the truth of its... (shrink)

I develop a multilevel, holistic view of persons, emphasizing embodiment, emotions, consciousness, and the social self. In successive sections I draw from six sources: 1. Theology. The biblical understanding of the unitary, embodied, social self gave way in classical Christianity to a body‐soul dualism, but it has been recovered by many recent theologians. 2. Neuroscience. Research has shown the localization of mental functions in regions of the brain, the interaction of cognition and emotion, and the importance of social interaction (...) in evolutionary history and child development. 3. Artificial intelligence. Some forms of robotics use embodied systems that learn by interacting with their environment, but the possibilities for emotion, socialization, and consciousness in robots remain problematic. 4. Relations between levels. Concepts that can help us relate studies of neurons and persons include the hierarchy of levels, the communication of information, thebehavior of dynamic systems, and epistemological and ontological emergence. 5. Philosophy of mind. Two‐aspect theories of the mind‐brain relation offer an alternative between the extremes of eliminative materialism and the thesis that consciousness is irreducible. 6. Process philosophy. I suggest that process thought provides a coherent philosophical framework in which these themes can be brought together. It combines dipolar monism with organizational pluralism, and it emphasizes embodiment, emotions, a hierarchy oflevels, and the social character of selfhood. (shrink)

A scientific understanding of pain requires an experiential‐phenomenological approach and method, one that precedes mechanistic explanations provided by neuroscience, molecular neurobiology, and even the rest of psychology. A key challenge in this approach is to find ways to observe and characterize the experience of pain. An experiential method applied to both clinical and experimental pain has found three common factors in all instances of pain: a somatic or visceral experience that is comprised of 1) unique sensory qualities that are (...) like those which occur during tissue damaging stimulation, 2) a closely related meaning of intrusion and/or threat, and 3) a feeling of unpleasantness and/or other possible negative emotion(s) in response to 1 and 2. These three factors comprise an experiential definition of pain and they are each correlated with brain activities and functional connections that serve them. Much more is to be learned about the factors and their neural basis. (shrink)

This is a report on the 3-day workshop “The Neuroscience of Responsibility” that was held in the Philosophy Department at Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands during February 11th–13th, 2010. The workshop had 25 participants from The Netherlands, Germany, Italy, UK, USA, Canada and Australia, with expertise in philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, psychiatry and law. Its aim was to identify current trends in neurolaw research related specifically to the topic of responsibility, and to foster international collaborative research on (...) this topic. The workshop agenda was constructed by the participants at the start of each day by surveying the topics of greatest interest and relevance to participants. In what follows, we summarize (1) the questions which participants identified as most important for future research in this field, (2) the most prominent themes that emerged from the discussions, and (3) the two main international collaborative research project plans that came out of this meeting. (shrink)

This article examines three candidate cases of non-causal explanation in computational neuroscience. I argue that there are instances of efficient coding explanation that are strongly analogous to examples of non-causal explanation in physics and biology, as presented by Batterman, Woodward, and Lange. By integrating Lange’s and Woodward’s accounts, I offer a new way to elucidate the distinction between causal and non-causal explanation, and to address concerns about the explanatory sufficiency of non-mechanistic models in neuroscience. I also use this (...) framework to shed light on the dispute over the interpretation of dynamical models of the brain. _1_ Introduction _1.1_ Efficient coding explanation in computational neuroscience _1.2_ Defining non-causal explanation _2_ Case I: Hybrid Computation _3_ Case II: The Gabor Model Revisited _4_ Case III: A Dynamical Model of Prefrontal Cortex _4.1_ A new explanation of context-dependent computation _4.2_ Causal or non-causal? _5_ Causal and Non-causal: Does the Difference Matter? (shrink)

2. Daugman, J. G. Brain metaphor and brain theory 3. Mundale, J. Neuroanatomical Foundations of Cognition: Connecting the Neuronal Level with the Study of Higher Brain Areas.

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)