Targeting high-risk populations for public health interventions is a classic tool of public health promotion programs. This practice becomes thornier when racial groups are identified as the at-risk populations. I present the particular ethical and epistemic challenges that arise when there are low-risk subpopulations within racial groups that have been identified as high-risk for a particular health concern. I focus on two examples. The black immigrant population does not have the same hypertension risk as US-born African Americans. Similarly, Finnish (...) descendants have a far lower rate of cystic fibrosis than other Caucasians. In both cases the exceptional nature of these subpopulations has been largely ignored by the designers of important public health efforts, including the recent US government dietary recommendations. I argue that amending the publicly-disseminated risk information to acknowledge these exceptions would be desirable for several reasons. First, recognizing low-risk subpopulations would allow more efficient use of limited resources. Communicating this valuable information to the subpopulations would also promote truth-telling. Finally, presenting a more nuanced empirically-supported representation of which groups are at known risk of diseases (not focusing on mere racial categories) would combat harmful biological race essentialist views held by the public. (shrink)

Here we defend the view that one ought to categorize and classify at least some mental disorders as clusters of interrelated dysfunctions of (usually, several) cognitive capacities – that is, the kinds of capacities that are postulated in cognitive science; capacities that are understood as entities that are primarily individuated in cognitive-functional terms (CF-systems); systems that have a set of peculiar properties in their manner of operation when processing information or representations. Usually, some of the mental disorders postulated in psychiatry (...) are clinically heterogeneous with respect to their symptoms, and tend to be comorbid – that is, one disorder is often accompanied by other disorders – for example, schizophrenia often comes with major depression. We argue that describing the manner in which CF-systems operate within themselves and with other CF-systems as well as with stimuli and other kinds of information can best explain why certain mental disorders are very heterogeneous with respect to their symptoms, and why comorbidity is so frequent among these disorders. A consequence is that both within-category heterogeneity and comorbodity are not necessarily indications of defective classifications but are rather a consequence of the actual cognitive functional architecture itself and are therefore to be expected in these cases. (shrink)

Inequities shape the everyday experiences and life chances of individuals at the margins of societies and are often associated with lower health and particular challenges in accessing quality treatment and support. This fact is even more dramatic for those individuals who live at the nexus of different marginalized groups and thus may face multiple discrimination, stigma, and oppression. To address these multiple social and structural disadvantages, intersectional approaches have recently gained a foothold, especially in the public health field. This study (...) makes an empirically informed argument for the merits of increasing the use of intersectional frameworks in the mental health field. In the mental health field, the potential for greater attention to multiple unjustified disadvantages appears to be of particular importance, as many mental health service users already face stigma and discrimination because of their mental health issues and thus may benefit particularly frequently and far-reachingly from effective problem awareness about multiple disadvantages. Intersectional approaches may help address the complexity, interdependence, and mutual constitution of social inequalities better than previous approaches that examined only one category of sociostructural stratification. By helping to identify the needs of those at the greatest risk of poor health, intersectional frameworks and tools can contribute not only to better address the needs of multiple disadvantaged individuals with mental health issues but also to the promotion of equity in the field of mental health, contributing to the reduction of health disparities. (shrink)

Given a regular cardinal κ such that κ<κ=κ (e.g., if the generalized continuum hypothesis holds), we develop a proof system for classical infinitary logic that includes heterogeneous quantification (i.e., infinite alternating sequences of quantifiers) within the language Lκ+,κ, where there are conjunctions and disjunctions of at most κ many formulas and quantification (including the heterogeneous one) is applied to less than κ many variables. This type of quantification is interpreted in Set using the usual second-order formulation in terms of (...) strategies for games, and the axioms are based on a stronger variant of the axiom of determinacy for game semantics. With respect to this axiom system we prove the soundness and completeness theorem with respect to a class of set-valued structures that we call well determined. We also investigate intuitionistic systems with heterogeneous quantifiers for Lκ+,κ,κ (when only conjunctions of less than κ many formulas are allowed), and prove analogously a completeness theorem with respect to well-determined structures in categories in general, in κ-Grothendieck topoi in particular, and, when κ<κ=κ, also in Kripke models. Finally, we consider an extension of our system in which heterogeneous quantification with bounded quantifiers is expressible, and extend our completeness results to that case. (shrink)

This paper challenges the view that race is a reliable scientific variable or kind for the purpose of inductive inference within the social sciences. I characterize stability in terms of Extended Conditional Independence (ECI) and show that the heterogeneity and instability of racial categories across different background circumstances undermines their ability to support robust inductive inference and explanatory power. I claim this, in turn, undermines racial categories' status as real scientific variables or kinds. Race, has local stability (...) class='Hi'>within restricted sets of target systems and thus, its reality is limited to those domains. I argue for a restricted form of racial realism, a view I call Restricted Racial Realism (RRR). (shrink)

Failings of a categorical systemFor decades, standardized classification systems have attempted to define psychiatric disorders in our mental health care system, with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association (APA), 2013) and International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 10th revision (ICD-10; World Health Organization, 2010) being internationally best-known. One of the major advantages of the DSM must be that it has seriously diminished the international linguistic confusion regarding psychiatric disorders. Since (...) its introduction, it contributed extensively towards one common international language for defining and conceptualizing psychiatric disorders. Strikingly, within the field of psychological testing a similar step forward seems to have not yet been taken. At present, there exists no international standard for the use of psychological tests that takes the definition of a specific symptom as listed in DSM-5 as its starting point, and reliably and validly measures this symptom. Rather, the majority of tests are measuring constructs consisting of a multitude of symptoms. For example, the Beck’s Depression Inventory (Beck et al., 1996) measures core symptoms of depression summing up to a depression score. Accordingly, we believe it is time for a change. The diagnostics of psychiatric disorders, where disorders are defined as nosological units with a single cause, a single organic substrate, and a single time course, has been problematic for centuries. The field of psychiatry has always been ambivalent about its desire to follow a medical model (Blaney, 2015), but afflicted due to its definitions of pathology. The definition of a psychiatric disorder in DSM-5 offers little room for a clear cut pathogenesis and harsh demarcation of syndromes. This is reflected in the DSM-5, where it states: “A mental disorder is a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning” (APA, 2013, p.20). An unfortunate and recognized consequence of this definition within the current system is that many symptoms overlap within categories of psychiatric disorders and patients end up diagnosed with many co-morbid disorders.Two fundamental problemsRegardless of new attempts to improve the diagnostics of psychiatric disorders, the DSM-5 represents the status quo. Consequently, the distinction between diagnosis and classification remains substantial and more than a discussion on semantics. We identify two fundamental problems within the current framework. Generally, a psychiatric diagnosis is considered to be descriptive (Hengeveld and Schudel, 2003). The clinician will describe a syndrome (its nature, timespan, and severity) within the framework of a disorder, and often include a differential diagnosis, predisposing protective or vulnerability factors, and provoking or maintaining factors. Within the DSM-5 framework, a similar ‘approach to clinical case formulation’ is taken (APA, 2013, p. 19). Evidently, a descriptive diagnosis has a hypothetical character. It consists of the clinician’s hypothesis and is based on his or hers professional considerations according to the abovementioned factors. Once the clinician has formulated a descriptive diagnosis, it is then complementary ‘translated’ into a DSM-5 classification. Herein lies the problem. For the layman, the existence of this distinction between diagnosis and classification is usually unknown. Preceding treatment, the clinician will give the client a classification of the existing psychiatric problems and the client may attribute more meaning to it than appropriate, thereby fostering the risk of reification. Second, the DSM-5 is a categorical system. Thus, individual disorders are regarded as discrete units – ‘you either have it, or you don’t’. DSM-5 states about this: “(…) scientific evidence places many, if not most, disorders on a spectrum with closely related disorders that have shared symptoms, shared genetic and environmental risk factors (…)”. And “(…) we have come to recognize that the boundaries between disorders are more porous than originally perceived.” (APA, 2013, p. 6). This leads to a fundamental problem. Because the overwhelming majority of psychiatric disorders examined thus far using taxometric methods appear to be dimensional in nature (Haslam, 2003; Widiger and Samuel, 2005), consequently all of their categorizations become artificial and debatable. Even though DSM-5 took a modest step towards a more dimensional approach, its core remains categorical. To illustrate, consider the Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). This classification consists of nine diagnostic criteria of which a minimum of five need to be present for the diagnosis of BPD. A simple numerical combination algorithm leads to a staggering number of 256 distinct presentations of BPD (Albion et al., 2013). Due to this chameleon-like nature, the disorder’s diagnostic validity becomes questionable. Strikingly, this number is relatively small when compared to other conditions, e.g., there are 636,120 ways to have posttraumatic stress disorder (Galatzer-Levy and Bryant, 2013).DSM-5 does propose an alternative model for personality disorders based on personality functioning and traits (APA, 2013, p. 761), as a possible answer to the problem that most patients fit with multiple co-morbid personality disorders or to the category of personality disorder not otherwise specified. In November 2012, the chair committee of APA decided to move this alternative model to section III of DSM-5 and to sustain the categorical system in section II. A potential solutionDSM-5 and its predecessors have brought about an invaluable improvement regarding the formulation of a common international language for psychiatric disorders. However, the individual disorders fit poorly with its starting point of discrete units and strict boundaries. Van Os (2014) has argued for a better balance between the categorical and personalized aspects of psychiatric disorders. We argue for a two-step approach.Particularly due to the ‘weak boundaries’ between disorders, it might be beneficial to limit ourselves by merely categorizing clients into the main categories of the DSM-5 according to their most prominent symptoms (Van Os, 2014), i.e. their main complaint. In other words, clinicians could first ask themselves whether the symptomatology is concerning a neurodevelopmental disorder, or a bipolar and related disorder, or a depressive disorder, and so on. It will drastically reduce the over 400 classifications in DSM-5 down to 20 categories. Van Os (2014) even argues to combine some of the main categories, reducing this number even further to 15 categories. The advantages of reducing the over 400 classifications are fivefold: 1) a syndrome, being an aggregation of symptoms, creates a false relation between symptoms that are that are already heterogeneous themselves; 2) 15 broad categories are functional: it results into a very heterogeneous group of clients within a category and thus prevents stereotypes and invites further personalizing of complaints; and 3) a dimensional measure of a symptom rather than a syndrome will correspond better with the client regardless of it not providing the complete picture. Focusing on the main complaint will indicate where there is an immediate need for care (Van Os, 2014); 4) it will allow clinicians to recognise subthreshold conditions more easily (Magruder and Calderone, 2000); and 5) it might facilitate the development of clear demarcations between normal and abnormal functioning (Kessler, 2002; Widiger and Samuel, 2005). Please, see also Table 1.This also fits well within scientific advances, as thus far strongest evidence has been found for a distinction between internalizing and externalizing disorders, even superseding these 15 main categories (DSM-5; APA, 2013, p.13, but see Weiss et al., 1998). The second step would concern the personalized aspect, which we argue to define on a level of core symptoms of the specific main category, to be agreed upon later. To assess these core symptoms, the field of psychological testing could develop an internationally applicable instrument to reliably and validly measure each (core) symptom on a dimensional scale. Many of these instruments are readily available and have proven its psychometric properties within scientific research. Elements from these instruments could be easily transformed to work within the new system. Within the field of psychology, this approach could aid development of a common international language to define symptoms, analogous to the field of psychiatry. Importantly, current psychological testing mainly implies the use of self-report measures. This leads to an abundance of auto-amnestic information. To increase the reliability and validity of psychological tests to assess DSM-5 symptoms, it may be important to add two additional information resources. This would entail psychological tests where a next of kin answers questions about the symptom of the client, and psychological tests that include the clinicians’ judgment, such as structured clinician-based interviews. Conversely, we also need to acknowledge the well-known limitations of clinical judgment (e.g., Faust, 1986; Garb, 1998). Advantages of a new frameworkThe changes we suggest have big implications and are not easily implemented in the current framework. Clients may prefer the comfort of a single clear label, similar to what they are used to in other areas of medicine. Health insurance providers and policy makers may argue for single labels as well. Therefore, it would require a lot of explanation from our clinicians to promote a change. Our suggestions for broader categories may not disambiguate the current situation better than the existing approach, but it will promote personalisation of health care. Difficulties in diagnostic reliability will remain in disorders that fall on the boundaries of the taxons, e.g., schizoaffective disorder versus bipolar disorder with psychotic characteristics, which may benefit from further study. There are also some politically tinged questions to keep in mind: How will we finance our health care, and how will we ensure a gradual transition from the current financing system, including clients who already have their labels? What about visitations from insurers and health inspection? How can they control for a good standard of quality in health care when considering the increasing heterogeneity? Nevertheless, we argue that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. We will see a shift from a categorical to a personalized approach, which will lead to less (self) stigmatizing, less estrangement, and it will challenge reification thinking. DSM-V states that “a reformulation of research goals should also keep DSM-5 central to the development of dimensional approaches to diagnosis that will likely supplement or supersede current categorical approaches to diagnosis in coming years” (APA, 2013, p. 13). Our proposition for psychological testing on symptom level could contribute to this development. Furthermore, this new approach will do more justice to the heterogeneity of symptoms within and outside of classification categories, see also Table 1. Moreover, in this new approach we join forces of expert knowledge from the fields of psychiatry and psychological science. Finally, it offers new and potentially better opportunities to map health care needs. This in turn will lead to a better interface for allocation of appropriate treatment. It will present a clearer picture of when preventative care is preferred over treatment and vice versa. Importantly, health care needs will be more closely attuned to the ‘own story’ of the client.We argue for the national and international psychological associations in Europe and the United States of America to support the idea of a collective approach to develop an internationally standardized psychological testing battery to reliably assess all the core symptoms of the main categories in DSM-5. (shrink)

There is a common misconception across the lntelligence Community (IC) to the effect that information trapped within multiple heterogeneous data silos can be semantically integrated by the sorts of meaning-blind statistical methods employed in much of artificial intelligence (Al) and natural language processlng (NLP). This leads to the misconception that incoming data can be analysed coherently by relying exclusively on the use of statistical algorithms and thus without any shared framework for classifying what the data are about. Unfortunately, such (...) approaches do not yield sustainable results where we are dealing with widely distributed, highly heterogeneous and often changing bodies of data. We argue here that the needed integration requires the use of what we call an lntegrating Semantic Framework (ISF), which provldes a consistent set of categories and relationships that can be reused over and over again to tag successive bodies of data in ways which foster more coherent representation and reasoning. (shrink)

This paper describes the perspectives of stakeholders within the North American dairy industry on key issues affecting the welfare of dairy cattle. Five heterogeneous focus groups were held during a dairy cattle welfare meeting in Guelph, Canada in October 2012. Each group contained between 7 and 10 participants and consisted of a mix of dairy producers, veterinarians, academics, students, and dairy industry specialists. The 1-h facilitated discussions were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Content analysis of the resulting transcripts showed that (...) participants across all stakeholder categories identified lameness as the most important welfare issue facing dairy cattle. Other prominent issues of concern included cow comfort, disease, on-farm mortality, stockmanship, painful procedures, injuries, cull cow management, calf management, and restriction of behavioural freedoms. Participants typically gave several reasons for why they considered issues problematic. Underlying reasons were grouped according to animal-centered concerns [at both the individual and at the herd level ] and industry-centered concerns . This analysis identified areas of shared concern among diverse stakeholder groups, which should aid in the development of standards and policies that satisfy stakeholders within and external to the dairy industry. (shrink)

The article aims to provide a semiotic interpretation of the sign of the Ecclesiastical Court within the legal framework from temporal and spatial perspectives. The starting point of the research is the idea that the history of the Russian Ecclesiastical Court is inextricably linked to the history of Russian society and secular court. Consideration of the pre-revolutionary ecclesiastical and secular law helps us explore principles of the ecclesiastical proceedings and organization, identify contradictions in understanding modern Ecclesiastical Court. Its sign (...) is not only limited to the legal interpretation. In his novel The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky F. M. gave the sign of the Ecclesiastical Court symbolic meaning and, thus, expanded it beyond the existing legal framework. The Ecclesiastical Court is one of the symbols of Russian spirituality which is reflected in the concept of “Russian soul”. Rational elements of the sign of Ecclesiastical Court as well as its sensual and metaphorical components, are analyzed using the category of Truth. Clearly, the Cross is sign-symbol for Christianity. But if applied to the concept of Ecclesiastical Court, the Orthodox Cross becomes a sign-index. As a result, several semantically heterogeneous meanings of the sign of Ecclesiastical Court are revealed and described. (shrink)

Heterogenous flows across system boundaries continue to pose significant problems for efficient resource allocation especially with respect to long term strategic planning and immediate problems about allocation to address particular resource shortages. The approach taken here to modelling such flows is an engineering change prediction one. This enables margin modelling by producing system models in dependency matrices with different linkage types. Change prediction approaches from engineering design can analyse where these bottlenecks in integrated systems would be so that resources can (...) be deployed flexibility to avoid them and address them when they occur. Current state of the art of margin research can be furthered by identifying margins on multiple levels of system composition. It can usefully be complemented by a category theory based approach which allows representation of variable and constant properties of models under changing conditions, and the identification of flows within models. Category theory is useful for formalising such explanatory frameworks as it can both structure systems and permit analysis of their applications in a complementary way. (shrink)

Within the framework of this article, the authors analyze the cycle of engravings "Apocalypse" by Albrecht Durer in the context of the categories of space and time that have developed in the history and philosophy of culture of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The metaphysical essence of time, defined by Christian eschatology, found its vivid embodiment in the activities of many figures of artistic culture of that era. Apocalyptic moods, which largely determine the consciousness of people of the Reformation (...) era, were also inherent in A. Durer. The cycle of engravings "Apocalypse" in many ways should be considered as the quintessence of these moods and a reflection of the image of death that develops in this era. Space also acquires metaphysical characteristics, becomes heterogeneous, emotionally colored. The authors conclude that in the "Apocalypse" there is a mixed (and therefore very peculiar) interpretation of the category of time and space. It clearly shows the transition of the space-time representations of the Middle Ages to the ideas of time and space inherent in the New Time. It is also possible that we have before us one of the variants of the Renaissance mastery of the categories of time and space in the art of Europe. Attention is drawn to its openness and conscious demonstrativeness, because two artistic systems interact with each other on an equal footing; their stylistic potential and expressive means are used entirely, with full dedication and as a result, with maximum impressive force. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 2, Page 116-120, April 2022. To make progress related to long-standing questions related to the nature of emotion, we offer the Interactive Activation and Competition framework for Emotion. The IAC-E is not another conventional theory of emotion. Rather, it offers a neural-network-based, algorithmic account of how emotion instances and categories arise. Our approach suggests that there need not be a contradiction between instances of the same emotion being sometimes consistent and sometimes variable. Similarly, there need (...) not be a contradiction between observations of homogeneity and heterogeneity within emotion categories. (shrink)

Within-category induction is the projection of a generic property from a class to a subtype of that class. The modifier effect refers to the discovery reported by Connolly et al., that the subtype statement tends to be judged less likely to be true than the original unmodified sentence. The effect was replicated and shown to be moderated by the typicality of the modifier. Likelihood judgements were also found to correlate between modified and unmodified versions of sentences. Experiment 2 (...) elicited justifications, which suggested three types of reason for the effect-pragmatics, knowledge-based reasoning, and uncertainty about attribute inheritance. It is argued that the results provide clear evidence for the default inheritance of prototypical attributes in modified concepts, although a full account of the effect remains to be given. (shrink)

The present studies tested the hypothesis that strong assumptions about within-category homogeneity impede children’s recognition of the inductive value of diverse samples of evidence. In Study 1a, children (7-year-olds) and adults were randomly assigned to receive a prime emphasizing within-category variability, a prime emphasizing within-category similarities, or to not receive a prime. Only following the variability prime, children demonstrated a reliable preference for evaluating diverse over nondiverse samples to determine whether there is support for (...) a category-wide generalization. Adults demonstrated a robust preference for diverse samples in all conditions. These effects extended beyond the specific categories included in the prime, as well as to multiple types of test questions. Study 1b demonstrated that priming variability leads children to select diverse samples only when doing so is informative for induction. Implications for conceptual development are discussed. (shrink)

This work studies early modern thought concerning the ontology of ideas. I endeavor to establish, contrary to some current scholarship, that the Early Moderns remained firmly in the grip of a substance/mode ontology narrowed from the substance/property distinction inherited from Aristotle. I argue that this traditional dichotomy provides the most philosophically and historically fruitful approach to understanding early modern thought. In particular, I demonstrate how the increasing radicalization in the metaphysics of the moderns is best explained by remaining within (...) the substance/mode ontology. Competing contemporary approaches, especially ones that attempt to employ concepts such as reification and object talk in place of the traditional ontology, do not sufficiently penetrate to the core issues facing the Moderns. Rather than seeking to abandon the categories of substance and mode, the Moderns sought, perhaps vainly, to find room for ideas within it. I proceed by providing background from Aristotle and the Medievals, go on to discuss the philosophical views of Descartes, Malebranche, Arnauld, Locke and Berkeley. The development of idea philosophy culminates in Berkeley, who creates a hybrid ontic category I call 'quasi-substance.' Ideas for Berkeley are ontically dependent on minds , but external to them in the sense that the relationship between ideas and minds are two-place . I demonstrate how this understanding explains the radical metaphysical positions he takes, especially his commitment to perceptual heterogeneity. I conclude that rather than abandoning the traditional ontic categories, the Moderns adhered to them desperately, and thus are best understood through them. (shrink)

The question of nationalism as spoken about in contem porary circles is structurally the same as Marx's 'Jewish Question'. Through a reading of Marx's early writings, particularly the 'Jewish Question' essay, guided by Derrida's Specters of Marx and Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities, it is possible to begin to rethink the nationalist question. In this light, nationalism emerges as the byproduct of the reduction of heterogeneous 'people' into a homo geneous 'state'; such 'excessive' voices occupy an ontological space outside of the (...) categories within which the state operates, and thus return, in Derrida's terms, to 'haunt' it. When the nationalist ques tion is viewed in this way, contemporary solutions that depend on reproducing this reduction are called into question. Key Words: B. Anderson • Derrida • G. Gottlieb • R. Kaplan • Marx • nationalism. (shrink)

One of the main differences between countries within the international community is their degree of development. In fact, the breach between developing countries and developed countries is constantly growing. However, there is not a clear definition of what a developing country is, thus sometimes hindering the classification of countries in this category. The lack of such a definition may be due to the heterogeneity of developing countries. Nevertheless, we can found developing countries subcategories and legal effects of (...) their establishment. (shrink)

How can liberal democracies mobilize their citizens and effect their social integration, while accommodating their tremendous heterogeneity and respecting their freedom? Neo-Kantian liberals and cosmopolitans such as Habermas reject appeals to shared ethnicity, culture, or nation, for fear that they effect the suppression of difference; communitarian critics retort that theories like Habermas's are impotent to motivate social integration. My goal is to show that this theoretical impasse is an artifact of the fact that both camps articulate their disagreements (...) class='Hi'>within the tacitly shared parameters inherited from the long-running debate between philosophy and rhetoric. By first interrogating the posited relationship between rhetoric, passion, reason, and politics in Rousseau's oeuvre, I illustrate the reception of this ancient debate in modern political theory, a reception that has effected a series of binaries such as reason/passion and abstract/concrete---the first terms associated with impotence, the second with motivational efficacy. I then turn to contemporary cultural nationalist thought, and demonstrate how these binaries are deployed to critique doctrines such as Habermas's constitutional patriotism. The Rousseauist assumption that affect requires "concrete" sites to motivate social integration is invariably combined with the presupposition that bounded communities such as the nation instantiate the required concreteness. The implausibility of that presumption such communities are "imagined" and not concrete in any relevant sense---is masked by the category of territory, which serves as a trope for concreteness. Tracing the roots of this dubious trope to Rousseau shows how "territory" reproduces the exclusionary features that the distinction between ethnic and civic-territorial nationalism tends to attribute solely to ethnicity: concreteness often means either an exclusionary boundedness directed against the foreign other, or an ossification of collective identities that stifles difference internally. Finally, turning to the discourse-ethical theory's promise to avoid this suppression of difference, I argue that Habermas fails to shake the charge of motivational impotence precisely because he is just as beholden to the philosophy/rhetoric binaries as his critics. Drawing on an Aristotelian art of rhetoric, I show how Habermas's category of discursive rationality can be reconstructed as a mode of organizing, rather than expelling, rhetoric and the passions. (shrink)

The concept of bias is pervasive in both popular discourse and empirical theorizing within philosophy, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence. This widespread application threatens to render the concept too heterogeneous and unwieldy for systematic investigation. This article explores recent philosophical literature attempting to identify a single theoretical category—termed ‘bias’—that could be unified across different contexts. To achieve this aim, the article provides a comprehensive review of theories of bias that are significant in the fields of philosophy of mind, (...) cognitive science, machine learning, and epistemology. It focuses on key examples such as perceptual bias, implicit bias, explicit bias, and algorithmic bias, scrutinizing their similarities and differences. Although these explorations may not conclusively establish the existence of a natural theoretical kind, pursuing the possibility offers valuable insights into how bias is conceptualized and deployed across diverse domains, thus deepening our understanding of its complexities across a wide range of cognitive and computational processes. (shrink)

How we ought to diagnose, categorise and respond to spectrum disabilities such as autism and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a topic of lively debate. The heterogeneity associated with ADHD and autism is described as falling on various continua of behavioural, neural, and genetic difference. These continua are varyingly described either as extending into the general population, or as being continua within a given disorder demarcation. Moreover, the interrelationships of these continua are likewise often vague and subject to (...) diverse interpretations. -/- In this paper, I explore geneticists' and self-advocates’ perspectives concerning autism and ADHD as continua. These diagnoses are overwhelmingly analysed as falling on a continuum or continua of underlying traits, which supports the notion of “the neurodiversity spectrum”, i.e., a broader swath of human neural and behavioural diversity on which some concentrations of different functioning are diagnosed. I offer a taxonomy of conceptions of the genetic, phenotypic, and endophenotypic dimensionality within and beyond these diagnostic categories, and suggest that the spectrum of neurodiversity is characteristically endophenotypic. (shrink)

Political communication in modern democratic societies often requires the speaker to address multiple audiences with heterogeneous values, interests and agendas. This creates an incentive for communication strategies that allow politicians to send, along with the explicit content of their speech, concealed messages that seek to secure the approval of certain groups without alienating the rest of the electorate. These strategies have been labeled dogwhistling in recent literature. In this article, we provide an analysis of overt intentional dogwhistling. We recognize two (...) main stages within the OIDs’ way of conveying a concealed message: the expression of a perspective together with the transmission of an accompanying positioning message vis-à-vis the OID targeted sub-audience, and the inferential extraction of a set of cognitive and non-cognitive contents inferred on the basis of the former stage. Furthermore, we identify three linguistic mechanisms whereby these contents may be transmitted: conventional meaning, conversational implicature and perlocutionary inferencing. Hence, on our view OIDs are not a uniform category, as they may differ as to what extent the concealed content is speaker-meant, and thus actually communicated by the speaker. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Psychopathy, Other-Regarding Moral Beliefs, and ResponsibilityLloyd Fields (bio)AbstractIn this paper I seek to show that at least one kind of psychopath is incapable of forming other-regarding moral beliefs; hence that they cannot act for other-regarding moral reasons; and hence that they are not appropriate subjects for the assessment of either moral or legal responsibility. Various attempts to characterize psychopaths are considered and rejected, in particular the widely held view (...) that psychopaths are, in general, incapable of understanding moral concepts. The particular disability proposed here, the incapacity to form other-regarding moral beliefs, is then derived from an analysis of what is required for someone to be a responsible agent. This is illustrated with a detailed case history. A defect of this kind is shown to vitiate moral responsibility, because it renders the psychopath irresponsive to the social pressures which normally ensure respect for moral norms. It is also shown that the psychopath is not a suitable subject for the assessment of legal responsibility, because he lacks the capacity to act from common prudence to avoid sanctions. I conclude that the attempt to characterize particular defects from among the heterogeneity of psychopathic subjects, could lead to better targeted, and hence to more effective, management of particular cases.KeywordsCriminality, mental illness, personality disorder, blame, liability, moral beliefs, guilt, social moralityIntroductionThe term “psychopath” has been used with a wide variety of different meanings and, no doubt, covers a heterogeneous group of subjects (Criminal behaviour and mental health 1992). My aim in this paper is to argue that at least a subgroup of those subjects are characterized by an inability to form other-regarding moral beliefs—and hence, for this particular reason, are not morally responsible agents—and that they also lack the capacity for prudence, and hence are not legally responsible agents.I begin by distinguishing the particular sense in which I will be using the term “psychopathy.” I then consider some suggestions in the literature regarding the defect by which psychopaths might be characterized—that they are mentally ill, or incapable of understanding moral concepts. In rejecting these, I come to the suggestion that the relevant defect is an inability to form other-regarding moral beliefs, a defect which is graphically illustrated by a case report from the literature. I explore the implication of this kind of defect for [End Page 261] moral responsibility as a socially-embedded notion, and the implication of the psychopath’s inability to exercise prudence in relation to legal liability.Nothing in this paper should be taken to suggest that psychopaths are irredeemable. On the contrary, as I argue in an endnote, correctly characterizing the defect from which they suffer leads directly to forms of treatment whose effectiveness has acquired a measure of empirical support.The Nature of PsychopathyPsychopathy is not a homogeneous concept; there are different types of psychopaths. For example, Henderson identified a type of psychopath who he classified as “Predominantly Creative,” exemplified by such figures as T. E. Lawrence and Joan of Arc. In people of this type genius is associated with heightened sensitivity, psychosexual immaturity and emotional instability (Henderson 1939, 108–20; Henderson and Gillespie 1969, 317). Predominantly creative psychopaths do not come within my purview.By “psychopathy” I shall mean the specific form of personality disorder described by Cleckley in his book, The Mask of Sanity (Cleckley 1964). Cleckley’s description forms the basis of Hare’s Revised (20-item) Psychopathy Checklist. The Checklist includes the following personality traits and deviant behaviors:1. Glibness/superficial charm.2. Grandiose sense of self-worth.3. Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom.4. Pathological lying.5. Conning/manipulative.6. Lack of remorse or guilt.7. Shallow affect.8. Callous/lack of empathy.9. Parasitic lifestyle.10. Poor behavioral controls.11. Promiscuous sexual behavior.12. Early behavior problems.13. Lack of realistic, long-term plans.14. Impulsivity.15. Irresponsibility.16. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions.17. Many short-term marital relationships.18. Juvenile delinquency.19. Revocation of conditional release.20. Criminal versatility (Hare 1986, 18). 1This conceptualization resembles in many respects the category of Antisocial Personality Disorder as described in the American Psychiatric... (shrink)

Indigenous peoples possess enormously rich and articulated knowledge of the natural world. A major goal of research in anthropology and ethnobiology as well as ecology, conservation biology, and development studies is to find ways of integrating this knowledge with that produced by academic and other institutionalized scientific communities. Here I present a challenge to this integration project. I argue, by reference to ethnographic and cross-cultural psychological studies, that the models of the world developed within specialized academic disciplines do not (...) map onto anything existing within traditional beliefs and practices for coping with nature. Traditional ecological knowledge is distributed across a heterogeneous array of overlapping practices within Indigenous cultures, including spiritual and ritual practices that invoke categories, properties, and causal-explanatory models that do not in general converge with those of the academic sciences. In light of this divergence I argue that we should abandon the integration project, and conclude by sketching a notion of knowledge coordination as a possible successor framework. (shrink)

Patient organizations are increasingly involved in national and international bioethical debates and health policy deliberations. In order to examine how and to what extent cultural factors and organizational contexts influence the positions of patient organizations, this study compares the positions of German and Israeli patient organizations (POs) on issues related to end-of-life medical care. We draw on a qualitative pilot study of thirteen POs, using as a unit of analysis pairs comprised of one German PO and one Israeli PO that (...) were matched on the basis of organizational category. Bioethical positions that emanated from the interviews concerned advance directives—general views, recent legal framework, and formalization; as well as active and passive euthanasia, withholding and withdrawing of treatment, and physician-assisted suicide. In addition to the unifying, within-country impact of cultural factors, we found that constituency-based organizations and partner organizations in both countries often share common views, whereas disease-based support organizations have very heterogeneous positions. We conclude by discussing how organizational contexts provide a source of uniformity as well as diversity in the positions of POs. (shrink)

Despite its increasing popularity across management disciplines, stakeholder theory holds an important shortcoming in terms of its guidance for understanding the heterogeneity of stakeholder interests, claims, and behavior toward firms. Specifically, scholars note the inadequacy of generic categories of stakeholders in providing a realistic portrait of the groups and individuals that interact with the firm, opening the theory to much criticism for a ‘simplistic’ and ‘meaningless’ stakeholder concept. In face of this challenge, recent research is pointing to social identity (...) as a mechanism to refine our understanding of stakeholders as names-and-faces, however we argue that despite the advancements offered by the social identity approach, it too presents limitations in its ability to guide managers in prioritizing stakeholder claims. Building on these nascent efforts to offer much needed nuance to a theory of stakeholder identification and prioritization, this paper draws from new advances in the management literature and offers status as an attribute that helps explain and predict how managers accord attention to their various constituents. We set forth five propositions connecting stakeholder status to the attention stakeholders receive from managers. We argue that status is a superior attribute of stakeholder identification and prioritization because it accounts for groups and individuals’ uniqueness within broad categories of stakeholders in a dynamic way, reconciles the dual nature of stakeholders as holding simultaneously a social and an economic identity in their claim toward the firm, and provides a plausible explanation of, and intuitive guidance to, how managers accord attention to their firm’s stakeholders. Implications and future directions for research complete this article. (shrink)

Shareholder activists increasingly pressure corporations on social policy issues; yet, extant research provides little understanding of who these activists are and how they choose their corporate targets. In this article, we adopt an activist-centered approach and rely on hybrid organizational identity theory to determine, in a two-phase analysis, how shareholder activists define their economic and social identities and whether these identities are associated with specific target characteristics and tactical strategies. Our findings form the premise of a typology of institutional shareholder (...) activists that is empirically derived and takes into account the wide range of hybrid organizational identities that shareholders exhibit. With a sample of 735 social policy shareholder proposals filed by 104 institutional shareholders in the 2009-2010 period, our study presents one of the first empirical tests examining the heterogeneity of identities within the broad stakeholder category of “social shareholder activists.” Our empirical evidence demonstrates that these shareholders’ mix of economic and social identities is systematically related to their targets’ characteristics and tactical strategies. The implications of our new typology for research on shareholder activism and the value of our findings for managers conclude this article. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Contingent Object of PsychiatryDavid McCallum (bio)Keywordsmental illness, dangerousness, law, genealogyWilson and Adhead’s plea that the British Government’s proposed new mental health legislation might entail a misappropriation of psychiatry’s true mission will strike a chord in numerous jurisdictions. Many European countries during the last northern summer will adopt mental health legislation that moves in the opposite direction to the United Nations Convention on Human Rights for persons with disabilities, (...) and will allow for compulsory mental health treatment. In this author’s home state of Victoria, Australia, the Mental Health Act has five criteria that must be met for someone to be made an involuntary patient in an institution or hospital, in the community, or in one’s own home (Victoria 2003, s.6). One of the criteria is that the person is judged to be at risk of danger to themselves or others. Once made an involuntary patient, one looses the right to refuse medical treatment. At present, in various parts of the world, medical practitioners are being required to assess a person’s level of dangerousness with immediate consequences for that person’s liberty.From the point of view of a historian of the human sciences, these events propel psychiatry into a dialogue with its recent past. The project of Western psychiatry is usually characterized as a breaking down of the walls of the old asylum that contained the lunatic in its dark recesses, and the subsequent unveiling of the mental patient thanks to the rational, liberatory practices of medicine. But modern psychiatry has also been shaped by the coming into being of particular conceptions of mental illness that are not all its own making. This entailed the removal over time of the mental defective and the mental deficient, the moral imbecile, the epileptic, the alcoholic, the chronically insane, and so on, from spaces in which psychiatry would seek to define it object—populations that psychiatry would determine to be “not amenable to treatment.” If we were to see this shaping in a Foucauldian sense, we would also want to include earlier eighteenth- and nineteenth-century separations of the lunatic and the criminal (Foucault 1965, 1979). Moreover, we might want to insist that the marking out of the modern mental health patient is first and foremost an administrative act—an act of separation and management within a bounded population—which then serves as a condition of possibility for the emergence of knowledges in psychiatric medicine, with the latter following rather than preceding the arrangement of bodies in the asylum/hospital.The psychiatrist in public medicine may well be encouraged to shape a new mission according to the requirements of an administration concerned with managing dangerousness. A shift in the social vocation of the psychiatric expert has been observed over several decades, and may represent a profound departure from the traditions [End Page 69] of mental medicine (Castel 1991). Those “dirty words”—risk assessment—involve new strategies where face-to-face relations between carer and cared are displaced by an activity of calculating abstract factors deemed liable to produce risk—“a transition from the clinic of the subject to an ‘epidemiological’ clinic” (Castel 1991, 282). The broad contours of this shift sees the specialist medical carer take a back seat while the manager/ administrator assumes a more autonomous role of allocating individuals into various categories of risk. It is in this sense that the psychiatrist does not make a diagnosis as such, but rather contributes to a list of factors compiled to measure a level of riskiness. Risk assessment forms part of social surveillance that dispenses with the actual presence of the carer and the cared, and provides for a form of systematic predetection rather than treatment. As Castel (1991, 288) presents it,(t)here is, in fact, no longer a relation of immediacy with a subject because there is no longer a subject. What the new preventative policies primarily address is no longer individuals but factors, statistical correlations of heterogeneous elements. They deconstruct the concrete subject of intervention, and reconstruct a combination of factors liable to produce risk. Their primary aim is not to confront a concrete dangerous situation, but to anticipate... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:An Appreciation of Arvind Mandair's Sikh Philosophy:Exploring Gurmat Concepts in a Decolonizing WorldJeffery D. Long (bio)"Sikhism," the Colonial Project, and Modernity1I do not use this adjective lightly, but in his brilliant volume Sikh Philosophy: Exploring Gurmat Concepts in a Decolonizing World (Bloomsbury, 2022) Arvind-Pal Singh Mandair goes a considerable distance toward liberating sikhī—known more widely in the academic world as Sikhism—from the conceptual constraints that have kept it from (...) engaging with and informing global issues. In so doing, he does a service not only to the Sikh community and to sikhī itself, but to the world, for there is indeed much in Sikh thought from which the wider human community can benefit. By liberating sikhī from the constraining concept of religion, Mandair facilitates a process by which persons of any background can engage with gurmat ideas—that is, ideas drawn from the system of thought based upon the teachings of the Gurus of the Sikh tradition—and learn from their wisdom.Mandair skillfully deconstructs the concept of religion, building upon earlier work in which he demonstrates the colonial functionalities of this concept.2 When, through colonial knowledge-production processes, sikhī came to be conceived as a religion, Sikh thought was relegated to the realm of theology. This was a relegation, not an elevation, because under the dominant paradigm of modernity, theology is seen as a discourse that is relevant only to a specific religious community. It is thus perceived as lacking the universality [End Page 353] that is taken to inhere in the discourses of philosophy or science. When combined with the colonial situation of Sikhs under British rule, this relegation of Sikh thought to the realm of theology becomes a way of exerting power over the community. As Mandair explains,Once theology had become the primary regime of cultural translation, Sikh thinking was inevitably tethered to the social and political project of religious identification which was required primarily to facilitate governance of cultural differences or heterogeneity that characterized the indigenous populations [of India]. By doing so, it effectively locked Sikh activity within the confines of identity politics.(p. 10)Integral to British colonial policy in India was a project of defining communities, primarily on the basis of religion, but also deploying concepts such as caste and tribe. Through these definitions, the identities of Indians could be essentialized, and policies applied to them in ways that facilitated British dominance over Indian society.3Much has been written about the ways in which language is used to promote ideologies that serve to advance the power interests of some groups of people over others.4 No less an ideological mechanism than the Oxford English Dictionary has been brought to bear in the process of constraining sikhī and depriving it of the universal relevance that it ought naturally to possess. In Mandair's words, "By defining 'Sikhism' as the beliefs and practices of Sikhs, or as an Indian monotheistic religion founded in fifteenth-century India, the OED turns the Sikh aspect into a cliché—a religious type (monotheism), an ethnic type tied to a geographical location (Punjabi/North India) and a historical type (medieval India)" (p. 11).The damage that has been wrought by the modern colonial concept of religion globally is, of course, not limited exclusively to the Sikh community. It has been integral to the construction of a secular order in which what is regarded as religious thought is, again, relegated to a parochial realm of relevance only to members of specific communities. It further serves to marginalize these same communities, whose discourses come to be seen as lacking the universality of secular thought, which is presented as objective truth. As Mandair continues,The purpose of creating the modern category of 'religion' was to help authorize and naturalize secular rationality as the dominant form of modern consciousness, and as the essential language of conventional thinking, or 'common sense.' It is precisely this common sense which persuades us of the apparent naturalness of oppositions such as religion versus politics or materiality versus ideality, to give two well-known examples.(p. 11)To these two examples, one could add the opposition of religion and... (shrink)

The uncertain epistemological status of charisma is largely due to its polysemy and polymorphism. Max Weber thematizes it in a variety of contexts and meanings — distinguishing between magical, religious charisma and the charisma of reason, highlighting the trajectories of routinization and objectification of charisma, typologizing different types of prophecies. In turn, the multiple (re)actualizations of this “brilliant concept” [Rose] as reinforcements of their own theories in the form of varieties of symbolic capital, resonance, the everyday, the re-personalized, or the (...) risky charisma lead to either semantic compression or the blurring of meaning, both within sociological theory and in interdisciplinary discourse. To define the scientific content of charisma, the authors propose to thematize it in historical macrosociology. The key question is addressed to the interdisciplinary connections in Weber's intellectual heritage — is the category “charisma” attributable to Weber the historian or Weber the sociologist? The clarification of the epistemological status of charisma, expressed in its dual character (phenomenon vs. ideal type), becomes possible thanks to the discussion of a corpus of the classic texts by two prominent German Weberologists - W. Schlüchter and F. Tenbruck. In its turn, the reconstruction and systematization of approaches of Weberian historical macrosociology allows us to clarify the boundaries and possibilities of the category's application. Thus, the evolutionary-theoretical perspective defines the heuristic potential of charisma in terms of reflecting the dynamics of cultural and value orientations in the process of emergence and consolidation of social order and institutional structures. The comparative-historical approach, in turn, defines the relationship between the analytical and empirical levels of Weber's sociology through the “immersion” of an ideal-typical construct in a real historical narrative. In this way, historical macrosociology overcomes the most valid criticisms (S. Turner) of the category's failure, heterogeneity, and its residual character. (shrink)

We argue that behavioural public policies (BPP) should be categorized by the kind of mechanism through which they operate, not by the kind of treatment they implement. Reviewing the energy consumption BPP literature, we argue (i) that BPPs are currently categorized by treatment; (ii) that treatment-based categories are subject to mechanistic heterogeneity: there is substantial variation of mechanisms within each treatment type; and (iii) that they also display mechanistic overlap: there is substantial overlap between mechanisms across treatment types. (...) Consequently, current categorizations of BPPs do not reveal the conditions of their efficacy and should be revised to better reflect mechanistic information. (shrink)

This article develops a phenomenological contribution to biological psychiatry. Grounded in the principles of transformation, heterogeneity, proportionality and particularity, a paradigm of phenomenological orientation allocates to biology a role different from that assumed by official Cartesian psychiatry. First, no clear definition of what is biological may be established a priori—as a general application, and useful to each and every studied phenomenon. Biology may be understood only as the experience of ununderstandable elements within consciousness, and as belonging necessarily to (...) a whole unity of conscious experience. Second, the research agenda in biological psychiatry necessarily intersects with the investigation of the particularities of each individual clinical case with its unique characteristics. Without this, the very notion of biological psychiatry becomes merely a theoretical abstraction. Finally, the continuity of the biological agenda needs to resume the construction and investigation of psychopathological categories that cohere with the reality of the mental universe. (shrink)

“Dance” has been associated with many psychophysiological and medical health effects. However, varying definitions of what constitute “dance” have led to a rather heterogenous body of evidence about such potential effects, leaving the picture piecemeal at best. It remains unclear what exact parameters may be driving positive effects. We believe that this heterogeneity of evidence is partly due to a lack of a clear definition of dance for such empirical purposes. A differentiation is needed between (a) the effects on (...) the individual when the activity of “dancing” is enjoyedas a dancerwithindifferent dance domains(e.g.,professional/”high-art”type of dance,eroticdance,religiousdance,clubdancing,Dance Movement Therapy(DMT), and what is commonly known ashobby, recreationalorsocialdance), and (b) the effects on the individual within these different domains, as a dancer of thedifferent dance styles(solo dance, partnering dance, group dance; and all the different styles within these). Another separate category of dance engagement is, not as a dancer, but as a spectator of all of the above. “Watching dance” as part of an audience has its own set of psychophysiological and neurocognitive effects on the individual, and depends on the context where dance is witnessed. With the help of dance professionals, we first outline some different dance domains and dance styles, and outline aspects that differentiate them, and that may, therefore, cause differential empirical findings when compared regardless (e.g., amount of interpersonal contact, physical exertion, context, cognitive demand, type of movements, complexity of technique and ratio of choreography/improvisation). Then, we outline commonalities between all dance styles. We identify six basic components that are part of any dance practice, as part of a continuum, and review and discuss available research for each of them concerning the possible health and wellbeing effects of each of these components, and how they may relate to the psychophysiological and health effects that are reported for “dancing”: (1) rhythm and music, (2) sociality, (3) technique and fitness, (4) connection and connectedness (self-intimation), (5) flow and mindfulness, (6) aesthetic emotions and imagination. Future research efforts might take into account the important differences between types of dance activities, as well as the six components, for a more targeted assessment of how “dancing” affects the human body. (shrink)

The article exhibits the problem of God\'s action in the world as it is presented in process philosophy. Whitehead conceived actuality as heterogenical category within which we can distinguish two modes: actuality of being and actuality of becoming. The second one is the actuality in primary sense; there is ontological primacy of becoming over being. Being is, according to J. L. Nobo\'s interpretation, a product of becoming and not vice versa. Actuality of being depends on being-for-becoming. Actuality of (...) becoming depends on prehending being into subjective immediacy of internal process of concrescence. Because of subjective character of becoming, an entity which is still becoming, cannot be prehended. It means that entity cannot play any role in becoming of other entities. Only entity whose process of concrescence has completed, entity which is in fact being, can play such a role. If God is a main exemplification of becoming, as primary actual, He is imprehensible. He cannot be objectified and His actuality is only actuality of subjective arrested immediacy. He cannot influence the world. Many process philosophers tried to solve the dillema. One of them is Lewis S. Ford whose proposal depends on introducing the third mode of actuality: the future creativity. But Ford does not consider basis of that temporal paradigm of actuality and doesn\'t examine its justification. So what we need is a reconstruction of Whitehead\'s philosophy which will let us check his ontological, epistemological and methodological presuppositions and asses whether the temporal paradigm is justified, whether the God-world problem really arises and whether it is possible to solve it in terms of process theory of actuality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:On the Importance of Conceptual ContrastsMadness, Reason, and Mad PrideAwais Aftab, MD (bio)Garson (2023) offers an engaging historical and philosophical discussion around the importance Late Modern thinkers assigned to the task of differentiating madness from idiocy (or more specifically, to the tripartite distinction of sanity, madness, and idiocy). Based on this analysis, Garson’s identifies the need to offer a positive account of mental illness—one that does not define the (...) essence of mental illness exclusively as the absence, lack, or failure of the power of reasoning. Following the Late Modern thinkers (Locke, Kant, Wigan, and Heinroth), Garson concludes that madness is infused with reason, and what characterizes madness is the presence of reason in an altered and mutated form. This is all worth taking seriously. My own assessment of this historical and philosophical material nonetheless differs from that of Garson. To recognize madness as possessing reason within it in an altered form may be of less profound significance than he thinks it is. Garson’s discussion commendably highlights the importance of making conceptual contrasts explicit in definitional debates, and this should indeed lead us to search for contrasts that are more philosophically illuminating (what is better will depend on the context of inquiry). However, in my view, the recognition of madness as altered reason neither reframes the project of defining “mental disorder” nor does it provide an intellectual scaffolding for mad activism.The significance of “madness contains reason within in but in an altered or perverse form” is difficult to translate into contemporary scientific terms, and the fuzziness and historical baggage around the terms “madness,” “reason,” and “perversion” does not make it easy. “Mental disorder” or “psychopathology” means to us something quite different than what madness meant to Late Modern thinkers, and while “madness” remains a popular term in philosophical literature, there is no clarity on the nature of overlap between the domain of madness and the domain of conditions currently classified by the diagnostic manuals. Mental disorders, as currently conceptualized, include a motley of conditions that were previously characterized using terms such as idiocy, madness, neuroses, and psychopathic personalities. [End Page 297]From our contemporary vantage point, to compare idiocy and madness is to make a distinction within the domain of psychopathology. We are comparing two groups of psychiatric conditions. The lessons we derive from this comparison do not necessarily extrapolate well to a comparison of mental disorders with something outside the domain of psychopathology. To the extent that psychopathology is inclusive of both idiocy and madness, psychiatric disorders both contain and do not contain “reason” within them. The domain is heterogenous in this regard, and broad generalizations about the nature of reason in the mental disorders would be simplistic at best and inaccurate at worst. Other distinctions that we have made within the domain of psychopathology have included organic versus functional, neurosis versus psychosis, categories versus continua, and distinctions used within nosology have included operationalized criteria versus phenomenology, idiographic versus nomothetic, medical versus non-medical, description versus explanation, and so on (Aftab & Ryznar, 2021; Zachar, Banicki, & Aftab, 2023), all of which have the potential to offer a positive account of some aspect of psychopathology.It is worth nothing that the distinction between “absence of reason” versus “perversion of reason” is analogous to the common distinction between absence of function and altered function in patho-physiology. Such a distinction exists for almost every function that exists. Consider vision: absence of vision (blindness) and altered vision (illusions, distortions, hallucinations). Consider hypoesthesia (reduced sense of touch) and paraesthesia (altered sense of touch—tingling, pricking, burning, etc.). Garson alludes to diminished sexual capacity versus paraphilia as an analogy, but he does not seem to appreciate that the analogy applies much more broadly. Is the distinction between absence of reason versus perversion of reason of any greater significance than the distinction between blindness and hallucination? If we were to say, “What distinguishes hallucination from blindness is not the failure, absence, or lack of sight, but its presence—albeit in a perverse and mutated form,” how profound would it really be for our notions of disorder? Or imagine some Late Modern physician saying that a disturbance of speech and... (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article seeks to draw parallels between today’s transmodern reality and the events recounted in Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments and in The Handmaid’s Tale Hulu TV series, particularly Seasons 2 and 3. Addressing issues such as controlled reproduction, violence, corporeal subjection of women, and environmental injustice, I focus on the body as a site of social construction, vulnerability and control. Drawing on the work of various scholars, I argue that the body is simultaneously a site of vulnerability and of (...) resistance that exceeds totalitarian categories, thus allowing for empowering “modes of heterogeneity,” fluidity, diversity, environmental as well as transcorporeal. In Gilead, the totalitarian state where Atwood’s two novels are set, it is the body that is acted upon, with massive repression and violence, and it is the body that resists by forming alternative relations and practices, which eventually facilitate the fall of Gilead from within. Throughout my analysis, I draw on the transmodern concept, while widening it toward the corporeal enmeshment with others in order to demonstrate that it is the interdependence of vulnerability and empowerment that reveals transmodernity’s “new visions of justice.”. (shrink)

The history of the idea of biological progress shows that it is not a selfexplanatory category, so a clear definition is required. Biological progress exists if: “more progressive” is defined as “more complex” – in that case evolution is synonymous with progress, i.e. development from simple to complex, from homogeneous to heterogeneous; we perceive the expression “more progressive” as more successful in relation to the environment, in these terms some groups in the history of life were more progressive because/so (...) that they survived, while others were retrogressive or less progressive because/so that they died out; on the other hand, within their ecological niches, certain forms of life are perfectly adapted to their environment as long as it is stable ; we take the span or reach of a potential adaptation of populations as a measure . However, there is no active, innovative problem solving in relation to the environment either with plants or animals – only the variability mechanism / selection is in place, automatism, instinct. In the light of the above-mentioned biological criteria, man is the most complex living creature by his constitution , he is the least dependent on the environment and can be innovative in relation to the environment. Man is the only living creature capable of establishing an active relationship with the environment through his special tool – culture. Considering the level of organization and quantity of information, the mammal genome is more progressive than the bacterium genome, while the human genome comprises most information which makes man the most progressive living thing. We can talk about biological progress if we define progressiveness as advancement toward complexity of organisation, but sometimes thesimplification of structure enables survival. It seems that we can talk about progressivenessin biology only if we accept the anthropic principle – that is why only cultural progress is possible. Information is the link between biological and cultural-anthropological successfulness . Biological information is a “complete” piece of information to an animal . To a human being, it is only a condicio sine qua non for the reality of human spirit which receives, keeps and generates information. Progress can be measured according to the capability ofestablishing an active and innovative relationship with the environment, but only within some sort of anthropocentric outlook which is a criterion of value. It is not possible to talk about progressiveness of life if man is not the measure of all things.Povijest ideje biološkog napretka pokazuje kako to nije samorazumljiva kategorija, pa se traži jasna definicija. Biološki progres postoji ukoliko: “naprednije” definiramo kao “složenije” – evolucija je tada sinonim napretka, tj. prelaženja iz jednostavnijeg u složenije, iz homogenog u heterogeno; “naprednije” shvatimo kao “uspješnije” s obzirom na okoliš; u tom smislu neke skupine u povijesti života bile su naprednije jer/pa su opstale, dok su druge bile nazadnije ili manje napredne pa/jer su izumrle; s druge strane unutar svojih ekoloških niša pojedini oblici života savršeno su prilagođeni svojem okolišu dokle god je on stabilan ; kao mjerilo uzmemo raspon ili širinu moguće prilagodbe populacija jer tada postoje razlike; ipak ni u biljaka ni u životinja tu nema aktivnog inovatorskog rješavanja problema okoliša, nego djeluje samo mehanizam varijabilnost/selekcija, automatizam, nagon. U svjetlu gore navedenih bioloških mjerila čovjek je svojim ustrojstvom najsloženije biće , najmanje je ovisan u odnosu na okolinu, može se novativno nositi spram okoline. Čovjek je jedini kadar za pravi aktivni odnos prema svom okolišu putem specifičnog oruđa kulture. S obzirom na stupanj organizacije i količinu informacija, genom sisavca je napredniji od genoma bakterije, a genom čovjeka raspolažes najviše informacija, pa je on po tome najprogresivnije biće u prirodi. O biološkom progresu možemo govoriti ako progresivnost definiramo kao porast složenosti organizacije, no ponekad pojednostavljenje građe omogućava preživljavanje. Čini se da o progresivnosti u biologiji možemo govoriti samo usvajajući princip antropičnosti, zato je u svijetu moguć samo kulturni progres. Posjedovanje informacije je veza između biološke i kulturno-antropološke uspješnosti . Posjedovanje biologijske informacije za životinju je “potpuna informacija” , dok je za Čovjeka samo condicio sine qua non za zbiljnost ljudskog duha koji dobiva, posjeduje i stvara informaciju. Progres je moguće mjeriti prema sposobnosti aktivnog i inovativnog odnosa spram okoliša jedino u nekoj vrsti antropocentričnog obzora koji u središtu ima mjerilo vrijednosti. Nemoguće je govoriti o progresivnosti života ako svemu nije mjera sam čovjek. (shrink)

I will begin by distinguishing between three logics or tendencies in modernity: the logic of technology, the logic of the functional allocation of social positions, and the logic of political power. This conception of three logics or developmental tendencies suggests that the modern world is heterogeneous. Each logic, as it exists potentially, contains within it more than one option. The development itself excludes certain options either forever, or merely for the present. If there were one logic, fewer and fewer (...) potentialities would present themselves in time, and the unfolding of the potentialities would become narrower and increasingly unilinear. However, if there is not only one logic, but three, and if they are relatively although not entirely independent, then the selection of one logic from the three possiblities is not just an internal matter because the environment is essential in the process of eliminating certain possibilities and letting others evolve more forcefully. A category cannot develop possibilities other than the ones which lie dormant in it at the moment of its conception. In this respect the development of each of the logics of modernity is self-propelling. Yet, which of the possiblities will be selected and which of them eliminated—for the short-term or long-term—is not written on the body of the category as it exists potentially. I may add, that even if the evolution of one of the constituents is thwarted for only an historically insignificant time, its character will be different, and this may influence the other logics in a different manner. This is why it would be foolish to think of the developmental logics in teleological terms. Of course, retrospectively, one can establish a teleological sequence, but this would prove only the one thing we already know: that all categories can develop out of themselves only those realities which exist in a state of slumber during their coming-into-being. (shrink)

Previous data on the link between weight and suicidality is heterogenous. We aim to investigate the potential association between weight and suicidality among adolescents in the United Arab Emirates. We hypothesize that an association exists between weight and suicidality, with those at both extremes of weight suffering higher rates of suicidal ideation, planning and attempts. The 2016 UAE Global School Health Survey was used. Weight categories based on the World Health Organization Body Mass Index charts were generated. Suicidality measures were (...) based on questions on suicide ideation, planning, and attempt. Univariate and multivariate binary logistic regression were used. Overall, 3.6, 21.4, and 17.5% of students were found to be underweight, overweight, and obese, respectively. In total, 492 students reported suicidal ideation, 397 reported planning, and 389 reported attempts within the twelve months prior to the survey. In the multivariate logistic regression, being female, older, and of lower socioeconomic status were significantly associated with increased suicidal ideation, planning and attempts. Increased parental involvement was associated with decreased suicidality. The association between weight category and suicidality did not reach statistical significance. A significant proportion of Emirati teens are under- or over-weight, with one in seven and one in nine having considered or attempted suicide, respectively. However, this study finds no significant association between weight and suicide ideation, planning, or attempts. This may be due to cultural differences in weight perception. Further research into this association can aid in tailoring suicide prevention interventions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Integrating Christ and the Saints into Buddhist Ritual:The Christian Homa of Yogi ChenRichard K. PayneConcern with dual belonging reflects the increasing religious pluralism of European and American societies. This pluralism has included both an increasing variety of religious traditions from outside the monotheistic mainstream of Abrahamic religions as well as new movements and sects within that mainstream. Awareness that religious pluralism is a reality and that many people (...) have come to see this pluralism as offering viable religious alternatives has fostered much reflection, both scholarly and popular. This increasing variety of religions present in Europe and America results from broader social trends. Discussion of these broader social trends, however, lies outside the scope of this essay, which is an examination of the utility of the concept of dual belonging for the sociology of religion.1Dual belonging (also known as double belonging, multiple religious belonging, and so on) becomes a specifically religious issue against the background of theological responses to the reality of religious pluralism. These theological responses include, first, the comparative theology of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, then theology of religions as developed in the middle to late twentieth century, and then the “new” comparative theology2 that has developed from the end of the twentieth into the present century.3 Another dimension that has influenced the discussion of dual belonging has been the efforts of Buddhist-Christian dialogue.4 The concern on the part of religious authorities, theologians, and, one should add, parents has been not just that “they” are now “here,” but that awareness of other religions also creates the opportunity for them to be actively embraced as viable alternatives to more familiar, mainstream religious traditions.5 While conversion has been one of the motivating concerns, another can perhaps be described as the fear of impurity. As Meredith B. McGuire has noted, in contrast to “the Western image of a religion as a unitary, organizationally defined, and relatively stable set of collective beliefs and practices” stands the reality that “extensive religious blending and within-group religious heterogeneity are the norm, rather than the exception.”6 This reality conflicts [End Page 37] with legitimating rhetorics of purity and authenticity, and constitutes a challenge to the authority of those who claim the right to define and defend what they hold as the pure and authentic.yogi chen and religiously hybrid practiceThe discourse regarding dual belonging has largely focused on Christians residing in the cultural West, where they are members of the dominant society and dominant religious culture, but who also identify with Buddhism.7 This reflects the predominant role played by theological concerns in the creation and application of the category of dual belonging. Thus it seems appropriate that Wendy Cadge has asked whether the concept and its cognates can be employed as a “descriptive term for understanding issues of religious globalization and their expression at the level of individual religious commitment.” In order to answer this question, the concept of dual belonging needs to be evaluated, testing whether it is applicable to those who are not members of the demographic that has largely been the subject of study so far. Here we reverse the lens to look at someone who is both not originally a Christian, but who integrates Christian symbolism into his practice, and not part of the dominant culture, an immigrant, a minority both socially and religiously. This instance allows us to examine the category for wider application than to those to whom it has been applied to date.8 Our test case will be a Chinese Buddhist teacher known as Yogi Chen.Yogi Chen (1906–1987) was a Chinese practitioner of esoteric Buddhism who immigrated to the United States in 1972 and practiced in the San Francisco Bay Area for the last decade and a half of his life. Like many modern Chinese teachers, he claimed to bring together all of the teachings and practices of the Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana strains of Buddhism. In addition to practicing in retreat in Hunan, he also studied and practiced with the expatriate Tibetan community in India. During the final period of his life, as an immigrant in the United States, he... (shrink)

This essay deals with the manner in which Salman Rushdie’s works engage with the heterogeneous logics of ethics and aesthetics. Drawing upon the work of Jacques Rancière it is argued that Rushdie neutralizes the two by introducing what Rancière calls a dissensus in the ethical-aesthetic hierarchy. The dissensus works on a principle of ‘excess’ so that within the domain of aesthetics the ethical is pushed to its limits. The order of desire (aesthetics) and the order of knowledge (ethics) are (...) no longer seen as hierarchical and mutually exclusive categories. By examining two versions of an unpublished novel by Rushdie (‘Madame Rama’) it is suggested that Bollywood cinema functions as a mode in which the two orders come together. In this early and mercifully unpublished novel, one finds the beginnings of Rushdie’s belief that works of art are sites of ideological and ethical contestations. (shrink)

The Schyns et al. target article demonstrates that different classifications entail different representations, implying “flexible space learning.” We argue that flexibility is required even at the within-category level.

ABSTRACTEmotion differentiation, the ability to describe and label our own emotions in a differentiated and specific manner, has been repeatedly associated with well-being. However, it is unclear exactly what type of differentiation is most strongly related to well-being: the ability to make fine-grained distinctions between emotions that are relatively closely related, the ability to make larger distinctions between very distinct emotions, or the combination of both. To determine which type of differentiation is most predictive of well-being, we performed a comprehensive (...) meta-analysis across six datasets. We examined the correlations between these three types of differentiation and several indicators of well-being. Results showed that individuals differentiated most between very distinct emotions and least between more related emotions, and that an index computed across emotions from both the same and di... (shrink)

Bacterial populations are heterogeneous, which in many cases can provide a selective advantage during changes in environmental conditions. In some instances, heterogeneity exists at the genetic level, in which significant allelic variation occurs within a population seeded by a single cell. In other cases, heterogeneity exists due to phenotypic differences within a clonal, genetically identical population. A variety of mechanisms can drive this latter strategy. Stochastic fluctuations can drive differential gene expression, but heterogeneity in gene (...) expression can also be driven by environmental changes sensed by individual cells residing in distinct locales. Utilizing multiple single cell approaches, workers have started to uncover the extent of heterogeneity within bacterial populations. This review will first describe several examples of phenotypic and genetic heterogeneity, and then discuss many single cell approaches that have recently been applied to define heterogeneity within bacterial populations. (shrink)

Contemporary art is a category that can admit art made in any medium, form, genre, and style. However, this unprecedented heterogeneity can make it difficult to understand what makes contemporary art distinct from other kinds of art. In this article, I aim to provide an account of what makes art contemporary. I develop my position by focussing on philosophy of contemporary art emerging from the so-called analytic tradition. I argue that though these philosophers have reckoned with many of (...) the puzzles posed by contemporary art’s heterogeneity, they fail to provide compelling theories of what makes art contemporary. In response, I propose that the best way to understand what makes an artwork contemporary is by understanding how it attempts to grapple with the issues of its own historical condition of ‘contemporaneity.’. (shrink)

Environmental heterogeneity is invoked as a key explanatory factor in the adaptive evolution of a surprisingly wide range of phenomena. This article aims to analyze this explanatory scheme of categorizing traits or properties as adaptations to environmental heterogeneity. First it is suggested that this scheme can be understood as a reaction to how heterogeneity adaptations were discounted or ignored in the modern synthesis. Then a positive account is proposed, distinguishing between two broad categories of adaptation to environmental (...) heterogeneity: properties selected for by well-defined patterns of environmental heterogeneity, and properties that help organisms exploit novel patterns of environmental heterogeneity. (shrink)