Background: Pembrolizumab, an inhibitory anti-PD-1 antibody, has led to significantly meaningful improvements in advanced melanoma. This meta-analysis discusses and presents the efficacy and safety of pembrolizumab versus control treatments in randomized controlled trials. Methods: Electronic databases were searched systematically for RCTs using pembrolizumab in advanced melanomas. Pooled estimates were calculated under random-effect models for overall response rates, PFS, OS, and TRAEs. Results: Nine RCTs including 5132 patients were analyzed. Pembrolizumab significantly realized better results in ORR, PFS and OS HR 0.62, (...) 95% CI 0.54, 0.71, P < 0.001 and HR 0.70, 95% CI 0.63, 0.78, P < 0.001 for control. PFS and OS were consistently better in first, second, and further lines and in groups stratified for PD-L1 status. Grade 3–5 TRAEs were lower with pembrolizumab than with chemotherapy 13.3% vs. 25.9% and ipilimumab 16.9% vs. 27.3%. Conclusions: Pembrolizumab monotherapy meaningfully improves ORRs, delays progression, and prolongs survival in advanced melanoma compared to current standard regimens, with the latter given its favorable toxicity profile. As such, pembrolizumab should be considered the new standard of care for treatment-naïve and previously treated subjects. (shrink)

Defensive medicine is defined as a doctor’s deviation from standard practice to reduce or prevent complaints or criticism. The objectives of this study were to assess the prevalence of the practice of defensive medicine in the UK among hospital doctors and the factors affecting it.

In this era of razor-edge competition, marketers strive to outperform their rivals by improving their brands. Increasing brand coolness may be the best way to do it. This study used a stimulus organism response model by integration with brand attribution theory to conduct a cross sectional study using purposive sampling technique and surveying young consumers of smart gadgets in Pakistan. A total of 1,178 responses were received and analyzed by structural equation modeling. The results found a positive impact of brand (...) coolness on brand love and brand engagement. Brand experience moderated these links. Brand love and brand engagement also mediated the relationship between brand coolness and consumer well-being and delight. The findings suggest a very important contribution to theory and practice by testing unexploited outcomes of brand coolness. Especially, this study contributes to the consumer well-being literature, again an unexploited aspect of marketing literature. Despite the uniqueness of the findings, the cross sectional design of this study remains a major limitation. Future research may supplement the findings with the help of longitudinal studies. Marketers and practitioners may benefit from this study by improving the coolness of their brands so they may not only increase consumer engagement with the brand but they will also make consumers happy with their brands. (shrink)

Consumer well-being is a micromarketing concept that emphasizes on contributions of marketing activities in social welfare. The major objective of the current study is to analyze the impact of self-incongruence on brand dissatisfaction, brand hate, and consumer well-being. This study has utilized the Self-incongruity Theory and the Stimulus-Organism-Response model to test the impact of self-incongruity on anti-consumption and consumer voice behaviors, and subsequent effects on consumer well-being. Data were collected from young consumers of technology products from major cities of Pakistan. (...) A total of 592 consumers answered a paper-and-pencil questionnaire using purposive sampling technique. The data were analyzed by partial least square structural equation modeling. The findings of this study reveal that functional and symbolic incongruity predict brand hate and dissatisfaction, which is positively related with brand retaliation. Brand retaliation is negatively related with consumer well-being. This study offers implications for product designers, marketers, advertisers and other stakeholders to improve congruence between what young consumers of technology products expect and what brands are offering to mitigate negative attitudes and behaviors and increase consumer well-being. (shrink)

This study aims to measure the latent mean difference in perfectionism and marital satisfaction by counseling help-seeking attitudes. The respondents were 327 married graduate students from a research university in Malaysia. An online self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data. The respondents completed the Almost Perfect Scale- Revised, Dyadic Almost Perfect Scale, Marital Satisfaction Scale, and Attitudes toward Seeking Professional Psychology Help Scale. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to examined the instruments and the results indicated that construct validity were (...) achieved. The latent mean difference in perfectionism and marital satisfaction by counseling help-seeking attitudes were tested using multigroup invariance analysis. The respondents with negative attitudes toward counseling help-seeking reported a higher latent mean in perfectionism but a lower latent mean in marital satisfaction compared to those with positive attitudes toward counseling help-seeking. The implications of these findings for counseling services are discussed. (shrink)

This study of Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī's (d. 631/1233) teachings on creation offers close analysis of all of his extant works of falsafa and kalām. Some of these were not known to previous scholars, yet they bear witness to key facets of the interaction between the historically inimical traditions of Hellenic philosophy and rational theology at this important intellectual moment. Al-Āmidīis seen to grapple with the encounter of two paradigms for the discussion of creation. On the one hand, Ibn Sīnā's metaphysical (...) concept of necessity of existence is the basis of his doctrine of the world's pre-eternal emanation. On the other, for the mutakallimūn, the physical theory of atomism bolsters the view that God created the world from nothing. This study is of interest to scholars of Ibn Sīnā and Ash'arism alike, as it advances our understanding of the ongoing tradition of rational theology in the Islamic world, long past Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī's (d. 505/1111) famous attack on the philosophers. (shrink)

The first eulogies (Qaṣāīd) about the Prophet Muḥammad (pbuh) appeared when he was still alive. Ḥassān ibn Thābit (d. 60/680 [?]), ʿAbd Allāh b. Rawāḥa (d. 8/629) and Kaʿb b. Mālik (d. 50/670), important Muslim poets of the period, praised the Prophet and inspired future generations of poets. Depending on the developments in the following centuries, there had been a great increase in the number of poems sung to express enthusiastic feelings towards the Prophet and to defend him and his (...) Prophethood. Andalusia is one of the places where this genre increased the most. The first examples of the praise of the Prophet appeared in Andalusia during the Mulūk al-Ṭawāʾif period (1031-1090). The praises of the Prophet, which were processed in the poems of asceticism, dirge and elegy until the end of the 5th/11th century, became an independent genre called al-Madāʾiḥ al-Nabawiyyah/Nabawiyyāt thanks to the ever-increasing Ṣūfī thoughts penetrating literary circles. The turning point of the praise of the Prophet in Andalusia, as in the East, is the period of the The Almohads (1147-1238), which coincides with the 7th/13th century. The mawlid celebrations, which were first initiated by the Fāṭimids in the 4th/10th century to give legitimacy to their rule, and held every year in North Africa on the twelfth of the month of Rabi'ulawwal, moved to Andalusia at the end of the The Almohad period and gradually became one of the largest official and religious holidays in Andalusia. Giving awards to high-quality poems read on the mawlid festival and celebrations made all over Andalusia has greatly contributed to the literary richness in this field. In praise of the Prophet, talented poets such as Abū Zayd al-Fāzāzī (d. 627/ 1230), Ibn al-Jannān al-Anṣārī (d. 650/1252), Ibn Jābir (d. 780/1378) and Ibn Zumruk (d. 797/1395) emerged. Abū Zayd al-Fāzāzī, one of the most distinguished Prophetic ode poets of the Almohad period is said to have first pioneered the spread of Prophetic praises in Andalusia before the Iraqi poet Yaḥyā al-Ṣarṣarī (d. 656/1258) and the Egyptian poet Būṣīrī (d. 695/1296). He has a dīvān called al-Wasā’il al-mutaqabbalah, which he wrote in alphabetical order and dedicated to the praise of the Prophet. The fame of the odes he uttered about the Prophet spread as far as North Africa, and it has become a tradition to read his odes on special days. Because of the abundance and quality of Prophetic odes, Ibn al-Jannān, who witnessed the glorious days and the collapse of the The Almohad state, also commemorated the poet Ḥassān ibn Thābit, The Prophet’s Odic Poet. Ibn Jābir al-Andalusī, on the other hand, wrote the second ode in this field after Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Ḥilli (d. 749/1348), the inventor of the axiomatic odes, and became the pioneer of axiomatic odes in Andalusia. The effect of political instability on Prophetic odes in Andalusia, which entered its collapse with the end of the Almohad state, is obvious. According to many poets, salvation from this plight of Muslims in Andalusia is possible by once again adhering to the Sunnah of the Prophet. Probably as a reflection of this idea, many poets from 7th/13th centuries onwards devoted their odes to narrating the Prophet and his Sunnah. Poets who describe the Prophet elaborately in their poems hope to be saved from the troubles they have fallen into and to reach the highest rank in heaven. Poets who touched upon the physical characteristics of the Prophet often likened his smiling face to a bright sun and a full moon. In terms of oratory, they stated that he had a fluent language and never uttered bad words. Andalusian poets, who praised the Prophet with moral virtues such as tolerance, justice and courage, stated that there was nobody more merciful and generous than him due to the abundance of his blessings resembling torrential rain. Andalusian Prophetic ode poets adhered to the traditional forms of Arabic poetry in terms of the structure of eulogy. In the introductory parts of odes, they generally express longing for the Prophet and the holy places. The main theme is mostly the Prophet and his outstanding virtues, and they usually end their eulogies with salutation to the Prophet. Save a few Sufi poets, it can be said that they used simple and understandable language in their poems. The sources of inspiration for their poems are the Qur'an and hadiths. Andalusian poets used non-material axiomatic arts in their poems without disturbing the structure of eulogy. In addition to the art of pun, they provided musicality in the poem with the ‘tent-frame’ meter and rhyme scheme, sometimes supporting it through repetition. It is possible to see all kinds of repetitions in, Ibn al-Jannān's odes. In this study, the place of the Prophet in Andalusia and odes, which are reflections of the love for him, will be examined. In addition, the concept of the Prophet in Andalusia will be explained within the political, social and cultural framework of the period. (shrink)

Although the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer was not a religious thinker or theologian, his work and approach have influenced thinkers in the field of theology. This article explores some ‘overlaps’ between Gadamerian hermeneutics and the ideas of some contemporary Muslim scholars such as Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, Abdolkarim Soroush, Muhammad Mujtahed Shabestari and Hassan Hanafi regarding issues of textual interpretation and understanding. In particular, the article seeks to understand how such ideas have appeared in these Muslim scholars’ approaches to (...) interpreting the Qurʾan. It also explores some of the implications that follow from incorporating Gadamer’s ideas into Islamic theological and political discourses. The article argues that the application of Gadamer’s hermeneutic philosophy to the realm of Qurʾanic studies is not only fruitful insofar as it provides new insights into the interpretation of the Qurʾan, but also has important consequences for Islamic theological and political discourses more broadly. (shrink)

This eleventh volume of Collected Papers includes 90 papers comprising 988 pages on Physics, Artificial Intelligence, Health Issues, Decision Making, Economics, Statistics, written between 2001-2022 by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 84 co-authors (alphabetically ordered) from 19 countries: Abhijit Saha, Abu Sufian, Jack Allen, Shahbaz Ali, Ali Safaa Sadiq, Aliya Fahmi, Atiqa Fakhar, Atiqa Firdous, Sukanto Bhattacharya, Robert N. Boyd, Victor Chang, Victor Christianto, V. Christy, Dao The Son, Debjit Dutta, Azeddine Elhassouny, Fazal Ghani, Fazli Amin, (...) Anirudha Ghosha, Nasruddin Hassan, Hoang Viet Long, Jhulaneswar Baidya, Jin Kim, Jun Ye, Darjan Karabašević, Vasilios N. Katsikis, Ieva Meidutė-Kavaliauskienė, F. Kaymarm, Nour Eldeen M. Khalifa, Madad Khan, Qaisar Khan, M. Khoshnevisan, Kifayat Ullah,, Volodymyr Krasnoholovets, Mukesh Kumar, Le Hoang Son, Luong Thi Hong Lan, Tahir Mahmood, Mahmoud Ismail, Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Siti Nurul Fitriah Mohamad, Mohamed Loey, Mai Mohamed, K. Mohana, Kalyan Mondal, Muhammad Gulfam, Muhammad Khalid Mahmood, Muhammad Jamil, Muhammad Yaqub Khan, Muhammad Riaz, Nguyen Dinh Hoa, Cu Nguyen Giap, Nguyen Tho Thong, Peide Liu, Pham Huy Thong, Gabrijela Popović‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬, Surapati Pramanik, Dmitri Rabounski, Roslan Hasni, Rumi Roy, Tapan Kumar Roy, Said Broumi, Saleem Abdullah, Muzafer Saračević, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Shariful Alam, Shyamal Dalapati, Housila P. Singh, R. Singh, Rajesh Singh, Predrag S. Stanimirović, Kasan Susilo, Dragiša Stanujkić, Alexandra Şandru, Ovidiu Ilie Şandru, Zenonas Turskis, Yunita Umniyati, Alptekin Ulutaș, Maikel Yelandi Leyva Vázquez, Binyamin Yusoff, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas, Zhao Loon Wang.‬‬‬‬. (shrink)

This tenth volume of Collected Papers includes 86 papers in English and Spanish languages comprising 972 pages, written between 2014-2022 by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 105 co-authors (alphabetically ordered) from 26 countries: Abu Sufian, Ali Hassan, Ali Safaa Sadiq, Anirudha Ghosh, Assia Bakali, Atiqe Ur Rahman, Laura Bogdan, Willem K.M. Brauers, Erick González Caballero, Fausto Cavallaro, Gavrilă Calefariu, T. Chalapathi, Victor Christianto, Mihaela Colhon, Sergiu Boris Cononovici, Mamoni Dhar, Irfan Deli, Rebeca Escobar-Jara, Alexandru Gal, (...) N. Gandotra, Sudipta Gayen, Vassilis C. Gerogiannis, Noel Batista Hernández, Hongnian Yu, Hongbo Wang, Mihaiela Iliescu, F. Nirmala Irudayam, Sripati Jha, Darjan Karabašević, T. Katican, Bakhtawar Ali Khan, Hina Khan, Volodymyr Krasnoholovets, R. Kiran Kumar, Manoranjan Kumar Singh, Ranjan Kumar, M. Lathamaheswari, Yasar Mahmood, Nivetha Martin, Adrian Mărgean, Octavian Melinte, Mingcong Deng, Marcel Migdalovici, Monika Moga, Sana Moin, Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Mohamed Elhoseny, Rehab Mohamed, Mohamed Talea, Kalyan Mondal, Muhammad Aslam, Muhammad Aslam Malik, Muhammad Ihsan, Muhammad Naveed Jafar, Muhammad Rayees Ahmad, Muhammad Saeed, Muhammad Saqlain, Muhammad Shabir, Mujahid Abbas, Mumtaz Ali, Radu I. Munteanu, Ghulam Murtaza, Munazza Naz, Tahsin Oner, ‪Gabrijela Popović‬‬‬‬‬, Surapati Pramanik, R. Priya, S.P. Priyadharshini, Midha Qayyum, Quang-Thinh Bui, Shazia Rana, Akbara Rezaei, Jesús Estupiñán Ricardo, Rıdvan Sahin, Saeeda Mirvakili, Said Broumi, A. A. Salama, Flavius Aurelian Sârbu, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Javid Shabbir, Shio Gai Quek, Son Hoang Le, Florentin Smarandache, Dragiša Stanujkić, S. Sudha, Taha Yasin Ozturk, Zaigham Tahir, The Houw Iong, Ayse Topal, Alptekin Ulutaș, Maikel Yelandi Leyva Vázquez, Rizha Vitania, Luige Vlădăreanu, Victor Vlădăreanu, Ștefan Vlăduțescu, J. Vimala, Dan Valeriu Voinea, Adem Yolcu, Yongfei Feng, Abd El-Nasser H. Zaied, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas.‬‬. (shrink)

At the time of great changes the tasks of ethics must also be greatly changed, says the author. He proposes a reinterpretation of the communist ethics by emphasizing its humanist and human character. He underscores the value of life in ethics. He warns that in case when communism clashes with morality the effects can be ominous for morality but even more disastrous for communism. Communism presupposes moral trust among people, he says, and becomes implausible when that trusts has been wasted.

Self-medication of antibiotics is an irrational use of drugs, contributing to microbial resistance, increasing healthcare costs and higher mortality and morbidity. This study aimed to assess self-medication with antibiotics without a medical prescription in the community of Libya. This is a cross-sectional study conducted from June to December 2022 and the total number of participants was 200. The design of the study and sample size were modified according to the proficiency of pharmacists and the medical and non-medical population of Libya. (...) The questionnaire was developed in English and Arabic language and was distributed through social media platforms. The questions were used after a thorough literature search and assessing the validity and reliability. The significant signs regarding reasons for the treatment by self-medication drugs of antibiotics, because of its various drugs of antibiotic by pharmacist (n=80, 40.0%) and family (n=90, 45.0%) compared with experience and physicians by used prescription was 13 (6.50%) and significant sings regarding by nasal congestion self-medication of various antibiotics (n=100, 50.0%). This sign must be practiced based on a previous physician’s prescription. The antibiotics are often self-administered as patients feel that they will save money and time but this can lead to substantial adverse drug reactions, antibiotic resistance, treatment failure and drug-related toxicity. This study respondent's medical and non-medical public of Libya who should be relatively informed and educated about the risk of treatment by self-medication of antibiotics with the development of resistance. (shrink)

Darwin's book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (henceforth The Origin) abounds with metaphors. In fact, the very theory of natural selection is couched in a system of metaphors that exhibit striking consistency and coherence. I argue that the phenomenon for which Darwin tries to detect the basic mechanisms, that is, biological evolution, involves vast, indeterminate, and ambiguous observations that are difficult to subject to the empirical methods. This fact motivates Darwin's extensive use of metaphors to (...) organize his observations, structure the vague concepts, and ultimately render his observations meaningful and intelligible. I demonstrate that Darwin's metaphors, as far as they are elements of Idealized Cognitive Models, prove valuable in achieving this goal. First, I identify the conceptual metaphors underlying the main metaphorical expressions and show how these conceptual metaphors give rise to entailments and inferences central to Darwin's theory. The conceptual metaphors I identify are “NATURE IS A MOTHER,” “NATURE IS A BREEDER,” “LIFE IS WAR,” “LIFE IS A RACE,” and “EVOLUTION IS PROGRESS.” I also comment briefly on the conceptual blending involved in these metaphorical mappings. I then turn to characterizing the idealized cognitive models (ICMs) that function as the pre-conceptual ground in virtue of which Darwin's metaphors are meaningful, coherent, and helpful to scientific thinking. These ICMs are the ICM of STRUGGLE and the image-schema of SOURCE-PATH-GOAL. (shrink)

​Imagination will remain a mystery—we will not be able to explain imagination—until we can break it into parts we already understand. Explaining Imagination is a guidebook for doing just that, where the parts are other ordinary mental states like beliefs, desires, judgments, and decisions. In different combinations and contexts, these states constitute cases of imagining. This reductive approach to imagination is at direct odds with the current orthodoxy, according to which imagination is a sui generis mental state or process—one with (...) its own inscrutable principles of operation. Explaining Imagination upends that view, showing how, on closer inspection, the imaginings at work in hypothetical reasoning, pretense, the enjoyment of fiction, and creativity are reducible to other familiar mental states—judgments, beliefs, desires, and decisions among them. Crisscrossing contemporary philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and aesthetics, Explaining Imagination argues that a clearer understanding of imagination is already well within reach. (shrink)

It has previously been argued that Schopenhauer is a distinctive type of virtue ethicist (Hassan, 2019). The Aristotelian version of virtue ethics has traditionally been accused of being fundamentally egoistic insofar as the possession of virtues is beneficial to the possessor, and serve as the ultimate justification for obtaining them. Indeed, Schopenhauer himself makes a version of this complaint. In this chapter, I investigate whether Schopenhauer’s moral framework nevertheless suffers from this same objection of egoism in light of how (...) he conceives of the relationship between morality and ascetic 'salvation'. Drawing upon his published works and letters, I argue that Schopenhauer has the resources to avoid the objection. Because of his idiosyncratic metaphysics, I argue that Schopenhauer can also avoid the problem of self-effacement which may result from the way in which he avoids the egoism objection. The discussion thus intends to establish further nuance to Schopenhauer’s conception of virtue and its value. (shrink)

The point of this paper is to reveal a dogma in the ordinary conception of sensory imagination, and to suggest another way forward. The dogma springs from two main sources: a too close comparison of mental imagery to perceptual experience, and a too strong division between mental imagery and the traditional propositional attitudes (such as belief and desire). The result is an unworkable conception of the correctness conditions of sensory imaginings—one lacking any link between the conditions under which an imagining (...) aids human action and inference and the conditions under which it is veridical. The proposed solution is, first, to posit a variety of imaginative attitudes—akin to the traditional propositional attitudes—which have different associated correctness (or satisfaction) conditions. The second part of the solution is to allow for imaginings with “hybrid” contents, in the sense that both mental images and representations with language-like constituent structure contribute to the content of imaginings. (shrink)

This essay unites current philosophical thinking on imagination with a burgeoning debate in the philosophy of memory over whether episodic remembering is simply a kind of imagining. So far, this debate has been hampered by a lack of clarity in the notion of imagining at issue. Several options are considered and constructive imagining is identified as the relevant kind. Next, a functionalist account of episodic remembering is defended as a means to establishing two key points: first, one need not defend (...) a factive view of remembering in order to hold that causal connections to past experiences are essential to how rememberings are typed; and, second, current theories that equate remembering with imagining are in fact consistent with a functionalist theory that includes causal connections in its account of what it is to remember. This suggests that remembering is not a kind of imagining and clarifies what it would take to establish the contrary. (shrink)

Martin and Deutscher’s causal theory of remembering holds that a memory trace serves as a necessary causal link between any genuine episode of remembering and the event it enables one to recall. In recent years, the causal theory has come under fire from researchers across philosophy and cognitive science, who argue that results from the scientific study of memory are incompatible with the kinds of memory traces that Martin and Deutscher hold essential to remembering. Of special note, these critics observe, (...) is that a single memory trace can be shaped by multiple past experiences. This appears to prevent traces from underwriting Martin and Deutscher’s distinction between remembering an event and merely forming an accurate representation of it. This paper accepts such criticisms of the standard causal theory and, through considering the phenomenon forgetting through repetition, raises several others. A substantially revised causal theory is then developed, compatible with the thesis that individual memory traces are shaped by multiple past experiences. The key strategy is to conceive of episodic remembering not as the simple retrieval and projection of a static memory trace, but as a complex quasi-inferential process that makes use of multiple forms of information and cues—“prop-like” memory traces included—in generating the experience known as episodic remembering. When remembering is understood as a multi-componential process, there are a variety of ways in which a representation of the past may be appropriately causally dependent upon a prior experience of the event remembered. (shrink)

Author replies to commentaries from Christopher Hill, Hannah Kim, Emine Hande Tuna, and Neil Van Leeuwen on Explaining Imagination (OUP, 2020) by Peter Langland-Hassan.

Currie’s (2010) argument that “i-desires” must be posited to explain our responses to fiction is critically discussed. It is argued that beliefs and desires featuring ‘in the fiction’ operators—and not sui generis imaginings (or "i-beliefs" or "i-desires")—are the crucial states involved in generating fiction-directed affect. A defense of the “Operator Claim” is mounted, according to which ‘in the fiction’ operators would be also be required within fiction-directed sui generis imaginings (or "i-beliefs" and "i-desires"), were there such. Once we appreciate that (...) even fiction-directed sui generis imaginings would need to incorporate ‘in the fiction’ operators, the main appeal of the idea that sui generis imaginings (or "i-beliefs" or "i-desires") are at work in fiction-appreciation dissipates. [This is Chapter 10 of Explaining Imagination (OUP, 2020)]. (shrink)

If imagination is subject to the will, in the sense that people choose the content of their own imaginings, how is it that one nevertheless can learn from what one imagines? This chapter argues for a way forward in addressing this perennial puzzle, both with respect to propositional imagination and sensory imagination. Making progress requires looking carefully at the interplay between one’s intentions and various kinds of constraints that may be operative in the generation of imaginings. Lessons are drawn from (...) the existing literature on propositional imagination and from the control theory literature concerning the prediction and comparison mechanisms (or “forward models”) involved in ordinary perception. A more general conclusion is reached that, once we have the tools to understand how some imaginings are both under willful control and helpfully guide action and inference, we will have what we need to understand the cognitive basis of imagination in general. (shrink)

This chapter considers the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to exhibit creativity and imagination, in light of recent advances in generative AI and the use of deep neural networks (DNNs). Reasons for doubting that AI exhibits genuine creativity or imagination are considered, including the claim that the creativity of an algorithm lies in its developer, that generative AI merely reproduces patterns in its training data, and that AI is lacking in a necessary feature for creativity or imagination, such as consciousness, (...) agency, metacognitive awareness, or the use of mental imagery. In each case, a counterargument is provided that AI already has or soon will overcome the apparent barrier. In some instances, this is because the critical features deemed lacking in AI may not be necessary for human creativity and imagination either. In others, it is because important developmental and structural similarities between humans and generative AI have been insufficiently appreciated. (shrink)

Value Co-Creation plays a major role in engaging knowledgeable individuals in a community via innovation, problem solving, and new service/product development. This study investigates the personal factors that influence individuals’ engagement in value co-creation in Higher Education Institutions through the use of online platforms. Some higher education institutions have successfully established or used appropriate online platforms, such as online forums, web applications, and mobile applications to engage their community in ideation or crowdsourcing as a part of the value co-creation process. (...) On the other hand, some HEIs have failed to engage their community in value co-creation activities, and even if they managed to engage some individuals in value co-creation once, they failed to sustain these individuals’ engagement in value co-creation using online platforms. Using the Stimulus Organism Response framework, this study examines the relationship between relevant personal factors and other motivational factors that provide perceived benefits with value co-creation engagement. Data was collected from 308 respondents at five Malaysian research universities. The software analysis tool Smart PLS is used for data analysis and validation. The results demonstrate that personal factors and perceived benefits as a motivational factor has a significant effect on individual engagement in value co-creation. However, the significance of these findings varies from one individual to another. The implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

The (dis)continuism debate in the philosophy and cognitive science of memory concerns whether remembering is continuous with episodic future thought and episodic counterfactual thought in being a form of constructive imagining. I argue that settling that dispute will hinge on whether the memory traces (or “engrams”) that support remembering impose arational, perception-like constraints that are too strong for remembering to constitute a kind of constructive imagining. In exploring that question, I articulate two conceptions of memory traces—the replay theory and the (...) prop theory—that return conflicting answers to whether remembering is constructive imagining. The prop theory’s vision of traces is suggestive of continuism, while the replay theory’s is a natural fit for discontinuism. Which view of traces is in fact correct remains undetermined by current empirical work. Nevertheless, it may already be possible to reach a compromise in the (dis)continuism debate, through the development of a conciliatory continuist causal theory. This view—only outlined here—accepts the continuism-friendly prop theory of traces, while still requiring that genuine remembering fulfills an appropriate causation condition, as required by the kinds of causal theories of remembering typically favored by discontinuists. (shrink)

A popular view has it that the mental representations underlying human pretense are not beliefs, but are “belief-like” in important ways. This view typically posits a distinctive cognitive attitude (a “DCA”) called “imagination” that is taken toward the propositions entertained during pretense, along with correspondingly distinct elements of cognitive architecture. This paper argues that the characteristics of pretense motivating such views of imagination can be explained without positing a DCA, or other cognitive architectural features beyond those regulating normal belief and (...) desire. On the present “Single Attitude” account of imagination, propositional imagining just is a form of believing. The Single Attitude account is also distinguished from “metarepresentational” accounts of pretense, which hold that both pretending and recognizing pretense in others require one to have concepts of mental states. It is argued, to the contrary, that pretending and recognizing pretense require neither a DCA nor possession of mental state concepts. (shrink)

Inner speech travels under many aliases: the inner voice, verbal thought, thinking in words, internal verbalization, “talking in your head,” the “little voice in the head,” and so on. It is both a familiar element of first-person experience and a psychological phenomenon whose complex cognitive components and distributed neural bases are increasingly well understood. There is evidence that inner speech plays a variety of cognitive roles, from enabling abstract thought, to supporting metacognition, memory, and executive function. One active area of (...) controversy concerns the relation of inner speech to auditory verbal hallucinations in schizophrenia, with a common proposal being that sufferers of AVH misidentify their own inner speech as being generated by someone else. Recently, researchers have used artificial intelligence to translate the neural and neuromuscular signatures of inner speech into corresponding outer speech signals, laying the groundwork for a variety of new applications and interventions. (shrink)

Cats and dogs are the same kind of thing in being mammals, even if cats are not a kind of dog. In the same way, remembering and imagining might be the same kind of mental state, even if remembering is not a kind of imagining. This chapter explores whether episodic remembering, on the one hand, and future and counter-factual directed imagistic imagining, on the other, may be the same kind of mental state in being instances of the same cognitive attitude. (...) I outline a continuist position where all three involve the same judgment-like attitude and compare its advantages to a discontinuist alternative where remembering requires use of its own distinctive attitude. Reasons are given for favoring a version of the continuist position, though this chapter’s focus is on the metatheoretical questions of how to go about understanding remembering in terms of a content and attitude pair, and which considerations are relevant when deciding among competing content/attitude pairs. (shrink)

Much of what we say is never said aloud. It occurs only silently, as inner speech. We chastise, congratulate, joke and cajole, all without making a sound. This distinctively human ability to create public language in the privacy of our own minds is no less remarkable for its familiarity. And yet, until recently, inner speech remained at the periphery of philosophical and psychological theorizing. This essay collection, from an interdisciplinary group of leading philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists, displays the rapidly growing (...) interest among researchers in the puzzles surrounding the nature and cognitive role of the inner voice. Questions explored include: the aids and obstacles inner speech presents to self-knowledge; the complex relation it bears to overt speech production and perception; the means by which inner speech can be identified and empirically assessed; its role in generating auditory verbal hallucinations; and its relationship to conceptual thought itself. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Nietzsche’s claim that suffering is closely related to the realization of certain perfectionist values, such as artistic excellence. According to Bernard Reginster, creative achievement consists in overcoming suffering, and therefore, suffering is an essential ingredient of creative achievement. Because suffering forms an essential part of a valuable whole in this way, Reginster argues that we must in turn value suffering ‘for its own sake’. This paper argues that Reginster’s position is open to the following objection: from (...) the fact that suffering is an essential part of a valuable whole, it does not follow that suffering is itself valuable. Rather, by taking advantage of the principle of organic unities, it would have to form an essential part of a valuable whole in a particular way. The author considers two ways the principle might be attributed to Nietzsche’s views on suffering: first, as an ‘enabling condition’, in which suffering allows for a whole that outweighs its disvalue; and second, as ‘a contributor’, in which suffering positively contributes value to the whole. The paper explores how Nietzsche’s ethics turns out to be crucially informed by this conceptual distinction. (shrink)

Pretense is a topic of keen interest to philosophers and psychologists. But what is it, really, to pretend? What features qualify an act as pretense? Surprisingly little has been said on this foundational question. Here I defend an account of what it is to pretend, distinguishing pretense from a variety of related but distinct phenomena, such as (mere) copying and practicing. I show how we can distinguish pretense from sincerity by sole appeal to a person's beliefs, desires, and intentions – (...) and without circular recourse to an ‘intention to pretend’ or to a sui generis mental state of ‘imagining.’. (shrink)

Many theorists claim that inner speech is importantly linked to human metacognition (thinking about one's own thinking). However, their proposals all rely upon unworkable conceptions of the content and structure of inner speech episodes. The core problem is that they require inner speech episodes to have both auditory-phonological contents and propositional/semantic content. Difficulties for the views emerge when we look closely at how such contents might be integrated into one or more states or processes. The result is that, if inner (...) speech is especially valuable to metacognition, we do not currently understand why it is. The article concludes with two positive proposals for understanding the content and structure of inner speech episodes, which should serve as constraints on future accounts of the metacognitive value of inner speech. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to elucidate Schopenhauer’s moral philosophy in terms of an ethics of virtue. This paper consists of four sections. In the first section I outline three major objections Schopenhauer raises for Kant’s moral philosophy. In section two I extract from these criticisms a framework for Schopenhauer’s own position, identifying how his moral psychology underpins a unified and hierarchical conception of virtue and vice. I then ascertain some strengths of this view. In section three I (...) focus in upon the issue of fixed character and moral education as at least one major point of divergence between Schopenhauer’s virtue ethics and typical trends within the tradition. In the fourth and final section, I consider and respond to this ethical framework’s possible susceptibility to the charge of egoism, and adjudicate among competing solutions in the secondary literature. I conclude that refined forms of Schopenhauer’s ethical views offer rich and plausible insights into both virtue and vice which have received less attention than they deserve. Hence, Schopenhauer warrants more serious concern in contemporary discussions of virtue ethics alongside the likes of Aristotle, Hume and Nietzsche. (shrink)

Abstract: How it is that one's own thoughts can seem to be someone else's? After noting some common missteps of other approaches to this puzzle, I develop a novel cognitive solution, drawing on and critiquing theories that understand inserted thoughts and auditory verbal hallucinations in schizophrenia as stemming from mismatches between predicted and actual sensory feedback. Considerable attention is paid to forging links between the first-person phenomenology of thought insertion and the posits (e.g. efference copy, corollary discharge) of current cognitive (...) theories. I show how deficits in the subconscious mechanisms regulating inner speech may lead to a 'fractured phenomenology' responsible for schizophrenic patients' reports of inserted thoughts and auditory verbal hallucinations. Supporting work on virtual environments is discussed, and lessons concerning the fixity of delusional belief are drawn. (shrink)

The academic literature on unethical leadership is witnessing an upward trend, perhaps given the magnitude of unethical conduct in organisations, which is manifested in increasing corporate fraud and scandals in the contemporary business landscape. Despite a recent increase, scholarly interest in this area has, by and large, remained scant due to the proliferation of concepts that are often and mistakenly considered interchangeable. Nevertheless, scholarly investigation in this field of inquiry has picked up the pace, which warrants a critical appraisal of (...) the extant research on unethical leadership. To this end, the current study systematically reviews the existing body of work on unethical leadership and offers a robust and multi-level understanding of the academic developments in this field. We organised the studies according to various themes focused on antecedents, outcomes and boundary conditions. In addition, we advance a multi-level conceptualisation of unethical leadership, which incorporates macro, meso and micro perspectives and, thus, provide a nuanced understanding of this phenomenon. The study also explicates critical knowledge gaps in the literature that could broaden the horizon of unethical leadership research. On the basis of these knowledge gaps, we develop potential research models that are well grounded in theory and capture the genesis of unethical leadership under our multi-level framework. Scholars and practitioners will find this study useful in understanding the occurrence, consequences and potential strategies to circumvent the negative effects of unethical leadership. (shrink)

Comparatively easy questions we might ask about creativity are distinguished from the hard question of explaining transformative creativity. Many have focused on the easy questions, offering no reason to think that the imagining relied upon in creative cognition cannot be reduced to more basic folk psychological states. The relevance of associative thought processes to songwriting is then explored as a means for understanding the nature of transformative creativity. Productive artificial neural networks—known as generative antagonistic networks (GANs)—are a recent example of (...) how a system’s ability to generate novel products can both be finely tuned by prior experience and grounded in strategies that cannot be articulated by the system itself. Further, the kinds of processes exploited by GANs need not be seen as incorporating something akin to sui generis imaginative states. The chapter concludes with reflection on the added relevance of personal character to explanations of creativity. [This is Chapter 12 of the book Explaining Imagination.]. (shrink)

The theories of reasoned action and planned behaviour have fundamentally changed the view that attitudes directly translate into behaviour by introducing intentions as a crucial intervening stage. Much research across numerous ethical contexts has drawn on these theories to offer a better understanding of how consumers form intentions to act in an ethical way. Persistently, researchers have suggested and discussed the existence of an intention–behaviour gap in ethical consumption. Yet, the factors that influence the extent of this gap and its (...) magnitude have not been systematically examined. We, therefore, contribute to the debate on the intention–behaviour gap by reviewing the empirical TRA/tpb studies that have assessed both intention and behaviour in ethical contexts. The findings from our review show that few studies assessed the intention–behaviour relationship and as a result, there is limited empirical evidence to date to quantify more accurately the intention–behaviour gap in ethical consumption. Our second contribution aims to provide an empirical case study which assesses the magnitude of the intention–behaviour gap in the context of avoidance of sweatshop clothing and to assess the roles of planning and actual behavioural control in potentially reducing the intention–behaviour gap. The findings of our case study suggest that there is indeed a large gap between intention and behaviour, and we conclude by calling for more empirical longitudinal studies to assess the complex nature of the relationship between intention and behaviour. (shrink)

In recent years, we have been observing an increasing significance of industrial heritage in international heritage studies. Developed in response to urban development needs, industrial heritage is now considered a valuable part of the city. Such an approach has resulted in the adaptive reuse of industrial heritage in the developing countries. This is, indeed, a practical solution for sustainable development of cities and the subject matter of many academic discussions. In this respect Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA) seems to be a (...) useful tool. This paper aims to study the role of HIA in adaptive reuse practice in industrial heritage sites in Iran. For that purpose, the authors have used a combined research method including historic study, analytical-description techniques and questionnaire-based interviews (with heritage managers and planners). The results indicate that HIA guidelines play a useful role in preserving the significance of historic cultural heritage and should be observed in the adaptive reuse practice in respect of the industrial heritage sites in Iran. Based on the analysed examples of successfully converted sites, this paper advocates using HIA as a useful tool in determining the potential of a given industrial heritage site for a successful reuse. (shrink)

It is widely held that introspection-based self-ascriptions of mental states are immune to error through misidentification , relative to the first person pronoun. Many have taken such errors to be logically impossible, arguing that the immunity holds as an “absolute” necessity. Here I discuss an actual case of craniopagus twins—twins conjoined at the head and brain—as a means to arguing that such errors are logically possible and, for all we know, nomologically possible. An important feature of the example is that (...) it is one where a person may be said to be introspectively aware of a mental state that occurs outside of her own mind. Implications are discussed for views of the relation between introspection and mental state ownership, and between introspection and epistemic criteria for the “mark of the mental.”. (shrink)

Despite the ubiquity of inner speech in our mental lives, methods for objectively assessing inner speech capacities remain underdeveloped. The most common means of assessing inner speech is to present participants with tasks requiring them to silently judge whether two words rhyme. We developed a version of this task to assess the inner speech of a population of patients with aphasia and corresponding language production deficits. As expected, patients’ performance on the silent rhyming task was severely impaired relative to controls. (...) More surprisingly, however, patients’ performance on this task did not correlate with their performance on a variety of other standard tests of overt language abilities. In particular, patients who were generally unimpaired in their abilities to overtly name objects during confrontation naming tasks, and who could reliably judge when two words spoken to them rhymed, were still severely impaired (relative to controls) at completing the silent rhyme task. This seems to suggest that inner speech was more severely impaired in these patients than outer speech. However, these results should also cause us to critically reflect on the relation between inner speech and silent rhyme judgments more generally. (shrink)

To some it is a shallow platitude that inner speech always has an auditory-phonological component. To others, it is an empirical hypothesis with accumulating support. To yet others it is a false dogma. In this chapter, I defend the claim that inner speech always has an auditory-phonological component, confining the claim to adults with ordinary speech and hearing. It is one thing, I emphasize, to assert that inner speech often, or even typically, has an auditory-phonological component—quite another to propose that (...) it always does. When forced to argue for the stronger point, we stand to make a number of interesting discoveries about inner speech itself, and about our means for discriminating it from other psycholinguistic phenomena. Establishing the stronger conclusion also provides new leverage on debates concerning how we should conceive of, diagnose, and explain auditory verbal hallucinations and “inserted thoughts” in schizophrenia. (shrink)

In recent years, language has been shown to play a number of important cognitive roles over and above the communication of thoughts. One hypothesis gaining support is that language facilitates thought about abstract categories, such as democracy or prediction. To test this proposal, a novel set of semantic memory task trials, designed for assessing abstract thought non-linguistically, were normed for levels of abstractness. The trials were rated as more or less abstract to the degree that answering them required the participant (...) to abstract away from both perceptual features and common setting associations corresponding to the target image. The normed materials were then used with a population of people with aphasia to assess the relationship of abstract thought to language. While the language-impaired group with aphasia showed lower overall accuracy and longer response times than controls in general, of special note is that their response times were significantly longer as a function of a trial’s degree of abstractness. Further, the aphasia group’s response times in reporting their degree of confidence (a separate, metacognitive measure) were negatively correlated with their language production abilities, with lower language scores predicting longer metacognitive response times. These results provide some support for the hypothesis that language is an important aid to abstract thought and to metacognition about abstract thought. (shrink)

Whether a person is pretending, or not, is a function of their beliefs and intentions. This poses a challenge to 4E accounts of pretense, which typically seek to exclude such cognitive states from their explanations of psychological phenomena. Resulting tensions are explored within three recent accounts of imagination and pretense offered by theorists working in the 4E tradition. A path forward is then charted, through considering ways in which explanations can invoke beliefs and intentions while remaining true to 4E precepts. (...) To make real progress in explaining pretense, 4E theorists will need to grow comfortable with the idea that two agents whose outward behaviors and environments are, in the short term, the same, may be guided by quite different beliefs and intentions, in virtue of which only one is pretending. In this way, the scientific project of explaining pretense remains inseparable from the more general project of determining which beliefs and intentions are appropriate to ascribe to which kinds of entities, given which kinds of behaviors. (shrink)

It is often observed that images—including mental images—are in some sense representationally ambiguous. Some, including Jerry Fodor, have added that mental images only come to have determinate contents through the contribution of non-imagistic representations that accompany them. This paper agrees that a kind of ambiguity holds with respect to mental imagery, while arguing (pace Fodor) that this does not prevent imagery from having determinate contents in the absence of other, non-imagistic representations. Specifically, I argue that mental images can represent determinate (...) types of outlays of properties without help from any non-imagistic representations, yet can only become involved in the representation of particular objects through pairing with a non-imagistic representation of the right sort. These points are defended through reflection on the “Picture Principle,” the nature of depiction, and general principles for typing and individuating mental states. (shrink)

This book will be a part of Routledge's "New Problems of Philosophy" series.

This is the introductory chapter to the anthology: Inner Speech: New Voices, to be published in fall 2018 by OUP. It gives an overview of current debates in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience concerning inner speech, and situates the chapters of the volume with respect to those debates.

Many philosophers and psychologists have sought to explain experiences of auditory verbal hallucinations and “inserted thoughts” in schizophrenia in terms of a failure on the part of patients to appropriately monitor their own inner speech. These self-monitoring accounts have recently been challenged by some who argue that AVHs are better explained in terms of the spontaneous activation of auditory-verbal representations. This paper defends two kinds of self-monitoring approach against the spontaneous activation account. The defense requires first making some important clarifications (...) concerning what is at issue in the dispute between the two forms of theory. A popular but problematic self-monitoring theory is then contrasted with two more plausible conceptions of what the relevant self-monitoring deficits involve. The first appeals to deficits in the neural mechanisms that normally filter or attenuate sensory signals that are the result of one’s own actions. The second, less familiar, form of self-monitoring approach draws an important analogy between Wernicke’s aphasia and AVHs in schizophrenia. This style of self-monitoring theory pursues possible connections among AVHs, inserted thoughts, and the disorganized speech characteristic formal thought disorder. (shrink)

Nietzsche has sometimes been interpreted as endorsing an error theory about moral judgements. A host of passages provide prima facie reason for such an interpretation. However, the extent of the appropriateness of this interpretation is a matter of dispute. The parameters of his alleged error theory are unclear. This paper reconsiders the evidence for the view that Nietzsche is a moral error theorist and makes the case that Nietzsche defends a local theory about a particular form of “morality,” but that (...) a global error theory about value judgments in general is not established by the textual evidence. This view is defended by considering Nietzsche's affinities with Hume and how they are better harnessed in service of a projectivist error-theoretic reading as opposed to alternatives in the secondary literature (such as noncognitivist readings). Moreover, it explores how Nietzsche can continue to make genuine (that is, nonfictionalist) evaluative judgments by his drawing of a distinction between conventional evaluative practice expressive of herd morality on the one hand and a revisionary evaluative practice available to a small number of “higher types” or “free spirits” on the other. (shrink)