The use of philosophical phenomenology for conceptual debates in psychiatric nosology and psychopathology is beginning to be recognized. In this paper, we extend this trajectory to include Tourette Syndrome, focusing on so-called premonitory urges (PU) preceding Tourettic tics. We clarify some inconsistencies around typology in both phenomenological description and medical classification (i.e., in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition, Text Revision, International Classification of Diseases, 10th edition [World Health Organization, 2004], and the scales that elicit PU). (...) We show how a less typological approach might be usefully deployed in the field, that being the dimensional approach developed by Fernandez (2019a; 2019b). We test both the typological and dimensional approaches in relation to the experience and etiological role of PU in Tourette’s syndrome. Based on our synthesis of existing studies and new information garnered through phenomenological interviews (using an approach associated with “micro-phenomenology”), we argue that the role of PU in nosology challenges both the current “operational” criteria favored by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition, Text Revision, that are focused on behaviorally observed symptoms, as well as essential and prototypical phenomenological descriptions about a given “type” of experience. (shrink)

Contract cheating refers to students paying a third party to complete university assessments for them. Although opportunities for comercial contract cheating are widely available in the form of essay mills, only about 3% of students engage in this behaviour. This study examined the reasons why most students do not engage in contract cheating. Students (n = 1291) completed a survey on why they do not engage in contract cheating as well as measures of several individual differences, including self-control, grit and (...) the Dark Triad traits. Motivation for learning and morality received the greatest endorsement for why students do not engage in contract cheating. Controlling for gender, individual differences predicted students’ reasons for not contract cheating. This study supports the use of criminological theories relating to self-control and opportunity to explain why students do not engage in contract cheating. Practically, this study may inform academic policies and assessment design that may reduce contract cheating. (shrink)

'Gaining control' tells the story of how human behavioral capacities evolved from those of other animal species. Exploring what is known about the psychological capacities of other groups of animals, the authors reconstruct a fascinating history of our own mental evolution. The result is a provocative and insightful book.

Recently, JT Turner has argued that proponents of temporally-extended models of purgatory are committed to denying the doctrine of the parousia. Such persons typically argue that temporally-extended models of purgatory are needed to prevent the possibility that a morally imperfect human might become morally perfect too abruptly. In this article, I argue that Turner is mistaken and that by invoking hypertime and a clarification of the sort of abruptness at issue, temps can affirm both purgatory and the doctrine of the (...) parousia. After clarifying the nature of hypertime, I then present a non-temporal model of purgatory. This model permits those uncomfortable with endorsing the metaphysical possibility of hypertime to nevertheless affirm the key intuition motivating temporally-extended models without rejecting the doctrine of the parousia. (shrink)

Actions that financially benefit one person may present risk to another person. For example, the payment incentives of portfolio managers and investors are often asymmetrical such that actions that benefit a portfolio manager can pose financial risk to clients. Despite the presence and potential harm of these asymmetries, few have addressed the question of who exploits these asymmetries and how to mitigate potential harm. Our study examined the effect of selfish personality traits (the Dark Triad) and interpersonal bonding on decision-making (...) for the self, another person, and another person with under reward asymmetry present. Results demonstrated that individuals higher in narcissism and psychopathy made risky decisions for themselves. However, when reward asymmetries were present, all three Dark Triad traits were associated with making riskier decisions for another person in order to benefit the self. There was also a significant interaction between interpersonal closeness generated through bonding and psychopathy such that bonding made the decision-making processes of those high in psychopathy less risky for others. These findings have implications for how different individuals with different relationships make self and other-based financial decisions, and how those decisions change when rewards are asymmetrical. (shrink)

Skeptical theists have paid insufficient attention to non-evidential components of epistemic rationality. I address this lacuna by constructing an alternative perspectivalist understanding of epistemic rationality and defeat that, when applied to skeptical theism, yields a more demanding standard for reasonably affirming the crucial premise of the evidential argument from suffering. The resulting perspectival skeptical theism entails that someone can be justified in believing that gratuitous suffering exists only if they are not subject to closure-of-inquiry defeat; that is, a type of (...) defeat that prevents reasonable belief that p even if p is very probable on an agent’s evidence. (shrink)

This essay elaborates the nature and consequences of compression and noise, understood as interdependent phenomena determining current aesthetic regimes and modes of perception in the “cognitive co...

Taking its departure from The Differend’s analysis of Auschwitz as a sign for the evental character of history, I argue that the looming ecological disaster we now face reveals both the continuing relevance and limits of Lyotard’s thought. While the form of political agency of the catastrophe to come involves a differend, this differend cannot be attached to a proper name, however problematic its mode of signification. This, however, suggests the even greater relevance of Lyotard’s treatment, in the conclusion of (...) The Differend, of capitalism in terms of temporal contradiction, as well as his theorization of oikos and ecology in subsequent works, where he distinguishes between the economic and the ecological. This distinction, I conclude, is rendered problematic by the catastrophe to come, as indeed is any attempt to draw an absolute distinction between “philosophical politics” and mere technocratic management or even to exclude speculation from the heart of philosophy. (shrink)

The automobile is a tool like no other. There is much excitement and enthusiasm for new and emerging transportation tools such as vehicle automation and driver assistance systems. Although there are high hopes for these technologies, there are many unknowns including the extent to which these new transportation tools can realistically and reliably improve driver safety and affect the subjective driving experience. This paper explores these questions in the context of evaluating collision warning systems on the behavior and perceptions of (...) drivers with different amounts of experience and places the results in the greater context of tool use and skilled learning focusing on the adoption and utilization of mental models. (shrink)

Containing all of the key writings leading up to the publication of his Philosophical Essays in 1777, this volume presents complete works by Johann Nicolaus Tetens (1736-1807) in English for the very first time. These important essays focus on method in metaphysics and mathematics, the analysis of language, and various anthropological questions that occupied thinkers of the period. Key features of the volume include: · Accurate, readable translations · Detailed scholarly notes · A substantial introduction situating Tetens's works in historical (...) context · A German-English glossary This collection marks a significant contribution to scholarship on Kant and 18th-century German philosophy. (shrink)

The inquiry into the nature of truth plays an important role in Fichte's thought, especially following his departure from Jena, and indeed in the WL-1804-ii the doctrine of truth emerges as the centerpiece of the WL. The following paper argues that the conception of truth evolves significantly after the WL-1804-ii, and that, in such texts as the Erlanger Metaphysik, the Spekulation zu Koppenhagen, and the 1812 WL, Fichte, building on the account of the hiatus in the WL-1804-ii while moving away (...) from its notion of absolute truth, seeks to understand truth in terms of freedom, or indeed, as what »yields to freedom«, wherein freedom, through the negativity of the concept, produces an emptiness, a clearing, that is »fulfilled« with truth. Anticipating the phenomenological account of truth yet without abandoning a strong sense of normativity, Fichte’s alethology remains a compelling alternative to contemporary positions. (shrink)

This paper attempts a philosophically rigorous interpretation of H.C. Andersen’s tales. Through a radically conceived sentimentality – the unmediated juxtaposition of the abjection of things, conceived as a paradoxical “desire for desire” having no place in the world, with a cruel, apathetic gaze – Andersen challenges the existence of the soul or subjectivity as what, by combining the theoretical gaze with contemplative pleasure, grants coherence to experience. Thus undermining not only Romantic self-reflection, and its suturing of philosophy to criticism, but (...) Plato’s erotic psychology, Andersen inaugurates a new philosophical literature: a writing for children cultivating an openness. (shrink)

Twentieth century continental thinkers such as Bergson, Levinas and Jonas have brought fresh and renewed attentions to Jewish ethics, yet it still remains fairly low profile in the Anglophone academic world. This collection of critical essays brings together the work of established and up-and-coming scholars from Israel, the United States, and around the world on the topic of Jewish religious and philosophical ethics. The chapters are broken into three main sections - Rabbinics, Philosophy, and Contemporary Challenges. The authors address, using (...) a variety of research strategies, the work of both major and lesser-known figures in historical Jewish religious and philosophical traditions. The book discusses a wide variety of topics related to Jewish ethics, including "ethics and the Mishnah," "Afro Jewish ethics," "Jewish historiographical ethics," as well as the conceptual/philosophical foundations of the law and virtues in the work of Martin Buber, Hermann Cohen, and Baruch Spinoza.The volume closes with four contributions on present-day frontiers in Jewish ethics. As the first book to focus on the nature, scope and ramifications of the Jewish ethics at work in religious and philosophical contexts, this book will be of great interest to anyone studying Jewish Studies, Philosophy and Religion. (shrink)

Retaliation against whistleblowers is a well-recognized problem, yet there is little explanation for why uninvolved peers choose to retaliate through ostracism. We conduct two experiments in which participants take the role of a peer third-party observer of theft and subsequent whistleblowing. We manipulate injunctive norms and descriptive norms. Both experiments support the core of our theoretical model, based on social intuitionist theory, such that moral judgments of the acts of wrongdoing and whistleblowing influence the perceived likeability of each actor and (...) ultimately influence intention to ostracize each actor and indicate more willingness to ostracize the whistleblower than the wrongdoer. When we vary norms for the wrongdoing in Experiment 1, we find that descriptive and injunctive norms indirectly influence intentions to ostracize both the wrongdoer and whistleblower. These relationships are serially mediated by the observers’ moral judgments of the act and likeability of the actor. When we vary norms for whistleblowing in Experiment 2, the injunctive norm manipulation affected moral judgment of the action of whistleblowing, and we do not observe any other significant effects of the norm manipulations on moral judgments of the actions of wrongdoing or whistleblowing. (shrink)

This book offers a philosophical perspective on contemporary Tourette Syndrome scholarship, a field which has exploded over the last thirty years. Despite intense research efforts on this common neurodevelopmental condition in the age of the brain sciences, the syndrome’s causes and potential cures remain intriguingly elusive. How does this lack of progress relate to the tacitly operating philosophical concepts that shape our current thinking about Tourette Syndrome? This book foregrounds these tacit concepts and shows how they relate to “big topics” (...) in philosophy such as time, volition, and the self. By tracing how these topics relate to current research on Tourette’s, it invites us to re-think our approach to research and care. Such re-thinking is urgently needed: individuals and families living with Tourette Syndrome remain under-serviced as pharmacological and behavioural therapies provide relief for some but not all who need support. This book highlights what questions we ask and do not ask in contemporary scholarship, thereby surfacing invisible constraints and opportunities in the field. It is of interest to scholars, health professionals, students, and affected families who want to better understand this burgeoning field of research with its conceptual controversies, approaches to aetiology, and directions for new research and improved clinical care. (shrink)

The last two decades have seen a dramatic increase in scientific publications on Tourette syndrome, but the etiology of this common neurodevelopmental condition is still unknown. Many questions remain—about the unitary nature of the syndrome, and the criteria used to define it in such internationally accepted manuals as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and the International Classification of Disorders. Meanwhile, individuals and families affected by TS remain underserviced, as pharmacological and behavioral therapies provide relief for some but (...) not all who need support. We urgently need new... (shrink)